This morning on the BBC’s ‘Wake Up to Money’ they talked about this:

Growth in job vacancies hits ’15-year high’

That came from a report by KPMG

You would think that such a positive statement on the economy would be headline news….but the report on ‘Wake Up To Money’ was the last I heard of the subject.

It hasn’t been mentioned once as far as I know by the BBC in its news bulletins.

Not only that but there is this from the same report:

Pay growth at six year high amid growing skill shortages

Yet again not a mention on the news bulletins.

The BBC has been busy reporting this ‘top story’ though:

Other Top Stories

Supermarket for low-income families

A members-only supermarket for people on welfare support has begun trading, offering heavily-discounted products supplied by major retailers.

So….highest job vacancies for 15 years, pay growth at a 6 year high…and these are not ‘top stories’ for the BBC?

The BBC website does mention the job vacancies....not on the front page, not on the UK page, but hidden away on the business pages.

Maybe I’m just cynical but it does look like the BBC is  only prominently reporting news that is intended to make the coalition look bad, the poor ever more oppressed by their policies and swamping the air waves with ever increasing ‘evidence’ of a ‘living standards crisis’….as illustrated in a previous post looking at how the BBC reported who was in poverty.

Quite clearly that is nonsense if jobs are at an all time high and wages are rising.

The week begins, and so a new open thread … enjoy …

And as the Mandelathon continues, just remember that I’m sadder than all of you, I’ve shed more tears than all of you, so therefore I’m better than all of you.

“Mandela touched everyone who met him.” So did Jimmy Savile…

      “She is an enemy of apartheid……We have much to thank her for.”

Guido has linked to the letter Mrs Thatcher sent to P.W Botha setting out her vision for ending Apartheid.

My rebuttal of the case for sanctions rested on two main premises: that sanctions do not work, indeed are likely to be counter-productive and damaging to those they are intended to
help: and that it was inappropriate to take punitive action against South Africa at the very moment when you are taking steps to get rid of apartheid and to make major changes in the system of government in South Africa.

I received a good deal of abuse in response, being accused of preferring British jobs to African lives, of being concerned with pennies rather than principles, of lack of concern for human
rights and much more in the same vein. I in turn reminded them of some of the less satisfactory features of their own societies and pointed to the inconsistency of trading with the Soviet Union, with its appalling human rights record, and putting trade sanctions on South Africa. In short, as your message acknowledced, the debate was a highly unpleasant and bitter one; and there is no doubt that the issue of sanctions will not go away, despite my success in preventing the Commonwealth from adopting  them at this meeting.

I continue to believe, as I have said to you before, that the release of Nelson Mandela would have more impact than almost any single action you could undertake.

Strange that, with all its massive coverage of Nelson Mandela, the BBC doesn’t see fit, or find room, to similarly link to this letter preferring instead to smear Mrs Thatcher with the imported comments of the ignorant and prejudiced comedians and charlatans that the BBC gives so much airtime and prominence to.

This is a  BBC  typical effort:

After Mandela’s release from prison in 1990, he re-entered the world’s stage and one of his favourite destinations was Britain. The fact that the British government under Margaret Thatcher had strongly resisted imposing sanctions on the apartheid government did not cool his attitude to the country at large.

If Thatcher’s stance was so important, and it was, why is there a blackout imposed by the BBC on the full details?

Is it because the truth isn’t anything like that which the BBC is broadcasting?

We’ve had the  imported, ‘deniable’ slurs from the useful idiots but it isn’t just them…..many a BBC presenter has put their two penneth in as well…here’s a particularly good example of their small minded ignorance…..

Via ‘Is the BBC biased’s’ Craig who reveals the thoughts of Hugh Sykes:

The world owns Nelson now, as will become clear when all those world leaders arrive.

Including a representative, possibly Prince Charles, of a nation where a former government conspired with Apartheid by dismissing Nelson Mandela as a terrorist.

 

Not often you see anything quite so wrong and prejudiced as that from a reporter…unless you watch the BBC’s coverage of the Middle East..or Climate Change..or Europe…or Tory policies….or immigration…..

Charles Moore in the Telegraph lays out his case:

Mandela: Nelson by name, defender of British values by nature

Nelson Mandela regarded the British Parliament as ‘the most democratic institution in the world’

In this long story, one sees not so much the overthrow of British imperialism as a fulfilment of its better aspects. In the life and character of Nelson Mandela, good British values found expression, while bad colonial disputes found reconciliation. It is not at all incongruous that his statue now stands in Parliament Square, near that of Jan Smuts. As soon as Mandela became president, in 1994, his country rejoined the Commonwealth.

In 1985, Mandela was offered his freedom, but on the unacceptable terms that the ANC stayed banned. He refused. Mrs Thatcher kept up the pressure, in public, in private and sometimes in secret. Indeed, the release of Mandela was the strongest and most specific of all her demands. His release, she believed, would allow talks to start, without preconditions.

In 1989, Botha was replaced by F W de Klerk. A year later, he ordered Mandela’s release. Because Mrs Thatcher, almost alone of world leaders, had maintained close contacts with the government, her voice had proved the most persuasive.

Once out of jail, Mandela wanted to meet her. This was against the advice of the ANC, but his view was that she was “a very powerful lady… one I would rather have as an ally than an enemy”.

Cutbacks at the BBC…they’re even repeating the News now……

Ed Balls had a bad performance during the Autumn Statement showdown this year but isn’t this BBC  ‘Ed Ball’s’ story from last year’s Autumn Statement?:

Ed Balls explains hesitant Autumn Statement response

 

Last year he blamed his bad performance on his stutter…perhaps the BBC didn’t have the heart to ask him what the cause was this year and just republished last year’s grand excuse…along with Flander’s assessment of things:

Autumn Statement 2012

• At-a-glance: Key points
• Q&A: How changes affect you
• More spending cuts ‘on the cards’
• Flanders: What has changed?

 

What’s changed indeed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you’ve had occasion to read any of the Labour websites recently you will have noticed that Labour, behind the scenes, is in turmoil.  The most damaging revelation perhaps that the backstabbing u-turner, Ed Miliband, isn’t trusted by many in the Labour Party.

Falkirk and his craven surrender to the Unions and his knowledge and worse, his approval, of their vote rigging activities were hidden from view by the BBC with its decision not to report such goings on in their full gory detail.

Today the Observer/Guardian reports:

Secret memo shows key role for Blairites in Labour’s election team

Alastair Campbell and Alan Milburn to advise Ed Miliband, according to leaked plan that will infuriate party left
One senior Labour party figure described the three-page leak as “dynamite”, saying it would intensify already bitter power struggles at the top of the party and exacerbate tensions over how ambitious and bold central policy messages should be over the next 17 months. “This is a power grab by Douglas,” the source said. “It looks like a return to New Labour tactics, with the old caution and everything driven by focus groups. There will be a massive row about this. Key people look like they have been sidelined.”

‘Dynamite’…..’a power grab’…..’a massive row’….

The BBC haven’t got round to reporting this…will they ever? It does seem to be an eminently reportable scoop..but once again no signs of interest from the BBC political journos.

Covering up dissent and disarray within Labour?

Trying to keep up the myth of Miliband as the strong, powerful, in control leader?

Maybe they’re just doing the usual trick they apply when they get what appears to be bad news for certain favoured segments of society….wait and wait, think things through, and work out the best line to take that limits damage and if possible actually turn it on its head so that what appears highly damaging is in fact presented as some sort of victory.

Poverty (relative of course) is almost at a record low.

Living standards have been declining since 2003…not since 2010.

Fewer working adults were in poverty in 2011/12 than in 2008/09 under Labour.

Child poverty is lowest for 25 years.

Pensioner poverty at lowest in decades.

Funny…none of those are the attention grabbing headline message from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the BBC.

The BBC of course chose a headline that, by coincidence I’m sure, parallels the Labour line on living standards.

Most people classed as being in poverty ‘have job’

But the reason for the ‘rise’ in poverty amongst working people is in fact a good one…pensioners are being  taken out of poverty….it isn’t that more working people are in poverty…because as said, there are fewer in poverty in 2011/12 than in 2008/09….yet more good news…no?

That rather important fact isn’t relayed to us by the BBC…which totally alters the way things can be perceived.

Way, way down in a BBC article on a Joseph Rowntree Foundation report on poverty comes this:

The overall poverty rate in the UK expressed as a proportion of the population was 21% – the second lowest since reliable official statistics began to be collected in the mid-1990s

What?  The poverty rate is the 2nd lowest on record? Why would the BBC try to bury that good news?

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the New Policy Institute which produced this report are both progressive, campaigning organisations…something that the BBC should mention and then reflect in the way it reports the ‘facts’….but it doesn’t…instead jumping on board that progressive bandwagon and producing a highly misleading interpretation of that report.

The BBC eventually also reports this…‘child poverty was at its lowest level for 25 years.’…but again half way down the page and only a passing mention.

If child poverty had been up you can guarantee it would have been the headline.

or this:  ‘the number of pensioners living in poverty had fallen to its lowest level in decades.’

Again not a headline.

and there’s this from the JRF...

Incomes for the poorest 10% have been falling for much longer, since 2004/05.

So that confirms what Rafael Behr said in the New Statesman…that the ‘Living standards crisis’ began under Labour a decade ago.

or as the report itself admits:

What is noticeable about in-work poverty is how it began to rise around 2003/04,after being fairly static for the previous five or so years.

and…

The Sunday Times reports that (In a massive headline):

Child Poverty is at lowest for 25 years

From the JRF itself:

Between 2007/08 and 2011/12, the number of children in poverty on the relative measure fell by around 500,000.

And yet the BBC highlight something else completely…a Labour narrative once again…

Most people classed as being in poverty ‘have job’

More working households were living in poverty in the UK last year than non-working ones – for the first time, a charity has reported.

Just over half of the 13 million people in poverty – surviving on less than 60% of the national median (middle) income – were from working families, it said.

But why has that happened?  What has made the difference in proportions?

One reason is that pensioners, obviously ‘out of work’, are statistically rising out of poverty, therefore ‘increasing’ the proportion of those who are  in work but who are in poverty relative to those out of work:

From the JRF:

The fall in poverty among those in workless and retired families is obviously related to the fall in pensioner poverty.

Kind of alters the perception of things….the BBC vaguely notes the connection in a side panel…‘The proportions of poor people have also been affected by the rapidly reducing rates of pensioner poverty.’…..but it is a crucial fact that undermines the whole thrust of the article and should be highlighted.

And just how many working adults are in low pay?

The BBC tells us….the number of working poor has steadily been rising for years.

But hang on….the report tells us that there are 3,060,000 working adults in poverty in 20011/12…..but in 2008/09 there were 3,500,000 working adults in poverty.

So there were more working adults in poverty in 2008/09 than 20011/12…and yet we’re told there are more in poverty now.

Hardly fits with Labour’s narrative of the poverty stricken poor under the Coalition.

More were in poverty under Labour.

And…

It’s a curious concept being marketed here…the government, and the Public, expect people to work for a living if possible…Labour and the JRF  seem to think otherwise….life on the dole pays better……….because having a job doesn’t lift you out of poverty, relative poverty that is, then perhaps you shouldn’t bother working….from Peter Kenway, the author of the report:

‘It suits politicians of all parties to claim that work is the route out of poverty. Such a message wraps a snarling toughness directed at workless adults inside a saccharine justification: you must work for the sake of your kids.’

And Julia Unwin from the JRF tells us that:

‘Hardwork is not working’

The BBC joins in too:

Get a job has long been the mantra of ministers….And while work is the best way out poverty, it’s no longer a guarantee, it seems.

Actually the message is you must work to earn a living, and not just take from those who do work.

Paul Mason, gone but not forgotten….just why did the BBC employ this man as a senior political editor?

What was it about his juvenile politics that so enriched our lives, that enlightened and educated us about the world?

Paul Mason, lover of anarchists, Occupy and Communism….and the Internet.

Perfect for the BBC with its studied neutrality on all subjects. Just a shame Mason let his personal views contaminate every film and  report he produced.

Here is a reminder of just why the old Trots at the BBC loved him so much:

Warning…contains graphic photographs

At an International Council meeting in Canterbury, UK, Amnesty International debates and rejects the proposal to recognize as prisoners of conscience people who use or advocate the use of force in opposing oppressive regimes.

This means people like Nelson Mandela are not recognized as prisoners of  conscience.

Amused to hear Nelson Mandela put into the same category as Nick Griffin this morning (08:58) by one of Mandela’s oldest friends, who knew him for 63 years, and who told us that Mandela was angry with the Whites, for obvious reasons, but also angry and suspicious of the Indian immigrants in South Africa in the context of the new African nationalism that was being propagated….Justin Webb said that’s interesting…that’s a side of him we don’t hear much about..and oh we ran out of time.

Yes…there’s a lot we don’t hear about Mandela these days.

The BBC rarely misses a chance to mention that Mrs Thatcher thought that the ANC was a terrorist organisation and a bunch of Communists….the intention explicit…to demonstrate just how bad a woman Thatcher was…because Mandela was a saint….today on Any Questions we had some good lady, Jeanette Winterson, mention it (1 min 30 sec)…adding  ‘Lest we forget‘….amusing really because as she condemns Thatcher she is telling us how we should adopt Mandela’s virtuous values of inclusiveness, standing against prejudice, and his ability to meet his enemies around the table….no such inclusiveness when it comes to Margaret Thatcher then?  Mandela, who used extreme violence to serve his purposes, is a latter day saint, Thatcher who disliked his methods, and opposed Apartheid, is evil…funny old world.

I can’t think why Thatcher thought that about Mandela and the ANC:

It must be because Thatcher is Thatcher…because it is hard to argue with her point……indeed even Amnesty International thought along the same lines….something all those pious worthies grandstanding and basking in the reflected glory of Nelson Mandela seem to forget or are ignorant of:
At an International Council meeting in Canterbury, UK, Amnesty International debates and rejects the proposal to recognize as prisoners of conscience people who use or advocate the use of force in opposing oppressive regimes. This means people like Nelson Mandela are not recognized as prisoners of conscience, although campaigns continue against the inhumane conditions of his imprisonment.

Mandela never renounced violence nor apologised for it…in fact he still supported killing long after his release:

The BBC has repeatedly told us in the last two days that South Africa is a nation at peace…the legacy of Nelson Mandela…..ignoring the government sponsored murder campaign against whites…and indeed Black opponents of the government.

Around 3000 white farmers have been killed, and many more other whites, and the number of farmers reduced from 60,000 to half that number as they flee the country.

And of course this method of dealing with political opponents was invented by Mandela’s ANC:

It is remarkable how a man who, though admittedly having a good cause, adopted terrorist methods is being whitewashed, sanitised, scourged of his past sins.

How might that have happened and who rewrote history?

This might be one angle on that:

“This is how we turned Mandela from a black terrorist into a black leader.”

The anti-apartheid hero was on a US terror watch list until 2008 and while still on Robben Island, Britain’s late “Iron Lady” Margaret Thatcher described his African National Congress as a “typical terrorist organisation.”

That Mandela’s image has been transformed so thoroughly is a testament to the man’s achievements, but also, in part, to a concert that took place in London 25 years ago this week.

For organiser Tony Hollingsworth the June 11, 1988 gig at London’s Wembley Stadium had very little to do with Mandela’s 70th birthday, as billed.

It had everything to do with ridding Mandela of his terrorist tag and ensuring his release.

“You can’t get out of jail as a terrorist, but you can get out of prison as a black leader,” he told AFP during a visit to Johannesburg.

Many insisted the focus remain on sanctions against the apartheid regime.

“A lot of people were criticising me for sanitising it,” Hollingsworth remembered.

Eventually Terry convinced the ANC and Hollingsworth convinced Simple Minds, Dire Straits, Sting, George Michael, The Eurythmics, Eric Clapton, Whitney Houston and Stevie Wonder into the 83-artist line up.

With that musical firepower came contracts for a more than 11 hour broadcast.

“We signed with the entertainment department of television (stations). And when the head of the department got home and watched on his channel that they were calling Mandela a terrorist, they called straight to the news section to say, don’t call this man a terrorist, we just signed 11 hours of broadcasting for a tribute about him.”

“This is how we turned Mandela from a black terrorist into a black leader.”

Aah yes….TV executives.

And where have we heard that attitude before….‘we can’t say that about him…because we have a tribute show to go out?’

Oh yes, from the BBC, Newsnight, and Jimmy Savile.

Pounce has spotted this:

Simon Amstell apologises for Mandela comment on Radio 1

What did he have to apologise for?

The comedian suggested there was racial segregation between Radio 1 and sister station BBC Radio 1Xtra.

He said: “Mandela would not approve of the situation at the BBC.”

His comments came during a link on the show.

Amstell said: “What is going on? We’re next to 1Xtra, it’s so white in here. Mandela would not approve of the situation at the BBC.”

When Nick Grimshaw asked why, the guest replied: “Look at all these people in here.” Grimshaw answered: “There’s a lot of people.”

The comedian then said: “Yeah, but look at the segregation that’s happened.”

He then laughed when the producer of the Breakfast Show, Matt Fincham, said: “I don’t think that’s the right thing to be saying right now.”

Amstell added: “Well, someone had to say it. Mandela would say it if he was here.”

At the end of the link Nick Grimshaw said: “Apologies if you were offended by anything that was said earlier.” Amstell replied: “Nothing I said was offensive though.”

So who exactly was he apologising to…and for what?   Not to Mandela……It seems that it is the BBC which doesn’t like being accused of ‘apartheid’ policies…despite the fact they are operating them …. the same BBC is all too ready to accuse others, such as Israel, of operating some sort of apartheid, whilst itself running campaigns to silence, smear and malign right wingers and climate sceptics.

What Amstell hadn’t realised of course was that a Black music station is ‘positive discrimination’…the ‘apartheid’ is a good thing…just like having an Asian Network apparently……a policy which suggests that the BBC thinks all those Asians aren’t really British despite being born here…a brown skin means they can’t possibly watch the same telly as the whites, or listen to the same music or eat the same food.

Amstell is right isn’t he?

A Black music station is an oddity…classical music, rock music or a hip hop/rap music station you can understand…but the defining characteristic of a station is that you only need to be ‘Black’ to be played?  Clearly the type of music isn’t important.

Just how black is black?  When do you lose that certain je ne sais quoi that opens doors at the BBC?