From the Daily Mail:

47,000 Bulgarians and Romanians enter UK in a year

Here is Migration Watch’s estimate of the likely numbers of migrants from Romania and Bulgaria:

Our central estimate is that immigration from these two countries will add 50,000 a year to the UK population for the next five years of which about half is likely to be captured in the immigration statistics.

The Daily Mail gets its figures from a recent report from the supposedly neutral Oxford Migration Observatory  but the OMO seem to be spinning a line that there has been no ‘surge’ in immigration from these countries…a line taken up by the BBC.

In actual fact the BBC seem to be rather coy about these figures…at least on their website.  I can see no mention of this story on the website at all despite it being in the papers since Tuesday morning.

The Guardian does have a report but it plays down the numbers….

No surge of Romanian and Bulgarian migrants after controls lifted

It reports this statement from the researchers…..

Madeleine Sumption, the Migration Observatory director, said: “The growth in the Romanian and Bulgarian population of the UK has been steady for the last seven years, despite transitional controls that limited their access to the labour market and welfare state in the UK. The end of these controls do not seem to have had a very significant effect.”

 

…but as you can see later, this conclusion, that “The growth in the Romanian and Bulgarian population of the UK has been steady for the last seven years”,   is completely false.

5Live did have a report on it  (16:42:45) but whilst spinning the same line of ‘no surge’ seemed to know the figures don’t really support that conclusion and gave a rather lacklustre report telling us that immigration grew at same rate as in 2013….therefore there was no significant increase in migration when restrictions relaxed….no predicted influx of migrants…..Phil Mackie said there was no significant increase year on year.

They did admit there were 250,000 Romanians and Bulgarians now working in the UK.

Whilst mocking the ‘exaggerated claims of a surge in immigration from some’ what was noticeably missing from 5Live’s report was any mention of Migration Watch’s prediction which turned out to be entirely accurate, as is so often the case.  The BBC calls Migration Watch a ‘pressure group’ but doesn’t label the Oxford Migration Observatory in the same way.

Are any of those conclusions on 5Live merited by the figures?

Not really.

Here is what the OMO told us:

The overall population of A2 migrants in the UK in Q3 2012 was 160,000; this increased by 45,000 to 205,000 by Q3 2013 and then increased by 47,000 to 252,000 in Q3 2014. By way of comparison, the A2 population grew by 163,000 between 2007 and 2013 – the years during which transitional controls were in place.

 

It claims these figures show no spike in migration…and Mackie said they showed no ‘year on year increase’…..

…… the existing data suggest it is more likely to show continued steady growth rather than the ‘significant spike’ some predicted.

But that clearly isn’t true….yes 2013 and 2014 were similar…but before that migration was an average of 27,000…somewhat different to 47,000….very selective with their choice of figures to base their conclusions on.

The ONS told us that:

32,000 EU2 citizens immigrated to the UK in the year ending June 2014, a statistically significant increase from 18,000 in the previous 12 months.

 

A graph from the ONS shows the dramatic change in Bulgarian and Romanian immigration….note the large ‘surge’ in 2013..

5Live admitted that there were 250,000 Romanians and Bulgarians in work now…. in January and March 2013 the figure for Romanians and Bulgarians in work was only 140,000:

According to the latest official figures, the number employed in the UK between January and March actually fell. It was 140,000, down 4,000 on the final three months of 2013.

 

The BBC were then crowing that this ‘fall’ in numbers in january and March proved there was no influx of immigrants.

Note that most of these ‘in work’ are actually claiming to be self-employed…and can claim increased benefits based on that status:

The University of Oxford’s Migration Observatory said its analysis showed 59.1 per cent of workers from the two former eastern European states said they were freelance, compared with just 14 per cent of the native UK population.

The figure was also far higher than the 15 per cent of self-employed people from the eight former Communist states – such as Poland – which joined the EU in 2004.

Distinct lack of ‘outrage’ at David Blunkett’s comments on Romanian neighbours:

I’d find it a challenge if Roma gipsies moved into my street, admits Blunkett – the Home Secretary who opened Britain’s borders to new EU members

No job offers from the BBC to the Mail’s Jenny Awford who writes the report unlike the less than honest James O’Brien whom the BBC decided was ‘one of them’ when he conducted a kangaroo court in which he concocted a pack of lies in order to malign Nigel Farage when he said he wouldn’t want to live next to a house full of Romanians, and on the basis of that offered O’Brien a job on Newsnight.

No interest, or outrage,  at all from O’Brien who seems obsessed by UKIP on his Twitter feed.

Also lack of interest in Migration Watch’s report on the benefits, or lack of, of migration:

Response to UCL paper on the fiscal effects of immigration to the UK – Press Release

The BBC made a lot of noise about the UCL report which claimed that EU immigrants produced large benefits for the economy…why the lack of interest now when Migration Watch tells us that the figures actually show?:

Net tax contribution by Eastern European migrants probably negative

Remember, the UCL report was produced by the same man who helped Labour engineer their immigration opendoor policy…he has a huge vested interest in telling us that it worked to our benefit….not something the BBC told us whilst still denouncing Migration Watch as a ‘pressure group’.

Well, we are almost at the end of this year. Hope you all enjoyed Lenny Henry’s sustained whinge on BBC Today this morning. It seems selecting presenters purely on the basis of their ethnicity is fine by the BBC and Saint Lenny. Open Thread for you …NOW!

The BBC’s Today programme had the ex-governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King,  on as guest editor (08:55)….and used the occasion to try and rewrite the history of the financial crash by whitewashing Labour’s part in it.

King was asked about the crash and then led into the trap, Naughtie quietly asking about ‘the whole argument that there was light touch regulation that was in retrospect a terrible mistake’.

King, trying to be politically neutral, and no doubt partially to save his own reputation, at first said it had nothing to do with regulation but then admits it had everything to do with it saying the banks’ leverage was ‘absurdly high’….in other words they had been allowed to borrow vast sums at high risk..he goes on ‘we should learn the lesson from that in the future’.

Naughtie then tries to pass the blame onto the Bank of England….King says the Bank didn’t have responsibility for the regulations….so the regulation, the lack of, was crucial then….who did have responsibility?  The government…the Labour government.

Justin Webb then jumps in at the end of the interview and persistently tries to get King to say the Coaliton’s ‘Help to buy’ scheme was ‘unwise’…apparently it is a personal concern of Webb’s.

So whitewashing Labour and maligning the Coalition.  Just another day on the leftwings’ favourite political programme.

Must be an election coming.

Here’s the headline for the latest BBC report on US police ‘racism’:

Ezell Ford shot in back by LA police – coroner

The BBC chose a particular line there….clearly in a cheap attempt to generate some ‘outrage’ at police racist brutality…..never mind that the man was in fact shot three times in a struggle in which he tried to take the police pistol and was clearly shot during that struggle…in the side, in the arm and in the back….

So three shots….the one the BBC highlights is the shot in the back.

But the context is all important…clearly the police officer could not ‘aim’ the shots and the shot man would have been twisting and turning violently making any aimed shot impossible.

The BBC’s heading is designed to elicit a certain response from readers, that the US police have yet again brutally executed another black man…shooting him in the back this time.

More dangerous racist rabble rousing from the BBC.

Curioulsy the BBC is ignoring a spate of attempts to shoot US police officers such as this:

North Carolina Police Officer Survives Christmas Night Assassination Attempt

FIVE ASSASSINATION ATTEMPTS on Police and Firefighters since NYC Executions

The BBC though is in good company….and on the same page as Al Qaeda (What’s new there though?):

Al-Qaeda References Anti-Police Protests in Latest Magazine, Includes “Don’t Shoot” & “I Can’t Breathe” Slogans

More BBC ‘outrage’ about ‘racist outrage’ :

Rush Limbaugh and his ‘black Bond’ outrage

The prospect of Idris Elba eventually replacing Daniel Craig as the next James Bond went from hypothetical internet speculation to something more substantial last week, when the Daily Beast uncovered an interesting nugget in the piles of hacked Sony emails.

“Idris should be the next Bond,” Sony Pictures chair Amy Pascal wrote, reportedly to a fellow studio executive.

That was enough to set conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh into a tizzy. Bond, he said on his radio programme last week, has a distinct ethnic profile that Mr Elba, who is black, doesn’t fit.

 

The BBC are outraged at Limbaugh’s ‘outrage’…..was Limbaugh ‘outraged’ or was he just commenting?

The BBC continues with its exploration of this important issue:

Elba responded with humour – “Isn’t 007 supposed to [be] handsome?” he tweeted, including a photograph of him looking rather goofy in a knit cap – but some commentators reacted with flashes of anger that would make 007 proud.

 

Limbaugh is ‘outraged’ but cool Elba responds with ‘humour’.   I think I see what the BBC is trying to do here….note anger at Limbaugh’s comments ‘would make 007 proud’ apparently….So confirms where the BBC boy is coming from on this one….however Bond was always racist so the BBC are wrong on that and just doing the usual Beeb thing…passing off their own wishes and values as someone elses for a bit of credibility.

It goes on…..

In an interview three years ago, Mr Elba told NPR that if he plays Bond, he hopes his skin colour isn’t the sole topic of conversation.

“I just don’t want to be the black James Bond,” he said. “Sean Connery wasn’t the Scottish James Bond, and Daniel Craig wasn’t the blue-eyed James Bond, so if I played him, I don’t want to be called the black James Bond.”

 

Trouble is that’s not true is it?  Craig was denounced for being the first ‘blond Bond’ and ‘ugly’ to boot…..

First blond Bond goes into action

And here is the obviously ‘racist’  Raghav Gajanan from a BBC comment thread:

A big let down. Not to take away anything from Craig’s acting abilities but he simply is not James Bond. The look, hair, height are all wrong. Bond has survived for 40+ years as a suave, polished gentleman who can be rough when the occasion demands. Clive Owen or Hugh Jackman would have clearly been a better choice, but it seems they must have been out the studio’s budget.
Raghav Gajanan, London

And then there was ‘Exodus’ which the ‘Left’ whinged about because the ‘Egyptians’ were played by white actors:

Rupert Murdoch defends use of white actors in Exodus: Gods and Kings

And then there’s good old Liz Taylor and Richard Burton….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WX17Gxs27w

If they can complain why not ‘conservative’ Limbaugh?

Lots of faux outrage and claims of ‘outrage’…..the BBC just see this as a chance to stick one to someone like Limbaugh that they don’t think should have a role in the Media…because he’s not black, left wing or gay…..the irony of that passes them by.

The government was castigated recently, not least on the BBC, for not deporting enough illegal immigrants.  Not natural territory for the BBC but it takes every opportunity to beat the Tories when it can.

One problem the government has of course is that every time it wishes to deport someone it comes up against the Human Rights Act and an army of pro-immigration pressure groups, lawyers,  activists and media commentators, including the BBC, that make every deportation a long drawn out affair.

The BBC has a favourite tactic of personalising the issues.  Rather than looking at the big picture and what the consequences of the policies on immigration it supports would be it tries to elicit public sympathy for the plight of every immigrant by reporting the supposed hardships they individually face in their own country, their love of the Uk, the terrible wrench it would be to leave the UK (No such wrench leaving family, friends, culture in their own country then?).

The BBC hopes that detailing the ‘misery’ and supposed precarious future of the immigrant to be deported will engender that sympathy for them, and by extension to all immigrants, and beyond that to the acceptance of an open door immigration policy.

Seeing as you could travel to any town in any country and find people living miserable existences that would mean, using the BBC’s critieria, that the whole world could come here…and be housed, clothed and fed, educated, treated on the NHS and be given Sky TV at our expense.  The BBC is pretty naive…or rather doesn’t really care about the downsides to mass immigration….most BBC types being well paid and cossetted by their BBC benefits package…..cheap immigrants benefit them and, despite the ‘BBC’s’ pious preaching about ‘The Poor’, welfare cuts and zero hour contracts and so on, they are prepared for you, you not them, to make that sacrifice so they can have cheap buuilders and not have to pay the real price for a cup of latte and a cinnamon bun.

Here is a classic example of the BBC’s  attempt to manipulate our emotions on the issue of immigration…..

Deportation story: One man’s journey from London to Zimbabwe

Last year more than 13,000 people were deported from the UK – but what happens if you can’t even pronounce the name of the place they’re sending you back to?

“More than anything I feel cheated out of my life. They’ve taken everything I had – my family, my friends, my dignity.”

A loud noise interrupts Shadreck Mbiru mid-flow on the phone from his new home; it doesn’t stop. I have to ask and it turns out it’s a very noisy cockerel, not something Shadreck was used to having around at his previous home in London.

The 26-year-old hasn’t yet adapted to life in Chitungwiza, a town in Zimbabwe around half an hour from Harare that the locals say he pronounces strangely. He left Britain on a plane from Heathrow escorted by UK border staff in November.

Shadreck has been deported back to the country in which he was born – a victory for the Home Office, which had been trying for eight years to secure his removal.

His life is not in danger in Zimbabwe – he concedes this.

I have been speaking to Shadreck since he arrived back in his “home” country – his mood a constant mixture of panic and disbelief interspersed with regular laughter at moments of comedy like the cockerel.

 

 

 

“Thanks to Israel, I Can Have a Merry Christmas,” by Father Gabriel Nadaf (translated by Avi Woolf), Mida.org, December 24, 2014:

A safe haven in Israel
Within this chaos, only one island of sanity can be found where the Christians are not persecuted, where they enjoy freedom of religion and ritual, freedom of expression, and where they can live in peace without fear of genocide. That island is the State of Israel. The state in which I and my Christian brothers were born allows Christians complete freedom.  Jews and Christians live in Israel in peace and as good neighbors.  This is not just because Jesus was born in Jewish Bethlehem and was born a Jew, but because Christians and Jews share a common heritage and a shared hope for a peaceful coexistence.

From the Telegraph:

‘Islamic mafia’ accused of persecuting Holy Land Christians

Christians in the Holy Land have handed a dossier detailing incidents of violence and intimidation by Muslim extremists to Church leaders in Jerusalem, one of whom said it was time for Christians to “raise our voices” against the sectarian violence.

Remember that as you consider the BBC’s Yolande Knell’s impartial, accurate and unbiased reporting…….

Yolande Knell has a habit of spouting rubbish….to the detriment of Israel naturally.  You might think her boss would have reined her in by now…but her boss being the equally unreliable Jeremy Bowen you might understand how she has  been allowed to keep her job….having said that, the example of Jon Donnison, shipped out to Australia and yet still publishing poisonous anti-Israeli material on the BBC payroll, shows being removed from the scene of the crime doesn’t mean you have to stop peddling your prejudices.

Knell was reporting from Bethlehem (11:36) and declared that the Christians there were quickly disappearing…due solely to the Israeli occupation, no other cause is suggested:

Their dwindling numbers in the Holyland add a sense of urgency to their celebrations….nowadays many young people in the West Bank choose to emigrate complaining of difficult social and economic conditions created by Israel’s occupation.

This is the same Knell who told us that:

However, Israel’s security concerns mean that most tourists must enter the Palestinian city of Bethlehem from Jerusalem, crossing an Israeli checkpoint and passing the eight-metre high West Bank barrier which surrounds the town.

Trouble is the Israeli security barrier does not ‘surround the town’ as demonstrated by this map….the thick red line being the path of the wall:

Is Bethlehem under Israeli occupation?

It has been under Palestinian Authority rule since 1995 as the Guardian reports...note the warning of what might be the result of that takeover:

There will be no star over Bethlehem this Christmas. The Israeli flag, which has flown over Manger Square for 28 years, was lowered yesterday for the last time, as the town was handed over to the Palestinian self-rule authority.
As the last small contingent of paramilitary forces moved out, Manger Square was filled with wildly celebrating crowds
On the outside a thick crust of spectators responded gleefully to every [sign of Israeli withdrawal]
There has been speculation that the coming of the PLO to Bethlehem will speed the exodus of Christians from the West Bank. But there was little sign of rivalry yesterday. Samir Sharer, one local Christian, said he was convinced that this year’s Christmas would be joyful. “Everything will be OK – no problem, no fights,” he said, before rather spoiling the effect by saying he would spend the holiday in Israel.

So what of her claim that Palestinian Christians are leaving the West Bank solely because of the Israeli occupation?

It’s, as much of her reporting,  just not true.

Certainly the conditions don’t help…but what created the economic difficulties?  The Palestinian war against Israel…

The outbreak of the Second Intifada and the resultant decrease in tourism also affected the Christian minority, as they are the owners of many Bethlehem hotels and services that cater to foreign tourists.

 

 

Where might Knell be getting her information?  Could it possibly be the Palestinian propaganda groups ‘ The Palestinian Centre for Research and Cultural Dialogue’  and ‘Open Bethlehem’ which come up with this…..

In 2006, the Palestinian Centre for Research and Cultural Dialogue conducted a poll among the city’s Christians according to which 90% said they had had Muslim friends, 73.3% agreed that the PNA treated Christian heritage in the city with respect and 78% attributed the exodus of Christians to the Israeli blockade.

So to be clear…Israel causes the exodus of Christians whilst the Palestinian Authority treats the Christians with dignity and respect….yeah…right!

Why might Palestinian Christians toe the PA line?….

“Under Islam, the targeted dhimmi community and each individual in it are made to live in a state of perpetual humiliation in the eyes of the ruling community.” As described by a Christian Lebanese president, Bashir Gemayil: “a Christian…is not a full citizen and cannot exercise political rights in any of the countries which were once conquered by Islam.”

As Sir John Chancellor, British High Commissioner in Palestine, put it in 1931:“Christian Arab leaders, moreover, have admitted to me that in establishing close relations with the [Palestinian] Moslems the Christians have not been uninfluenced by fears of the treatment they might suffer at the hands of the Moslem majority in certain eventualities.”

 

Here is what a spokeswoman for ‘Open Bethlehem’ concludes:

Leila Sansour, Open Bethlehem’s Chief Executive, said: “Our survey of Bethlehem’s own citizens shows the city cannot retain this heritage and its Christian community while the wall remains.

She continued: “The choice is stark. Either the wall stays and Bethlehem ceases to be a Christian town. Or Bethlehem retains its Christian population ? in which case the wall has to come down.”

 

Pretty clear where she is coming from….so you might think it odd that the impartial BBC’s Yolande Knell works so closely with ‘Open Bethlehem’:

From BBCWatch:

BBC’s Yolande Knell ditches any semblance of impartiality

‘Open Bethlehem’ is a political campaign which describes its aim as being “to address the state of emergency in Bethlehem”.

“Palestinian director Leila Sansour has made a fierce, poignant film about her family and her hometown of Bethlehem, now in Palestinian territory but progressively stifled by the Israeli government’s anti-terrorist barrier…”

Now, what would the BBC’s editorial guidelines on impartiality have to say about the self conscription of a BBC correspondent to a political campaign directly connected to the field she covers?

Whether or not Yolande Knell got the required permission from her Head of Department before agreeing to allow her name and BBC brand-linked title to be used for promotion of the ‘Open Bethlehem’ film we do not know. What is clear, however, is that her position as an ‘impartial’ BBC correspondent based in its Jerusalem bureau is compromised and indeed untenable after such political activity.

 

Here are some reports from Bethlehem which explore the issues more truthfully and attribute the blame more evenly:

Joseph Canawati is not looking forward to Christmas.
The expansive lobby of his 77-room Hotel Alexander is empty and he says: “There is no hope for the future of the Christian community.
“We don’t think things are going to get better. For us, it is finished.”
Life for Palestinian Christians such as 50-year-old Joseph has become increasingly difficult in Bethlehem – and many of them are leaving.
The town’s Christian population has dwindled from more than 85 per cent in 1948 to 12 per cent of its 60,000 inhabitants in 2006.
There are reports of religious persecution, in the form of murders, beatings and land grabs.
Meanwhile, the breakdown in security is putting off tourists, leading to economic hardship for Christians, who own most of the town’s hotels, restaurants and souvenir shops.
The situation has become so desperate that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, and Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, are to lead a joint delegation to Bethlehem this week to express their solidarity with the beleaguered Christian populace.
The town, according to the Cardinal, is being “steadily strangled”.
The sense of a creeping Islamic fundamentalism is all around in Bethlehem.
George Rabie, a 22-year-old taxi driver from the Bethlehem suburb of Beit Jala, is proud of his Christianity, even though it puts him in daily danger.
Two months ago, he was beaten up by a gang of Muslims who were visiting Bethlehem from nearby Hebron and who had spotted the crucifix hanging on his windscreen.
“Every day, I experience discrimination,” he says. “
“It is a type of racism. We are a minority so we are an easier target. Many extremists from the villages are coming into Bethlehem.”
Jeriez Moussa Amaro, a 27-year-old aluminium craftsman from Beit Jala is another with first-hand experience of the appalling violence that Christians face.
Five years ago, his two sisters, Rada, 24, and Dunya, 18, were shot dead by Muslim gunmen in their own home.
The fear of attack has prompted many Christian families to emigrate, including Mr Canawati’s sister, her husband and their three children who now live in New Jersey in America.

Majed El Shafie, president of One Free World International, says some Christians are forced to cooperate with the terrorist group Hamas that rules Gaza in order to protect their families.

“The Christians in the Palestinian Authority areas [are] facing persecutions. Their homes, their churches they get attacked almost every day,” El Shafie explained.

According to El Shafie, the situation of Christians in the West Bank where the Palestinian Authority is in control is better. The PA wants support from the West so the leaders try to portray themselves as a “democratic country,” he said.

But El Shafie pointed to Bethlehem, the city of Jesus birth, where there has been a steady exodus of the Christian community for decades.

Bethlehem has become a “tourist zone” for the PA, he said. “Basically they don’t want the Christians there but they want the Christian tourists to come and to take their money.”

Persecuted Christians

Anti-Christian violence has increased, mostly caused by Islamic extremists, although Muslim-background believers face pressure from family, too. The authorities fail to uphold the rights of individual Christians, causing some to flee to safer areas. In Gaza, Christians are enticed into becoming Muslims, especially during Ramadan, with the offers of jobs, houses, wives and diplomas. Sometimes the approach is more violent. A Greek Orthodox monastery in Bethany, West Bank, was the repeated target of attacks, forcing the nuns to ask President Abbas to intervene.

Knell has a history of biased and inaccurate reporting that is far from what is expected of the BBC…her most recent reports do nothing to change that impression and indeed merely reinforce the thought that she is just a mouthpiece for the Palestinians.

In summary…Israel is not in charge of Bethlehem, the Palestinian Authority is.  The security barrier does not ‘surround’ Bethlehem.  The main reason for Christians fleeing the West Bank is due to Palestinian persecution of them.

All in all not a good day for Knell or the BBC.

My aunt got me @NaomiAKlein 's book on link between capitalism & climate change for Xmas. Read it in 2 days. Buy it. pic.twitter.com/LKk7ADiKx5

— Megha Mohan (@meghamohan) December 27, 2014

Here you go, THIS is the place to detail the relentless bias! Off you go, what’s been bothering YOU then?