If you hadn’t heard PMQs for yourself and only relied upon the BBC’s wash up of it afterwards you might not have realised that Miliband was completely steamrollered and failed utterly to make a dent in Cameron’s defence.

The central plank of Miliband’s attack was that the Cabinet Permanent Secretary, Gus O’Donnell, must have warned Cameron about the accusations against Coulson, Miliband also claimed that Coulson hadn’t been security vetted and if he had of been he would not have passed muster and therefore not have been given the job of communications director.

Miliband said there was now a very important question that the whole country wanted an answer to…did Sir Gus O’Donnell raise any concerns about Andy Coulson?

The BBC, in the shape of Andrew Neil and Nick Robinson, decided Cameron was lying when he said O’Donnell had not raised such concerns.

Robinson bizarrely tried to claim that Cameron’s defence, claiming that the revelations in Leveson cleared him, was similar to Blair trying to use the Hutton Inquiry to defend himself….as the BBC is of the opinion that the Hutton Inquiry was an Establishment whitewash presumably Robinson thinks Leveson is as well as Leveson certanly does clear Cameron.

Robinson went on to say Cameron had one problem…when Miliband asked him twice about whether there was civil service advice about Coulson Cameron insisted that that too had been raised in Leveson with Gus O’Donnell…Robinson says ‘I’ve checked and I can find no evidence that that was raised…what was unwise of the Prime Minister was to claim that Leveson cleared him of this..it seems to me he didn’t.’

Unfortunately anyone with the ability to run a word search of the witness statement of Gus O’Donnell to Leveson would have found that he did clear Cameron:

Question 30 – Please set out in full for the inquiry details of your role, if any, in relation to the appointment by the Prime Minster of Andy Coulson to a post in No.10. Your account should include a full explanation of the basis on which you were asked to advise.  Mr Coulson was brought in as a special adviser to the Prime Minister.

I was not involved in the process of appointing Mr Coulson. Mr Coulson was cleared to SC (security clearance) level and was undergoing DV (developed vetting) clearance at the time of his resignation

Gus O’Donnell had no involvement in the appointment of Mr Coulson…pretty clear.

In other words Miliband’s attack, and Robinson’s ‘analysis’, is completely undermined by the actual evidence….Miliband himself claimed that O’Donnell had said nothing about Coulson at the Leveson Inquiry…clearly he did.

Robinson seems more intent on generating some sort of ‘scoop’ and whipping up a storm against Cameron rather than getting the real story…the real story which in fact provides a better scoop…..smashing Miliband’s attack.  Robinson is more concerned with supposition and speculation despite admitting he had no evidence to back that up…I paraphrase his words here:

Now it seems extremely likely, though I haven’t got the evidence, that civil servants said ‘you do know there are some questions about Coulson?’…it seems to me to be extremely likely that that happened..I don’t know we weren’t there…..’I’ve checked and I can find no evidence that that [Leveson asked O’Donnell about Coulson]  was raised…what was unwise of the Prime Minister was to claim that Leveson cleared him of this…it seems to me he didn’t.’

Pure speculation on Robinson’s part…if he’d bothered to check the statement he would have  realised that not only had O’Donnell cleared Cameron but that Coulson was vetted.

More excellent journalism from the impartial, accurate and accountable BBC.

Robinson goes on to attack ‘another interesting tactic he [cameron] uses’….Robinson says Cameron said he got the same assurances about hacking that the police and the PCC got…and neither had felt the need to act upon those, and therefore this shows he was right not to be concerned either.

Robinson says thatCaeron is muddling his times because at the time the allegations were made the police hadn’t looked into this.

Robinson claims that this undermines Cameron’s defence…however logically it reinforces it…If the police and PCC came to this late in the day, with more time to look at evidence and with possibly more evidence, and yet still decided there was no case to answer, then that backs up Cameron’s decision made at a time when there was even less evidence.

We then had a Labour Spad telling us that it was totally implausible that Coulson wasn’t vetted…and they have failed to answer why Coulson wasn’t subject to that degree of scrutiny.

But as we saw from O’Donnell’s statement Coulson had an initial ‘SC’ level of vetting which allowed him to see secret, and sometimes top secret, material….and he was undergoing the DV process when he resigned.

Once again the BBC is allowing false information to be broadcast and false assertions made against Cameron without challenge.

Even at 17:00 the BBC were still claiming Coulson wasn’t vetted properly:

17:00: PMQs update – Labour is hoping to keep up the pressure on David Cameron by asking Sir David Normington, the former senior civil servant and Commissioner for Public Appointments, to investigate why Andy Coulson was not given top-level security clearance when he worked in Downing Street.

The Labour Spad then went on to claim that DV would have discovered that Coulson had been involved in hacking…..complete rubbish.

Shame though…that would have saved a £100 million trial…who knew eh?  If only we had taken the Guardian’s word for things we could have chucked Coulson in jail and saved oursleves £100 million.

The same Guardian that lied about the News of The World deleting Milly Dowler’s text messages.

The BBC, whilst forensically delving into PMQs remarkably avoids the point raised by Philip Davies, Tory MP, (24 mins 50 secs) that when he was on the Culture, Media and Sport Committee’s inquiry into Press standards, privacy and libel   no concerns had been raised about Coulson by any party, and that Nick Davies of the Guardian came to the Committee and revealed that he had never seen any evidence that directly linked Coulson to phone hacking and that the Committee concluded that:

‘have, however, not seen any evidence that the then Editor, Andy Coulson, knew, but consider he was right to resign.’

Always curious, and telling, what the BBC dodges around.

Miliband’s claims are comprehensively trashed by O’Donnell’s statement to Leveson…the statement that neither Andrew Neil nor Nick Robinson could find.

Very quick post on Cameron and whether Gus O’Donnell advised him not to appoint Coulson…..note also that Coulson was security vetted…..

From Leveson…..Gus O’Donnell says he had no part in Coulson’s appointment…the BBC have been trying to say he did and are claiming they couldn’t find this…..

Question 30 – Please set out in full for the inquiry details of your role, if any, in relation to the appointment by the Prime Minster of Andy Coulson to a post in No.10. Your account should include a full explanation of the basis on which you were asked to advise. 

‘Mr Coulson was brought in as a special adviser to the Prime Minister. I was not involved in the process of appointing Mr Coulson. Mr Coulson was cleared to SC (security clearance) level and was undergoing DV (developed vetting) clearance at the time of his resignation’

As Coulson was SC cleared he could perfectly well be employed:

Lenny Henry was never very funny but it seems that he IS now the Cultural Kommisar for Ethnicity on the BBC

ACTOR and comedian Lenny Henry yesterday slammed the BBC’s £2.1million plan to foster ethnic talent.

The corporation’s director-general Tony Hall announced a new “diversity creative talentfund” last week to help “fast track” shows by minorities. But referring to 12 Years A Slave star Chiwetel Ejiofor and Idris Elba, from TV crime drama Luther, Mr Henry said: “They didn’t need more training, they just needed a break.”

Earlier this year, he complained that the number of ethnic workers in ­British TV had plunged by a third between 2006 and 2012 to just 5.4 per cent of the broadcast workforce. He called for new laws and targets to reverse that decline. Mr Henry told the Commons’ Culture, Media and Sport committee yesterday the UK had been haemorrhaging talent to America because of a mistaken belief that black ethnic minority actors “don’t have enough star power to drive a feature film or a long-running TV series”. Talking about Mr Hall’s plan, he said: “Development is great but there are people absolutely trained and ready to rock. “The inference seems to be ‘oh you’re not ready yet, here’s a little bit of development money, go away and practise a bit more until you’re ready’.”

So Henry wants to see racial discrimination as the best way of avoiding racial discrimination. It just depends which race you are discriminating against I suppose?

Anyone else catch the “debate” on The Media Show on BBC Radio 4 later afternoon on the “phone hacking scandal”? Superb balance as always with Nick Davies, Guardian journalist; Peter Preston, former editor of the Guardian;Harriet Harman, Labour’s Deputy Leader, Neil Wallis, former Deputy Editor of the News of the World; Lord Norman Fowler, former chairman of the House of Lords select committee on communications; journalist and Executive Director of Hacked Off, the strident Joan Smith; Alleged Conservative Fowler was happy enough to blame Thatcher for the cosying up to the Murdoch empire, so earning his pay for the day. The conclusion was that we “need” Leveson unexpurgated and nothing short of Leveson will do.

The BBC seems determined to use the Coulson conviction to damage Cameron through association. I watched the BBC news last night and it was interesting to see how often they used images of Coulson and Cameron together as if to imply that Cameron was in some way guilty too. Now of course one could say that Cameron used poor judgement in using Coulson – and he himself has said that – but then again I am sure we all remember Gordon Brown’s nefarious spin doctor Damien McBride. I don’t recall the BBC lighting on the revelations concerning McBride with quite the same GLEE it has on Coulson. The BBC must be gutted Rebekkah Wade was also judged to be INNOCENT. Throughout the court case it has also used her to try and also damage Cameron. Miliband has joined in the attack on Cameron and the BBC is doing what it can to damage the PM.

Here you go, an on-time Open Thread. If BBC bias is bothering YOU this is where to detail it.

The BBC has in times past appointed itself the ‘Official Opposition’ when it felt that Labour weren’t sufficiently rigorous in holding the Tory government to account, so the BBC took on the job itself.

It now looks like it has decided, in these straitened times of austerity, to take on the role of Judge and Jury, passing judgement on all and sundry…well, on selected targets anyway.

Here Nick Robinson tries to spin a story and create a ‘crisis’ for Cameron:

Hacking verdict: Prison for Coulson, questions for Cameron

On the day David Cameron walked up to the door of Number 10 as prime minister he was there – standing in a huddle of the staff who were about to move into new taxpayer funded jobs in Downing Street.

This story is, of course, not just about one man and the prime minister who hired him. It is about the hold the Murdoch empire had over British politics for years and the behaviour of those he hired.

Tonight a man who helped get his boss into Number 10 faces up to a new life – in prison. His former boss faces serious questions about his judgement.

Not sure why Cameron should ‘face serious questions about his judgment’ or why he should apologise for employing Coulson.  Only after extensive police investigations and a trial was Coulson judged guilty in law….all else is politically opportunist point scoring based on rumour and allegation solely intended to try and discredit Cameron…and the BBC is clearly still playing that game.

The BBC were all too ready to campaign for Islamist terrorists to get them released from Guantanamo and to make excuses for those who carry out the worst atrocities and yet harrumph loudly about Cameron employing someone who was at the time not even charged with any crime.

As for the ‘hold the Murdoch empire had over British politics‘……where are the questions from the BBC about previous incumbents of No10…or those who would like to move in there?……

All the time the Sun supported the Labour Party did the BBC raise any questions or doubts? Or ask questions about the Labour placeman at the Times, Tom Baldwin, feeding in Labour friendly stories to the paper and now a Labour communications spinner?  Does the BBC raise any questions about its own close links to the Labour Party?  Robinson describes Murdoch as ‘the most powerful media mogul in Britain.’….but that’s not true is it?  The Director General of the BBC is the most powerful media mogul in Britain…and his minions not only have the massive power and resources to influence the political narrative but are willing and able to deploy it in the service of the Labour Party.

And if the story is really about Murdoch and his hold over British politics shouldn’t the BBC be rather more rigorous and wide ranging in its investigations rather than seemingly restricting its censure to the Conservatives?  Perhaps they might like to ask why for instance Brown didn’t tackle Murdoch if he really believed his son’s medical records had been illegally accessed  and his financial records hacked as he now claims.

Robinson’s line seems remarkably similar to Miliband’s:

“I think David Cameron has very, very serious questions to answer because we now know that he brought a criminal into the heart of Downing Street. David Cameron was warned about Andy Coulson, the evidence mounted up against Andy Coulson, David Cameron must have had his suspicions about Andy Coulson, and yet he refused to act.

I believe this isn’t just a serious error of judgement, this taints David Cameron’s government because we now know that he put his relationship with Rupert Murdoch ahead of doing the right thing when it came to Andy Coulson’

It’s all about black and white. And Brown. At least through the prism of the BBC.

EastEnders has too many white cast members to be authentic, the head of the BBC’s watchdog has warned.

The popular BBC soap opera, which is set in the fictional east London neighbourhood of Walford, also has too many young actors to be properly representative, said Diane Coyle, acting chairman of the BBC Trust.

In a speech at the London School of Economics, Coyle reportedly reflected on findings from Audience Council England which found that there were “nearly twice as many white people living in fictional E20 as in real life E17.” E17 is the postcode for Walthamstow, one of the multicultural east London neighbourhoods on which the soap is based.

Can’t wait to see these changes. Hopefully we can see more Somalis, more Roma and Bulgarians, more FGM operatives and hopefully a few wannabe ISIS recruits. Good old BBC – always focused on that all important multicultural gaiety.

Curious how the BBC broadcasts a programme explaining the issues on a subject that Ed Miliband makes a policy speech about 3 days later.

In May 2013 Ipsos MORI released some research it was working on in conjunction with the left wing Demos and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation on how the young view welfare:

Generations

Ipsos’s Bobby Duffy says Generation Y believes people need to take greater personal responsibility rather than looking to the state, and that this in turn reflects the fact its members have had less state support themselves than other recent generations.

The report noted that:

Our debate about welfare policy in the UK is easily muddled, because unlike most other countries we’ve lost sight of its contributory nature and confuse social security for the large majority with welfare for the poor. Older groups are net beneficiaries from welfare spending, and therefore widespread support across cohorts can only be maintained if younger generations believe that a similar contract will remain in place when they’re old. This seems likely to prove increasingly difficult, given that younger groups seem to have a much weaker perception of the contributory nature of welfare.

In June 2013 Ed Miliband made a speech on welfare and how Labour would reform it:

And, today, people’s faith in social security has been shaken when it appears that some people get something for nothing and other people get nothing for something – no reward for the years of contribution they make.

We have to tackle this too.

Overcoming worklessness, rewarding work and tackling low pay, investing in the future and recognising contribution: these are the Labour ways to reform our social security system.

Remake social security to make it work better for our country and pass on a fair and sustainable system to the next generation, with the Labour Party.

So Miliband has picked up on the need to recognise the ‘contributory nature’ of welfare and if the young pay in they should get something out in future.

One year later on the 16th of June 2014 the BBC curiously produced a programme, ‘Generation Right’, which returned to the Ipsos MORI report of May 2013 and told us that ‘Generation Y’ wanted a fairer welfare system and a link between hard work and reward.

Three days later, on the 19th of June 2014, Miliband makes another speech, essentially the same one as in 2013 in which he said there was a need for welfare to be fairer and for the ‘something for nothing’ culture  to end and to ‘ restore the link between hard work and reward.‘

He also said:

And to properly reward hard work and effort, we need contribution to be at the heart of our welfare system too.
We talk about the problem of people getting something for nothing.
And we are right to do so.
But there is a problem that politicians rarely talk about of people getting nothing for something.
How many times have I heard people say: “for years and years, I paid in and then when the time came and I needed help I got nothing out”?
Rewarding contribution was a key principle of the Beveridge Report.
And it is a key intuition of the British people.
But it is a principle that has been forgotten by governments of both parties.

In other words Miliband is once again echoing the Ipsos MORI report’s words…that the contributory nature of welfare has been forgotten and that the young must have that link restored and guaranteed for welfare system to work.

Not saying at all that the BBC produced a programme based on a year old Ipsos MORI report three days before Ed Miliband made a major policy defining speech also echoing what was in that report and that someone at the BBC intended to use that programme as a ‘warm up’ for the main event, explaining the issues and giving Miliband ‘cover’  for his new policy as he apparently makes a dramatic change of course and commits Labour to cut welfare spending on the young….‘for the first time’ as the BBC repeatedly told us.  Just pure coincidence.

Miliband made his speech at the IPPR’s release of its own policy strategy recommendations, there being close links between Ipsos MORI and IPPR:

The Condition of Britain: Strategies for social renewal
The Condition of Britain: Strategies for social renewal sets out a comprehensive new agenda for reforming the state and social policy to enable people in Britain to work together to build a stronger society in tough times.

No coincidence that this is a major component of that report as well……

FOSTERING CONTRIBUTION AND RECIPROCITY

In this chapter, we argue that the second pillar on which to build a strong society in tough times is contribution and shared endeavour. An ambitious agenda for social renewal must seek to marshal all of the resources that reside in everyday life, harnessing people’s time and talents, and drawing on the strengths and experience of civil society in all its forms. This will require steps to both promote and reward contribution across society, strengthen civic and state institutions that mobilise contribution, and embed reciprocity much more strongly in our welfare system.

Maybe it is  all just a coincidence.  It’s a small world after all.  And there’s an election coming.

Craig at ‘Is the BBC biased?’  had a listen to the BBC’s ‘Generation Right‘ and concluded:

Right standing.

If you have the time, please take a listen to Generation Right (Radio 4, 8.00pm).

I expected the worst (and said as much), but I’ll now happily eat my words. This was an absolute pleasure to listen to from start to finish, fascinating and – especially gratifying – scrupulously fair too.

All credit then to the BBC’s Declan Harvey [who I bashed the other day for an injudicious anti-UKIP tweet], Vicky Spratt and Lewis Goodall for making such a fabulous, unbiased programme. It can be done.

Have to say that my initial concern with the programme, before hearing it, was based on the concept of it…that there is a problem because the young are more right leaning, apparently, than before.  Why would the BBC think that is a ‘problem’?

Having listend to the programme I have to disagree with Craig on this one and say it is probably one of the BBC’s more politically biased programmes and povides the listener with a completely distorted intepretation of what the young said and a false idea of what the report actually said.

But that is the subject for another post.

Another view of Diane Coyle and her application to take over from Patten:

David Keighley: Europhile quango queen and climate change warrior. No wonder Dave wants her as BBC chief

One thing is certain about Ms Coyle if she does land the chairman’s role. She won’t be pressing for any significant changes in the BBC’s journalism. She has already declared:

“I’ve always valued the BBC, not least as the best provider of news coverage in the world. Its impartiality and comprehensive coverage underpin its vital civic role.”

Given that the BBC Trustees are supposed also to be watchdogs in terms of standards, that’s a terrifying expression of complacency.

There is also this:

Her long-time BBC Trust colleague is Alison Hastings, who has decreed that the promulgation of climate change alarmism is compulsory for all BBC journalists.

Now I hadn’t seen Hastings’ comments from 2012 before but they make for interesting reading:

Trusting what you see and hear: the media’s role in covering science accurately

Climate change is 90 per cent likely to have been caused by humans. That was the conclusion of the influential Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007.

The BBC Trust, the body which is ultimately responsible for ensuring that the BBC’s programmes are impartial, and of which I am a member, recently asked eminent scientist Professor Steve Jones to take an independent view of the BBC’s science coverage.

Trouble is JOnes wasn’ that eminent…being comlpetely unable to get funding for nay project he admitted he was going nowhere…untitl the BBC saved him and gave him a job.

As for independent…he’s along term fanatical pro-climate change advocate.

Hardly impartial owing his living to the BBC and desperate to advance the cause.

She went on:

‘When something moves from opinion to well-established fact, viewers should be aware of this’

I’d be fascinated to hear what those well established facts are….where are the facts that prove it is man who is warming the climate?….not even the IPCC goes that far so unequivocally.

Ah here she goes:

‘A body of evidence – like that assessed by the IPCC report – changes how the BBC’s obligation to cover issues with ‘due impartiality’ is applied.’

Unfortunately the IPCC AR5 is not a body of evidence but a conflation of supposition, conjecture and wishful thinking…..

It admits it has no idea why there has been a pause in warming…you can assume from that it has no idea therefore how warming is caused.

Hastings has no doubt been suitably briefed by the relentlessly on message Roger Harrabin.

Her long-time BBC Trust colleague is Alison Hastings, who has decreed that the promulgation of climate change alarmism is compulsory for all BBC journalists.