Remember the delight of the BBC when research used by some to support austerity policies was found to have an error in its calculations…the BBC filled the airwaves with the news and gave us extensive briefings on the subject eulogising the clever lad who caught the profs out:

Reinhart, Rogoff… and Herndon: The student who caught out the profs

And

Reinhart and Rogoff correct austerity research error

Curiously when the new hero of the left, Thomas Piketty, gets it similarly wrong there is hardly a word…just this quick 50 seconds on newsnight (30 mins)

There appears to be nothing on the website and I haven’t heard anything on the radio unlike for Herndon who was given pride of place on several shows.

All very curious as this is a story in just about every newspaper and current affairs publication….except the BBC….Newsnight excepted.

The BBC goes very noisy when it thinks there is something that undermines austerity but keeps quiet when something undermines the left’s new narrative…one that is the central theme of Labour’s election manifesto.

The Spectator has a look at the FT’s claims:

Why didn’t Piketty’s Harvard publisher spot the errors which the FT has exposed?

In the last post I suggested that the BBC’s liberal, politically correct attitudes were partly responsible for the rise in anti-Semitism across Europe and elsewhere…the same could of course be said for the rise of UKIP as Tim Montgomerie explains:

The Ten Creators of UKIP

Illiberal liberals. I support gay marriage (shamefully, I was resistant to homosexual equality but now have the zeal of a convert) but, but, but I don’t think most traditionalists are homophobes. I think smart immigration benefits Britain but net immigration of 200,000 per year has never been endorsed by Britain’s voters. It’s too much. Have you seen house prices? I want British firms to have to invest in British workers and not always take the easy way out in employing people from abroad. However else are we going to cap the welfare bill for the working age population? Too many self-styled liberals don’t face up to these tough questions. They’re too busy shouting “bigot”, “racist” and “inadequate” at UKIP’s supporters. They still are. Too many right-of-centre commentators still want Cameron to declare war on UKIP voters and to deny that issues like immigration matter. They accuse UKIP voters of being hateful when, in reality, it is they who are hateful of UKIP voters and UKIP voters’ concerns.

UKIP is on a roll because the political parties and the likes of the BBC refuse to tackle immigration and Europe…..and in fact do all they can to talk up the benefits whilst burying the bad news.

Even now we have the same people, Cameron for instance, coming on to the airwaves telling us the problem is that the voters are ignorant…‘We must make an effort to get the public to understand our policies and the benefits of immigration and being in Europe.’

People who have concerns about immigration and Europe are portrayed as  ignorant, stupid, uneducated or prejudiced.

It’s the same old mantra that the BBC has been trotting out for years.

The BBC deny or try to explain away experiences such as these people have:

‘Will you be voting Labour?’ I [A Labour MP] asked. ‘No chance,’ came the reply. ‘It’s because of you lot that I’m earning less than I was ten years ago. Eastern Europeans have screwed us. We’re voting UKIP.’

Later that day I was speaking to a nurse who told me she was taking on another job as a cleaner so she could pay for extra lessons for her son. He was falling behind in English at school, she said, because the teachers spent all their time with Polish children who couldn’t speak English. She too was going to vote UKIP. 

Politics has become less like a conversation with people, and more an exercise in talking at them.

The only answer is to shut the borders to mass immigration and return to a trading relationship with Europe.

Can’t see that narrative getting through the editorial meetings at the BBC.

Who are the worst anti-Semites in Europe according to the statistics?

Muslims and the Left.

Not who’d you’d expect if you listen to the BBC’s everyday coverage from which you’d think it was the ‘Far Right’ which was about to sweep to power and set up concentration camps once more across Europe.

The BBC admits:

Anti-Semitism ‘on the rise’ say Europe’s Jews

Jews are once again being driven from Europe:

The survey found 29% of those surveyed had considered emigrating because of concerns about safety, with particularly high figures recorded in Hungary (48%), France (46%) and Belgium (40%).

Nearly half the Jews in france consider leaving…isn’t that extraordinary?

No mention of places like Malmo though.

From the Telegraph:

Jews leave Swedish city after sharp rise in anti-Semitic hate crimes

The BBC explains who carries out the anti-Semitic attacks:
Perpetrators of the most serious incidents were described as “being perceived as someone with Muslim extremist views, 27%, left-wing political views, 22%, or with right-wing views, 19%”.

Respondents said the most frequent comments made by non-Jewish people in the UK were: “Israelis behave ‘like Nazis’ towards the Palestinians” and “Jews exploit Holocaust victimhood for their own purposes” (both 35%).

Muslims, the Right and the Left….the Left are usually left out of the equation by the BBC.

But note also the link to Israel…..of course that is a convenient cover for many to excuse their anti-semitism…..but who is it that generates that animosity towards Israel, its demonisation and the subsequent attacks on Jews around the world?

Organisations like the BBC.

There is a massive rise in anti-Semitism across Europe and part of the blame for that can be laid at the door of the BBC and its blatantly biased, pro-Palestinian coverage of the conflict in the Middle East.

Of course there are many left wing politicians whose words and actions add to the atmosphere of anti-Semitism such as George Galloway and Ken Livingstone…but it’s not just that…it is the political atmosphere created by the likes of the BBC who attempt to control the ‘narrative’ where to criticise Muslims is a hate crime but Israelis and Jews are fair game…..

From Haaretz:

The Clear and Present Danger

‘Most crucially and discouragingly, the current political climate in Sweden is a key enabler for the rise of anti-Semitic attacks. This is Swedish Jewry’s real clear and present danger; a fatal combination of political correctness, self-righteousness and obliviousness, as leading politicians and opinion makers participate in or blatantly ignore the correlation between a disproportionate demonization of Israel that frequently crosses the line into anti-Semitism. This has created a climate where it is acceptable and encouraged to support calls for Israel’s destruction, deliberately ignoring the effect such support has as a vehicle for the rise in Swedish anti-Semitism.’

Here’s a complaint about the BBC…from 2002:

BBC accused of anti-Semitism

The BBC is largely responsible for the growth of anti-Semitism in Britain, a journalist on the Jerusalem Post has alleged.

An “unchallenged diatribe” of opposition to Israel’s policies – which paints the Middle East as a “monochromatic, single-dimensional comic cut-out” – has become part of BBC corporate culture, he claims.

“Wittingly or not, I am convinced the BBC has become the principal agent for reinfecting British society with the virus of anti-Semitism,” Douglas Davis, the London correspondent of the Jerusalem Post, writes in this week’s Spectator.

The radicals of the 60s are now in positions of political power, Davis claims, and are making policy decisions based on “post-colonial guilt”, fuelled by the BBC.

A BBC spokeswoman said: “The BBC’s reporting about the Middle East is impartial, scrupulously fair, accurate and balanced.”

And remember this when the BBC managed to avoid using ‘anti-Semitic’ in reference to a Muslim peer:

The BBC recently reported the story of the Labour [Muslim]  Lord who was suspended for claiming that Jews were responsible for his imprisonment after driving offences. 

The Labour peer was jailed for sending a text message shortly before his car was involved in a fatal crash. He later said that Jewish owners of “newspapers and TV channels” had put pressure on the court.

Many queried the BBC’s reporting of the incident at the time. In fact, the odd headline, “Labour peer Lord Ahmed suspended after ‘Jewish claims'” is still currently live. Instead of using “anti-Semitism”, the Beeb opted for “Jewish claims”, making the story seem like there were claims by Jewish people leading to Lord Ahmed’s suspension.

As long as the Balen Report remains hidden away from accusing eyes the BBC cannot be trusted.

Why hide a report that was completed in response to Israeli concerns about the BBC’s coverage?

The report was not an internal one, commissioned purely as a check on their systems and their  editorial checks and balances….it was not for reasons of ‘art, literature or journalism‘….it was done to confirm or negate claims of anti-Israeli bias and therefore should be made public.  Not to publish it must lead to a belief that the BBC are hiding some unsavoury facts about their journalism on Israel.

The Sunday Times reports:

‘Christians Offer Safe Houses To Muslim Converts’

Now why the hell would they need to do that in secular, democratic Britain where Muslims are tolerant and live by the guiding light of the Religion of Peace?

Apparently it is necessary to offer such sanctuary as Muslim converts to Christianity face ostracism and violent reprisals.

‘The penalty for them is at best to be cut off from their families, at worst they face death.’

Death?  In Britain?   When Christian churchs have visists from the police for saying non-Christians will go to hell how does a religion that preaches death, literally death, get imported into this coutnry and its text sold in bookshops up and down the country and preached in schools and religious establishments, often paid for by a foreign power?

Where is the outrage from the BBC…a BBC which religiously exposes the death penalty regime in the US?

The Telegraph reports:

I renounced Islam, so my family think I should die

Not in  the Sudan or Somalia…here in the UK.

Apostasy is not just something that scandalises people in far off lands. Harriet Alexander hears the story of a British woman whose life was turned upside down when she left Islam – echoing the plight of Meriam Ibrahim, who awaits a death sentence in Sudan for the same “crime”

Here is another guest submission, this time from Biased BBC contributor Guess Who? It’s on the issue of the Parliamentary Discussion into the future of the BBC. It is lengthy, detailed and astute analysis and I commend it you.

“The remit is wide and covers issues like bias, accountability, size, licence fee etc.’

Well, in theory all of the above. But mostly so far the last, best I can see.

The initial submission posts did cover a fair spread, and the process is in theory ongoing:
http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/culture-media-and-sport-committee/inquiries/parliament-2010/future-of-the-bbc/?type=Written#pnlPublicationFilter
However, that is a wee bit tucked away (last back in March), and the focus seems more on the in-person oral evidence from various selected, guests, experts and witnesses, many of who seem to either owe the BBC a living, depend on it for their pensions or simply appear smitten.
And almost all seem to be pretty clear that the BBC does a great job so the only real issue is making sure it keeps getting its unique funding via compulsion, and maintains that ‘we only hold others to account’ accountability epitomised by the Trust’s recent ex-chair, whose unexpected departure has managed to throw a few spanners in a few works whilst bringing spotlights on dark corners some clearly thought would get away with anything if those darn kids could be kept occupied elsewhere.
Let’s have a quick look at what has been run up the flagpole, and then saluted, thus far:
http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/culture-media-and-sport-committee/future-of-the-bbc/oral/5368.html
Potentially promising start, but stacked from the off like a BBC QT panel and audience either side of the table.
The only dissenting voice David Elstein, and even then he opens by saying he’s ‘a great admirer and strong supporter of the BBC’.
This was the session that already caused my concerns when Steve ‘no conflict of interest at all’ Hewlettt suddenly chimed in on 28Gate (see Qu10) professing not to know much about it but then having an awful lot to say in the BBC defence.
Which MP Angie Bray was trying to amplify upon before being told to shut up.
There was also an insight to the mindset and priorities of the rest of the committee:
Q22 Mr Leech: The reason for my argument is that you started off with quite a lengthy contribution, starting off by saying that you were a big supporter of the BBC but then gave numerous reasons as to why you did not really like the BBC at all.
David Elstein: Honestly, Mr Leech, you can’t have been listening to me very carefully. I am a strong supporter of the BBC. I wish it were a bigger, better, bolder, braver, richer organisation than it is, funded voluntarily by citizens of the UK and elsewhere. That’s all I have to say about the BBC.
Mr. Farrelly also seems a fan.
We also get to hear from Ben Bradshaw:
Q47 Mr Bradshaw: a number of other countries with strong public service broadcasting traditions have moved away from a licence fee, either to funding their public service broadcasting by general taxation or to funding it by household charge. Would that not overcome some of your objections to the licence fee without jeopardising the funding stream or the BBC’s independence?
He does seem to view this more in terms of how to keep things going as is rather than any question on how well it manages on the current £4Bpa compelled funding less the loophole opt-out losses they are all trying to plug and drag those with real issues with BBC professional performance back into doing so by force.
Jim Sheridan seems a fan, too, and keen to share interesting facts it may have been of value to see less BBCphilic committee members or experts in the mix to challenge if in error:
Q64 Jim Sheridan: The figures that I have seen are that the popularity of the licence fee is increasing in the last decade. I think it is up to 47% compared with 31% just a decade ago. What I am intrigued by is that the costs of collecting the licence fee are relatively low. Would there be any significant change for the alternative method, subscription?
Paul Farrelly then chimes in again to try and put words in David Elstein’s mouth. He also refers to lack of time and wanting to get on governance.
Handed to BBC groupie Claire Enders to mea gulp a lot, but basically waffle the time away until Steve Hewlett kills off the rest in his best ‘it was another time’ manner.
Governance opinion barely afforded the sole vaguely BBC critical witness there.
Philip Davies’ question was facile and the answers lost in the rush to close. Job done.
http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/culture-media-and-sport-committee/future-of-the-bbc/oral/6170.html
A hideously white male session asking a bunch of guys just how much they’d like their index-linked golden pensions to stay golden and any dodgy activities taken kept under wraps for ever.
Like that was going to go any other way.
Again Mr. Sutcliffe being more than undertstanding that no one knew anything about Saville then, or now, and this was understandable.
Then of course there’s Mr. Farrelly:
Q89 Paul Farrelly: Greg, you mentioned the BBC has enemies, both ideological and commercial. In one area, News Corp probably would dearly love to restrict that website, the BBC being a free source of online news.
Not sure Murdoch or the DM had much to do with McAlpine though, Paul. That seemed pretty much all BBC.
But mostly it’s about keeping the money spigot open, on full:
Q99 Mr Bradshaw: Could I ask you for your views on the desirability and sustainability of the licence fee as the long-term funding mechanism for the BBC?
Angie Bray a lone voice trying to delve a bit deeper. And again some claims being bandied about I’d have liked an actual informed, impartial guide on, as the BBC big-wigs clearly only read BBC PR. And it is, also, very well funded to tell the BBC story often enough:
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/bbc-spending-slick-pr-condemned-after-website-reveals-220-press-contacts
One wonders if they ever post elsewhere under rotating nicknames?
Anyway, at least governance was agin popped at the end for a quickie:
Q114 Mr Bradshaw: Why not just change it into a more normal-looking board with a chairman and give the regulatory responsibilities to Ofcom?
That would be under DG-applicant Ed Richards, friend and colleague once to Ben, James Purnell and so many others in the revolving door between Labour and the BBC, now overseen by the Trust in interim by a Labour Minister’s adviser.
What follows is a bunch of Lords a-leaping. Add Hall & Patten and the number of Lords seems to exceed anyone actually capable of operating on a day-to-day basis.
http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/culture-media-and-sport-committee/future-of-the-bbc/oral/8328.html
More insiders and academics. Public interest, what public interest?
Professor Beckett: I will start. In terms of its actual performance, most people’s experience of the BBC is of services that have improved generally in terms of quality, usability and so on.
Most people being his gilded, ideological circle?
They are clearly trying to wear folk out and grind them down by attrition.
These clowns are paid no matter what to deal in this guff.
Who else, out in the real word, has time to wade through all this?
Let me skip to one exchange on the done deal of funding options:
Professor Barwise: I am still in reasonably amicable dialogue with Elstein and—

Chair: You cannot say nobody disputes your findings.

Professor Barwise: What I meant is that no economists dispute my findings.
Showing just how wild the claims are and how often goalposts get moved if you take the eye of the ball for a split second.
And… yet again… governance is tacked on in a rush at the end, with editorial supposedly overseen a non-issue by now.
And frankly the answers were pure partisan or waffle, with near zero challenge from a committee that always seem keener on lunch than anything.
Next (which is what they are banking on- near every utterance of witnesses and committee deserves a fisking. Who, anywhere, supporter or critic, MP or activist, could put hand on heart and say they have read through all this?)…

http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/culture-media-and-sport-committee/future-of-the-bbc/oral/6881.html
Old boys and girls arguing over pie shares, not how well the pie is prepared and served, or the ability of the audience to not be fed it and/or pay no matter what.
I simply cite this one ‘question’ to show how this committee seems set up:
Q159 Mr Bradshaw: You go on about the things that you think the BBC should be doing, but do you not at least acknowledge the argument that the only way the BBC can do these things—the public value, the distinctiveness—is because of its funding through the licence fee, which is only justified because of its universal appeal, including Radio 1 and Radio 2? You are nodding, so you do agree with that.
It’s like listening to a Today or watching a Newsnight ‘interview’, with the person being interviewed mainly existing so the BBC view can be pushed.
So, again, near zero on actual calibre of service delivery or oversight. Just industry insiders jockeying for a slice of public pie or worrying about turf.
Next….
http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/culture-media-and-sport-committee/future-of-the-bbc/oral/8476.html
Sorry, they have worn me out.
It’s pure attrition.
The BBC will get its money, and a toothless oversight system, and blanket immunity from being held to account, because vast public funds have been spent paying public sector professional committee wafflers to generate vast reams of guff so those who want the gravy train to continue can simply get it signed off by their mates.
I’ll stay with this showcase of Yes Ministerial ushering a national treasure into a new, comfier, more secure age, but if the core issues of the BBC failing across the board on accuracy, objectivity and integrity of editorial are actually addressed I’d better not blink, and likewise with governance also being a neat little old-boys’ club stitch up with censorship of critics kept as a given, little secret, like Jimmy & Stuart’s activities.
Meanwhile the rest of the media estate, even those tasked with checking out each other, will quickly scan a BBC press release and spout as their tribal hearts’ desire based on the executive summary:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/10813893/The-future-of-the-BBC-is-at-stake-and-David-Cameron-must-take-control.html
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/may/08/howard-stringer-bbc-trust-chairman-martin-sorrell-wpp?
I’ll leave the last quote to a poster responding to one of those odd BBC-supportive one line posters in no way connected to the special projects PR budget who see even discussing the future of a £4Bpa broadcast monopoly as something to be contained:
Vlad_the_Inhaler
No-one is taking about banning views. But you seem to think it’s fine that we should all be forced to pay for an organisation that voices only your views?

DC Alden, author of the excellent The Horse of the Gates, and a reader of this august journal (!) shares the following with us;

“I’m sure you’re probably aware by now but there was a newspaper review on BBC News this morning with a female Muslim blogger. She began with a piece about Christians offering sanctuary to Muslims wishing to leave Islam’s embrace. I didn’t catch the whole package but what I did see appeared bizarre. She claimed that Muslims who leave Islam are in no danger at all and in fact are free to choose whichever religious path they prefer. I think we  know that this is completely false and perhaps an attempt to paint Islam in a positive light in the wake of the obvious (and as yet unmentioned by the Beeb) Islamic terrorist attack in Belgium”

Anyone else catch it? Thoughts?

Gotta laugh at the do-gooding worriers of the BBC.

Honouring ‘International Women’s Day’ we get this from the BBC:

Dolly + Beyonce + Miley = Girl Power!

Fearne creates a Girl Power Playlist in honour of International Women’s Day, including tracks from the likes of Beyonce, Miley, Adele and even some Dolly Parton!!!

And there was this:

Girl Power: Going for Gold

I imagine Google could keep on churning out the links for quite some time…however it’s all got to stop…you know…all this ‘Girl’ nonsense….so derogative and insulting…belittles and demeans wimmin:

BBC in censorship row after the word ‘girl’ is cut from documentary

This item was posted by my colleague Mike Cunningham over on A Tangled Web and I think it warrants your consideration.

“Listening on the Beeb’s Today Programme to what must be considered a true favourite of the BBC’s way of group-think. The woman being interviewed had a son who had been kidnapped by the Nigerian Boko Haram bunch of criminal terrorists, and he had been killed during a rescue attempt. The woman was being interviewed as she had personal knowledge of these muslim killers, but she was saying that the Nigerian government should ‘open a dialogue’ with these fanatics, they should explore ‘areas of compromise’; and if necessary her son’s killers should be released as part of a deal with the Boko Haram bunch, who hold nearly three hundred girls from a school in Northern Nigeria.

When I state ‘true favourite of the BBC’s way of group-think’, I believe that this is what has been a total ‘belief’ tenet of the Corporation for decades. We must, in the eyes of the BBC, always compromise, always defer to others, never ever stand on principle, never ever argue or stand up for what we, as a nation, used to believe in or argue from a moral standpoint.

The woman whose son was murdered by these muslim killers is, of course, tragically mistaken in hoping for dialogue or compromise with any group who operates under the shadow of terror, or the bullet. The Nigerian government must, in my own view, organise and operate a policy of ‘search and destroy’ against the shadowy terrorists who seem to operate with impunity in the north of that burdened and corrupt country. They must operate as we, in Great Britain, singularly failed to during our own terrorist struggle; they should operate on a ‘shoot to kill’ policy, they should operate on the fact that ‘the only good terrorist is a dead terrorist’ with no bargains, no cushy prisons, no cosy deals, and they should never, ever, offer a place in Government if the terrorists would only promise to ‘disarm and place their weaponry beyond use’; mainly because we all know how weasel promises like that end up!“

Here you go, an really early Open Thread for your use!!! Try to restrict your European election analysis to THAT thread and let’s keep this for other issues. I am out of the UK on business for a few days, back mid week!

Right. It’s time for a new thread to discuss BBC coverage of the EUROPEAN elections results as they roll in! I see the Front National have topped the poll in France…