Biased BBC Graeme Thompson aka Hippiepooter offers us this!
Clearly, £ Stirling as “Britain’s currency doesn’t make the BBC happy.
http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20140522-are-money-and-happiness-linked
The death of the Queen Mother couldn’t induce BBC presenters to wear black ties, but one suspects tomorrow’s euro-election results may well do so!”
Just a few confirmations of the usual casual bias or lazy thinking from within the Bubble.
Nicky Campbell on Friday declared that it was quite unfair of the Press to publish those photos of Miliband munching on a not very Kosher bacon sarny:
However…Miliband was on the stump looking for that photo opportunity to present himself as a man-of-the-people….he made a mess of it and showed bad judgement…so fair game.
Would Campbell have said it was unfair coverage if the PR stunt had come off and the Press had reported what a superb way with a bacon sandwich Miliband had…his statesmanlike consumption of it a shining example of his man-of-the -people credentials?
In contrast Campbell made absolutely no mention of the blitz on Farage by just about every single paper and broadcaster.
On From Our Own Correspondent the ever reliable source of bias or notably daft comments (remember Fort Hood) Mark Mardell told us that in the UK the words ‘Liberal democrat‘ describes a party and are not an insult. Really? He’s been out of the country too long.
Later Peter Oborne on a ‘Week in Westminster’ looked at UKIP….quite balanced (from Oborne not the politicians) even though he is a cheerleader for UKIP….but what was of interest was a final word (24 mins) from Stephen Glover from the Mail who panned the BBC’s coverage of UKIP during the election run up….the Media class are just as out of kilter with the public as the politicians are…and yet the BBC itself does not look at this question preferring to talk only of the politicians lack of connection to the ‘country’.
Following on from that what of John Humphrys’ interview with Osborne on Saturday? (08:36)
Humphry’s sole narrative was ‘Will the Tories do a deal with UKIP?’
A fair question and the answer is rather strange…the Tories did a deal with the far left lentil munchers but won’t do a deal with the natural allies politically and philosophically of the big C Conservatives.
The real question of course is if they aren’t going to do a deal with UKIP how are they going to attract those voters who like UKIP’s policies on immigration and Europe.
From what Osborne said you could infer that he was going to ignore those voters and rely on people just not wanting Miliband in power…his election plan is to basically say if you vote UKIP you’ll get Miliband…but we’re not changing our policies on immigration and Europe.
So despite his slogan, ‘Listen, Respond, Deliver‘, he’s not going to do any of those things…but of course nor are Labour.
But Humphrys didn’t ask the question…Humphrys concentrated on the solution being the deal with UKIP…but if no deal….what policy changes will the Tories introduce to win those UKIP voters?….that surely is the big central question that needs answering but Humphrys didn’t notice the inference that Osborne & Co are going to ignore UKIP voters
Is it just me or is the new iPlayer a complete shambolic mess?
The old one wasn’t perfect by anymeans, clunky but usable, but the new one is abysmal, confusing and hard to navigate and find anything…browsing wasn’t a delight before, now it’s just a lucky dip or a grind through the hidden listings…almost as if they didn’t want you to find things to watch.
Pretty certain it won’t grow on me.
Hope they have some money left in the kitty for a revamp of the revamp.
Why does UKIP not attract so many voters in London?
The BBC tells us:
Demography
Neil Hamilton said London was “difficult territory” for UKIP because it was so “cosmopolitan”. Earlier it was put to the party’s communities spokesman, Suzanne Evans, on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the party had some difficulty appealing to Londoners because they tended to be “cultural, educated, and young” – reportedly a direct quote from one of her fellow UKIP spokesmen. The party was “increasingly” attracting such people, she replied – but not yet in London. After much criticism of her role in these exchanges, Ms Evans said she was emphatically “NOT saying non-Londoners [are] ‘thick'”. But there is no point denying that most research and polls suggest the party has significant support among older voters – a demographic group that is both growing in size and remains more likely to vote.
Curiously whilst the piece is titled ‘Demography’ there is no mention of immigration…..London being merely ‘cosmopolitan’ as Neil Hamilton describes it…the BBC ventures no thoughts on what that might actually mean.
And note the photograph….the BBC have managed to find a photo with not a single obviously ‘ethnic’ face in it.
What is going on in London is precisely the effect that Labour intended to engineer across the whole country eventually….a land ‘ethnically cleansed’ of the native Brit and now populated by those with no loyalty or relationship with the historic land and its people and whose votes will swing elections.
Importing millions of Europeans was no ‘mistake’….one reason for doing so was that any future referendum on our relationship with Europe could hinge on a few votes…therefore importing people who come from ‘europe’ and have an affinity for it and who in all likelihood would vote to stay closely tied to Europe is an obvious strategy.
This BBC report might give a clue as to the reality of that suggestion:
May’s local and European elections will see record numbers of Poles going to the ballot box in the UK. With up to half a million votes up for grabs, is it time British politicians took them seriously?
Lucas Szlek came to the UK from Poland as a 16-year-old with his parents in 2001. Having spent most of his adult life in Britain, he is standing as a Labour council candidate in Southampton.
“I think voting in the democratic election is part of integrating with British society,” he says.
“I believe lots of Polish people share the same principles as the British people and I think part of integration with a society is to contribute to the further decision making in Britain for everyone.”
Research by Polish City Club and Ipsos Mori suggests 72% of Polish people currently in the UK intend to stay. Is Mr Szlek pointing to a future where greater Polish representation will be a natural element of Britain’s political scene?
Daniel Kawczynski, for now Britain’s only MP of Polish origin, hopes so. “I do see Parliament changing and evolving… to properly reflect the changing nature of British society,” he says.
The 2011 census showed there are more than 600,000 Poles in the UK, and all EU citizens have the right to vote in both local and EU elections.
“These elections definitely will be those elections that Poles participate in, in the largest numbers, I think, throughout the last 10 years,” says Mr Byczynski.
Not least because the issues affect them.
“We cannot talk about relations with the EU and ignore the voice of the main immigrant group,”” he says.
But before it is assumed this means votes in the bag for the pro-EU campaign, the research by Polish City Club and Ipsos Mori paints a more complicated picture.
They found that half of Poles in the UK were intending to vote, but 50% of those were yet to decide who for.
“If the parties canvass their votes, they will receive support – even from a minority group called the Polish friends of UKIP,” Roger Casale, chairman of New Europeans, says about the Polish community.
“Very few politicians seem to have understood this. Yet the number and the concentration of Polish expat votes will change the outcome of elections in many marginal seats.
“Some Polish candidates have enough support to win even as independents.”
British airman dropped copies of the plan for a post-war welfare state on Nazi German to demoralise the population in an audacious propaganda exercise.
Copies of the 1942 Beveridge Report were translated into German and flown by RAF bombers to Berlin and jettisoned over the city.
A new book by authors John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldrige uncovers the secret war-time story of how the RAF dropped leaflets instead of bombs.
According to the book, Nazi officials decided that they would not give any publicity to the Beveridge Report, even though one suggested ‘our enemies are taking over national socialist ideas’.
‘Our national socialits ideas’? But we’re always told that the Nazis, the National Socialists, weren’t socialists. They were obviously deluding themselves then.
The Nazis were socialists, Labour are socialists….might explain why Labour were so keen to fling open the borders and let half of Europe march in here….success at last!
The wife of education secretary Michael Gove told an audience how she has considered sending her children to live in Italy to shield them from the “hate” directed towards their father in the UK.
“There are a lot of people who really, really hate Michael who send emails saying, ‘I hope you die’,” she said.
Her conclusion:
“I used to believe that socialists were nice but misguided. Now I know that they are not nice at all. They are very vicious and aggressive people who do really horrible things.”
But who might have contributed to that atmosphere of hate directed at Gove and his family?
Could it possibly be the BBC? Listen to ‘The Now Show’ any week and you might hear Gove compared to Hitler or some such….or HIGNFY….no slouches in mocking the Gove.
Curious though how quiet the BBC is about this story…can’t find any mention of the hate directed at the Goves by those nasty socialists.
Different take on events from the BBC and the Telegraph….curious the BBC not keen to report someone saying Europe’s wind and solar energy drive is a shambles…..
This is what the BBC tells us Alexey Miller from Gazprom said about the latest Russian gas deal with China:
Alexei Miller, Chief Executive of Gazprom said the new deal was “the biggest contract in the entire history of the USSR and Gazprom – over 1 trillion cubic metres of gas will be supplied during a whole contractual period.”
This from the Telegraph:
Alexey Miller, chairman of the state giant Gazprom, said Russia’s $400bn deal this week to supply gas to China for 30 years is a black moment for Europe and will change the geo-strategic balance in the world. “The global competition for Russian gas resources started yesterday. Let there be no mistake about that. We have untapped the Asian market and this is going to have an impact on European gas prices.”
Describing Europe’s energy shortage as “scary”, he ridiculed the EU’s push for wind and solar power as a shambles, and said its LNG venture had gone nowhere with capacity use collapsing to 22pc. “Europe has lost the competition global for LNG, and in a single day it has just lost the competition for the world’s pipeline gas as well,” he said.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd77eNaKEck
As we know, Jasmine Lawrence, a channel editor at BBC News, decided to reveal her disdain for UKIP voters and her deep knowledge of UKIP policies by Tweeting this:
“#WhyImVotingUkip – to stand up for white, middle class, middle aged men w sexist/racist views, totally under represented in politics today.”
The irony? A woman who presumably, judging by her tweet, has a pious self regard for her own ‘humanity’ and feel for the ‘other’ tweets something that is racist, classist, sexist and ageist….the beauty of it is that she of course doesn’t even understand that and goes merrily on her way thinking how wonderfully right-on and righteous she is.
One reason she may believe that of course is that she lives in the BBC ‘bubble’ where nearly everyone thinks along those lines.
Newsnight just typifies that attitude…who is the latest ‘hire’ (if only occasional)...June Saprong…non-white, female and left wing…ticking nearly all the right boxes..if only she’d also been Mooslamic, lesbian and a single mother and she might have got a full time job at the Beeb.
Apparently, a little known fact, there are no mirrors in any of the BBC premises….no one knows that they are white…it would be too traumatic for them to realise it.
Lawrence’s views are not a lot different to what Nicky Campbell and others expressed today (08:39) claiming that the profile of UKIP voters was ethnically white, uneducated, old…’Essex man’ apparently…..or another description from later in the day….‘White, working class and disaffected’.
The tone is one of dismissal as if such people shouldn’t really have a voice, being white they must be racist, being working class they must be thick and being disaffected?…well they’re just not adapting to change…they’re dinosaurs….but is that profile true anyway? I doubt it somehow….According to YouGov, 13 per cent of those intending to vote Ukip at the European elections are aged 18 to 24 — two percentage points more than for the Green party.
Campbell was asking if a vote for UKIP was merely a ‘protest vote’….To characterise the UKIP vote simply as a nihilistic ‘protest vote’ is to dismiss the voter’s reasoning and beliefs. It also conveniently dismisses UKIP’s policies saying people aren’t voting for UKIP’s policies on immigration or Europe, they’re merely voting against the encumbent government….but why would they be so disaffected if not for rational policy matters?
Campbell claimed that if it was a protest vote it must be one against the public school Etonian types…‘a bunch of Lord snootys‘ as he quoted from the charming Salmond…..in other words the Tories alone.
One objection to that is of course that Labour, and the LibDems, are just as much of the ‘elite’, many of them are millionaires, and have just as much disdain for the Great Unwashed and their wishes as the Tory grandees do….the other objection to that line is that it is complete tosh.
The reason Labour lost out to UKIP yesterday was, not because they wear nice suits, eat at fancy restaurants and all have PPE’s from Oxbridge, but because they abandoned the working man, importing cheap labour to undercut their wages, handing over their houses to immigrants and failing to train them for the jobs out there….Labour just hasn’t woken up to that fact, still being in denial about their own immigration policies…not helped by the BBC which asks them if it was a mistake to open the borders in 2004….problem with that question? It wasn’t a ‘mistake’ it was a deliberate policy done in full knowledge of the consequences. So the BBC’s approach still masks the truth….Labour’s guilt and why the Public disdains them as much as the Tories…or LibDems.
Campbell’s line that it is purely a protest a vote against the Tory ‘toffs’, that it is a vote against out of touch politicians isolated by their wealth and privilege, again masks that truth.
It also conveniently masks the other player in the game…the ‘Kingmaker’ if you like…the BBC….other Media producers are working to the same agenda but it is the publicly funded BBC with a legally binding charter to be impartial, that has a stranglehold on the politics of this country….or rather over the mainstream parties..and thus over policy, if not over what the electorate thinks depsite its best efforts to manage the message we get.
The BBC are just as guilty as the politicians in dismissing the Public concern about immigration and Europe….how often were we told by a BBC journalist that ‘immigration and Europe just aren’t issues of major concern with the Public’.
That changed today….we’re now being told by the BBC that ‘One thing that came through is that immigration is a major issue.’
Who’d of thought?
How long will that last? Not long.
Already Labour are spinning against the vote…Ed Balls telling us that it was a protest vote and that there will be no change in their policy towards Europe and a referendum….carry on regardless.
I couldn’t tell you what Cameron said because as soon as he started talking and the platitudes tumbled out my eyes glazed over…of course there is a clear message from the vote…lessons must be learnt…..trust in me…..
Two weeks from now the weaselly equivocations will be tripping off their tongues….yes immigration is a concern but you know what….and Europe? Well, of course we must get back some of our powers but Europe’s so important to us….and a referendum…I’ve promised you that…and you shall have it….an in/in referendum…trust in me…..
People who voted UKIP aren’t voting against toffs and old Etonians…they’re actively voting for policies they want to see implemented….policies that the BBC has campaigned against for years…and admits itself that it hasn’t covered either subject with due diligence and balance.
The reason all Parties have similar lines on immigration and Europe is because the ‘Kingmaker’ has forced it upon them… particularly upon the Tories who, under Cameron’s slippery control, changed their policies so as not to appear the ‘nasty party’ of legend…..step out of line and you’re a racist or a backward little englander.
The BBC naturally are not keen to admit their part in the Downfall of the political elite….nor of its attempt to demonise UKIP.
One thing we haven’t haven’t heard on the BBC today in relation to this is a single word said about the Media’s blitz against UKIP over the last two weeks….and yet it was massive and of huge import….to ignore it and sweep it under the carpet is highly dishonest of the BBC.
We had a political party working in concert with a newspaper to spread smears about UKIP, a radio interviewer spreading malicious gossip as fact, many newspapers that supported UKIP’s world view suddenly turned and began labelling such views as racist joining forces with those who naturally oppose UKIP already, and of course many, many examples of the BBC’s black arts aimed at subverting the UKIP message.
You might have thought that would be one of the telling narratives of these elections…..the determination of all parties and just about every branch of the Media to unite against the common enemy…the ‘enemy’ that in all likelihood is more in touch with the views of the majority of the Public than any other party or group….the politicians and the Media against the people.
Guess that’s not a narrative that the BBC cares to air….especially as it is the BBC that is driving the bandwagon.
I’m on the Jon Gaunt radio show tomorrow morning at 11.20am discussing the Jasmine Lawrence debacle. A quick reminder..
Jasmine Lawrence, a channel editor at BBC News, has been removed from playing any part in the corporation’s coverage of the European and local council elections after tweeting a derogatory comment about Ukip. Lawrence, who has now shut her Twitter account, posted a tweet on Wednesday that said: “#WhyImVotingUkip – to stand up for white, middle class, middle aged men w sexist/racist views, totally under represented in politics today.” The tweet was posted the day before the local and European elections, which the BBC is covering for the first time from studios at its Hertfordshire home in Elstree, following moving out of Television Centre in West London. Lawrence subsequently deleted her account but the corporation has taken the incident seriously and launched an investigation.
Lawrence was plainly showing her bias and for that reason alone she should be SACKED, not just taken off news coverage whilst this is a hot potato for the BBC. And it cuts to the chase of the entire issue of the BBC. I can FULLY understand why she has a viewpoint and she has a right to express it. However, and this is the kicker, in doing so she betrays the visceral bias that lies at the heart of SO MANY within the BBC and therey validates our call for the BBC to be stripped of its right to take our cash through the license tax to fund this bias. My view is she should be allowed to say what she wants BUT not at my expense. So the BBC either enforces total neutrality or accepts it is institutionally biased and allows the free market to take a view on this via a subscription fee or suchlike? Your thoughts?
Here’s one to focus comments on BBC coverage of the local council and European elections. I sat up and watched the early coverage from the BBC last night, and I thought it was ok but this morning, on Today, they were busy pushing the “protest and angry” voter line. Over to you….
Well, here you go, a brand new shiny Open Thread to see us off into the weekend. Enjoy
