The BBC give Labour a free pass as they propagate their ‘research’:

School places: Labour warns of primary school ‘crisis’ in England

One in four councils believe there is a “real crisis in primary school places” looming for this September in England, according to Labour’s shadow education secretary.

But why is there this ‘crisis’?

Could it be that it is Labour who created it by flinging open the borders and generously offering the world a free education?

Yes I think it might be…but not because the BBC mentions that….didn’t mention it in 2013 either when Labour again were allowed to get away with dodging the blame…..they mentioned this:

The demand for places has been driven by the birth rate rising more quickly than at any time since the 1950s.

….but not why the birthrate has shot up….or that immigrants bring in their children as well….though there is this clue:

London has the greatest need, accounting for 37% of the extra primary places required, according to the NAO.

London, with a massive inflow of immigrants.

The Telegraph tells the truth:

Competition has been intensified by a rise in the birth rate combined with an influx of migrants.

The BBC is quick to mention immigration in regard to education when it suits their pro-immigration agenda:

Immigration rhetoric putting off overseas students – peers

Not getting a school place for your child is not the only cost of mass immigration……another being the actual financial cost of this huge swamping/exploitation of the education system…

Highest ever number of school staff

The number of teachers and support staff working in England’s state schools has risen to a record level of 1.3 million people.

These annual census figures show there are about 220,000 more full-time-equivalent teaching and assistant posts in schools compared with 2005.

Essentially the cost of all those new recruits on the public payroll is the result of immigration.

Say £10,000 a year each, a very conservative estimate….that’s £2 billion every year just on the wages….never mind new classrooms or schools, free school meals, books, interpreters and so on.

But the BBC continues to give us a onesided narrative that immigration is hugely beneficial to us.

Having a mooch through the Feedback site I see Roger Bolton has a few thoughts on the internal workings of the BBC such as this about Woman’s Hour:

As you well know BBC programmes are supposed to be impartial but I’m not sure if that can be said of Woman’s Hour, at least when it comes to feminism. Woman’s Hour is in fact a powerful advocate for women’s empowerment.

Then there was this:

Feedback: Presenters’ views about the BBC

Bolton’s comments on this must have made him popular with his colleagues:

Presenters like John Humphrys are now on the staff. Should they be silent?

I will try and say something controversial on the issue.

It is this…..

Don’t take too much notice of what presenters say because most don’t know much about the issues involved.

I speak as someone who has been on both sides of the fence, a former BBC executive (dispensed with in politically sensitive times) as well as a presenter.

The latter are primarily performers, preoccupied with the content of the programmes they are presenting. If they have a strong journalistic background they probably think most management is a waste of time and see its representatives as roadblocks to be driven around.

Many know little, and care less, about budgets, training and other issues. So don’t pay too much attention to them, or me.

BBC executives are, of course, self-interested when discussing the future of the organisation that feeds and clothes them, but many do care passionately about the BBC and public service broadcasting. Some presenters are just self-centred.

Wonder if Bolton got any ‘feedback’ on that.

Just heard the BBC’s David Jordan, Director of Editorial Policy and Standards, (getting around a lot these days) telling Feedback on R4 that the BBC is ‘eternally grateful’ for audience feedback and complaints…it helps them make better programmes.

Away you go!

Also on Feedback complaints about the smutty or downright obscene nature of a comedy programme, Down the line, broadcast at 18:30

Apparently mentions of gay sex, slags and tarts, prostitutes, masturbation and so on, shocked a few listeners….

‘….is the 6.30pm comedy slot really the place for jokes about group sex on Hampstead Heath, brothels and sex workers?’

The BBC’s response…..well, audiences should realise it’s cutting edge comedy and there may be some explicit content.

Which makes you wonder what they were thinking here:

The BBC has been accused of being too “embarrassed” and “Victorian” to cover public health issues properly, after it emerged that an interview about breastfeeding was edited to avoid mentioning nipples.

 

Earlier this year the current affairs programme BBC Breakfast covered a story about tongue-tie – a serious congenital condition that affects up to 10 per cent of babies.

The condition makes it difficult for the child to attach properly to its mother’s breast, and sore or damaged nipples are the number one symptom used by medical practitioners to diagnose the problem.

BBC Breakfast covered the story throughout the morning on 18 February, but when an interviewee mentioned that nipples could become damaged and bleeding they were asked to redo their answer because the content was too “graphic”.

Suzanne Barber, a midwife and chair of the Association of Tongue-tie Practitioners, told The Independent that the incident was an example of the BBC’s “Victorian attitude” to matters of public health.

“The BBC’s embarrassment means the breast remains the preserve of sex and titillation, rather than child rearing or public health,” she said.

Ms Barber said that while it was good to see the issue of tongue-tie covered at all, the “very generalised” discussion undermined the BBC’s role as a public service broadcaster.

“It didn’t really give a full picture of the enormity of the problems women face, so many of the concerns were played down or outright dismissed.”

 

 

 

That is a minor example of the BBC attitude…..quietly avoiding topics that it thinks would upset the status quo or common decency.

Here it possibly results in mothers or even doctors not diagnosing a problem because the connection between a damaged nipple and a babies medical problem is not made.

In other cases such as Europe, immigration or Islam there are far more serious and wide ranging problems which could result from the BBC’s reluctance to examine  issues fully due to its ‘fear of adding to a ‘right wing’ narrative’ and making immigrants feel unwelcome etc…whatever that is.

 

The BBC says:

“We always think very carefully about the language and images we use and the BBC has guidelines we follow depending on the context of a story and when and where it is being aired.”

 

 

 

 

‘ …a sobering and disturbing tale, and a reminder that intelligence and a lifelong devotion to “truth” is no protection whatever against believing that the most brutal, stupid, dangerous and unethical ideology is the greatest achievement of mankind.’  Philosophy’s shameful love

Three examples of where the BBC reports something in a different way depending on what ‘narrative’ it is trying to push…..

Firstly….

The BBC’s Matt McGrath was quick to try an exploit a report from the GWPF and turn it to his advantage….despite, when you read it, there being little in its contents that bare much resemblance to claims made in McGrath’s imaginative report.

McGrath preferring to massage the truth in favour of his own ideological prejudices has by comparison completely ignored another report by the GWPF and Michael Gove’s response.

The Daily Mail does report events:

Heads are breaking the law if they preach eco agenda, warns Gove: Education Secretary’s ‘concern’ at report that accuses ‘activist’ teachers

Plans to curb wind turbines onshore will push up electricity bills

Secondly:

When energy firms put up their prices they made a claim that the green levy was a major consideration and burden on them…this was of course pooh pooed by those with vested interests in maintaining the momentum of the green agenda by making fossil fuels more expensive, artificially loading them with extra taxes to make renewables seem cheap….but of course they have to hide the amount of subsidy the renewables get to make that possible.

Helpfully the BBC has long ignored or downplayed the enormous subsidies going to windfarms and other green renewable energy generators.  More often than not fossil fuel or nuclear are pictured as vastly more expensive, not to mention dangerous.

How strange then that the BBC, in the shape of Matt McGrath, is now very concerned about the effect that restricting the building of windfarms will have on energy prices….

Plans to restrict wind farms to seas around Britain will need much larger subsidies from consumers, experts say.

So….not interested in the vast costs of directly funding windfarms when they are being built but suddenly is interested when windfarms aren’t being built…then, oddly, not subsidising them is going to cost us more.

Harrabin joins in the chorus of propaganda for onshore:

Journalism or green lobbying?

Roger Harrabin has a theory...and it is only a theory because he offers no proof (who needs proof when you are on a crusade?)…..Pickles has banned windfarms because of the right wing press…..

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles has staged a minor coup over coalition energy policy.

Conservative newspapers have been demanding a cap on onshore wind farms, but the Lib Dems have refused to agree…..the Liberal Democrats, accused him of playing politics….

However even McGrath doesn’t come up with that fantasy (and the BBC itself has frequently blamed ‘rightwing Tory backbenchers’ for this policy change)……

Newspaper reports suggest that the Conservative Party will include a pledge to limit onshore turbines in next year’s election manifesto.

Long unpopular among some Conservative MPs from rural constituencies, onshore wind turbines appear to have incurred the wrath of the Prime Minister as well.

Which paper does McGrath link to there?…er…the right wing Guardian….

And what does the Guardian say?:

The south-west is home to a large number of onshore windfarms and marginal Tory-Lib Dem seats.

 Asked by the Western Morning News whether plans to curb wind farms would feature in his party’s manifesto, Shapps said: “The wind is moving in a clear direction here.”

Ah…so marginal Tory seats….in other words Tory MPs working the maths out for themsleves unaided by a rabid right wing Press….ban windfarms and get more votes.

Presumably the Western Morning News is not an example of that rabid right wing Press…and yet it is asking questions about a ‘cap’.

Just another example of Harrabin confusing his personal prejudice with news and journalism.

Here Harrabin is more interested in the politics than the facts:

A third example of the BBC’s hypocrisy and the tortured manipulation of the facts to fit their agenda….

China has long been held up as the poster child of the green renewables initiative, despite building a coal power station every week.

China is the new Go-Green Model

We have been told that such developing nations must be allowed to generate massive amounts of CO2 in order that they can industrialise…it’s only fair that they be allowed to catch up with the West.

What’s odd about that is of course that we are frequently told that we have ‘x’ number of months to save the planet…cut CO2 or we will fry.

100 months to save the world

How does that work….a desperate and dangerous time when belching out CO2 is destroying the planet…..and yet China et al are to be allowed to pump out …CO2.

Here’s the latest from the IPCC….

[The IPCC] warns that governments are set to crash through the global CO2 safety threshold by 2030. Humans have tripled CO2 emissions since 1970, it says – and emissions have been accelerating rather than slowing.

Sounds apocalyptic doesn’t it?  And yet…China is the Green’s poster boy for renewables…

…why?  Because to justify allowing China to generate all that CO2 the apologists have to find something to excuse that ‘polluting’ of the planet…..and it is polluting apparently….Harrabin is quite firm in that belief:

[Harrabin should really stop Tweeting]

But back in the UK or the West, the fingers point at, for example, our vehicle use and how polluting that is…….when people suggest China has vastly more vehicles the point is made that that’s OK because when you look at it as cars per head of population China has far fewer cars than Western countries…not more ‘in absolute terms’….so that’s OK.

or is it?

The report, seen by BBC News, warns that transport will become the biggest source of CO2 emissions unless politicians act firmly.

Act firmly…but let China et al have what they want.

Contrast the approach when a climate change advocate is trying to extol the virtues and the capacity of wind energy in China….suddenly the relatively tiny wind generated energy shouldn’t be compared ‘per head’ so to speak, but in absolute terms…and then it is permissible to  compare it to Europe’s own generation capacity…which of course is allegedly smaller…so good for China…….

A more fundamental question is the likely contribution of wind power to China’s insatiable demand for energy.

The most recent figures, for 2012, show that wind only generated 2% of the country’s electricity. Coal, the largest contributor, generated 75%.

However, since China’s total generation is more than that of all European Union countries combined, wind’s percentage is large in absolute terms.

So…hurray…China is leading the world in green renewable energy…er…in absolute terms…not in comparison to the polluting, dirty, filthy fossil fuel energy it actually produces…but never mind ignore that when convenient.

And then maybe not even in ‘absolute terms’….. in the comments to the BBC report someone begs to differ and suggests China is not as productive as the BBC claims:

84.

Roberto Lacal
9th January 2014 – 20:59

Well, hasn’t the BBC been swooning at the visits by Sinn Fein leader Martin McGuinness to a few events with Her Majesty this past week? And the BBC now even comes out with the line that McGuinness WAS indeed  a “former IRA commander”. The curious bit is this; these world class journalists NEVER think to ask just what did he command when he was in a senior position with this terror group. How odd. Almost as if….

It’s not that long ago since Comrade Ed Miliband was pushing the Co-Op bank as the template for all banks. Naturally time has proven him to be disastrously wrong and this morning comes the news that the Co-op Bank has lost £1.3 billion. It has also paid its CEO £2.9m pay package and £1.2m bonus.  And yet, had you tuned into the TODAY programme on BBC Radio 4 this morning just after 7am. you would have heard a surreal attempt to play this catastrophic state of affairs down. Evan Davies (I think) repeated the idea that this scale of loss “had been pretty much as expected” and that the CEO’s massive payout can’t be attacked because he was not in charge when the losses were made. It was an incredible sanitisation of Miliband’s preferred banking model which contrasts so strongly with how the BBC deal with banks such as Barclays. Bias? You can bank on it.

Good Morning everyone. Friday arrives and with it this new OPEN THREAD for your use. Detail the bias here please!

Been looking at Jo Nova’s site and read her thankyou to the likes of Roger Harrabin for their part in her success after winning the ‘Bloggies’ Lifetime Achievement award:

She said:

I’d like to thank especially, the Mainstream Media, without which I would have hardly any traffic. I dedicate this win today to the science journalists in the ABC, BBC, CBC, CBS or CNN, and to Roger Harrabin, Andy Revkin and George Monbiot — all of whom make it so easy for skeptical blogs to flourish. Their promotion of logical fallacies, one-sided reports, and rank name-calling paves the way, en masse for hundreds of thousands of disappointed, thoughtful, inquisitive readers to hunt online for something better.

If science journalists were good scientists or good journalists skeptical blogs would not be one of the largest single categories on the world wide web.

No need to add any more to that really except a reminder that it was climate sceptic websites that pretty much swept the board……

Best European Weblog: Tallbloke’s Talkshop tallbloke.wordpress.com—
The Weblog Awards (@Bloggies) March 31, 2014

Best Canadian Weblog: Small Dead Animals smalldeadanimals.com—
The Weblog Awards (@Bloggies) March 31, 2014

Best Weblog About Politics: The Global Warming Policy Foundation thegwpf.org—
The Weblog Awards (@Bloggies) March 31, 2014

Best Topical Weblog: Climate Audit climateaudit.org—
The Weblog Awards (@Bloggies) March 31, 2014

Best Group or Community Weblog: Watts Up With That? wattsupwiththat.com—
The Weblog Awards (@Bloggies) March 31, 2014

Lifetime Achivement: JoNova joannenova.com.au—
The Weblog Awards (@Bloggies) March 31, 2014

Weblog of the Year: Watts Up With That? wattsupwiththat.com See you next year!—
The Weblog Awards (@Bloggies) March 31, 2014

 

 

More evidence of the baleful effect of the BBC upon our world……using research gathered by the BBC politicians are out to ban the humble baked bean from the world.

Yet another attack on the working man’s pleasure by the champagne socialists of the BBC liberali….whilst it’s left to the ‘out of touch’ Tories to support the bingo playing, beer drinking, baked bean feasting working man.

A hereditary peer has asked the government if it takes into account flatulence caused by baked beans in its climate-change calculations.

Labour’s Lord Simon said: “In a programme some months ago on the BBC it was stated that this country has the largest production of baked beans and the largest consumption of baked beans in the world.”

To laughter from peers, he added: “Could the noble baroness say whether this affects the calculation of global warming by the government as a result of the smelly emission resulting there from?”

They’ve hounded out of existence the populist News of the World, they’re trying to ban page three, they want to ban your motors, whatever next?  The TV?

Oh…er…maybe not.

Have no fear bean munchers….science has come to the rescue…..utilising the gaseous virtues of the baked bean to drive your vehicle….so saving not just the baked bean but the car as well from the menace of the green meanies after your beanies…..

Time for a new one…floor is yours….