Tony Hall clearly has no control over the direction of travel the BBC takes politically….how can he claim impartiality is in the BBC’s DNA when it’s prime time current affairs programmes are stuffed full of people with quite obvious leftwing tendencies?

Guido reveals that Newsnight has, unbelievably?, hired a Labour stooge as its economics editor:

Newsnight Hire Pro-Labour TUC Wonk as Economics Editor

TUC’s senior economist Duncan Weldon has been hired as Flanders replacement. Weldon is a former Labour Party staffer who has blogged for the Fabian Society, Left Foot Forward and written a series of posts praising Labour politicians and attacking the Tories on LabourList. If that were not enough he also writes regularly for Owen Jones’ launched and Unite-funded CLASS think tank. Guido looks forward to his fair and balanced reporting…

BBC sources say that it would be unfair to blame the former Guardian deputy-editor Ian Katz who is now Newsnight’s editor for the hire as James Harding (ex-Times editor) signs off the hires. Katz seems sensitive to complaints about the politics of Newsnight:

@MediaGuido Excellent work!…thought it would take you longer to expose whole conspiracy—
Ian Katz (@iankatz1000) March 14, 2014

 

The BBC is the major news source for the majority of people in this country and therefore holds a particularly powerful and influential position…..and therefore should be held all the more rigorously to its charter and legal obligations to be impartial.

That clearly isn’t happening.

There is hardly a day go by without a Union representative, a Charity worker or a Labour politician being given airtime for some grievance against the government which then dominates the news agenda for that day, managing to paint a picture of destitution and ruination spreading across the nation despite an economy on the up, employment rising and inflation falling.

What to do with a dishonest BBC?  Keep sacking the DGs until they get a grip (unlikely with the hopelessly untrustworthy BBC Trust in charge)…or take them to court….after all it is a legal obligation to be impartial not merely a nice to have thing that can be disregarded if it doesn’t suit.

First Bob Crow, now Tony Benn. It’s been a tough week for the comrades at the BBC. The floor is yours…

Nick Robinson has a present for Ed Balls

Nice bit of a puff for Balls….nothing too rigorous from Robinson….just enough to allow Balls to paint the pretty pictures:

Ed Balls ‘daunted’ by chancellor task

Ed Balls has told me that he is “daunted” at the prospect of becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer, given the scale of cuts a future Labour government may have to make.

“I’m daunted, because it’s going to be such a task with the deficit we’ll inherit.”

“I think David Cameron and George Osborne look so out of touch – they don’t understand what’s going on in Britain. I do. We do. We’ve been there and in the future we’ll sort things out for people.”

Nothing like an easy going journalist in the camp to make getting your message across so much easier.

The BBC were fast to keep hyping Miliband’s energy price freeze…..not so quick to report something that may well provoke a furious reaction from consumers…especially as the blame can be laid squarely at Miliband’s door….the man who impoverished us while subsidising his mates in the green industries.

The Telegraph reports this from ‘Which’:

Energy bills may rise by £600 a year

Cost of building power stations, replacing grids and erecting wind farms will add £640 a year to household bills, Which? consumer group warns Treasury

Meanwhile the BBC chooses to ignore that and report this from ‘Which’:

Energy bills ‘still confusing’, says Which?

The BBC once again laying into Big Business and hiding stuff that doesn’t play to the green agenda.

Biased BBC likes not just to amuse and amaze occasionally but also aims to inspire its readers….so if you’re starting to feel you’ve spent too much time couch potatoing here’s something to either scare the hell out of you or get you moving….if only to the fridge for another beer…..

and one more just because…..enjoy…

The BBC is quick to air grievances expressed about groups lobbying politicians…say the food industry or energy companies…but it seems they aren’t immune to a bit of arm twisting as they go nuclear to defend their gravy train license fee…..as Douglas Carswell points out in The Empire Strikes Back:

The magnificent Andrew Bridgen MP has tabled an amendment to the Deregulation Bill to make non-payment of the BBC license fee a civil, rather than a criminal offence. And quite right, too.

Now the £3.6 billion a year BBC empire has struck back.

In an unintentionally funny “briefing note” sent to naughty MPs minded to back the amendment, the BBC complains that “the BBC cannot turn off services for those who do not pay the licence fee”.

A ‘briefing note’ to MPs?

Perhaps, just like Prince Charle’s letters as demanded by the Guardian, we should be allowed to see all BBC ‘briefing notes’ to politicians….independent?  My backside.

Did you know that Miliband was going to hold a referendum on Europe?

If not you can’t have been listening to the BBC who trumpeted this apparent fact all day yesterday.

There does seem to be some confusion even amongst BBC journos about the meaning of Miliband’s little pledge.

John Pienaar, surprisingly perhaps,  drew a deep breath and actually criticised Miliband, saying that the….

‘Ed Miliband promise is extraordinarily tangled and is not meant to mean what it seems to mean’.

He later went on to say that Miliband’s plan was ‘incoherent’.

Contrast that with Nick Robinson who seems to lean ever more Labourwards these days:

Labour and Europe – is that clear now?

Robinson tells us that the message Miliband wants to get over is:

A message of reassurance to big business that a future Labour government will, unlike the Tories, not put Britain’s EU membership at risk.

At the same time, a message of reassurance to the wider electorate that no further powers will be given to Brussels without them getting a say in a referendum.

Is it though? That all sounds a bit pat and thought out.  Isn’t the message purely one that Miliband wants to stay in Europe and has taken it upon himself to make that decision….by himself….dodging the inconvenient problem of allowing the ‘People’ to have their democratic say on this weighty matter.

Miliband wants his cake and to eat it….stay in Europe but also give the diminishing hope of that long promised referendum that so many people want…..and thereby maybe win over a few gullible voters.

Robinson tells us that:

The result is nuanced and will be torn into by the Tories and their friends in the press who will claim there is now a simple choice between those who will guarantee you an in/out vote and those who won’t.

‘Nuanced’?  No it’s not, its quite clear as said….Miliband, the millionaire elitist, has decided the people get no vote.

As for the ‘Tories and their friends in the press’ comment…guess we know where Robinson is coming from here…..the tone of that suggesting any criticism of Miliband is ill-founded based on political prejudice rather than the fact Miliband has made a huge error….as Labour man Dan Hodges [Tory friend in the Press?] admits:

Ed Miliband hasn’t shown strength over Europe. He’s lost control of the narrative

Yesterday, watching Ed Miliband’s shambolic Euro referendum announcement, it finally occurred to me. Labour has no narrative. Or rather, it has no coherent narrative. And the elements of a narrative it does have bear absolutely no relation to reality.

Labour has no clarity of vision. That’s why there’s no settled narrative. There’s nothing to build a narrative around.

“We’re still just casting about,” one Labour MP fold me yesterday. “Cost of Living’s been tried and dumped. The Squeezed Middle’s been tried and dumped. Watch. There’s going to be a bit on child care and a bit on housing and then he’s going to run back to health. And when the Labour leader circles the wagons around the NHS you know the game’s up.”

Robinson was clearly reading the runes wrong and then he rounds off with this:

[Miliband] will invite voters to choose between a government led by David Cameron which he’ll claim would be obsessed with Europe and riven by splits over it and one led by him which would focus on what most people care about more – the economy, living standards and the NHS.

Odd how any BBC analysis always manages slip in critical comments about the Tories (obsessed with Europe…riven by splits) whilst Labour is associated with the good stuff….NHS, building the economy (ha ha ha) and living standards.

‘A 2009 poll by Gallup found that British Muslims have zero tolerance towards homosexuality. “None of the 500 British Muslims interviewed believed that homosexual acts were morally acceptable,” the Guardian reported in May that year.’  Mehdi Hasan

Dan Hodges in the Telegraph asks:

Why did the BBC censor a debate about gay Muslims?

The programme was conducting a live debate last night in the Birmingham Mosque, in which people are invited to submit video clips on various current affairs issues, which are then debated by an invited panel.

One of the questions was from Asifa Lahore, who self-describes as “Britain’s first and only gay Muslim drag queen”. The question Asifa wanted answered was: “When will it be accepted to be Muslim and gay?”

The question was shown, and then just as the panel appeared to be preparing to debate the issue, the BBC presenter Rick Edwards announced, “We were going to debate that question but today after speaking to the mosque they have expressed deep concerns with having this discussion here… so we’ll move on to our next question.”

The program is called “Free Speech”. Its website boasts that “Britain is a democracy where we can say what we want. So let’s say it”.

Let’s say it? Let’s say it unless you’re a gay Muslim appearing on the BBC.

Dan Hodges obviously never watches the BBC  [As indicated by this article: The BBC isn’t anti-Tory. It’s anti-government] as he finishes with this:

It’s not the BBC’s job to pander to censorship or prejudice. The corporation has some serious explaining to do.

And as Raheem Kassam noted:

No one batted an eye-lid. Even amongst the predominantly ‘liberal left’ panel, no one said a word. Not the Liberal Democrat peer, not the Huffington Post editor, not the left-wing comedian, and not even the transgender rights activist.

All appeasers and apologists….the old cultural cringe….or as ‘Jim Watford’ says in the comments to Kassam’s article:

From the Telegraph at 18:42:

David Cameron condemns ‘barbaric’ missile attack on Israel

Prime Minister David Cameron condemns “indiscriminate” attack as 50 missiles from Gaza Strip fired into southern Israel during official visit

David Cameron tonight condemned a “barbaric” missile attack on Israel that struck on the first day of his visit to the country.

From the BBC at 18:56, their Frontpage report:

Prime minister’s belief in Israel ‘unbreakable’

Way, way down at the bottom the BBC manages to refer to the barrage:

In front of the assembled members of the press Mr Cameron condemned rocket attacks from Gaza which Mr Netanyahu had referred to in his opening remarks of the news conference.

And that was that….no quotes about barbaric indiscriminate targeting of civilians and children.

The BBC does deign to give us a further report, at 22:15…tucked away in the world news as a small headline….this is what they tell us Cameron said:

British Prime Minister David Cameron, on a visit to Israel, condemned the rocket attack.

“They are a reminder once again of the importance of maintaining and securing Israel’s future and the security threats that you face, and you have Britain’s support in facing those security threats,” he said.

And that was that….no quotes about barbaric indiscriminate targeting of civilians and children.

Bit quicker off the ball reporting an Israeli air response….as I type at 23:32:

Israeli planes hit Gaza in response to rocket strikes

Funnily enough that makes it to the Frontpage unlike the rocket barrage.

This though does feature on the Frontpage in a large box of its own:

Features

Suburbia to Syria

The Briton who drove a truck bomb into a prison

On 6 February, Abdul Waheed Majeed, from Crawley in West Sussex, drove a truck bomb into the gates of a prison in Syria. Does his death represent everything that the government fears about radicalisation on a foreign battlefield?

But was he a violent jihadist, just waiting for his chance – either at home or abroad?

“My brother was not a terrorist. My brother was a hero,” says Hafeez Majeed.

“If I could put it like this, if my brother had been a British soldier and there were British people in that prison, I know he would have been awarded the posthumous Victoria Cross.

“My brother paid the full price with his life for what he did. He was not a threat to the British public and never has been a threat to the British public.”

The BBC…you can rely on it to glorify and excuse the Jihadists.

It’s fun watching the bank held up by Labour as the modern template for ethical and efficient banking – The Co-Op- described as “ungovernable” by its departing CEO. It’s also a tricky one for the comrades at the BBC who are usually so KEEN to get stuck into the “banksters” The default mode seems to be report this as best they can but just ignore the VERY close links between this corrupt and failed Bank and Labour.