Playing Politics With The Floods II

 

This from Bishop HIll:

EA working with Labour against government?

Inside the Environment Agency is reporting that he has received a letter from a potential whistleblower who claims to have evidence that Agency officials are conspiring with the Labour party to undermine the government.

I have been following your blog for the last few months. You make some truthful claims but they are only the tip of the iceberg. I have been working for the Environment Agency as a team leader for six years. Your last post on political hypocrisy is what has prompted this email. I can give you the evidence you need showing senior managers in the South West conspiring with Labour MPs to discredit this government over the past two to three years, which I believe have made the floods far worse than they otherwise would have been. The MPs involved are: xxxxx (edited out for legal reasons – Labour MPs based in South West towns and cities)

There’s always the possibility that it’s not true, but it might be worth laying in supplies of popcorn, just in case.

 

 

Wonder when the BBC will start investigating that one….surely an incredibly serious charge that needs looking at?

 

But then you have to ask is the BBC itself in collusion with Labour?

The BBC has deliberately ignored lies from Labour Peer Chris Smith about the Environment Agency’s policies and their advice to government….and indeed actually aided and abetted in the Evan Davis interview in which Davis pretended to ‘corner’ Smith with a question about the Agency’s policies but used an out of date document which Smith could bat aside when Davis could have gone to the Agency’s own website and found the current document which said the same as the ‘old document’…and proved Smith a liar when he claimed no knowledge of it….Harrabin also miraculously fails to locate the current document….which for a specialist Environmental journalist might be thought strangely lax,

The BBC also kicked off a serious falling out between the Coalition partners caused by Labour supporter Jim Naughtie’s interview with Sally Morgan, head of Ofsted in which she made unfounded and confused  accusations that she had been removed from office purely because she was a Labour supporter.

The interview, such as it was, was a lightweight affair with Naughtie paying only lip service to the notion of an actual ‘interview’ which challenged Morgan’s claims…and in fact ended with Naughtie carrying on her narrative suggesting that this was very serious and surely something must be done….’if true’.

The BBC of course utterly failed to look back a few years and compare Labour’s record in office of packing these NGO’s and Quangos with its own supporters with what is now claimed the Tories are doing.

 

 

 

 

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174 Responses to Playing Politics With The Floods II

  1. Mice Height says:

    I heard Emily ‘I’m-so-obese-that-the-rolls-of-fat-have-almost-forced-my-eyes-to-stay-constantly-shut’ Thornberry, refer to those who don’t unquestioningly swallow the nonsense spouted by the AGW lobby, as ‘climate deniers’!? Yep, we deny the very existence of a climate now!
    These people get more absurd by the day.

    Here’s a nice comparison of what we were told would happen, compared to what real-life observations tell us has actually happened
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/02/10/95-of-climate-models-agree-the-observations-must-be-wrong/

       42 likes

    • agentsmith says:

      Actually the IPCC forecasts have been pretty consistent. The report looks at air temperature not a combination of air and sea temperature. The way that these two fluids interact is complex but recent research has demonstrated that persistent trade winds have caused the oceans to warm faster by taking energy from the air.
      When the trade winds calm down the water will then relinquesh heat back into the air.
      There is a lot of science out there which if properly understood would limit the number of illconcieved and misplaced agression to climate science. I am amazed that climate change deniers are currently taking pot shots at the internationally esteemed EA for not planning for something that is apparently not happening. But as they say in Tory world ignorance is bliss.

         5 likes

      • DICK R says:

        The IPCC forecasts have consistently been proven to be fraudulent garbage!

           64 likes

        • johnnythefish says:

          You’re wasting your time with this BBC plant. He spouts warmist garbage over and over again and is in complete denial over the lack of warming over the last 16 years. He avoids inconveniently factual challenges to his shallow understanding of global warming theory and his choice of language gives him away as a dyed-in-the-wool alarmist.

          Ignore the little wind-up prat, else you’ll find you’re repeating yourself till you’re blue in the face (example below).

             16 likes

        • AgentSmith says:

          By whom?

             2 likes

      • Oldbob says:

        Just who are these “deniers” that you refer to ?

        The climate has always changed and always will, who deny’s this ?

        Is man contributing to this and if so to what extent ?

        Fact:
        co2 is a greenhouse gas and contributes to warming

        Fact:
        There has been no statistically significant increase in global temperature for 17 years and counting, yet natural and man made co2 out put has increased year on year. How much of the man made c02 output has increased the temperature and by how much in the last 17 years and why has the overall temperature not increased ? How has this man made element of the increase affected the climate and how is this demonstrated ?

           28 likes

        • agentsmith says:

          sea temperature

             4 likes

          • Arthur Penney says:

            Really – why hasn’t the sea temperature been increasing before and stopping the ‘global warming’.

            And before you mention ‘trade winds’ – can you priovide a scientifically accurate method for the transfer of heat from the winds (99%+ are well above water level) into the water. (Bearing in mind that warm water is less dense than cold water (above 4C anyway)?

               26 likes

            • AgentSmith says:

              The sea is warming and has been warming but since the specific heat capacities of air and water are different so too will be the rate of heating. The key undeniable fact is that Co2 will trap IR radiation. The more Co2 the more heat is trapped. The planet venus is a classic example of this mechanism with a surface temperature of around 600 degrees. This is basic undeniable physics. If you heat something and the heat cant dissipate the object will get hotter.
              As we increase the Co2 the world will get hotter; that is just scientific fact. Where the heat goes will be down to fluid mechanics initially .Ultimately it will be impossible for the heat to remain stored without reradiating to the atmosphere.

              As to height above sea level consider the current effects of the jet stream on UK weather. The jet stream is up to 16 Km in height. In contrast the trade winds are at the lower point of the troposphere around 2km in altitude

              The mechanism is found in this link
              http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/37930724-917a-11e3-adde-00144feab7de.html#axzz2tHbjt4he

              I havent had time to look at the actual paper but if its seems the rapid churn caused by air movement provides greater sea absorbability at the equator.

                 1 likes

              • johnnythefish says:

                ‘The more Co2 the more heat is trapped’

                Now you’re just being silly.

                ”Scientists note that geologically speaking, the Earth is currently in a ‘CO2 famine’ and that the geologic record reveals that ice ages have occurred when CO2 was at 2000 ppm to as high as 8000 ppm. In addition, peer-reviewed studies have documented that there have been temperatures similar to the present day on Earth when carbon dioxide was up to twenty times higher than today’s levels’

                http://www.climatedepot.com/2013/05/14/co2-nears-400-ppm-relax-its-not-global-warming-end-times-but-only-a-big-yawn-climate-depot-special-report/

                Now you enjoy your Friday night and raise a glass of your favourite tipple to the fact the earth isn’t heading for catastrophe and we can all rest easy in our beds after all, including our precious children and grandchildren who have been driven into a state of fear and despair by AGW zealots like yourself (you can apologise to us later – it’s ok, we understand).

                   5 likes

                • AgentSmith says:

                  Yes the more Co2 the higher the temperature. Not Silly. Agreed for CO2 there is a logarithmic relation between CO2 concentration and radiative forcing but this is well understood and in most of the IPCC reports. The physics of Venus which has a very high albedo due to Co2 clouds is an example of classic global warming. I will check the website link and read over the weekend if I get a chance and as long as the contrived date of 1998 isnt mentioned.

                     0 likes

          • Oldbob says:

            Sea temperature, what ?

               9 likes

          • johnnythefish says:

            Sea temperature?

            Strange, I posted on that in a previous thread. Not read it yet or just unable to answer?

            Here’s a reminder:

            (You said:) ‘As for no warming for 17 years I’m not youve been looking at the sea recently which have experienced warming’

            And how have they measured that ‘warming’ given the ability to record deep ocean temperatures with any kind of accuracy did not become possible until the Argo Project, completed in 2007?

            http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/13/comments-on-stefan-rahmstorfs-post-at-realclimate-what-ocean-heating-reveals-about-global-warming/

            I think you’ll find the warmist/environmentalists are qualifying their claim with a ‘probably’ – in other words, just another desperate kite-flying theory to try to explain why their first one was a crock of crap.

            ——————–

            Your reply would be appreciated.

               16 likes

            • AgentSmith says:

              Not read until now. Try this.
              http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/37930724-917a-11e3-adde-00144feab7de.html#axzz2tHbjt4he

              If you have counter evidence lets hear/see it. Just saying its crap is just meaningless. Stick some facts/ideas up up then a grown up conversation can begin.

                 2 likes

              • johnnythefish says:

                When did I say it was crap?

                I just let the inconvenient facts like the Argo project speak for themselves.

                So – the ‘science’ settled yet is it, or are there going to be more ‘heat mysteriously disappears to……’ and four years later they come up with yet another theory.

                And as for ‘grown up’ – just continue with the baby mantras and whop knows, you might be on nursery rhymes soon.

                   5 likes

                • johnnythefish says:

                  Sorry, forgot the link:

                  ‘The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the bureaucratic agency which appropriated the role of arbiter of things climatic, has advanced a theory for the lack of warming since the turn of the century:’

                  http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/13/co2-and-ceres/

                  ‘The observed reduction in warming trend over the period 1998–2012 as compared to the period 1951–2012, is due in roughly equal measure to a cooling contribution from internal variability and a reduced trend in radiative forcing (medium confidence). The reduced trend in radiative forcing is primarily due to volcanic eruptions and the downward phase of the current solar cycle. However, there is low confidence in quantifying the role of changes in radiative forcing in causing this reduced warming trend.’

                  Laugh a minute. Keep ’em coming.

                     3 likes

      • pah says:

        Not planning for floods? Floods which occur in this Green and Pleasant Land? Why would the land be so green and pleasant I wonder. Is it because it rains here a lot? Does that rain sometimes lead to flooding? Does that flooding become serious every few years?

        I remember numerous occasions over the last 50 years when it has rained incessantly and flooding has occurred. If the EA isn’t planning for flooding in a climate that is world renown for being wet then it knows fuck all about anything.

           43 likes

        • agentsmith says:

          Cash strapping didnt help. I believe the Government rules were only £1 of EA expenditure was allowed if £8 of benifit could be demonstrated. Dredging was limited to £440K This is clearly not a once in 50 year occurance as has been mentioned more than once in these blogs
          This is the reason the Conservatives have been caught out. It doesnt help to have the minister in charge a climate change denier.

             6 likes

          • Arthur Penney says:

            Although of course this rule hasn’t just been brought into existence and dredging has ceased for more than 15 years.

               24 likes

          • Oldbob says:

            I assume you mean Owen Patterson ?……when and where has he denied that the climate has and will continue to change ?

               16 likes

          • Roland Deschain says:

            Ah, yes, Conservative cuts as always. Never anything to do with the policies of greenies or the saintly EU, is it? Look sir, over there, that boy did it!

            You’ll be telling us next you know nothing of the EA’s Policy 6, which put the Somerset Levels in the category of “take action to increase the frequency of flooding”. Strangely unmentioned, as far as I know, on the BBC.

               25 likes

            • johnnythefish says:

              agentsmith will be along shortly to tell us what he would cut instead if spending on the EA, to keep it the second highest-staffed agency in the world next to the US, is to be maintained.

              Unless he believes in money trees.

              And why wouldn’t he after the crap he’s spouted on here in the last few days?

                 14 likes

      • tomski says:

        “the internationally esteemed EA”

        what?

        FFS, now I’ve got to wipe coffee off my PC screen. Please flag up in advance that you are going to make such comments in the future, and I’ll be more carefull with my hot bevarages.

           14 likes

      • Mice Height says:

        The trade wind theory is just another attempt by the alarmists to explain why they’ve been so inaccurate thus far. Unfortunately for them, they’ve rather shot themselves in the foot with this one.
        Of all the write ups on it, these few sentences from a Jo Nova article say the most –

        “Perhaps the trade-winds are affecting the climate. But what drives the trade-winds? The models can’t predict the trade-winds until they understand what drives them. If it turns out to be cloud cover changes, or lunar orbits, or solar magnetic effects, cosmic ray effects, or all of the above… that means there is another whole factor, or lots of them that the models did not include. Every warming factor added to the models reduces the power of CO2 as a driver.”

        http://joannenova.com.au/2014/02/global-wind-excuse-monkey-modeling-shows-global-warming-theory-is-still-not-wrong/

        But as they say in ‘Green’ land, ignorance is the very foundation of our ideology.

           17 likes

        • johnnythefish says:

          Too many inconvenient facts, MH. Don’t expect a reply.

             14 likes

        • Beeboidal says:

          But what drives the trade-winds?

          Don’t know, but global warming used to weaken them . Now we’re told that despite GW, they have strengthened (unprecedentedly, natch) and have caused the hiatus in warming. Confused? Just keep saying ‘the science is settled’. It helps enormously, I’m told.

             7 likes

        • AgentSmith says:

          Need to read your quote not so slowly to realize its nonsense. Lunar orbits !!! LOL
          The basic thing about global warming is energy input versus energy output. More energy in the more an object will heat up until it reaches an equilbrium where it can reradiate that heat. How the body heats up ie whether one side gets hotter first , depends on the characteristics of the body.

             0 likes

          • Mice Height says:

            So you can answer the questions in the post that you think is ‘nonsense’, and you know what drives the trade winds? Thought not.
            We were previously told that global warming weakened trade winds, if you read the WUWT article that Beeboidal has posted.
            I doubt you’ve even read either of the articles in their entirety.
            I’ll get my information from scientists, not some fool who puts ‘LOL’ at the end of sentences.

               3 likes

      • Richard Pinder says:

        agentsmith must be a Labour party Environmentalist, not scientifically qualified, unless he/she is a Met Office moron.

        “Complex” means he/she is ignorant

        “recent research” means he/she is ignorant of scientific papers produced in the 1990’s about deep ocean thermal inertia.

        “warm faster by taking energy from the air” he/she does not know about the laws of thermodynamics as regards the fact that the oceans have a mass 270 times that of the air.

        This seems to be the latest explanation for the pause, produced for the warmist morons, that the heat is missing, but has been found, and will be relinquish back into the air.

        agent smith seems to be confusing this with the recent weather

        The problem is that because cloud albedo is proven to rule climate change, the extra heat was not produced, so is not missing, but they have found an increase in heat at a given depth, which is the thermal inertia related to the global warming period, so it will never return to warm the air because this is against the laws of thermodynamics, and has never happened before, as is proved by evidence for the 800 year deep ocean thermal inertia, as well as the 800 year lag in CO2 level correlations with temperatures, in ice core data.

        But then in UKIP world, knowledge is bliss.

           7 likes

        • AgentSmith says:

          Cloud cover hasnt been proven to do anything actually. The issue of albedo does involve more than clouds. The reflectivity of clouds depends of their altitude. Global warming is likely to reduce the clouds that count. Clouds contain water vapour which is itself a potent greenhouse gas. As to the laws of thermodynamics which one did you have in mind.

          Regarding science background , I feed monkeys in cages . For the other idle speculators, who apparently cannot muster anything in the way of sensible argument, I have no political affiliations and have no connection witht the BBC and have never contributed to any Daily Mail blog.

             2 likes

          • johnnythefish says:

            Keep your fingers in your ears.

            Ignorance is bliss.

            P.S. Is your science ‘settled’ yet then, or are there going to be more ‘look where that pesky heat went!’ moments?

               4 likes

            • AgentSmith says:

              No science is ever settled but science is the only true means of understanding. It also has built the modern world. Carping at the sidelines however has done relatively little.

                 0 likes

  2. Dave s says:

    If true these are serious allegations. There are not that many labour MPS in the South and West of England.
    I still favour an innate inability to comprehend any other view than the liberal world view. This colours everything the liberal thinks and does.
    It is the most insidious form of brainwashing all the more effective for being unconcious.
    It is rife in academia, the arts, media and throughout quangoland. Self reinforcing and fed by fear of not seeming part of the herd.
    It is breaking this country apart and is the main enemy of the true conservative, Never argue with the liberal and never give the liberal a break.
    In the end the liberal is a coward but buttressed by the organs of the increasingly authoritarian state he will not give up his unrealistic world view without a fight.
    The events of the world are what will do for the liberal in the end.

       58 likes

    • agentsmith says:

      Interesting you should mention innate behaviour. Scientific American (about 18 months ago I think) reported on studies of brain scans of those that identified themselves as conservatives and those that identified themselves as liberals.
      It was found in conservatives that the amygdala was larger but in liberals parts of the frontal cortex were larger. The amydala plays a part in the mediation of the stress response which causes the individual to attempt to react to change with the intention of minimising it.
      The frontal cortex however is important in problem solving and allows for the weighing up of differing viewpoints ideas etc in formulating plans and processes.
      Using this anaylsis to plot who has what kind of brain you might find a very interesting pastime. I would suggest for starters people like Gove,Grayling etc are characters who arent interested in weighing up evidence but are rather more interested in pushing ideas with which they feel safe ,even if much of what is being done is falling apart in front of them.

         4 likes

      • Dave s says:

        Gove is an odd character. I find him to be a conservative in denial. In fact the reactions of the unions and the liberal establishment to his proposals would suggest that it is they who fear change not Gove.
        As to the rest of your interesting post I characterise the current liberal world view as the establishment view not as they still think one of a counter culture.
        Liberalism in it’s modern sense is to me a need for change for it’s own sake to somehow bring into existence a world that the liberal desires. That it does not correspond to reality is irrelevant.
        The conservative view is different. It accepts the reality of unpredictable events and of human nature. Then change flows incrementally from a desire to improve our lot on this earth but not from any overarching grand design.
        It also values custom and tradition these things being very much part of what makes us human.

           27 likes

        • agentsmith says:

          Whatever government is in power I think a basic requirement has to be evidence led policy making. I do take your point about conservatism which I total agree with.

             3 likes

          • johnnythefish says:

            ‘Evidence-led policy making…’

            Nice bit of self-mocking irony there, you real-world-temperature-over-the-last-16 years-climate-model-catastrophic-failure denier, you!

               13 likes

      • Manfred VR says:

        Welcome agentsmith to this blog, which I have followed for a number of years.
        I noticed your idiotic posts over the past few days, and have to hand it to you, that you are a very busy troll.
        Over the years, I have seen loads of your type come and go, so please don’t think you are being original or cerebral.
        We have heard it all before.
        I do comment on some other forums, but I only say what I genuinely think; For instance I have posted on the Guardian’s CiF pithy comments like “Cameron is a tosser” and have had loads of ‘likes’ for it.
        I’m no leftie, but I do believe that Cameron is (both a leftie and a tosser), but I can make that statement honestly, because I believe it to be true.
        Your pseudo-intellectual claptrap that you spout, I find difficult to believe is your own thinking. I think it is just you regurgitating the horse shit that you have been indoctrinated with.
        That aside, welcome on board – please rest assured that your posts have given me a lot of hilarity, and have only gone to reinforce my belief that people who are so thick, don’t realise they are thick (Think Harriet Harman) that they trumpet their ignorance in the mistaken belief that they are being respected or taken seriously.
        So keep up your sterling work – you now know that you have a follower who eagerly awaits your next utterance.
        In case you think this is a personal assault, believe me I wish you all the luck in the World, and do hope that one day you will see the light.
        Kind Regards,
        MVR

           36 likes

        • Danny Howard says:

          As a new person to this site, can I ask what the point of a post such as this is? Why the need to insult people? If he is such an idiot then refute his argument.
          I posted earlier a fantastic quote from Mrs Thatcher that has remained with me for years. She said:

          “if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.”

          We will not see her like for a long time.
          Someone else on this site posted this link which I hadn’t seen, and I think is rather good.
          Graham’s Hierarchy of Disagreement
          http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Graham's_Hierarchy_of_Disagreement.svg

             16 likes

          • stewart says:

            Yes our new fearless non-comformist ,conformist got me thinking about this http://www.forum.theodoredalrymple.org/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=2356
            And while looking for version to post
            found this
            http://deconstructingleftism.wordpress.com/2011/07/15/the-leftist-mentality/

               4 likes

            • Wild says:

              As John Ray points out….

              There is little doubt that Leftist and Ant-Leftist brains differ. Leftists seem to have a bit missing where caution should be, and an extra large bit where hatred resides. But the human brain is extremely complex, and even particular parts of it seem to have many functions.

              The findings do show that Left/Right brains differ, but the interpretation put on the results is just word-play. When does “fear” become “caution”, for instance.

              The brain area said to drive “fear” is the amygdala but associating the amygdala with “fear” is ludicrously simplistic. Other research has been interpreted as showing the same area to be associated with greater “sociability”. So it would be equally logical to say that conservatives are more sociable.

              And the anterior cingulate cortex, which is said to be bigger in Leftists, is usually associated with emotion. So Leftists are more emotional! I won’t quarrel with that!

              The research is interesting but hopelessly over-interpreted. All that the interpretations tell you is the politics of those who did the interpreting.

                 27 likes

              • Wild says:

                Danny Howard,

                I get the impression that you are a bit autistic. When agentsmith posts on a site called Biased BBC that people on the Right (most people who post on this site believe that the BBC pushes a Leftist agenda) are “not interested in weighing up evidence” but are more interested in pushing ideas with which they feel safe “even if much of what is being done is falling apart in front of them” he is not seeking to make a constructive contribution to the topic of BBC bias, he is seeking to distract away from the topic of BBC bias (the pro Labour crap shat out by the BBC 24/7) and provoke a hostile reaction.

                   44 likes

                • Danny Howard says:

                  Setting to one side the Graham’s Hierarchy of Disagreement nature of your opening sentence, if agentsmith’s argument is so flawed then explicitly refute his point. How does insulting someone advance an argument.

                  If you believe someone to be a troll then surely the best thing to do is to ignore them, after all provoking a response is the aim of trolls?

                  I don’t think agentsmith is a troll. In the AGW thread he was simply challenging assertions.

                  With regard to Manfred VR’s abusive post – like I said, Mrs Thatcher was very clear on her view of people who resort to insults.

                     7 likes

                  • Wild says:

                    “I don’t think agentsmith is a troll.”

                    Great. Anything to say about BBC bias?

                       26 likes

                    • Danny Howard says:

                      Yes. Plenty on this post.

                         3 likes

                    • Danny Howard says:

                      Yes. Plenty on this post.

                      MIDWEEK OPEN THREAD…..

                         4 likes

                    • agentsmith says:

                      Its bound to have bias but I would regard much of the popular news to be of the same level as the Mail.
                      Much of the bias is in the presentation but as I have said before very little on Climate change, Snowdon and a lot of stops being pulled to denigrate the poor. The biggest issue is IMO that politicians arent really challanged enough but since the BBC is a state channel that is hardly surprising.

                         1 likes

                    • Guest Who says:

                      ‘Yes. Plenty on this post.’
                      When down to single word columns, some things are so good they are still worth writing twice.
                      Fact.

                         6 likes

                  • johnnythefish says:

                    ‘I don’t think agentsmith is a troll. In the AGW thread he was simply challenging assertions.’

                    No he wasn’t. He was regurgitating clapped out AGW mantras ad nauseam and ignoring inconvenient fact-based arguments (thus coincidentally taking up the BBC’s one-sided stance). His use of the playground name-calling ‘climate change denier’ also tells you all you need to know. If ever you needed proof that someone has lost the argument on global warming, it’s when they bring that one into play – which is pretty well 100% of alarmists.

                       9 likes

              • agentsmith says:

                Well of course as you point out the areas in the brain have numerous functions. I thought i was interesting not from the biological point of veiw but whether certain types of thinking can be catagorised in they way they treat reality.
                In UK politics I would suppose there is more commonality than differences.I believe the study I recollect was from the US.

                   2 likes

                • Wild says:

                  It was a British paper – written (amongst others) by a journalist who works for the BBC and a Labour supporting actor.

                  http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822%2811%2900289-2

                     16 likes

                  • agentsmith says:

                    If it came from Current Biology it wouldn’t have been written by any Journalist would it. It would have been written up by the Scientists that did the research and then , I imagine, peer reviewed prior to publication. The fact you have included all this twaddle about the BBC and Labour is very curious. Maybe a brain scan is in order!

                       2 likes

                    • Wild says:

                      Tom Feildman is a BBC journalist

                      Colin Firth is an actor with declared Leftist sympathies.

                      They are (with two others) authors of the above mentioned paper. Try to keep up.

                         17 likes

          • johnnythefish says:

            Dear Danny, please look back at the posts over the last few days, especially this one

            The Science Is Settled, No It Isn’t..Oh..em…It Might Be..Or Not

            then come back and let us know if you think agentsmith is genuinely attempting to engage in debate.

               6 likes

          • Andy S. says:

            Danny, only your user name is new to this site. Your style of writing has a familiar look to it.

               3 likes

        • agentsmith says:

          Well thank you for your welcome. I was sad to see this is all a bit of a one trick club based in the most part entirely of undiluted ideological bildge which is made so much sweeter when everyone agrees with each other. I was hoping to see a site which attempted to objectively deal with the way the BBC treats the news which is in my opinion generally awful. I think Glasgow Uni has a unit which does this but I’m not sure they are that up to date, hence my visit here.
          My first impressions are that this place is a bit like a football crowd after a few pints deleriously repeating the same old mantras. For interest I am not political at all. I really dont care that much. Its pretty obvious how it is all going to end. The clue is in the name.

             4 likes

          • Danny Howard says:

            This is a site is a great example of two logical failings: confirmation bias and affirming the consequent.

            The starting point is not the question “Is the BBC biased?” and then looking for balanced evidence to be able to answer that question. Instead the starting point is the assertion: “The BBC is biased” and then finding evidence that confirms that.

            The logic of most posts is fallacious under AC.
            If P then Q; Q; Therefore P. It sounds good until you realise that if statements are not bidirectional.
            P: If the BBC is biased then
            Q: It will run stories like ‘x’.
            It runs stories like ‘x’ (Q) therefore it is biased. (P)
            By parallel
            P: If it rains, the ground will be wet
            Q: the ground will be wet
            The ground is wet (Q) therefore it rained (P).
            Except maybe a pipe burst, or someone left a tap running, or any other number of reasons.
            The statement is true if, and only if P.

            What I find incredible is that this has been going for a decade. You can’t fault the site for its tenacity, although perhaps not its efficacy.

               7 likes

            • Roland Deschain says:

              As opposed to “we think we got it about right” and then finding evidence which confirms it?

                 19 likes

            • Guest Who says:

              ‘This is a site is a great example of two logical failings’
              Seems alas, Smith and Moans are tripping over each other, and themselves, in the scrabble to get a snipe in every 30″ or, as some may say, PDQ.

                 12 likes

              • Wild says:

                If your example of what an objective effort to examine the way the BBC treats the news looks like is the far left Glasgow Media Studies Group, this rather undermines your claim to be non-political.

                   17 likes

            • AgentSmith says:

              I think the reason this keeps going is that prejudice can reinforce itself in the absence of knowledge whilst weighing up evidence requires greater intellectual rigour.
              Notwithstanding, I am sure this site fulfills a wider social purpose and gives comfort for those wishing to suckle on the breast of collective ignorance.

                 3 likes

              • Wild says:

                “What I find incredible is that this has been going for a decade. You can’t fault the site for its tenacity, although perhaps not its efficacy.”

                Another post with zero content.

                   16 likes

                • Danny Howard says:

                  It has plenty of content. It is an analysis, from a formal logic view point, of the two fundamental, indeed fatal, flaws in the logic of this site.
                  Many of the arguments advanced on this site fail because they are just examples of affirming the consequent.

                  The evidence gathering is likewise flawed because of the huge selection bias involved.

                  And even when posts are proved to be demonstrably false they continue to attract likes suggesting that truth is not an attribute that is highly valued on this site.

                     4 likes

              • Scrappydoo says:

                The tide of contempt for the BBC is growing – It sounds as if beeboids are getting a little more uncomfortable.

                   13 likes

            • Teddy Bear says:

              If you want to speak of ‘logical failings’ you had better make sure you’re on safe ground, otherwise you make yourself appear foolish.

              Mark Thompson, Roger Mosey, Robin Aitken, Peter Sissons, Oliver Latham, Dennis Sewell are a few of the names you might recognise who have confirmed a left wing bias at the BBC.

              What we do here is record the bias as we encounter it. Most times when we are aware of a particular story about a subject where we are well aware of the BBC agenda related to it, we can predict it.

              With the experience we have, we don’t need to ask ‘If the BBC is biased’, which is why the website is titled BIASED BBC.
              Get it?

              Now if you want to give your ‘logical’ 🙄 view as to why the above named are wrong go right ahead. We won’t hold our breath in the meantime. Don’t forget to mention also how you know better than them, just so we can keep things ‘logical’.

                 9 likes

          • johnnythefish says:

            Well please stick with it, gents, for we will rise to the challenge and be calling on you to rebuff what we will undoubtedly consider – given the brilliant track record of this site to date – to be pretty stunning examples of BBC bias over the coming weeks and months.

            But just to show how fair we can be, it’s only right we should give you your chance on some of the historical stuff which has grabbed our attention.

            So, without further ado, your views on how the BBC conducted itself over its secret 28gate meeting – bias, or no?

            (And don’t come the old ‘what’s 28gate?’ – it was plastered all over the press a couple of weeks ago.)

            Away you go, lads, the floor is yours…..

               12 likes

      • DJ says:

        Yes, we all know how the left loves change and different viewpoints, just look how they react to anyone who suggest reforming Al-Beebia….

           19 likes

      • Ember2013 says:

        Wasn’t that the same study that showed liberals were more prone to inventing fiction and groping in places they shouldn’t?

           15 likes

      • johnnythefish says:

        ‘It was found in conservatives that the amygdala was larger but in liberals parts of the frontal cortex were larger. The amydala plays a part in the mediation of the stress response which causes the individual to attempt to react to change with the intention of minimising it.’

        Well, arrogant leftist academics who know better than the rest of us would say that wouldn’t they?

        Meanwhile, in the real world (a concept the liberal left seem to struggle with), the programme of change under Margaret Thatcher blows their theory apart.

        Next!

           5 likes

      • Scrappydoo says:

        Agent Smith – you forgot one thing in your analasys of different brain scans and possible resulting political sympathies. In a democracy, if enough people are of a certain opinion then their opinion should count. There is a part of lefty brains that does not seem to work at all when it comes to a understanding democracy.

           7 likes

      • Richard Pinder says:

        I have an IQ of 164, support UKIP, and want very radical changes to Britain, such as leaving the EU, and replacing the House of Lords with an internet based system of Direct Democracy, where the people can propose bills as well as vote for or against House of Commons Bills.

        I don’t think that the middle-class morons who vote the same way as people in inner city shit holes, would like that.

        The BBC moron cannot cope with “differing viewpoints ideas” so they censor.
        The BBC moron calls this monitoring.

           2 likes

    • Pongo says:

      So being conservative is no longer just a difference in belief, it is in fact a mental pathology? Using ‘science’ to suggest your opponents are biologically inferior sounds like a tactic worryingly reminiscent of how a certain political party from the 1930s spoke about a religious group form the bible.

         9 likes

      • Richard Pinder says:

        Don’t worry, I remember reading in the Mensa magazine many years ago (Thatcher years), that the membership was overwhelmingly Tory, but then the idea that poor people who live in Labour constituencies are cleverer than rich people who live in Tory constituencies, does seem to contradict common sense as regards a meritocracy where the best people live in the nicest areas with the best schools and the cleverest pupils.

        This reminds me about national socialism, which placed the Jews at the bottom of the intellectual pile, this contradicts all IQ studies, that put the Jews at the top of the intellectual pile.

        The same contradictory phenomena seems to be apparent in the minds of present day socialists.

        (1) They hate people who are more intelligent than themselves, so they call them thick.
        (2) They like people who are less intelligent than themselves, so they praise them as being clever.

        They are unable to understand the concept that someone they do not like could be more intelligent than themselves, hence, you find that even left-wing academics produce papers based on selected and closely related correlations, which do not use statistics based on Boolean logic.

           5 likes

      • AgentSmith says:

        who was talking about pathology????. Whose using science to suggest this? Who is /where is the opponent?
        What peer reviewed publications have you seen suggesting this?

           1 likes

  3. DICK R says:

    Labour have never really been out of government their placemen are everywhere, keeping the seat warm for their eventual return , the dozens of government agencies and QUANGOS were set up to circumvent parliamentary control, taking most of their orders through EU directives and Diktat
    Cameron must have been aware of this ,yet did nothing , probably out of fear of undermining his Brussels puppet masters . The results are there for all to see in the devastating floods, deliberately caused by adherence to EU imposed environmental nonsense .
    The same EU rules that the others only pay lip service to or completely disregard, it is unimaginable that the French would ever agree to the ruination of hundreds of thousand of acres of prime farmland under any circumstances.

       47 likes

    • agentsmith says:

      Except for the fact that Cameron government have put much into the hands of private interests the Directors of which are often making a tidy sum in the face of failure.
      But I do think you have a point ,the NSA seem to have taken over our security service . Not exactly the EU though.

         2 likes

      • Dave s says:

        Cameron is part of the corporate state. I doubt he has a conservative bone in his body. It is this synthesis of the corporatist and the statist that is , to my mind, the greatest danger to freedom of the individual.

           23 likes

        • agentsmith says:

          Couldnt agree more. I would add that is how Milliband seems to see it. We need a free market back.

             2 likes

        • AgentSmith says:

          All PM’s are part of the corporate state.All governments are part of it and in ideological terms anyone participating in its activities are part of it. Not sure that gets anyone anywhere though.

             0 likes

        • Guest Who says:

          Anyone noticed some empty pods about?
          agentsmith says:
          February 13, 2014 at 2:58 pm
          AgentSmith says:
          February 13, 2014 at 7:05 pm
          They seem to be hatching like new BBC board level hires.

             7 likes

    • agentsmith says:

      I think you are unaware of the devistating floods in France at the moment.

         1 likes

      • Guest Who says:

        ‘I think you are unaware of the devistating floods in France at the moment’

        If down to one liners now to meet quota, maybe best to make them coherent?

           9 likes

        • Peter Grimes says:

          And with all of his (their?) desire for intellectual rigour you would hope that the poor, dumb cluck was not so illiterate as to post ‘devistating’, amongst other spelling errors.

             4 likes

  4. chrisH says:

    UKIP are getting nowhere up in Sale and Altrincham.
    Farage has noted that it`s all postal votes with Labour goons collecting them…and loads of lovely semi detached houses far from the river, up on the hills?
    These would once have been Tories…but today are Labour public sector managers and diversity consultants at Trafford or Manchester…they are the new Labour payroll vote, depending on Labour to keep paying for the hi-viz and risk assessments.
    Funny how it`s all turned to this-not one quango has a clue what to do…but will be busy drafting climate change and the intersex guidelines, using sandbags to give to the Muslim sandpits, and not to the white trash that do the work-who are saviour siblings for Abu Hamza.
    Worracircus…but it`s coming to nasty end, so make sure your popcorn floats won`t you?

       24 likes

    • Dave s says:

      Postal votes are one of the liberal left’s smatest moves. Undemocratic and open to abuse. What is there not to like for a lefty?

         39 likes

    • johnnythefish says:

      I thought the by-election was in Wythenshawe (Europe’s biggest council estate) and east Sale (i.e. shitholes like Northenden)? Always was Labour, wasn’t it?

         6 likes

      • chrisH says:

        Reckon you`re right there.
        These will be new “gerrymandered” constituencies, compare to when I lived up there.
        Guaranteed Tory pockets, but all the rest a blend to ensure that Labour get in.
        Add the postal votes and the public sector/welfare dependents…and Labour buy a perpetual revolution , based on projecvted earnings of the next eight generations or so.
        Unsustainable-but as long as they get in , they`ll cross the burnt bridges on the backs of the white trash that resist them…who will be too old and feeble to do much by then anyway.
        Biblical troubles ahead…and not gaymarriage dunkings in Somerset either…

           6 likes

  5. stewart says:

    Found this about old favourite ‘Red Robo’
    http://order-order.com/2014/02/13/robinsons-lobby-colleagues-fed-up-with-him-lifting-stories/
    And the paper he read story in?

       7 likes

  6. Doublethinker says:

    If there is any truth in ‘the letter’ we can be sure that the BBC will not investigate because Labour HQ will be desperate to have it all hushed up. So those in possession of ‘the letter’ must leak it ( no pun intended) to the press and we can have it fully investigated by a free press, which at present we still have. If there is some evidence that bears scrutiny, that there has indeed been collusion between Labour MPs and EA officials that has made flooding worse than it need have been, then the government must launch a full inquiry. Without such a high profile inquiry the BBC will refuse to mention it and many people will never know it happened and to what depths Labour and their public sector clients, are prepared to sink , again no pun intended.

       20 likes

    • agentsmith says:

      Do you not think the rain has pretty much undermined the government rather than the Labour party. There does seem to be rather a lot of it.

         4 likes

      • Guest Who says:

        ‘Do you not think the rain has pretty much undermined the government’
        The volume and duration of rain, as with any natural phenomenon, has tested the responsive capabilities of the government of the day, yes.
        And a fair few seem to have made a fair Horlicks of a lot of it.
        Labour seems to have stayed pretty quiet, for obvious historical, on record reasons, and perhaps wisely so given who is still around from when roofs were there to be fixed as sun shone, hired less than competent chums and signed off on little festering timebombs.
        And they are helped in this by an astoundingly uncurious BBC, rotting through editorial from the top, who are near mute on analysis, but do indeed seem as ever full of it undermining governments that are not the ones they seek to get in power.

           12 likes

        • AgentSmith says:

          Some of this is incoherent nonesense. It is however true that the envirnmental select comitte did warn the Labour government of the need to spend considerably more( £750M from memory.) It is also true that the coalition on entering power didnt heed this advice either and shed another £100M. Treasury rules on flood defence expenditure made this disaster an absolute certainty.
          It is important to recognise there is an ideological predisposition to not plan for extreme weather . Like many on this site the Dept for Environment is run by a climate change sceptic so the idea of increasingly worse weather in the UK will not sit easily within that mind set. But also of course the belief that the last time this happened was several hundred years ago is important for the future allocation of funds. Unfortunately there are very few scientists in government and without them,little comprehension as to what is at stake. As to the BBC it is my view they are covering it like any disaster focusing on the immediacy with very little reference to Global warming or what might be round the corner. That approach to my mind shows considerable bias . Whether the subject opens uplater down the line remains to be seen.

             4 likes

          • Richard Pinder says:

            “a climate change sceptic so the idea of increasingly worse weather in the UK will not sit easily within that mind set. But also of course the belief that the last time this happened was several hundred years ago”

            I understand that the bad weather was predicted by Piers Corbyn. He has indicated that he uses correlations with past weather patterns to confirm his ideas.
            So using past and present correlations, I would think that the present weather trend does not need “belief”, as there would be a correlation with weather trends, that last happened in the 1780’s.

            Also, a climate change sceptic mind set does not exist, because the warmists do not have any scientific substance (such as a formula for the calibration of carbon dioxide warming) to be sceptical about, while on the other hand, Owen Patterson may be intelligent enough to understand the above.

               7 likes

            • Andy S. says:

              Jesus H. Christ!!!! Agentsmith has hijacked this blog! Still he will bump up the number of visits to this blog. He’s making this site a success all on his own.

                 5 likes

          • Justin Casey says:

            Agent Smith how come it doesn`t occur to these Climate Change `experts` that the changeable weather we get might possibly due to the fact that the last age period has not yet actually ended…. add to that the 1,5 billion muslims smacking thier collective foreheads against the ground five times a day along with all the suicide bombings every week after Friday prayers and it doesn`t take a genius to work out that these two things collectively altering the Earths Axis as spins its cycle creates a wobble effect… as for the Glaciers receeding well thats all down to most BBC journalistas spending all thier time reporting from Middle Eastern Shitholes which are very hot and dry enough that you could fry an ostrich egg on Jeremy Bowens bald and empty head… Until Universities are emptied of leftist leaning and overly liberal idealists imprinting thier own `life in a bubble` viewpoints of what the real world is like there will always be a problem…. These so called Scientists….. if they were really any good surely they would be in the employ of private corporate bodies rather than sitting in thier cosy classrooms waiting for handouts from us the UK taxpayers…?? Same as the twats in the LSE …. how come they are out there making the big bucks?? How come they didn`t see the they folly of Gordon Browns choices regarding selling off our Gold assets for a pittance when the exchange rate was at its lowest point? How can you explain the actions of the EA allocating but actually spending $400 K on dredging but happily paying £31 million on a fucking Duck resort which only Bill Oddie and frogs will ever visit?? or why they threw £40,000 at the Gay Pride celebrations?? How has that helped ease the victims of flooding?? How long before we see an outbreak of typhoid if the weather gets warmer?? Some places have raw sewage floating about and havent been able to flush thier toilets for 5 weeks!!! i really am sick and tired of fucking idiots running thier mouths off about this and that agenda and attempting to stifle genuine debate or any mindset that is in opposition to whatever cause they choose to adopt that week as we all know they don`t giive a shit about the general consensus of the real British public… Fuck em!! I would love an actual attempted `revolution` to kick off…. i`d get a chance to bruise my knuckles and be part of the victorious backlash these elitists have created with no idea of the consequences as they are too busy pushing the next agenda on thier list of minority based directives which are handed to them from unelected Buerocrats who now write our laws and tell us that we must let in anyone who enters our country if they have arrived via an EU country… This in effect means that a non EU migrant only needs to hop into an EU states borders and he is now able to go wherever the hell he wants… The UK is the favourite as we currently hand out cash to anyone as long as they aren`t a UK resident who also pays taxes…. VOTE UKIP!!! VOTE anyone but dont don`t vote for the current mainstream candidates…. and stop paying thr tv tax… shut the door on them don`t say a word…. do not answer them when they ask ur name… demand they identify themselves and then shut the door!!! How much extra red tape do they have to go through to get that warrant without the legal houeholders name on the request? Quite a lot….. it makes it a much more labourious process… esp[ecially now with the new eu privacy directives etc… the cases r overloading the courts now….. a few million more will make the fine system impossible to implement…. if u do get a fine… they cant send the bailiffs to get you it isn`t the council tax…. it`s a civil tax and unlike tax avoidance isn`t criminal law… u can offer to pay em £1 per week…. they can`t means test you… you could even offer a payment scale that will add up to a annual total exactly matching the license fee but minus the £25 commision the tv license guy gets when u sign his report sheet… Just shut the door… deny you even answered your door … give them nothing!!! They would give you even less!!!

               4 likes

  7. Oldbob says:

    Don’t expect Newsnight to be reporting this anytime !

    http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9137131/instant-wildlife-just-add-water/

       9 likes

    • agentsmith says:

      Well they wouldnt would they. The notion that this disaster could have been averted just through dredging is crap. Interesting the Spectator concentrates on Labour. I imagine you are aware that the first enviroment minister of the coalition cut expenditure by £100 million.Doesnt exactly suggest a real concern about all things environmental does it.

         3 likes

      • Roland Deschain says:

        Your mistake is to think that the only way to express concern is to throw (other people’s) money at something.

           13 likes

      • Oldbob says:

        I worked for a major international Dutch dredging company for 5 years and prior to that also worked on the construction of the Thames Barrier for 3 years. However, clearly you have much more knowledge of what works for flood prevention and what doesn’t than I or anyone else around here does, so I will defer to your vastly superior intellect.

           24 likes

        • johnnythefish says:

          That’s the most subtle way of saying ‘What a tosser’ I’ve read this week.

             10 likes

        • AgentSmith says:

          No, Im just going on official assessments.
          But given you are an expert in this area I am somewhat surprised your response wasnt more constructive. What was your position in these companies?

             0 likes

    • chrisH says:

      How come Booker has never been seen on telly to speak re
      a) the Euroscam…he`s been at this one since the 70s
      b) the Greenscam…if there is anybody who knows more about how the watermelons have conquered the commanding heights of the “culcha”…I`ve yet to read, see or hear them
      c) The evil Family Courts now sterilising, caesaring, abducting, adopting and otherwise perping evils on anybody brave or fool enough to take on any branch of our Council social services or NHS.
      Again Booker has blazed a trail here along with John Hemmings M.Pand a few others.

      Green, E.U and Childrens Rights?…wouldn`t you think that with THAT Holy Trinity of Liberal poses to strike, he`d be welcome to link them for us all?
      And yet-the BBC seem not to want him on to speak…why so?
      As if we can`t guess…

         8 likes

      • Richard Pinder says:

        He may well appear on the BBC soon, but then BBC Parliament may suffer from a technical hitch or a strike by journalists, wanting more censorship of science journalism, scientists and scientific debate.

           2 likes

    • Philip says:

      Thanks for that link Oldbob. I must admit I have never known the Thames to be much dredged since the NRA took over. I don’t think they ever considered a river as ‘drainage’ – a bit like the problems faced by Joseph Bazeguette trying to get London’s drains working (when Liberal (or any) politician had no idea on river flows – even then . Anyway this excerpt (from Spectator) links Thames and Somerset (dated 2008) under Baroness Young who wanted it all made a wildlife reserve for her ducks). The paper placed the Somerset Levels firmly under Policy 6, where the intention was quite deliberately to allow more flooding. The direct consequences of that we are now seeing round the clock on our television screens.

      The second smoking gun, which explains the other half of the story, and why we are seeing a flooding disaster not just in Somerset but also on the Thames and elsewhere, has now come to light thanks to the Whatdotheyknow website which specialises in publishing the results of Freedom of Information requests. The Environment Agency’s response to an enquiry as to why the Thames has also not been properly dredged since 1996 reveals that this was because the new EU waste regulations of that year made regular dredging ‘uneconomical’.

      Revealing stuff. Labours ‘watergate’ perhaps?

         6 likes

  8. stuart says:

    first things first.a big up and credit to the british army and the ghurkhas for the fine work they are doing to help the victims of these floods who are not all rich and wealthy like the left are trying to portray but many are just ordinary working class people who have lost everything without any insurance.now lets not mince words here,if the labour party was in power in this flood disaster we are having in the uk i fear there handling of this disater could of resulted in many deaths due to the lack of urgency they would of shown towards these flooded areas and the slow reaction that always come from labour goverments in times of crisis,the attitude of the labour peer lord smith for blaming these victims for living in areas at risk of flooding should back up my previous comment,yes this goverment should speed it up and be doing more to help the flood victims but i am more confident and impressed in the way david cameron is handling this crisis than if ed millband and the labour party was in power which would of been a double disaster in itself.

       11 likes

    • agentsmith says:

      More mindless Bildge. If you are impressed by Cameron then you are considerably out of step with the people of Somerset. Smith didnt blame anyone for living in a flood plain but I would suggest it is axiomatic that if you do you should have a rational expectation of being flooded at some point. I am just glad we have dispensed with the idea that climate change doesnt exist and this wont happen again for another few hundred years!

         2 likes

      • Roland Deschain says:

        Where has anyone said the climate doesn’t change?

           20 likes

      • Guest Who says:

        ‘More mindless Bildge’
        That one’s defo a keeper for the irony files.
        Maybe a little less quantity and haste and a bit more consideration?
        Mind you, James Harding’s a fan of the new way of hitting the broadcast button, so OK.

           12 likes

        • Andy S. says:

          Agentsmith is obviously a product of Labour’s education policies. Can I remind him the word is BILGE and not bilDge. It took me a while to confirm it wasn’t some new slang word the youth of today are so fond of devising.

             6 likes

      • Dave s says:

        The Somerset levels are very productive land. I assume our ancestors though the risk of flooding to be worthwhile, for a community that was nearly 100% based on agriculture. Thus acceptable. I also suspect they were much closer to the land and very unlikely to be taken by surprise as we seem to have been. Also the drainage system served the farmers and not the natural world.
        I live in an area with a complex water meadow system. Over the years various greedy idiots have wanted to build on them. Fortunately this has been averted. The town remains free of floods but the valley is full of water from side to side. As it was intended to be. Our ancestors were not stupid. If we are going to build on flood plains then we must manage the consequences. Either put the people first or the natural world. We cannot have it both ways.

           11 likes

        • johnnythefish says:

          ‘Just add water’, as the arrogant bitch Morgan proclaimed (and as ignored by agentsmith), and stuff the agricultural heritage, expertise and lives of the people of the Somerset Levels.

          If that isn’t the attitude of an unelected ruling eco-socialist class, I don’t know what is.

             10 likes

      • John Standley says:

        Bilge.

           2 likes

      • Richard Pinder says:

        “I am just glad we have dispensed with the idea that climate change doesn’t exist”

        If the BBC stopped censoring the science, scientists and scientific debate, then you would not have thought we denied that climate change did not exist in the first place, but then I think you are still not intelligent enough to realise that no one hear has ever denied that the climate changes, but then with a pause or a hiatus, the climate does not change as much as it does during a Global warming or Global cooling phase.

           4 likes

  9. Simon says:

    the disgusting left Labour Party smearing the Government……I can’t believe that as the left is so nice and cuddly! Only the right can be nasty and eat children…..

       9 likes

    • agentsmith says:

      Another pint coming your way

         2 likes

      • lojolondon says:

        Has anyone asked who pays agentsmith and how much? Because there is no way that someone actually believes what is being sprouted – except – well, it could possibly be our very own ‘Mentallist / Crash Gordon’??

           14 likes

        • johnnythefish says:

          Nah, he’s BBC – deffo.

             2 likes

          • Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:

            The advice is usually to just ignore trolls.

               3 likes

            • Richard Pinder says:

              I pick out the scientific errors of trolls, it seems to make them go away because the BBC wants to censor the science, so if the troll goes away, then that could well be proof that the troll is employed by the BBC.

              History shows that the left-wing mindset needs censorship up to the point of mass murder.

                 6 likes

  10. Deborah says:

    Agent Smith is being a pain and just trying to fill the open thread with his irrelevant musings, best ignored I feel.

       22 likes

  11. Guest Who says:

    OT I confess, but it is family.
    Just got my daily Ch 4 party political Snowmail and it has not disappointed.
    Krishnan’s not happy with the government. At all.
    He also mentioned a new colleague and the sorely-missed BBC Anger and Protests Editor:
    ‘Paul Mason is in Cornwall speaking to people there about resisting the battering of the wind and waves. “This very violent and volatile weather is related to climate change. Nick Clegg has been touring the area and tells him: “This very violent and volatile weather is related to climate change”.
    Seems telling it often enough as a technique is not restricted to the BBC. Maybe they’ve exported it along with our Paul?

       9 likes

    • chrisH says:

      Poor Krish got pulled to bits the other night by the Eden Project guy.
      Krish was described as a Londoncentric grief tourist merely down for the day to gloat, and to imply that the Cornish were sponging off the State by wishing to live down there.
      Sponging?..if only.
      Anyway Krish was, for once, forced to admit he was just saying this stuff, a la Partridge…next head of the E.A maybe?
      Does he fit in Snows saddlebags(oo er)?…no other way this toxic well-connected Asian nonentity could have done so well at the public teat.
      Goodness Gracious Mini me…

         11 likes

  12. stuart says:

    ha ha,agent smith has been unmasked by trollwatch,sounds like he is a member of the socalist workers party branch down bbcs manchester hq,dear oh dear agent smith,what utter bilge you spew out in the daily mail pmsl.

       9 likes

  13. sirus says:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaYX-uPuMRA…watch and learn how to dredge a river lord chris smith

       4 likes

  14. OldBloke says:

    You see, this is what this web site is all about. Within the BBC’s news page from Hereford and Worcester, their front of page states this:
    Worcestershire floods: River Severn at ‘record’ level
    You will note that the word *record* is in inverted comma.
    What does that mean? Maybe this also taken from their front page: [The River Severn in flood-hit Worcester has reached its highest level in recent years.

    The river water in the Barbourne area at 05:00 was 5.67m (18ft 7in), above the 5.64m level reached in July 2007.

    It is the highest level reached since Environment Agency records began

    So, is it a record or not? I know for a fact it is not as the measuring arm on the pub wall by the bridge will testify. A very misleading headline, but then it fits the narrative doesn’t it? The BBC is not to be trusted, in anything!

       14 likes

  15. OldBloke says:

    The environment agency was only set up in 1996!!

       4 likes

  16. OldBloke says:

    Stuart, thanks for the heads up concerning Agent Smith. His post here look to be in similar prose, in other words, a hard nosed lefty.

       8 likes

  17. OldBloke says:

    Now here is an interesting link about the Somerset Levels and the flooding. If I have read it correctly (and there is much reading to be done, but interesting and a worthwhile read), the flooding was orchestrated to create a very large Carbon Sink and thus reduce co2 escaping from the lowlands into the atmosphere.
    http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02626667.2011.629783#.Uv0zQPRFDcs

       3 likes

  18. Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:

    If only the floods had been in the Midlands and the North, as they were in 2007 …
    Paul Cobbing, from the National Flood Forum, said that the present floods were gaining much more attention from politicians than the far more damaging ones of 2007 because this time they were affecting the South East.

    About 5,000 homes have been flooded so far this year, mostly in the Thames Valley, compared with 55,000 in 2007, mainly in the Midlands and Yorkshire.

    “Less than 80 properties have flooded in the Somerset Levels but there has been a very good campaign by the local MPs and others to raise the profile [of the area],” he said.

    “We had all the party leaders out yesterday, but if it had been in Hull they probably wouldn’t have been.”
    http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/weather/article4004152.ece

       2 likes

  19. OldBloke says:

    Having read the link I have provided in my previous post (which I recommend all to read), it would appear that the peoples of the Somerset Levels and Moors were to become an unknowing party to an experiment. In summary, It is stated in the document, that if the water levels fell both in the ditches, dykes and ground water then an increase in co2 and methane would be released into the atmosphere and those two gasses being Greenhouse Gases, would/could lead to Global Warming. So, as the document suggests, water levels were raised to a level 3 and maintained as such, by, in my interpretation, to delay pumping and reduce dredging and general maintenance of the water courses within the levels. This would create a co2 sink, which would reduce the greenhouse gases that causes Global warming and henceforth *Climate Change*. So, with the pumping turned off and water levels artificially held high to combat Climate Change, guess what? It rained. The rest they say is history. Is it no wonder that the politicians who agreed this policy and enactment are now blaming each other and have only just started to look at the problems and no wonder why the BBC are trying their best to deflect the real issues of why the levels flooded.
    The poor people on the levels who have been seriously affected by the flooding, might just have been, to some, a price worth paying.

       7 likes

    • OldBloke says:

      The Abstract, in part:
      Other services are potentially conflicting, for example raising water levels may reduce potential flood water storage and increase methane emissions. Comparison of the services of the wetland with those of drier habitats reveals for example that carbon sequestration, bird habitat provision and hay production is greater in wetlands, whilst grazing quality may decline and plant diversity may be reduced in the short term and distributions of disease vectors may be altered by wetland restoration through raising water levels. Management decisions affecting wetlands may necessitate a trade-off of ecosystem services.

         3 likes

      • OldBloke says:

        ..and in part:
        Some services are synergistic and reinforcing; for example, maintaining wet conditions supports wetland bird life that maintains biological diversity, attracts tourists, protects archaeological artefacts and reduces CO2

        Well worth a read good people, after all, where you live might be next on the *agenda*

           4 likes

        • OldBloke says:

          And from the conclusion which is damning:
          The primary ecosystem services of the SLM are food production, conservation of peat soils to retain carbon and preserve archaeological sites and conservation of birds and plants for recreation. Water level control is the primary management tool and these services are optimized by maintaining high water levels (Tier 3; Fig. 3), although this may reduce grazing yields compared to drier conditions and may generate methane, marginally reduce flood management potential and create a heightened risk of diseases, such as avian influenza. Increasing carbon sequestration may require increased areas of woody species that decompose more slowly than grass, sedge and sphagnum. Predicted climate change may make maintenance of high water levels increasingly difficult. The study thus also highlights the trade-off, demonstrating that not all services can be maximized simultaneously and some would not want to be.

             7 likes

      • DICK R says:

        THERE IS A DIFFERENCE IN WET LANDS AND A 10 FOOT DEEP SWAMP

           0 likes

    • Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:

      Thanks to OldBloke for drawing our attention to this interesting paper, and for his succession of quotes from it. One aspect not mentioned in his selective quotes is that one of the authors of the paper is from Somerset County Council.
      So, if there is an ‘agenda’, it is not being imposed from the outside; it is being implemented by those directly involved with the local people, the very people who countless other posters have urged we should let determine the flood-control policy.

         3 likes

      • DICK R says:

        Do you really think that ‘ Local people ‘ enthusiastically agreed to their farms and homes being destroyed at the behest of the EU ecolunatics?

           2 likes

      • Guest Who says:

        Hence the need for effective, honest media.
        Triage is never easy, but if it adds up then if the reasons are laid out people can appreciate if not all applaud courses taken. The problems come with secrecy (and the various rules or exemptions accorded some) that allow things to get hijacked for reasons that may not be as understandable.
        They of course can be complex. But need exposure and objective analysis.
        Sacrifice a thinly populated area to flood to spare release of some world-threatening GHGs? Or how about an established community of centuries to protect a vast new affordable housing area of voters plonked on a floor plain? Or a party-supporting funder’s supermarket vs. mere homeowners the wrong side of a sluice?
        Tricky stuff.

           1 likes

  20. OldBloke says:

    Why Tadham Moor within the flooded Somerset Levels has great interest in certain people:
    http://www.waterr2b.net/sectors/recreation-sport-leisure/wetland-restoration/

       1 likes

  21. OldBloke says:

    Who, why, what, where and when;
    http://www.ceh.ac.uk/staffwebpages/professormikeacreman.html

       1 likes

    • Teddy Bear says:

      Excellent article by Christopher Booker on the subject:
      Revealed: how green ideology turned a deluge into a flood
      Somerset saw the floods coming. The Environment Agency should have, too.
      Christopher Booker 15 February 2014
      Christopher Booker explains how the EA failed to prepare for the floods

      It has taken six long weeks to uncover the real hidden reasons why, from the West Country to the Thames Valley, the flooding caused by the wettest January on record has led to such an immense national disaster. Only now have the two ‘smoking guns’ finally come to light which show just how and why all this chaos and misery has resulted directly from a massive system failure in the curious way our country is governed.

         2 likes

  22. OldBloke says:

    Were the Somerset Levels allowed to flood to combat *Climate Change*?
    http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/view/author/1383.html

       1 likes

    • GCooper says:

      One of the reasons the EA was established as a quango (you don’t need me to tell you by whom!) was so that it could ‘act independently of government’.

      In other words, so that it could pursue a covertly agreed agenda, allowing government to claim it was ’nuffink to do wiv us, guv’ .

      One more for the charge sheet against Messrs Blair and Brown for their list of treasonous acts!

         1 likes

    • GCooper says:

      Notice how the disingenuous frauds waffle on about the ‘heatwave’ but totally ignore the increase in deaths due to last year’s bitter winter!

      When the revolution comes…

         1 likes

  23. OldBloke says:

    As always, the use of the adage “follow the money” comes into play:
    http://www.nerc.ac.uk/

    As I have said before, *the wheels on the bus go round and round….”

       0 likes