It is sweet and right to lie for your Mori poll…..Mark Easton’s internationalist motto?

Had to laugh or cry, when Humphrys asked (at 08:55) ‘Are we becoming less nationalistic and more international?…who better to ask than Mark Easton.’

Who better to ask I suppose depending on whether you want an honest answer or not…Mark Easton being a very pro-immigration kinda-guy and anti-nationalist.

A coincidence that it was pointed out in the last post that ‘the thing the BBC doesn’t hold dear but rather holds in contempt… ‘values and the continuity of the country’s historic national identity: about what Britain stands for’…the BBC preferring instead open borders, cheap imported servants and a lovely diverse, cosmopolitan feel to London’

In 2012 Mori’s interpretation of their figures…..

The report also found Britons shared a strong national pride, with 61% saying they would rather be a citizen of Britain than any other country.

In 2014 the BBC’s intepretation of the latest figures:

Ask people “Who do we think we are?’ and the answer is as likely to be bird-watchers as Brits.

A not so subtle denigration of your pride in being British…..a lesser consideration apparently than being a birdwatcher.

And you have to get half way down the latest BBC report to find out that:

57% of people said they didn’t think there had been any change in their connection to people in other countries around the world

So most people still presumably have that ‘strong national pride’……..Hardly justifying the exaggerated BBC headline or indeed the whole thrust of Easton’s ‘promise’:

UK becoming ‘more local and global’

Every community is concerned and identifies first with their local area….and always has. To claim this is a new phenomenom of great significance is spin by Easton trying to change people’s perceptions of their own beliefs and what they mean….. creating a new ‘truth’.  All very Orwellian.

Just how much can you trust a BBC Mori poll?  Try this one from 2005:

Muslims ‘Take Pride’ In British Way Of Life

Britons endorse multi-cultural society — as British Muslims say immigrants should ‘integrate fully’

Most BRITISH Muslims support British laws and culture, and do not believe Islam is incompatible with British democracy, according to new research from MORI.

The survey shows that 62% of British people — and 82% of Muslims in Britain — agree with the statement: “Multiculturalism makes Britain a better place to live”. When asked if the policy of multiculturalism is a mistake that should be abandoned, 68% of people ( 74% Muslims ) disagreed”.

Half of British people (49%) and two-thirds of British Muslims (66%) do not think that Islam is incompatible with the values of British democracy.

Briton’s endorse multi-cultural society?……Yeah right…..the BBC’s intepretation of the value of a ‘pride in Britain‘ is different when they have an alternate message to propagate…that immigrants and ethnic communities ‘love Britain and are more British than the British’...then funnily enough British identity becomes an important factor to be cherished rather than sneered at.

Can’t imagine why the BBC didn’t similarly report the ‘national pride’ of French Muslims voting for the Front National.

The BBC, Mark Easton, via Mori, has conducted a poll of 2,500 ‘Brits’.  The BBC has placed it top of it’s ‘featured’ stories on the Frontpage…..

UK becoming ‘more local and global’

Data are weighted to the profile of the population……That is the only nod to the effects of immigration and self-isolated ghetto communities we get.

So the UK is becoming ‘more local and global’?

Note that ‘more’….as compared to when?  ‘When it comes to comparisons with a decade ago’ so essentially before mass immigration began…..many of that 11% who ‘felt more of a connection with other countries of the world’ …could they possibly be mostly the new ‘British citizens’?

And what does more connected mean?  Does it mean they therefore feel less connected with Britain….that is more connected, identifying more,  with Land X than with Britain…or just ‘more connected’ as in having the ability to connect to family and friends via the new technology.

From what Mori says it is the latter…..

‘It may be the impact of new technology and global media that is strengthening our relationship with the wider world.’

So ‘more connected’ purely means literally that…able to talk to people around the world….your family in Australia or other Liverpool fans in Argentina, dog lovers in Andalusia or whatever.

So not an interpretation that Easton wants…that of a new international breed of people unconcerned with the notion of borders and national identity….especially as…..

 ‘57% of people said they didn’t think there had been any change in their connection to people in other countries around the world’

So nearly 60% say there is no change in their views…..I doubt that any previous poll would have got a radically different figure….ask any soldier and he will say he is fighting firstly for his mates or his regiment not Queen and Country…it’s a standard answer in any interview…..

‘Contrary to popular belief soldiers don’t fight for Queen and country, they fight as they would rather die than let down their mates or their regiment.’

…..however that isn’t to say he isn’t in the end prepared to fight for Queen and Country….ironically from a Muslim soldier:

“My home is the UK. As a Muslim, that’s the place I’d happily die for and kill for. That’s the same way it’s going to remain until my dying day.

“My entire soul belongs to the UK and I’m more than proud to fight for this country.”

In fact when Mori did a poll last year this was their, not the BBC’s interpretation:

The report also found Britons shared a strong national pride, with 61% saying they would rather be a citizen of Britain than any other country.

So around 60% is evidence of a ‘strong national pride’…and note….57% can’t really be claimed as evidence of less pride in the Nation…especially considering the margins of errror.

In 2012 Mori said this:

The perception gap between national and local sentiments is easier to measure than to explain (‘hometown favouritism’ was one explanation offered by US academics in the late 1990s)

So Easton trying to spin a tale of us discarding national identity for a more local one is bunkum…..everyone throughout the history of mankind has probably identified more with their immediate surroundings, people and activities than an amorphous nation…that should not lead to the conclusion that nationality is not important to them.

Proof of the slippery interpretation by Easton comes from this:

The people of Northern Ireland emerge as the most likely in the UK to say they identify with their city, town or village.

Ask any Protestant if he is British and I doubt you’ll get a negative….so Easton trying to say people identifying firstly with their local area is a sign that they are less nationalistic is more bunkum….is it also a sneaky, underhand message he’s trying to present…the Northern Irish don’t identify with Britain…therefore Britain should hand over Northern Ireland to Eire?

Everyone identifies first with their family, their own values and ideas, then with the area where they were born or live, and then with their country…well, most people.

Easton exaggerates for his own effect saying:

‘It is notable that significantly more people appear to feel they are closer to the international community than say ties have weakened.’

With the global community, 11% more thought ties were closer than those who felt less close. However, 9% more people said connections with their own country were weakening, than those who thought they were strengthening.

Really?  ‘Significantly more people….’?   Well 2% more……considering that  ‘The margin of error on the overall UK results is plus or minus two percentage points, with a confidence level of 95%. Results for individual regions and nations have a margin of error between two and nine percentage points, depending on sample size.’  

I think Easton is over-egging things a bit.

Easton selects and highlights what he wants to emphasise for you to absorb and come to believe…your nationality means nothing to you……

What is striking about these answers is that none are aspects of identity that we are born with. Only 20% said their nationality was among the top three or four things they would tell a stranger was important about them.

‘Striking’ or obvious?  And of course it all depends on the question and the context.  Why would being ‘British’ be important or on your mind when going about your daily life?…it’s not something you think about…you are more likely to be thinking of going surfing with your mates or what the local school is doing for your kids than singing ‘Rule Britannia’ before every meal.

The use of ‘striking‘ tells us that Easton has a particualr line and an agenda here….to exaggerate the meaning of his ‘research’.

As for that…’none are aspects of identity that we are born with.’….the underlying line from that is that birthplace plays little part in your identity…..complete and utter tosh…….where you were born, and raised, is probably one the most powerful things someone might identify with…..just ask a Yorkshireman for instance….or a Sikh…..

Three-quarters of the UK’s Sikhs have experienced racism but 95% are proud of being born or living in Britain, a survey suggests.

Of course the BBC’s intepretation of the value of a ‘pride in Britain‘ is different when they have an alternate message to propagate…that immigrants and ethnic communities ‘love Britian and are more British than the British’...then funnily enough British identity becomes an important factor….from the Guardian…

83% of Muslims are proud to be a British citizen, compared to 79% of the general public.

Hmmm…in that study 79% of the general public are proud to be a British citizen…bit higher than 57% or 61%…….who to trust eh?

Then note this……

The survey asked respondents what aspect of their identity, other than job and family or friends, they would tell a stranger were most important. None of the top three answers would be found on a passport or ID card.

The aspect of identity picked by easily the largest proportion of people was “my interests and leisure activities”. Next came “my values and outlook”, closely followed by “my personal views and opinions”.

So people’s identity is wrapped up  in their values, outlook, personal views and opinions’?

In other words everything that the BBC attacks whilst trying to impose its own values, views and opinions upon the world.

And again note the sly dig…. None of the top three answers would be found on a passport or ID card.

But how do you identify yourself when someone asks about you.  Is it ‘British’ or do you give your own family name or the town you live in or were born in?  When asked where you come from do you say the UK or ‘Town X’?  It depends who is asking and where…if you’re abroad you’re going to say British or English or Scots etc……. Easton’s self serving manipulation of the figures proves nothing accept he can’t be trusted.

Another Mori poll from 2013 Easton hasn’t been keen to emphasise:

• Approximately ¾ of British people favour reducing immigration, on most recent surveys and polls.
  More…
• Large majorities in Britain have been opposed to immigration since at least the 1960s.
  More…
• Immigration is currently highly salient: over the past 15 years it has become one of the most commonly chosen “most important issues”.
  More…
• Close to 70% in a 2001 poll supported more migration among those with needed skills, and those with financial support for themselves or from family members, but more data are needed on this topic.

A piece by Janet Daley in the Telegraph regarding that thing that the BBC doesn’t hold dear but rather holds in contempt…’values and the continuity of the country’s historic national identity: about what Britain stands for’...the BBC preferring instead open borders, cheap imported servants and a lovely diverse, cosmopolitan feel to London….or rather those parts of  London they don’t actually live in, retreating to their expensive and exclusive liberal ghettos when darkness comes:

The political class is mired in delusion

This is a turning point in post-war national life. Politics is now about an argument that arises from the EU membership question but is really much, much bigger. It is about values and the continuity of the country’s historic national identity: about what Britain stands for, and about the trust that the electorate has traditionally had in the robustness of its institutions. Bizarrely, Ukip, which is often seen as a divisive presence, is helping to undermine one of the most genuinely divisive forces in British political life.

The argument it is propelling to the forefront of national consciousness cuts across class lines and the traditional social divides, because it is about the polity as a whole: the integrity of the nation as an actor on the world stage. An understanding of the importance of this, quite miraculously, seems to exist in almost every section of society and region of the country, with the possible exception of Westminster.

The one thing that has emerged with startling clarity, to a degree that is almost beyond argument, is that what I (and now Nigel Farage, bless him) have described as the present political class – meaning the incestuous, self-referring universe of Westminster professionals – is living in a state of clinical delusion.

The Ukip case is that there is a conspiracy between Big Politics, Big Business and Big Bureaucracy to put all of these fundamental principles at risk. That may or may not be true, but at the moment – with the unintentional help of the Westminster stage army – it is looking very plausible.

Of course that doesn’t just apply to politicians….it is just as relevant to those in the BBC who have a world view at odds with the general population.

And speaking of ‘liberal ghettos’ the BBC’s favourite blacktivist, Spike Lee, has come a cropper with his racist views…..he’s been attacking the gentrification by white interlopers into Brooklyn……’ripping into white privilege and ignorant intellectuals (?)‘ with a barrage of insults and hostile rhetoric aimed at the ‘motherf*****g Christopher Columbus syndrome’ where those ‘white interlopers’ discover a new neighbourhood and kick out the black ‘natives’.

Trouble is Lee has himself been part of that very process profiting hugely from buying and selling property in the area….presumably to those very same ‘white interlopers’.

Any bets that Evan Davis or Justin Webb find this tale interesting and irresistible? It has everything for them….a famous black activist, black people the victims of white dominance and supremacy and all intellectually and morally conflicted and embarrassed by the fact that those ‘whites’ are of a breed that Davis and Webb belong to….rich, white, liberal intellectuals who love that cosmopolitan, gentrified look and feel to a neighbourhood….something to feel guilty about as all good liberals have a need to be….pandering to the ‘ethnic’ whilst self-flagellating in an orgy of post-colonial guilt….gotta love it.

Wonder if the BBC will refer to this should Spike peak their interest:

REV. AL’S CAUGHT ON PROTEST TAPE CALLED MART OWNER A ‘WHITE INTERLOPER’

In 1995, a black Pentecostal Church, the United House of Prayer, which owned a retail property on 125th Street, asked Fred Harari, a Jewish tenant who operated Freddie’s Fashion Mart, to evict his longtime subtenant, a black-owned record store called The Record Shack. Sharpton led a protest in Harlem against the planned eviction of The Record Shack.

Sharpton told the protesters, “We will not stand by and allow them to move this brother so that some white interloper can expand his business.”

MASSACRE AT FREDDY’S IN HARLEM: FIRE FUELED BY ANTI-SEMITISM KILLS 8
“Burn the Jew Store Down”

The first law of journalism as told by John Humphrys…

‘First simplify, then exaggerate.’

Have to say that is pretty much the rule followed by the BBC’s climate change reporters….the refusal to take seriously any criticism of climate ‘science’, the refusal to genuinely analyse what the criticisms mean allowing the subsequent broadcasting of sweeping alarmist statements about the ‘inevitable’ consequences of global warming (despite there being little to none for 17 years) from famine, drought, island nations submerged below an ever rising sea to mass migration and war are all prime examples of Humphrys’ law in action.

‘What we are witnessing are successive distortions of the scientific message’

Humphrys has been quite vocal over the years about what a news broadcaster, a public service broadcaster,  should be providing the public with, what it is duty bound to provide…….

Humphrys says:

He feels that his job is to put politicians under pressure and hold them to account. It is his duty as a broadcaster in a democracy to hold politicians to account. The BBC reporters must however report accurately, or they should lose their jobs.

Talking to the BBC’s bosses on the Select Committee on BBC Charter Review 2005  :

Q1180  Lord Maxton: Who elected you?

Mr Humphrys: Nobody elected me.

Q1181  Lord Maxton: Then why do you think you have that job?

Mr Humphrys: I have the job because I have been appointed by the BBC to do it in the most simplistic sense, but it is my job, on behalf of my listeners, and that is the important bit of the sentence if I can finish that point . . .

Mr Humphrys: It is my job on behalf of the listeners—on behalf of the listeners, I repeat—to hold people in authority and power to account, to ask those questions in other words that the listeners themselves might want to ask and it can only be a matter of judgment and frequently of course I will get it wrong—or we will get it wrong—but what we have to do if we are doing our job properly is to ask those questions that the public would like to ask of their elected representatives or the people in power but cannot because they do not have the sort of access that people like me have. I would be failing in my responsibility if I did not ask the questions they wanted asked.

From Humphrys’ MacTaggart Lecture in 2004:

I want to talk about that other vital aspect of public service broadcasting: news.

I happen to believe it is the most important thing we do.  By a mile.  If we get it wrong we forfeit the right to exist.

We should not be fearful of standing up to those in power. That is our job.

We should subject politicians to rigorous and relentless scrutiny. That is what the public wants and that is what the public has a right to expect.

Where do most people get most of their politics these days?  Where do they see and hear politicians being tested?  Most of it is on the BBC.  That happens to be a fact.

We need more not less investigative journalism.

We need MUCH more straightforward political analysis.  Filling a studio with people shouting at each other about the Euro is all very well, but it’s even more important to explain what the issues are.

The problem with that is firstly the journalists have to know their subject and secondly they have to approach it strictly from an impartial viewpoint without already having formed or having been given pre-conceived ideas….the problem being most don’t know their subject, and they are already convinced of, for example, climate change, based on that false or incomplete knowledge…….listen to Justin Webb bluffing his way through this interview with Nigel Lawson on climate change.

He also makes this important and highly relevant comment……

Public service broadcasting can and must make an important contribution to the democratic process. It can only do it if we are not cowed by those in power.

When you listen to what the likes of the sinister Andrew Miller MP have to say and the BBC’s lack of reaction can anyone claim the BBC is not ‘cowed by those in power’?

At the very least it has decided not to challenge whatever a politician says about climate change on the basis that ‘climate change is happening’.….despite ‘All our evidence is that, although we do not have specific evidence of climate change itself…..’

We had a look at the latest drive to enforce a climate orthodoxy upon the world…one message, all the time …..politicians were seen to be trying to control and direct what the BBC should report and who it interviews.

The sad thing is the BBC didn’t seem to object and are quite happy to propagate the government message….that is the result of the BBC taking a position rather than continuing to be journalists devoted to investigating the issues and getting to the truth..instead they accept global warming is happening and that it is man-made and from that basis they have decided not to question the new orthodoxy, and not just accept it but to go forth and promote it…..question is…what if the scientists are wrong…who will ask the questions then?  Or does the circus continue as no one is left to challenge it?

The BBC’s outright acceptance of AGW allows people like MP Andrew Miller seek to block climate sceptics from the airwaves and newsprint, to intimidate and bully the sceptics….he tries to excuse his ‘McCarthyism’ by claiming the sceptics are unqualified to talk credibly on the subject of science…whereas of course he is….or is not, judged by his own standard of who is qualified.

The result of this, as intended, is to close down all debate, or rather all criticism in the media allowing politicians to ramp up the rhetoric and the taxes.

Charles Moore in the Telegraph states:

The theory of global warming is a gigantic weather forecast for a century or more. However interesting the scientific inquiries involved, therefore, it can have almost no value as a prediction. Yet it is as a prediction that global warming (or, as we are now ordered to call it in the face of a stubbornly parky 21st century, “global weirding”) has captured the political and bureaucratic elites. All the action plans, taxes, green levies, protocols and carbon-emitting flights to massive summit meetings, after all, are not because of what its supporters call “The Science”.

Remember what Humphrys said about the BBC and News:

News….I happen to believe it is the most important thing we do.  By a mile.  If we get it wrong we forfeit the right to exist.

The trouble is it isn’t the BBC that stops existing when it gets the news wrong here….it’s freedom of speech, democracy, true science and a complete culture based on ‘CO2’ which is now classed as a pollutant to be eliminated…along with all those things that produce it such as jobs.

What Miller is saying is that regardless of the science, regardless of whether the science is right or wrong, no one should be allowed to criticise the consensus view.…baring in mind there are massive social, industrial and financial consequences to policies based upon the ‘science’ you might think that serious debate is a vital prequisite before these hugely costly projects are set in motion….projects which are mostly vanity projects upon which rest the politician’s, and the scientist’s, credibility and career prospects.

That is news in anyone’s book.

Which is why the BBC should be having as many critics of the science on as possible….if only to have those who support the science come on and refute such criticisms and confirm the science with real evidence.

It is not sufficient for the BBC to fall back on claims that there is a consensus view…it is after all only a ‘view’, only one interpretation of the science.

David Jordan, Director of Editorial Policy and Standards for the BBC,  said  ‘We seek to avoid equal time and status for scientists and non scientists.’

But what if a non-scientist has read the ‘science’ and found a number of critical errors or discrepancies that are obvious to anyone scientist or not….should he be silenced as Miller suggests…on the basis that he isn’t a scientist and secondly that he is undermining the momentum of the grand project by casting doubt on it?

What happens then?  They ignore criticism however valid and continue regardless recklessly spending vast amounts of money to solve a problem that either doesn’t exist or is caused by something else other than the politically convenient CO2….Charles Moore spells it out again:

‘The origins of warmism lie in a cocktail of ideas which includes anti-industrial nature worship, post-colonial guilt, a post-Enlightenment belief in scientists as a new priesthood of the truth, a hatred of population growth, a revulsion against the widespread increase in wealth and a belief in world government.’

The truth is the greens, the scientists and the politicians desperately want man-made global warming to be true for their own reasons…allowing them to take ever more control over society and resources in the name of a cleaner, safer planet…it used to be that it was the ‘industrial/military complex’ that was the great threat to peace and freedom…always generating non-existent threats to justify the massive spending and the imposition of draconian laws…it is now, an irony, the very people who opposed that complex who are the greatest threat to society, its well being and success, using the same excuses to justify the same massive spending and draconian laws.

‘The international war against carbon totters on, because Western governments see their green policies, like zombie banks, as too big to fail. The EU, including Britain, continues to inflict expensive pain upon itself. Last week, the latest IPCC report made the usual warnings about climate change, but behind its rhetoric was a huge concession. The answer to the problems of climate change lay in adaptation, not in mitigation, it admitted. So the game is up.’

The BBC’s, and the whole Media’s, job is to challenge and question the alarmist claims, not to do so allows horrendous mistakes and injustices not to mention corruption.

John Humphrys once, many times,  stated that it was the BBC’s job to hold power to account:

Holding to account people in positions of power – that’s absolutely essential.

The problem is the BBC doesn’t hold power to account over climate change.  They allow on  a few sceptics but mainly to attempt to ridicule or undermine them….Nurse and Delingpole spring to mind.  The climate lobby, scientist or not, is regarded as legitimate and credible….it is given the presumption that whatever it says is correct and true by the BBC and that any critic has a political or commercial agenda….such agendas of course are never associated with the consensus lobby….the BBC’s refusal to challenge Tim Yeo over his vested intersts and conflict of interests is the perfect, and very recent,  illustration of that.

The fact the green lobby doesn’t want  a debate should be raising a few, a lot of, suspicions and doubts…remember how they tried to hide their dodgy science as demonstrated by the ‘climategate’ emails….and the BBC environmental journalists went into overdrive to defend their mates at the CRU?

The fact is the science is far from settled…there is absolutely no proof that CO2 is the cause of global warming……a warming that is a possible mere 0.4°C man-made over 100 years by IPCC standards. Sure we know the ‘physics’…in a laboratory….completely different when trying to apply rules learnt in isolation in a laboratory to a complex, highly interactive climate system that is responsive to a vast, vast array of variables…..even beetles in a Canadian forest can raise the local temperature 1°C over a wide region apparently.

However when you have senior BBC journalists who have a close working relationship with the likes of the CRU, who work hand in hand with a climate propagandist, who accept money from a climate change propaganda unit, who admit they  ‘have spent much of the last two decades of my journalistic life warning about the potential dangers of climate change’, who take advice from such scientists on what line to take in their reports and programmes, you know not to take the BBC’s coverage of climate seriously.

Journalism or propaganda?  It’s certainly not news tainted as it is by spin and misinformation, and it’s certainly not holding power to account….is that a public service ‘on behalf of the listeners’…or on behalf of Harrabin’s mates at the CRU?

So has the BBC ‘forfeit its right to exist’ as Humphrys might suggest?

‘The BBC reporters must however report accurately, or they should lose their jobs.’

David Rose in the Mail has an article that examines the less than democratic outcome of attitudes  displayed by the new thought police typified by Andrew Miller MP with regard to who can and who can’t talk about climate change and what it is that they will be allowed to say:

The real cost of Climate McCarthyism, apart from big bills, is to free speech

At the heart of the current, poisoned debate about global warming lies a paradox. Thanks to the ‘pause’, the unexpected plateau in world surface temperatures which has now lasted for 17 years, the science is less ‘settled’ than it has been for years.

Yet, despite this uncertainty, those who use it to justify a range of potentially ruinous energy policies have become ever more extreme in their pronouncements. Their latest campaign is an attempt to silence anyone who disagrees.

This reached a new and baleful milestone last week, with a report from the Commons Science and Technology Committee saying BBC editors must obtain special ‘clearance’ before interviewing climate ‘sceptics’.

The committee’s chairman, Labour MP Andrew Miller, likened sceptics to the Monster Raving Loony Party, suggesting they should be allowed to express their views with similar frequency. High profile commentators, including the Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Davey, often describe climate change sceptics as ‘deniers’, on a par with those who reject evidence of the Holocaust.

Academics who deviate from the perceived ‘correct’ line risk vilification. The most recent example is Professor Richard Tol of Sussex University, who had the temerity to remove his name from a UN climate report because he said it was ‘alarmist’.

The architects of [climate] policies know they have failed, but they have no alternative except more of the same. Maybe it’s because their argument is weak that they resort to climate McCarthyism. The cost, apart from higher energy bills, is to democracy, and free speech.

Here is another of those non-existent scientists who have awkward things to say about the ‘science’ and the politics surrounding it:

A submission “The views of an independent physicist” by Professor Pierre DARRIULAT 1 to the Energy and Climate Change Committee’s inquiry about the latest conclusions of the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Review (AR5)
Written evidence submitted by Professor Pierre Darriulat (IPC0049)

The inquiry recently launched by the House of Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee was brought to my attention by colleagues of mine who encouraged me to make my views· known to the Committee.

In my opinion the main point to appreciate is that as it has the purpose of addressing policy makers, the SPM can not be a scientific document. When writing the SPM, the authors are facing a dilemma: either they speak as scientists and must therefore recognize that there are too many unknowns to make reliable predictions, both in the mechanisms at play and in the available data; or they try to convey what they “consensually” think is the right message but at the price of giving up scientific rigour. They deliberately chose the latter option. The result is they have distorted the scientific message into an alarmist message asking for urgent reaction, which is quite contrary to what the scientific message conveys.

What we are witnessing are successive distortions of the scientific message of the AR5 report on the Physical Science Basis: first from the report to the SPM by those who wrote and/or amended the SPM, then from the SPM to the press by those who speak in the name of the IPCC (including the IPCC chairman) then from the press to the general public by green activists who too often behave irresponsibly in misrepresenting the findings of the work.

“Good morning, good morning..” Hope you slept the whole night through and here is an on-time brand NEW Open Thread for you to populate with instances of egregious BBC bias!

Here’s an interesting instance of clear BBC editorial bias. Hat tip to George R..

“This decision is good for Martin McGuinness, peace and for Sinn Féin.” says BBC Political Editor Martina Purdy

-from –

“Martin McGuinness to attend banquet with Queen when President Higgins visits UK”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-26903463

‘Daily Mail’ has:-

“Ex-IRA commander Martin McGuinness WILL be a guest of the Queen at Windsor Castle banquet”

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2597964/Ex-IRA-commander-Martin-McGuinness-guest-Queen-Windsor-Castle-banquet.html#ixzz2y7J2iNg8

Why is it as if Martina is a cheerleader for Butcher Boy McGuinness….

The BBC may well have all but erased 9/11 from its collective memory, but not George W Bush. I heard a real sneering piece on the Today programme this morning mocking his Art Paintings. Some expert was wheeled on to make patronising comments!

Hi folks. Been away much of the week so apols for my absence. Anyway, here is a NEW Open Thread for your edification! Enjoy.

The BBC told the Science and Technology Committee that…..’Climate change is “a matter of reporting and journalistic inquiry, and one where our strong reputation for independence is paramount”.’

However…….David Jordan, Director of Editorial Policy and Standards for the BBC, told them that “politicians driving an issue and talking about its importance and policy developments in relation to it will be clearly important to our news agenda”

So politicians are driving the news agenda…regardless of the science?

It does look like that….see the interview with Andrew Miller, Labour MP below.

The BBC always tell us, as indeed it does above, that its independence is paramount.

Just how does the BBC square that with the implication we get from the Science and Technology Committee’s report that the BBC is just the voice of government peddling their climate propaganda….‘politicians driving the news agenda’?

The Committee is clearly tryng to control how the BBC reports on climate change and demands that it makes itself available to push the green message….to adopt  ‘collective responsibility’ for ‘persuading’ the Public to accept climate change is man made and sacrifices have to be made.

The Committee has evidence that the BBC et al can be a vital component in that battle for hearts and minds…and wallets…..

“The media have an enormous impact on behaviour and belief” and forms “the key source of information, especially the BBC, for what people believe on almost any issue you want to name”.  With regards to climate change the most referred to single source of information (58%) was TV news, usually the BBC…..”TV news was the most cited source of information on climate science”.

Shame the BBC says…….

‘Although we do not have specific evidence of climate change itself, the BBC’s audiences expect it to deliver high-quality programming that is informative and educational about science in general and, therefore, about climate change in particular.’  David Jordan the BBC’s Director of Editorial Policy

The report states….

The BBC News teams continue to make mistakes in their coverage of climate science by giving opinions and scientific fact the same weight.

Yes……much of the global warming ‘science’  reported by the BBC is merely pure opinion, dogma or theory based on computer models, self delusion and wishful thinking.

Despite that the BBC has been bombarding us with alarmist climate change messages….in the run up to the IPCC’s latest report they warmed us up with a few alarmist disaster scenarios and then went full tilt when the actual report came out.

Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability

SUMMARY FOR POLICYMAKERS

Just how good was the BBC’s reporting?  Well Andrew Miller, Labour MP and chair of the Science and Technology Committee, said there was a ‘Fantastic piece by Matt McGrath…world class piece of reporting.’…of course McGrath, the ‘new Black’, force fed us an unadulterated version of the IPCC’s uber alarmism.
Miller was interviewed on the Today programme (08:35)….some highlights of which are below……

Miller tells us that there needs to be a ‘collective responsibility’ to get the message of climate change across to the public…..that is a joint effort by politicians, scientists and the media.

People who are unwilling to accept climate change is real have attitudes which are unhelpful to getting that message out.

Climate change (man made), he tells us, is one of the biggest challenges facing the planet at the present time.

False balance….there is an overwhelming amount of science that supports the climate change case….and the BBC should not provide sceptics with so much airtime and should label them as having vested interests….but he doesn’t require the same disclosure for the so-called ‘experts’.

David Jordan, Director of Editorial Policy and Standards for the BBC,  said  ‘We seek to avoid equal time and status for scientists and non scientists.’

Evan Davis solely talked of sceptics as ‘non-experts’ or ‘non-scientists’.

Miller tries to label sceptics as having an agenda with vested interests…describing them as ‘not disinterested parties and lobbyists who should be labelled as such.‘

Evan Davis asks…How often is the BBC  guilty of providing such a platform to sceptics?

Miller claims ‘It happens consistently in the climate change debate.’

Jordan then states that….’Such interviews  [As with Nigel Lawson] are not typical of the BBC’s coverage of climate change…there is a huge amount of output by the BBC devoted to this subject based on an acceptance that climate change is happening.‘

The trouble is that isn’t what Jordan told the Committee, as they report:

David Jordan, Director of Editorial Policy and Standards for the BBC, was less emphatic on the status of the science, stating that:

The BBC believes that it has an important role to play in explaining climate science, climate change and global warming, if that is what is happening, to its audiences. All our evidence is that, although we do not have specific evidence of climate change itself, the BBC’s audiences expect it to deliver high-quality programming that is informative and educational about science in general and, therefore, about climate change in particular.[81]
Although, later in the evidence session, he seemed less sceptical:
There are now very few people who say that no global warming is happening and it is not the result of man-made activity, but the debate has moved on to the precise ranges and all sorts of other questions

So the BBC, despite having no specific evidence of climate change,  has gone on to produce a ‘huge output….devoted to this subject based on an acceptance that climate change is happening.‘

And what of those ‘sceptics’….just how unqualified are they?

Paxman interviewed James Lovelock last night (23 mins)…he introduced him with these words…..

‘One of the world’s top public intellectuals, a titan of post-war science working outside mainstream scientific institutions coming up with some of the most original ideas of our time.‘

Note that ‘working outside mainstream scientific institutions’…..not of the ‘consensus’ then?  And yet still a ‘Titan of post-war science’!

And what did Lovelock have to say?

James Lovelock: Take this climate matter everybody is thinking about. They all talk, they pass laws, they do things, as if they knew what was happening. I don’t think anybody really knows what’s happening. They just guess. And a whole group of them meet together and encourage each other’s guesses.

And what about vested interests?

Jeremy Paxman: It follows from [what you‘ve said] , does it not, that this panel on climate change which has, as you point out, vested interests involved, may be just as likely or even more likely to make mistakes?

What about Dr Tol so disparaged by Miller?  The Economist thinks he might have a point….

Richard Tol of Sussex University, in Britain, disparagingly appraised the report’s conclusions as “the four horsemen of the apocalypse”. The final version appears to have been fought over paragraph and comma between those (such as Dr Tol) who want to describe dispassionately what they think is happening and those who want to scare the world into taking action.

And what of the latest report?  The Economist notes that it breaks with the previous dogma….

A new way of looking at the climate for both scientists and policymakers. Until now, many of them have thought of the climate as a problem like no other: its severity determined by meteorological factors, such as the interaction between clouds, winds and oceans; not much influenced by “lesser” problems, like rural development; and best dealt with by trying to stop it (by reducing greenhouse-gas emissions). The new report breaks with this approach. It sees the climate as one problem among many, the severity of which is often determined by its interaction with those other problems. And the right policies frequently try to lessen the burden—to adapt to change, rather than attempting to stop it. In that respect, then, this report marks the end of climate exceptionalism and the beginning of realism.

In other words it lines up with what George Bush used to promote (and be derided for by the likes of Justin Webb) and Lawson does now….adaption and acceptance of change.

But Lawson is apparently unacceptable as a commentator on climate change.

Miller and the Green lobby relentlessly try to paint the GWPF and the likes of Nigel Lawson as some kind of extremist anti-science group funded by secretive industrial barons seeking to undermine the saviours of the Planet….but what does the GWPF really think?
The GWPF does not have an official or shared view about the science of global warming – although we are of course aware that this issue is not yet settled. On climate science, our members and supporters cover a broad range of different views, from the IPCC position through agnosticism to outright scepticism. Our main focus is to analyse global warming policies and their economic and other implications. Our aim is to provide the most robust and reliable economic analysis and advice.

And what about anyone else who cares, or dares, to raise a question or two about the ‘science’?

Are they qualified or able to understand the science?

Dr Emily Shuckburgh who published the report titled Climate Science, the Public and the News Media in 2012,[39] believed that there was an appetite for more information and that:

“many non expert members of the public do have a wide ranging and subtle understanding of climate change, are able to grasp new concepts, and are willing to engage in debate”

‘Willing to engage in debate’….but the likes of Miller only want to debate with those who already believe…in other words no debate at all.

Is it that sceptics are ignorant or stupid?

Study: Climate Change Skeptics Know More About Science Than Believers

Despite allegations that they are tantamount to “flat earthers,” a study published Sunday in the Nature Climate Change journal indicates that climate change skeptics actually tend to have a slightly higher level of general scientific knowledge than those who believe in the theory.

From the Nature journal (the Climate change alarmist’s bible):

Seeming public apathy over climate change is often attributed to a deficit in comprehension. The public knows too little science, it is claimed, to understand the evidence or avoid being misled.  We conducted a study to test this account and found no support for it.

Members of the public with the highest degrees of science literacy and technical reasoning capacity were not the most concerned about climate change.

But of course people like Miller see no contradiction in the fact that he himself feels able to speak ‘expertly’ about climate or that a BBC journalist like McGrath can be ‘fantastic and world class’….purely because he produces what Miller approves of in the way of climate propaganda.

So how qualified is Miller or any politician?

Dr Sarah Wollaston, Conservative MP for Totnes. Interviewed before she was elected,  said: ‘I just don’t think that there are enough people in Westminster who can read a scientific paper.’

Miller is not a scientist, and definitley not a climate change scientist:

He went on to study at the London School of Economics where he was awarded a diploma in industrial relations in 1977. He worked initially as a laboratory technician at the Department of Geology at Portsmouth Polytechnic……In 2010 Miller was confirmed as the first Chair of the House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee

And what about McGarth….we know Harrabin is moonlighting from his real expertise as an English graduate…..what are McGrath’s scientific qualifications?…..

Originally from Tipperary in Ireland, Matt edited computer magazines for several years before joining BBC Radio 5 live at its launch in 1994. Following stints as producer and reporter, Matt became the station’s science specialist in 1997.

And the IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri?  A railway engineer.

Lord Stern?.…an economist.

The bumptious Bob Ward?  A geology graduate who works now as a green PR guru for a multi-millionaire businessman who said:

“Our first responsibility is to make money for our clients….and nothing is more important than oil.”   Jeremy Grantham….Bob Ward’s boss and also that of Lord Stern.

I could go on and on…..but if we are to label all those who are interviewed on the BBC I’d be quite happy with that…I somehow doubt the green lobbyists would be quite so happy as they realise their charade and fraudulent posturing is exposed.

But should ‘non-scientists’ be denied a voice….especially when discussing policies designed to combat global warming or actions to adapt to such a scenario?

The Guardian tells us:

We took a strategic decision about five years ago that, looking at the swathe of opinion in the scientific literature and the voices of people like the Royal Society and so on, this was a major scientific issue, with potentially profound societal and economic consequences.

You can see what is at stake…with many a grasping hand being shoved forward for a piece of the pie:

There is far greater emphasis to adapting to the impacts of climate in this new summary. The problem, as ever, is who foots the bill?
“It is not up to IPCC to define that,” said Dr Jose Marengo, a Brazilian government official who attended the talks.
“It provides the scientific basis to say this is the bill, somebody has to pay, and with the scientific grounds it is relatively easier now to go to the climate negotiations in the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) and start making deals about who will pay for adaptation.”

So the IPCC’s ‘science’ is providng the basis for many countries to try and claim massive payouts from those they would like to blame for climate change….and we know who the BBC labels as to blame…..the West….

Climate change poses a huge barrier to a fulfilling future, argues Lord Puttnam, an ambassador for Unicef UK. In this week’s Green Room, he asks what price children will have to pay for three or four carbon-happy generations?

Why the West should put money in the trees

This is politician and ‘climate expert’ Chris Huhne in the Guardian….

The scientific case is strengthening: developed countries are to blame for global warming – and there will soon be a legal reckoning

Would you enjoy the cosiness and warmth of Christmas with your children or grandchildren just that little bit less if you knew that other people’s children were dying because of it? More than four million children under five years old are now at risk of acute malnutrition in the Sahel, an area of the world that is one of the clearest victims of the rich world’s addiction to fossil fuels.

That sort of attitude is why genuine debate about what is causing climate change is so important with far reaching consequences.

Climate is political….the science is irrelevant for many….it is now used to promote a political agenda that aims to undermine the West and reduce it to poverty and decline…..

Mike Hulme, until recently head of the Tyndall Centre at the UEA, gave the game away in his book “Why We DisAgree About Climate Change”:

The idea of climate change should be seen as an intellectual resource around which our collective and personal identities and projects can form and take shape. We need to ask not what we can do for climate change, but to ask what climate change can do for us.
……
Because the idea of climate change is so plastic, it can be deployed across many of our human projects and can serve many of our psychological, ethical, and spiritual needs.
…….
We will continue to create and tell new stories about climate change and mobilize them in support of our projects.
…….
These myths transcend the scientific categories of ‘true’ and ‘false’.

Here are some interesting quotes from Miller and Co’s report:

Science and Technology  Committee – Eighth Report
Communicating climate science

Lack of appropriate training for news editors may be an issue. The importance of their role was explained by David Jordan who told us “editors of individual programmes (whether news or otherwise) are responsible for fact checking their content before it is aired”.  [Lack of training?….all those secret seminars designed by Harrabin to convince BBC editors and programme makers to adopt the green agenda and insert the propaganda into their programmes…all wasted?]
This lack of distinction within BBC News between proven scientific facts and opinions or beliefs is problematic. The BBC editorial guidelines include guidance on accuracy. These were also referred to by David Jordan in evidence to us. However, these state “accuracy is not simply a matter of getting facts right.  If an issue is controversial, relevant opinions as well as facts may need to be considered. When necessary, all the relevant facts and information should also be weighed to get at the truth”.

The BBC News teams continue to make mistakes in their coverage of climate science by giving opinions and scientific fact the same weight. BBC guidelines have stringent requirements for the coverage of politicians and political parties. For example, any proposal to invite politicians to contribute to non-political output must be referred to the Chief Advisor Politics. The BBC could benefit from applying a similarly stringent approach when interviewing non-experts on controversial scientific topics such as climate change.

“If you want to introduce behavioural change in relation to climate change and you want to alter what people do […] you must take the public with you”.

Improving understanding is important to ensuring effective policy implementation.

James Painter…There is agreement that it [the Media] has a “huge role in setting the agenda for what people talk or think about”.[48] He also explained that the media plays a crucial role in public knowledge of science:
In the specific area of science coverage, most people in the UK get their information from the media, so the way the media report and frame climate change is one significant input into public understanding of the topic.

[James Painter…ex BBC….One of the BBC’s main climate change propagandists, James Painter…What it underlines yet again is that BBC staff are up their gills in the political process of disseminating alarmism; the fact that Mr Painter (aided and abetted by the unbiquitous Richard Black) has written this report is proof positive that his main concern, as the Cancun phase of the climate alarmism approaches, is to affect greenie change by propaganda.]

Genuine scepticism should be embraced by the climate science community. Dogma on either side of the debate should be revealed as such.

To achieve the necessary commitment from the public to climate policy, the Government must demonstrate a coherent approach to communicating both the scientific basis and the proposed solutions.

Relying heavily on scientists as the most prominent voice, has a resulted in a vacuum that has allowed inaccurate arguments to flourish with little effective challenge.

We are very disappointed by the heavy reliance that the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph place on the ability of their readers to distinguish between fact and opinion on climate science. This is especially the case because opinion pieces about climate science in these publications are frequently based on factual inaccuracies which go unchallenged.

[Says who?    Richard Black does, former BBC Correspondent, he was critical of the coverage in the Mail on Sunday and the ‘regular inaccuracies’ that appeared:
This is something that TheMail on Sunday clearly does not have a problem with because it has done it many times before. Complaints have been submitted and mistakes pointed out, and the same thing carries on happening. Whether one wants to see that as part of a polarised or increasingly variegated media landscape, or see it in terms of a political game, depends on how one looks at it.]

James Painter told us that despite “lots of evidence that people distinguish between news and opinion” what worried him was the finding in his research that “that there is an awful lot of uncontested sceptical opinion in the opinion pieces and editorials in much of the right-leaning press”.

We acknowledge the difficulty for broadcasters in maintaining coverage of climate change when the basic facts are established and the central story remains the same. We consider it vital, however, that they continue to do so. Our greatest concern is about the BBC given the high level of trust the public has in its coverage. It did not convince us that it had a clear understanding of the information needs of its audience.

 We recommend that the BBC should develop clear editorial guidelines for all commentators and presenters on the facts of climate that should be used to challenge statements, from either side of the climate policy debate, that stray too far from the scientific facts. Public service broadcasters should be held to a higher standard than other broadcasters.

This is not to say that non-scientists should be excluded from the debate, the BBC has the responsibility to reflect all views and opinions in society and it is worth remembering that not all frauds and mistakes in science have been uncovered by scientists. Where time is available for careful consideration and discussion of the facts, it should be possible to explore more detailed consideration of where the science is less certain, such as how feedback mechanisms and climate sensitivity influence the response of the climate to increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Scientists, politicians, lobbying groups and other interested parties should be heard on this issue but the BBC should be clear on what role its interviewees have and should be careful not to treat lobbying groups as disinterested experts.
The BBC said….Climate change is “a matter of reporting and journalistic inquiry, and one where our strong reputation for independence is paramount”.

David Jordan, Director of Editorial Policy and Standards for the BBC
told us that “politicians driving an issue and talking about its importance and policy developments in relation to it will be clearly important to our news agenda”.[61] James Randerson, of the Guardian, explained that “from an editor’s point of view, if politicians are talking about it, we report it. It gives us something to report, so if politicians are not talking about it there is one fewer source of stories”.[62] Professor Philo also emphasised the role of politicians in ensuring a subject receives coverage because politicians “are seen as opinion leaders; they are what media specialists […] would call primary definers”.

Submissions to our inquiry commented on a tendency for the media to approach climate science as an argument about two equally valid points of view, rather than discussion about scientific facts, and on the false balance of views being presented as a consequence. Professor Pidgeon questioned whether the “norm of ensuring balanced reporting […] is appropriate where the scientific evidence is so overwhelming”.[68]When questioned about the balance of views in the media, Sir Mark Walport told us that climate change “is not a matter for opinion or belief. It is a matter of fact whether humans are altering the climate or not. There is a correct answer to this question”.

David Kennedy, Chief Executive of the Committee on Climate Change told us “someone needs to take charge of the story” and “we can provide a story, and we aim to do that […] but in terms of cascading and multiplying that narrative there has to be an important role for the Government. There is more that both central and local government can do once there is a story”

We were told that “confusion between the science and the politics bedevils the public dialogue” and that “the profound policy implications of climate change mean that public discussion often constitutes policy debate masquerading as science”. [211]ClimateXChange, the research group that advises the Scottish Government on climate change issues, told us why, in their view, communicating about climate change had become so complicated:
Climate change is a politicised debate involving conflicting interests and challenging societal and individual habits. The discourse on climate change is complicated by difficulties in communication between science, policy, the media and the public. There is space for miscommunication, resistance and politicisation at any stage of the discourse.[212]

New thread. Now fill it up.

The BBC still  seem reluctant to report this:

France’s Muslims drawn to far right anti-immigration party

Elections at the weekend revealed a remarkable phenomenon: Muslims voting with the far right, anti-immigration Front National (FN).

“The main left and right parties have failed them. But for many Muslims, the moves towards legalising gay marriage would be enough by itself to vote for a party like the FN that opposes it too.”

And this definitely is a no no for the BBC….an immigrant’s son compaining about immigrants:

In the north-eastern town of Forbach, where the FN fell short of another dramatic victory, a former miner identified as Ahmed, 53, described his attraction to Ms Le Pen’s politics.

“It might seem bizarre for an Algerian’s son,” he told the daily newspaper Aujourd’hui en France.

“But my vote is a sanction. We give far too many handouts [to foreigners] in France and not enough to the French.”

Farid Smahi, whose father fought with the French army in World War II but later against them as Algeria battled for freedom, told the channel a million people of Arab background voted for Ms Le Pen in the 2012 presidential elections.

Though the BBC is keen to report this ‘phenomenom’ of the election:

The Socialists retained control of Paris, with their candidate Anne Hidalgo due to become the capital’s first female mayor.

“I am the first woman to be mayor of Paris,” she said.

How shocking a woman Mayor….not so shocking though that Muslims vote for the Far Right….and oppose immigration?

Bizarre world of the BBC.