I can see why the BBC might find Islam attractive what with death for apostasy being a favoured way of dealing with critical ex-members of the cult.
Paxman is famously grumpy as he slowly grinds to a halt, and Paul Mason shows a distinct lack of loyalty as well…from The Spectator:
Former Newsnight correspondent Paul Mason seems rather happy to be free of Auntie, especially since the Scottish independence referendum campaign sent the establishment to panic stations: ‘Not since Iraq have I seen BBC News working at propaganda strength like this. So glad I’m out of there,’ he writes on his Facebook page, to the consternation of former colleagues. ‘It’s on my friends-only Facebook page so not meant as any great statement other than weariness,’ Mason tells Mr S, ‘it says what it says.’ Lucky, then that he is now at Channel Four News – that famed bastion of slant free news.
First of all we have to think up a really uncool name for them…To call them the Islamic State is just addressing them in the manner they want to be addressed and gives them a legitimacy they don’t deserve.
Naturally they are ‘unIslamic’ but also barbaric, murderous and cruel terrorists…yes that’s right, terrorists.
Curious that when the BBC wants to defend ‘Islam’ anything that reflects badly upon the religion or community is deemed unIslamic, bad, mad or in this case terrorists.
Curious that when the BBC wants to attack Israel similar bad, mad, unIslamic ‘terrorists’ are described as ‘resisters’, militants heroically defending their land and people against a violent oppressor.
Campbell of course couldn’t make it through the programme without finding an excuse to bring Israel into the discussion. When someone suggested ISIS didn’t follow the norms of most states or international rules Campbell claimed that there would be thousands of people screaming at the radio asking ‘What about Israel?‘
Why Israel? Why Israel in particular when Russia has annexed the Crimea and has invaded the Ukraine, never mind its attempts on Georgia and Chechnya…never mind Syrian atrocities, or Iranian, or Pakistani?
Why does Nicky Campbell compare Israel to ISIS? Must be all those ‘undocumented’ settlements…sorry, illegal settlements. Again curious how illegal immigrants are welcomed to Britain by the BBC and yet Israeli ‘illegals’ in the West Bank are criminal war mongers.
At best this is Campbell trying to generate some cheap interest in his programme, trying to stimulate some controversy and argument by throwing Israel to the dogs. At worst he is demonising Israel and legitimising attacks upon it.
There are various pieties that politicians observe in the wake of some barbarity committed by Islamic fundamentalists and duly David Cameron observed them in his statement yesterday about the murder of David Haines. Of the perpetrators, he observed:
‘They are killing and slaughtering thousands of people – Christians, Muslims, minorities across Iraq and Syria. They boast of their brutality. They claim to do this in the name of Islam. That is nonsense. Islam is a religion of peace. They are not Muslims, they are monsters.’
I really wish he wouldn’t. It doesn’t add anything whatever to our understanding of Isis to say that they are not Muslims but monsters. They may not be our preferred kind of Muslims – my own preference is for the C of E sort you used to get in the former Yugoslavia – but they are, unquestionably Muslims of a particularly unattractive stamp. Calling them monsters is an impolite way of abnegating any effort to understand them.
BBC coverage of all things Israel is always cutting edge bias! I am aware that a rally had been organised to PROTEST against this but I understand thus has been moved. See below.
“Thank you to everyone who has contacted us about our rally to protest media bias against Israel. This is an incredibly important issue, especially in the wake of Operation Protective Edge.
Unfortunately, the date proposed for the rally coincides with that of the Scottish referendum, one of the biggest news stories of the year. As we have approached the date, many of our supporters have contacted us with their concerns that our rally would therefore not have the impact it deserves.
In light of this, we have taken the difficult decision to postpone the rally until after the referendum. We will be releasing details of the new date shortly.”
The SNP’s Jim Sillars made some astonishing threats to companies that didn’t promote the SNP pro-independence line:
The No camp fear mongering has had an effect on me – instead of retiring on 19th. September, I am staying in. This referendum is about power, and when we get a Yes majority, we will use that power for a day of reckoning with BP and the banks.
The heads of these companies are rich men, in cahoots with a rich English Tory Prime Minister, to keep Scotland’s poor, poorer through lies and distortions. The power they have now to subvert our democracy will come to an end with a Yes.
BP, in an independent Scotland, will need to learn the meaning of nationalisation, in part or in whole, as it has in other countries who have not been as soft as we have forced to be. If it wants into the ‘monster fields’ in the areas west of Shetland, it will have to learn to bend the knee to a greater power – us, the sovereign people of Scotland. We will be the masters of the oil fields, not BP or any other of the majors. If Bob Dudley thinks this is mere rhetoric, just let him wait. It is sovereign power that counts. We will have it, he will not.
As for the Bankers. Your casino days, rescued by socialisation of your liabilities while you waltz off with the profits, will be over. You will be split between retail and investment, and if your greed takes the latter down, there will be no rescue. You believe in the market, in future you will live with its discipline. Fail will mean failure.
As for Standard Life, it will be required by new employment laws to give two years warning of any redundancies, and reveal to the trade unions its financial reasons for relocation to any country outside of Scotland, and the costs involved. It has never crossed the minds of our compliant Unionist media, especially the BBC, to ask the Chief Executive what his costings are on his proposed moves.
As for John Lewis, the question is whether the senior management consulted the ‘partners’ or took instructions from Cameron? Another question our supine BBC did not ask. There is now talk of boycott, and if it happens it will be a management own goal.
What kind of people do these companies think we are? They will find out.
I have yet to hear a BBC interview that ripped into any SNP representative about this [I’m sure there must be one]….I heard Jon Pienaar having a friendly chat with Nicola Sturgeon yesterday when he allowed her to get away with dismissing the whole thing as the result of great passion and Sillars’ wife having died.
Never have I heard the BBC link other such examples of businesses being threatened by the SNP to back up claims of SNP bullying…..
SNP making ‘threatening phone calls’, say pro-Union businesses. This is sinister
As Scotland gets ready to vote on independence in September next year, one subject above all others prompts business leaders, entrepreneurs and bankers here to lower their voices and look over their shoulders to check that they are not being overheard. Ask them about the risks of breaking up the Union and it rapidly becomes apparent that they are terrified of getting caught speaking publicly about concerns, in case they are targeted for retribution by Alex Salmond’s nationalist administration which runs devolved Scotland. The climate of fear is extraordinary and quite sinister. There is the concern about incurring the wrath of SNP politicians, in terms of smear campaigns instigated in the Scottish parliament and publicised in the media.
Cameron accuses SNP of threats to business leaders over no vote
“A huge amount of pressure is being put on businesses by the Scottish government with all sorts of threats and warnings against speaking out and saying what they believe is the truth. I come across business leader after business leader – large and small in Scotland – who wants to keep our United Kingdom together and thinks it would be crazy to have border controls, different currencies and split up our successful United Kingdom. I urge them to speak out, talk with their work forces about the strength of our United Kingdom and then vote to keep it together.”
Makers of an episode of Channel 4’s Dispatches, which will air tonight, said they had been spoken to 19 businesses who were aware of threats of “retribution down the track” for those who opposed independence.
Gavin Hewitt, the former chief executive of the Scotch Whisky Association, told Channel 4 that he or his senior staff had met with Angus Robertson, the SNP leader at Westminster, on at least six occasions over the past two years.
“He and the SNP have regularly tried to get the message to the Scotch Whisky Association that the Scotch whisky industry should stay out of the independence debate,” Hewitt told the programme.
It might be a good example of rounded journalism if the BBC were to make a bit of an effort and put all of these examples together and make a solid case against the SNP for its sinister, bullying tactics…this is the SNP who claim that an independent Scotland will be a fairer, more equal, more just place.
Presumably only if the SNP then get booted out at the next election.
Why? Because the BBC’s Nick Robinson actually did his job and asked an awkward question…one that Alex Salmond avoided answering…….the spineless Robinson then fell into line and meekly stated that Salmond had answered the question about tax…and note, Robinson has not since gone on to investigate the claims made by Salmond…which is a shame as they bear only a passing resemblance to the truth..but Salmond has Robinson on the run it seems…..
To all tweeting about me saying that @AlexSalmond did not answer me : He DID answer re RBS but did NOT re why trust him not company bosses
In fact Salmond’s ‘answer’ was a masterclass in evasion, bluster and bluff redirecting attention away from the issue and onto Salmond’s favourite subject…the persecution of the poor wee SNP by the bullying English in Westminster….playing the victim card to perfection.
If you watch the video near the end Robinson has to demand the answer again to the question about tax revenues and RBS…so clearly at that time he felt Salmond had not answered the question…..
And, to be clear, for all the outrage of Alex Salmond at what he sees as the politically motivated leaking by the Treasury of this migration south, he has known these were the banks’ respective intentions for months (because RBS, for one, told him).
We received complaints from viewers who felt Nick Robinson’s report on the Scottish First Minister’s press conference implied that Alex Salmond had not answered a question put to him
The BBC’s Political Editor Nick Robinson asked Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond two questions at his press conference on Thursday 11th September. The first question centred on the tax implications of RBS moving its legal headquarters to London; the second on why voters should trust a politician rather than businessmen.
Nick Robinson’s report showed the second question on trust, with a script line noting that Mr Salmond had not answered that point.
The BBC considers that the questions were valid and the overall report balanced and impartial, in line with our editorial guidelines.
Robinson asked if Salmond still believed there were no consequences resulting from businesses such as RBS moving to London, or did Salmond accept that tax revenues would go to London?
Salmond replied that corporation tax depends on economic activity not where your registered office is claiming that RBS’s and Lloyd’s registered office’s were merely brass plaques with no significance.
But that’s not true. The brass plaques represent the legal entity of the company.
The Banks are moving their legal entities from Scotland to England…..and as such would likely be under English tax jurisdiction….and Lloyds does have its head office in London but it is a Scottish company legally…and its subsidairy, The Bank of Scotland, has its HQ in Edinburgh…so that will move also…disengenuous of Salmond to dodge that….
The move will end more than 100 years of heritage for the Edinburgh based Bank of Scotland, which has its head office in St Andrew Square.
Lloyds Banking Group will move its official headquarters out of Scotland if the country votes for independence in next week’s referendum.
The banking group which owns Lloyds Bank, Halifax and Bank of Scotland largely operate from its London headquarters, however the bank’s registered offices are in Edinburgh.
As part of such contingency planning, RBS believes that it would be necessary to re-domicile the Bank’s holding company and its primary rated operating entity (The Royal Bank of Scotland plc) to England.
The Guardian looks at businesses moving their head offices…although RBS and Lloyds aren’t moving for tax purposes such effects could happen by default…..
A corporate inversion occurs when a multinational group moves its notional head office, often for tax purposes, from its home jurisdiction to an overseas territory. The impact on operations is often minimal, with manufacturing activities and the markets in which it operates remaining unchanged.
However, combined with a web of crossborder transactions between companies owned by the same group, such inversions can play an important role in shifting profits within an international business to low-tax jurisdictions, boosting returns for shareholders.
Peston says he doesn’t know exactly what will happen tax wise and he is still trying to find out…so Salmond must have been blustering….
Banks and financial services firms have said they will move their tax headquarters, and in some cases part of their operations, to England in the event of a vote for Scottish independence.
Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group said they would “re-domicile” their main groups south of the border if there were a Yes vote.
Tesco Bank would also “re-domicile” in England, Clydesdale Bank would re-register as English, and TSB would also “re-domicile” parts of its business.
But what does that actually mean?
According to Patrick Stevens, tax policy director at the Chartered Institute of Taxation, large companies typically “re-domicile” to take advantage of perks offered by a particular country’s tax regime.
It’s helpful to think of a company having to have a “home” for tax purposes. To move that “home”, multinationals make a holding company tax resident in a particular country.
Like the outcome of the referendum itself, it’s very difficult to see what the eventual tax outcome will be.
However, one thing is certain: banks want to move their tax “homes” south as a backstop in the event of Scottish independence.
Salmond tried to mock Robinson by saying someone from the BBC should know that Lloyds has their head office in London…..but that’s semantics….the registered office is the one that pays the taxes.
Lloyds would relocate its registered office to where it currently has its head office – which is also London (naturally).
Salmond smirked and laughed off any suggestion that he couldn’t be sure about how much oil was in the Clair Field, and the SNP has been insistent in BBC interviews that it was enormous and would guarantee a massive windfall without the BBC challenging that assertion……
Off the West coast of Shetland is the Clair Ridge field. It contains an estimated 8 billion barrels of oil, with an estimated 120,000 barrels per day production at peak levels.
The development will produce about 640m barrels of oil over 40 years.
What does Salmond say one day later after the Robinson interview?
Is there a massive unreported oil field off Shetland under the Clair Ridge?
“There is a lot of suggestion.”
Is it credible suggestion?
“Oh yes, it’s credible. But can I confirm it? No. What I can tell you is many of my constituents believe this to be true.”
Are they misguided?
“Well, I don’t know. I can’t say for definite.”
Salmond claimed there must be a conspiracy between No10 and the businesses as they’d all had a chat with Cameron recently….unfortunately Salmond then went on to admit the company announcements weren’t news at all to the Scots, they’d known all along…indeed these businesses had announced these plans and commented on the consequences of Independence months earlier.
Finally Salmond refused to answer the question about the trustworthiness of politicians….he himself has his doubts….
This argument’s been won,” he carries on, “for the following reason: that the overwhelming majority of people want to keep the pound, and secondly they don’t believe the Westminster politicians.”
So all in all, Salmond gave an ‘answer’ but he didn’t say anything that could be relied upon. Many taxes will go to England as a result of the registered offices moving, The BBC did know that Lloyds had its head office in London. The oil field is big but nowhere near as productive as the Yes campaign claim….and Salmond now admits he can’t be sure at all. And of course politicians aren’t trusted anywhere…..all of which are the opposite of what Salmond claimed.
So no, Salmond didn’t answer either question and if Robinson had a bit more backbone he’d have tackled Salmond again, and again.
“Yes, absolutely,” he says. “Of course it is. The problem with Nick … I mean, don’t get me wrong, I like these folk, but they don’t realise they’re biased. It’s the unconscious bias which is the most extraordinary thing of all. If the BBC were covering, in my estimation, any referendum, in any democracy, anywhere in the world, they would cover it impeccably, in a balanced fashion.
“What they don’t understand is they’re players in this.”
He says BBC journalists from London are reporting old news as fresh out of ignorance.
This argument’s been won [of the currency debate],” he carries on, “for the following reason: that the overwhelming majority of people want to keep the pound, and secondly they don’t believe the Westminster politicians.”
Is there a massive unreported oil field off Shetland under the Clair Ridge?
“There is a lot of suggestion.”
Is it credible suggestion?
“Oh yes, it’s credible. But can I confirm it? No. What I can tell you is many of my constituents believe this to be true.”
Are they misguided?
“Well, I don’t know. I can’t say for definite
He’s always said the result would be a Yes. What about the scale of the victory?
“I’d be absolutely delighted with 50.1%. I do have something [greater] in mind but I’m going to leave it to the people.”
I wonder if he will be so accepting of a 50.1% No vote? Keep that statement in mind.
I’m just catching up on some emails and I thought this was one you may wish to engage with and help out on please.
“This petition to the BBC and BBC Trust could really be quite significant if gains momentum. I’m hoping for 10,000 signatures which will really make an impact even if the BBC doesn’t make the relatively small changes demanded/requested.
Did you see that BBC stalwart Nick Robinson has been at the receiving end of Chairman Salmond’s tongue? I feel a bit sorry for Robinson but then again the BBC pander too much to demagogues like Salmond little realising that he will devour them just as easily as anyone else who dares question his ways,
Alex Salmond has backed yes campaigners who staged an angry protest outside the BBC’s Scottish headquarters over perceived bias shown by the corporation’s political editor, Nick Robinson. The National Union of Journalists condemned attempts to intimidate journalists after Sunday’s protesters, objecting to what they regard as the BBC’s pro-union bias, said Robinson was a liar and called for him to be fired.
Salmond, Scotland’s first minister, said he did not want Robinson to be sacked and did not believe he was a liar. But he said the BBC had been unfair and unreasonable in the way it edited a tense exchange between Salmond and Robinson at a press conference on Thursday. Robinson was accused by the first minister of “heckling” after he pressed Salmond to answer further questions about the threat of Scotland-based banks to move their registered offices to London.”
In Alex Salmond’s brave new world, anyone asking any questions he deems unacceptable will be harassed and bullied and intimidated so on this occasion, I stand WITH the BBC. Forgive me!
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