Perfect example of how the BBC leaps upon race issues with glee…before checking what’s what…or as Breitbart says ‘Because of course the BBC can’t tell the difference between an outlandish, obviously fake social-justice obsessed parody account and a normal member of the public.’.….

Star Wars is ‘racist and homophobic’: BBC blunder as Twitter hoaxer is invited on air

Godfrey Elfwick

@GodfreyElfwick

Demisexual genderqueer Muslim atheist. Literal good guy. Itinerant jongleur. Pronouns are Xir, Xirs Xirself. Filters life through the lens of minority issues.

The perfect BBC interviewee.

A BBC spokesman said: “On this occasion, the Force was not with us.

“The guest presented himself as a 20-year-old who’s never seen Star Wars, and we put him on air under that pretence.

“WHYS producers always do their best to check guests in a live programme that invites global discussion from listeners.”

Sheeran has deleted her tweet inviting Elfwick on to the show.

 

 

The BBC brings us this…

Fewer nurses forecast for NHS – Labour

But is it true?  And if not why is the BBC putting up demonstrably false claims from Labour as headline news?

The BBC is scaremongering about the NHS by peddling Labour’s propaganda without question in an obvious and disgraceful attempt to smear the Tories….the morning news has been pumping out stories of the Tories’ ‘secret plan’ to reduce nursing numbers….Labour will, according to the BBC, provide 10,000 more nurses…paid for by…well the BBC doesn’t tell us……here’s their web report….

‘The number of NHS nurses in England is set to fall by almost 2,000 over the next four years according to government projections, Labour has said.

Accusing the Conservatives of having a “secret plan”, Labour’s Andy Burnham said fewer nurses would push hospitals “over the edge”.

The health document Labour is basing its claims on says fewer nurses would be employed because of “affordability”.’

 

A ‘secret plan’?  Or a freely available document?  A plan based upon ‘affordability’ or a plan based upon efficiency and making the most of every penny?  Here’s what the report actually says, as opposed to what the BBC tells us…

Firstly, planning the future workforce is more than just a numbers game. In order to ensure that future patient needs are met, we need to make sure that we have enough people with the right skills, values and behaviours available to work in the most appropriate setting for patients. The Five Year Forward View sets out new models of care that span both community and hospital settings. These models will require new skills and ways of working, and increasingly, we will need to commission new types of professionals, rather than just more of the same.

In other words it’s about retraining and moving staff around to provide a better service as well as adding staff numbers…working smart not just piling in large numbers of nurses who may not actually improve things but provide good headlines for politicians.

Here’s a graph that tells us nursing numbers are forecast to rise…though still under the level required to match demand…

And if it were a numbers game the number of nurses would seem to be going up not down…as for GPs and many other staff…

Here’s more of what the report says about recruitment…..

Overall, we are commissioning more education and training than ever before, with over 50,000 doctors in training and over 37,000 new training opportunities for nurses, scientists, and therapists. In many ways this is a good thing. But there are three reasons why we cannot and should not continue historic levels of growth in all areas indefinitely.

Last year, we significantly increased the number of commissions we made for adult nursing over and above local plans, representing a 9% increase on the previous year. For 2015/16, we plan to continue the growth in nursing numbers to meet safe staffing levels by commissioning 555 additional training posts, a further increase of 4.2%. This means in the two years of HEE we will have grown adult nursing training places by 13.6%.

We will increase children’s nurse commissions in 2015/16 by 161 (7.4%). This training is forecast to produce 5,876FTE growth in available supply by 2019, a 35.6% increase in this workforce, which should be sufficient to meet anticipated patient need in acute settings.

 We have also made a significant investment in paramedic training – a 87% increase over two years, providing for 1,902FTE growth in available supply over the next five years.

HEE’s investment plan shows our intention to increase paramedic training commissions by 378 places in 2015 to 1,231, an increase of 44.3%. This will mean HEE has increased commissions by 576 over two years (87%).

We have produced a phenomenal increase in the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) workforce. We will commission an additional 190 this year (25% increase) which will contribute to a 1,548 FTE growth in available supply (41%) over the next three years.

We will commission an additional 100 training posts for mental health nurses in 15/16 (3% increase) contributing to a forecast growth in available supply of 2,630 FTE (6.8%) over the next five years.

We forecast that if our planned training levels are achieved, then the number of GPs available for employment would be 36,830 FTE by 2020, an increase of 14.8% from the 32,075 FTE recorded as being employed in September 2013.

 

 

The BBC’s Roger Harrabin gives the impression of working with the Guardian newspaper to intimidate businesses and other institutions into ridding themselves of their fossil fuel investments.

The Guardian’s editor, Alan Rusbridger, demands that Scientists must speak up on fossil-fuel divestment in a recent article in Nature which attacked the Wellcome Trust and the Bill And Melinda Gates Foundation for not offloading their shares in fossil fuel businesses saying ‘ these wonderful progressive foundations are failing to show the kind of leadership that could be transformative in shifting policy arguments and influencing others. The voices that will resonate loudest with the Wellcome and the Gates are those of scientists. I urge you to make them heard.’

The very next day Harrabin published this Are energy companies sitting on unburnable reserves? saying:

‘Are we approaching the twilight of the fossil fuel era?

The oil price remains stubbornly low. Renewables are becoming more affordable and moving into the mainstream.

On top of that, some investment managers are now beginning to question the value of their holdings in carbon fuels as the pressure builds for the world to limit climate change by reducing carbon emissions.

Some observers believe energy is at a potential tipping point.’

A pressure group, 350.org, began urging faith organisations, foundations and pension funds to withdraw funds from fossil fuels, arguing it is morally wrong to put your money in carbon fuels. So far, more than 220 institutions have taken the decision to divest.

Why did Harrabin feel the need to run this piece now when it is based upon a story run months ago?…

‘Vast amounts of oil in the Middle East, coal in the US, Australia and China and many other fossil fuel reserves will have to be left in the ground to prevent dangerous climate change, according to the first analysis to identify which existing reserves cannot be burned.’

 

Harrabin for some reason makes no mention that the Guardian is at the lead of the campaign to force investors to divest their shares….the Guardian which is in partnership with that ‘pressure group’ 350.Org on this campaign.

The whole article is entirely one sided, guess which side. Only at the end do we get a hint of any opposition and then Harrabin only quotes the Shell oil company’s CEO..

“With an exceptional effort, as much as 25% of the world’s energy could come from renewables by 2050,” said Ben van Beurden. “But non-renewable forms of energy will have to make up the rest.”

However that is dismissed by the following comment to finish the article:

‘The UK’s former climate change ambassador John Ashton has condemned his comments. The oil giants, he says, will have to choose which side of history they are on.’

Hardly an argument based upon facts, science or reason….more like the Inquisition….believe!

Funny thing about the Guardian’s Rusbridger, whilst urging these companies and businesses to divest themselves of some of their investments that many pension funds rely upon he and his paper don’t follow that advice.

He himself is heading off to Oxford University (and will be chairman of the Scott Media Trust, owners of the Guardian)…the same university that ‘is believed to have the largest investments in fossil fuel companies of any UK university.’ but is coming under pressure to ‘divest’.

Rusbridger has a mini fleet of cars, and like Cameron in his green phase sometimes cycled to work…with a taxi following with his paperwork. Many of your pensions will be heavily reliant upon the investments in the fuel companies that Rusbridger seeks to vilify…that’s OK for Rusbridger because the Guardian tops up his pension with large annual bonuses as he told Piers Morgan in an interview in 2012…one in which he is incredibly reluctant to answer any questions:

What’s your current salary?
It’s, er, about £350,000.

What was your bonus last year?
I got about £170,000 which was a way of addressing my pension.

The Guardian itself, no doubt printing off its paper using ethically sourced, planet friendly fairy dust was financed by the profits made by its car magazine, now sold, tax free for £619 million.…to ‘secure its future’…so still living off the wages of sin…petrol powered sin….and it wasn’t an ethically driven sale but one driven by financial necessity…“The situation was not sustainable as a business could not have this lingering over it and the Guardian needed the cash to survive.” 

The Guardian itself says it has divested its own fossil fuel investments…but its thinking is more business than green…..

‘Fossil fuel assets had performed relatively poorly in recent years and were threatened by future climate change action, while an ethical fund already held by GMG had been a “stellar” performer and renewable energy was growing strongly. “This means we can adopt socially responsible investment criteria without putting at risk the core purpose of GMG’s investment funds: to generate long-term returns that guarantee the financial future and editorial independence of the Guardian in perpetuity.”

In other words the Guardian has off-loaded fossil fuels because they were performing badly and their green investments were doing better…..profits all paid for by huge subsidies from the UK tax payer…so just how ethical is that…the Guardian padding out its profits from high energy costs imposed upon consumers rich and poor…forced into fuel poverty by Rusbridger and Harrabin?  Heat or Eat anybody?

The Guardian though has an investment fund abroad that it doesn’t seem to keen to reveal exactly what it invests in….I’m sure those hedge funds are green hedges….

‘The portfolio of assets in the investment fund is designed to spread Group asset risk over a wider base than the Group’s historical UK media sector focus. Investments are in a diversified range of assets, which are managed by anumber of specialist fund managers, including global and emerging market equity, fixed income, real assets and hedge funds. The investments are denominated in Sterling and overseas currencies, principally the US Dollar.’

‘Green’ hedge funds just as green propagandist Bob Ward’s paymaster runs…or doesn’t….

This is what Jeremy Grantham, Bob‘s ultimate boss and paymaster said about how he makes money:

‘Our first responsibility is to make money for our clients….and nothing is more important than oil.’

His first responsibility?…not to save the Planet…but to make money…from oil.

The simplicity, the Machiavellian naivety, the pious posturing from Rusbridger is astonishing….he grandstands with sanctimonious ‘ethical’ statements about the evils of fossil fuels, the Guardian ridding itself of their own investments knowing full well that the world cannot run without fossil fuels and their derivatives and that the Guardian’s stance is pure posturing as others will invest in energy companies and the oil will keep flowing and being used and that Rusbridger and Co will still be running their businesses on the back of that however much of a headline grabbing firewall they pretend to put between them and fossil fuel industry.

For instance they attack the Wellcome Trust and the Gates Foundation…and yet the Gates Foundation funds the Guardian….so the Guardian should divest itself of that funding…to avoid accusations of hypocrisy.

The Guardian is also funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation which has a huge variety of investments….all of which in some form or other are dependent upon fossil fuels from energy and pharmaceutical companies, mining and banking, Royal Mail with all its thousands of vans racing around the country belching out diesel fumes, and even Domino’s Pizzas…cooking on solar energy and delivering your pizza by pedal power…I’m sure.

The JRF says ‘In July 2014 trustees agreed that the Trust should be divested from all fossil fuels by 2020.’…but of course that is only companies that have an obvious fossil fuel connection.

Showboating about the obvious energy companies is pure hypocrisy when there is no business in the world that doesn’t rely upon fossil fuel in some shape or form however hidden that reliance is.

The benefits of fossil fuels far outways the disadvantages, the costs of stopping the use of fossil fuels is enormous, not just financially but in human terms. Rusbridger is condemning millions to lives of poverty and misery if not war, death and famine on a scale unknown before….but then again he has a track record there having recklessly published the Snowden material that has put lives in danger and meant that the fight against terrorism and gangsters like Putin has been made very much harder.

So does Rusbridger really put ethics at the forefront of his journalism and business or is he more interested, like Peston, in getting to the front of the pack whatever the consequences and whoever he treads upon on the way?

Is he, and Harrabin, more concerned about the environment than people?  Is he one of those who hates people?

His next campaign?  Save the planet….shoot yourself!  The ultimate divestment!

Here is a guest post by B-BBC commentator Nibor!

“Some societies in the world venerate their old  And some don’t .

The BBC I would say is in the latter category judging by their news and analysis programmes and especially their ” comedies ” . I don’t think its because the over 75s don’t pay the telly tax , it’s more serious than that .

They say the past is another country and autocratic regimes have forbidden their citizens from visiting other countries . Ideas and mores from other countries might be dangerous if you’re setting up a new society based on your own image , whether in Stalinist Russia or Portland Place and Salford .

The one advantage ,or danger , the old folk have is that they have lived in that past and can evaluate whether the whole past , or certain aspects of it , were better or worse than than now , and even worse for BBC types , better than the future . Well you can diminish the coffin dodgers point of view by categorising in bands who you think they are .

Band A ; The sympathetic case 
Very often on your local news , it shows an old person , sometimes in a hospital with tubes running from his/her nose needing treatment . This is the supplicant case , which callous people somewhere unspecified in local or national government aren’t releasing enough funds ensure proper treatment .

Band B The I’m Alright Jack case
Well to do with low or paid off mortgage , this person benefitted greatly from what was on offer in the past , plundered the Earth’s resources one way or another , and is leaving debt , pollution and other problems for Youth .

Band C the not well off 
The Left Behinders , living in areas that have seen better , this closed minded people canot see the benefits of the EU , globalisation , immigration or even satnav. I supposed pitied more than to be hated . Why wouldn’t anyone want their world, their location changed for the better .

There is or is it now was , a little band of old folk who who saw the error of the ways of people in the past and exhort Yoof not to make mistakes “they ” did ( for that read the others that were unenlightened ) and rid the world of prejudice , inequality , environmental vandalism and don’t guard your borders because that leads to genocide .
Unfortunately the heroes of the past who joined the international in the Spanish Civil War are no longer with us .

So you can see that if the BBC interview an aged person they want to hear about the long hours , bad working conditions , low wages , undue deference to upper middle classes and a complete disregard for Green policies . All of which happened sometimes , at different places ,in one way or another no doubt .

What they don’t want to broadcast is anything that hints that the past was better , or some aspects of the past was better , or people were happier to live with the disadvantages of the past rather than , shall we say, suffer the advantages of now or the future

How can you build a better future if you discount or condemn everything about the past ?

As said , the Past Is Another Country.  Would the liberal/left Gramscis BBC ignore every other country and not see where things are done in a better way?”

Let me be clear. I am not a member of any political party nor do I support any particular political party. But I am appalled by the way the BBC sets out each day to demonise Nigel Farage and his party, UKIP. The BBC meme is that support for UKIP is fading, that the Party is full of racists and bigots, and that Farage is a dangerous guy. Last year, in the run up to the European election in which UKIP topped the poll, the BBC meme was that UKIP were not to be taken seriously and that they would not make any break through. This time round, the mood has changes. The BBC is now either ignoring UKIP when possible or else insisting that the electorate are turning their back on the Party which only 12 months ago WON the European elections. Incredible bias.

Elections bring the bias out of the BBC. This General Election has certainly showed the BBC in its true colour – Red. Each day now we see the same thing. The Today programme on Radio 4 sets the agenda which is then ruthlessly followed the rest of the day and the narrative is clear. Miliband has proven himself as a capable leader; Labour can be trusted on the economy because everything is “fully costed” and the SNP under Nicola Queen of Scots would make the idea pact partners, especially as she is “sound on Trident”.  As polling day draw closer, the parties of the Left know that the BBC will use every tactic possible to spin in their favour. By contrast, the Conservatives and UKIP are marginalised. BBC bias is not just overt, it IS malignant and dangerous for our country. You just KNOW that the Champagne is being prepared should Miliband enter Number 10 and then we will have a new campaign designed to KEEP him there.

Sorry for the lack of a midweek thread but here’s a new one for you!

BBC1 ran the Election Debate tonight and my twitter feed is overwhelmed by people saying how BIASED the audience was. Nigel Farage was met by silence, whilst Sturgeon, Bennett, Green and Miliband were  cheered to the rafters. Thoughts?

The BBC’s Peston has been pumping out article after article that strangely enough seem to favour the Labour Party…his latest effort doesn’t buck the trend…

Tories’ curious message on work

Reading it you get the impression that Peston is desperately looking for something to say that is negative about the Tory manifesto.  He is tortuously constructing a case against the Tory policy to take the lowest paid out of tax claiming that it goes against all Tory principles…but it doesn’t….Low paid workers get allowances and tax credits and many other benefits….upping their actual pay will take the bureaucracy out of that…rather than being taxed and then having to reclaim that tax they get it direct.

Peston bizarrely moans that the Tories are too left wing…..

This is not a point about whether the state is too generous to them.

It is about the contract we all make with the state.

And he goes on and on in a similar vein...’And another thing…’….it does look like he is determined to attack the Tory policies in a very negative manner…after all, taking the poorest out of tax altogether must be a Labourite’s dream…apparently not, when it’s done by a Tory.

Anyway….here’s ‘another thing’ to keep you amused…some old history from the Guardian…enjoy….

Peston’s run

One of the more interesting parts of the new Banking Act is its abolition of the requirement for the Bank of England to issue a weekly financial return. Combined with a certain BBC journalist’s rational desire to get ahead, it was the knowledge that the Bank of England would eventually have to fulfil its weekly compulsion to tell the world what it was up to that was the chief cause of the Northern Rock bank run.

Theoretically, removal of the weekly return requirement allows covert intervention into the banking system, and may possibly be used by the Bank to prevent future bank runs. This would let the Bank better fulfil its role of ensuring financial stability – thereby serving the public good, rather than that of Robert Peston.

When someone at the Bank of England (or the Treasury?) leaked to him that Northern Rock was turning to the Bank for support, Peston rationally decided to reveal all to the public in the BBC’s Thursday 13 September 2007 evening broadcasts. Peston argues that it was in the public interest to do so. This is debatable.

It was quite clear to anyone who has studied any financial history that a bank run would ensue. Indeed, I was waiting at the entrance to my local Northern Rock branch early on the Friday morning to watch the queues as they started to form.

The big question is this: would the run have occurred without Peston’s broadcasts?

Peston’s broadcasts of his insider information meant that the Bank and the Treasury could only react to the run and did not have the time to proactively prevent it from occurring. A bank run could have been quite easily avoided altogether.

Peston has been blamed by many others for the Northern Rock bank run, most notably by members of the Treasury select committee. (Others have interesting ideas that the Treasury engineered the bank run itself in order to nationalise Northern Rock on the cheap, using Peston merely as a pawn.) Peston, of course, has vigorously defended his actions.

He had a role in causing sufficient panic among depositors for them to run on their bank. A defence that he didn’t know he would cause a run is not a very good one. 

 

Here…

Peston confronts his critics

The BBC’s Business Editor Robert Peston broke the story of Northern Rock’s descent into crisis and has been blamed for causing the subsequent run on the bank.

On a recent trip to the bank’s home city of Newcastle he was confronted by Doreen and Denis Shannon who lost £60,000 from shares in Northern Rock and with it their retirement savings.

 

 

Whilst as I said the BBC’s coverage of the Tory manifesto, that I saw, hasn’t been a bloodbath there have been a couple of moments when they let themselves down.

I was disappointed that John Humphrys, from a grounded, working class background and supposedly an experienced and professional journalist with integrity, should allow himself to become the frontman for the Labour Party peddling cheap sensationalist left wing smears on the Today programme instead of rigorous journalism when he not only attacked Fallon for his ‘stab in the back’ comment but went on from there to try and tar the whole Tory Party once again with the label of the ‘Nasty Party’ on the basis of that one comment when he interviewed Theresa May (08:10).

So once again let’s look at whether Fallon was justified in his comment or whether Humphrys is justified in decrying him.

Not so long ago the Left were crowing with glee when the BBC’s Eddie Mair launched his attack on Boris Johnson saying…

“And you, having heard that, tell your friend that that you will supply the address. What does that say about you, Boris Johnson? Making up quotes… lying to your party leader, wanting to be part of someone being physically assaulted – you’re a nasty piece of work, aren’t you?”

The Twitterati were delighted.…

Angi Mansi ‏@WorkPsychol Apr 2    Eddie Mair vs #BorisJohnson “You’re a nasty piece of work, and a liar”: https://youtu.be/ZAxA-9D4X3o  Irresistable interviewing Eddie.

The BBC were pretty proud of it themselves.

Or how about this...from the BBC in 2010?

If you ever doubted that class was still thought to be important in politics, just look at the number of times the words “Tory toff” appear before the name “David Cameron” in a certain left-leaning tabloid.

And if you want to get a feeling of how powerful this inverted snobbery is, just imagine it the other way round.

What if the Daily Telegraph always prefaced the name John Prescott with the words “Labour oik”? It would sound really mean.

So no problem for the Left when a right wing politician is the victim of a personal attack….why then the outrage when Fallon makes a perfectly reasonable and logical connection between Ed Miliband’s treachery and his possible future actions…selling out his brother for political power, selling out the UK’s defence in a pact with the ‘kingmakers’ of the SNP for the top job?

Does Humphrys have a very short memory or does he just conveniently forget things like this from the left wing Mirror in 2010?….

Ed Miliband’s unworthy of the top job

Ed Miliband – who only 22 per cent of voters expect to win the next election – has been told by the party’s former energy minister, Brian Wilson, he should quit to save the party.

“He should look in the mirror and honestly ask the question, ‘Will the electorate ever assent to me being Prime Minister?’” says Wilson.

Er, this is the man who shafted his own brother to get the Labour leadership, who was prepared to publicly and politically disembowel him in order to grab the top job.

That kind of bloke doesn’t give a stuff what’s best for the party OR the electorate.

And let’s face it – the party always wanted David Miliband, and nerdy little Ed knew that.

But he was desperate for power and was prepared to get into bed with the unions and sacrifice his brother on the altar of his own ambition to get it.

The very idea he’ll do what’s best for the country is farcical because he doesn’t actually know (or care) what the country wants.

And however much he stands on his soapbox and tries to “connect” with people, voters can’t ever get past the fact he betrayed his own flesh and blood in the cruel vindictive way he did. 

Someone who does that doesn’t give a toss whether people think he’ll be a good PM.

Pretty damning stuff from the lefty Mirror….Miliband so desperate for power that he publicly and politically disembowelled his brother!

Did anyone else think David Miliband was betrayed by his brother?

The Mail said…..

David Miliband’s wife who still can’t forgive brother-in-law’s Ed’s betrayal.

The sight of the two Primrose Hill-raised Labour apparatchiks engaged in political fratricide was astonishing, and in the subsequent two-and-a-half years, no amount of fine public words or behind-the-scenes finessing has healed that wound.

A black and yellow arrow is the vivid symbol of the International Rescue Committee. You will see it on flags flying over refugee camps from the Syrian borders to the Congo.

Yet it was the poison-tipped missile that thudded between David Miliband’s shoulder blades at the Labour leadership election which most informs his decision to abandon British politics for a place among New York’s glamorous charity elite. 

Younger brother Ed was the deceptively geeky assassin with the bow. He snatched the job David thought was his birthright.

The Express said…..

David Miliband’s wife urges him to quit over brother’s ‘betrayal’

Ms Shackleton, a concert violinist, is known to have become increasingly angry at Ed Miliband’s behaviour during the hard four-month campaign.

In the past, she had encouraged her husband to oust Gordon Brown and was angry when his brother talked him out of launching a coup. She regarded Ed Miliband’s unexpected decision to run for leader as a betrayal.

The Telegraph asked if Ed had betrayed Dave…..

I Did Not Betray My Brother, Ed Miliband Says

The Labour leader disclosed how he never believed David Miliband would return to front line politics following their fractious fight for the party’s top job in 2010.

Ed Miliband, 43, denied he had ever promised his 47 year-old brother a clear run to the leadership, a belief that has fuelled a sense of betrayal among David’s friends and family.

The election caused a major rift between the two and he refused to serve in Ed Miliband’s shadow cabinet.

So the evidence stacks up against Ed Miliband and the BBC’s narrative…..shame they put that cheap sensationalism before genuine journalism.