The Now Show has been replaced by ‘Dead Ringers’ and the difference is marked.

By comparison Dead Ringers is entirely blasphemous attacking the taboo subjects and iconic shibboleths of the BBC without fear.

Mo Farrah?  No problem…which kind of begs the question why Jim Davidson has been pilloried by the Left for being ‘racist’ for his ‘Chalky’ routines when other comedians are applauded for their routines which use stereotypical voices and mannerisms of various ethnicities and regions?

Then there was the Labour Party, a subject that was considered untouchable by the Now Show.  Dead Ringers stepped right into the breech and had a shot.  My only complaint is that their suggestion that Corbyn would take Britain back to the 80’s must have been evidence of the visceral anti-Thatcher hatred still lurking in their heads….it was the 70’s that was the period of time in which the left dragged the UK to its doom before being rescued by Thatcher, why did they choose the 80’s?

When the show ended the BBC announced the upcoming ‘Any Questions‘ by saying that they would be asking ‘What’s driving the growing popularity of Jeremy Corbyn and how do we solve the migrant crisis?’……The BBC told us that people could ring in on the same number for both questions.

Yes, I thought, that’d be right….The two are related….how to solve the migrant crisis?  Elect Jeremy Corbyn and turn Britain into the wreck of the 1970’s economic basket case that rampant socialism conjured up for the UK and the migrants, all those ‘asylum seekers’,  would miraculously stop coming when there was no money, no hand outs, on offer.  Simples.

The Today programme interviewed David Cameron (08:10).  The main concern?  Cameron’s use of the word ‘swarm’.  Yes that’s still top of the BBC’s list of concerns never mind it being an old story that even when new was based solely on the faux, manufactured and highly political ‘outrage’ of a few lefties, the BBC included, intended to manage the debate on immigration and close it down or at least limit as much as possible the messages from those who oppose mass, uncontrolled immigration.

Justin Webb was quite insistent in trying to make Cameron apologise for using the word swarm, the BBC default position being that he is ‘guilty’ which just goes to show just how out of touch the BBC is with the rest of the population.  I imagine that the vast, vast majority have not the slightest concern about the use of the word swarm, and probably agree with the concept.  The BBC has really lost the plot on this if it thinks Cameron will lose any support over it….he may, like UKIP, actually increase his support…the BBC never seems to learn.

Indeed almost immediately the BBC was again on the attack, excitedly pointing out that Cameron in the interview had used the phrase ‘break in’ to describe how migrants are trying to enter the UK….it made the Front page quite prominently...Stop migrants ‘breaking in’ – Cameron.    Not an unfair description by Cameron when you look at what is going on.  However the BBC immediately jumped on this appallingly de-humanising phrase and began to shout it from the rooftops, the clear intent was to again try and whip up another Twitter storm of concerned lefties with some outrage to spare.

Other media then immediately picked up on this and began to mention it.  The BBC’s job was done…it had  manufactured some media outrage that was aimed directly at Cameron and his approach to immigration.

This was purely a BBC spin operation, a ‘black op’ aimed at discrediting David Cameron and his immigration policies.  The ‘storm’ over the use of the word ‘swarm’ had died down but the BBC decided to re-open the battle by trying to put Cameron in the stocks over it again.  The following BBC news throughout the day then headlined on this story and doubled up with his use of the phrase ‘Break in’.

It looks like this was the BBC deliberately and knowingly setting Cameron up and using its ‘news’ service to attack and undermine him.  Is the BBC out of control and a political force all of its own?  Is it not about time someone took notice and dealt with it?

One other thing of interest was Justin Webb’s suggestion that Jews in the UK are also outraged at Cameron’s use of the word swarm.  Firstly the BBC has shown not the slightest interest in allegations that the possible next Labour leader, and maybe even PM, is anti-Semitic or at least has close and knowing associations with hard line anti-Semites, only meriting a nod to the story in the ‘what the papers say’ section with a  quick mention, so rather curious they are now so concerned about what Jews think, second, there is this…

Israeli government to refugees: Go back to Africa or go to prison

As Europe struggles to stem a spring flood of migrants from Africa and the Middle East trying to cross a deadly Mediterranean Sea, Israel has begun to toughen its stance toward refugees, telling unwanted Africans here they must leave now or face an indefinite stay in prison.

Israeli authorities are sending letters to the first of 45,000 Eritrean and Sudanese refugees, informing them they have 30 days to accept Israel’s offer of $3,500 in cash and a one-way ticket home or to an unnamed third country in Africa, or face incarceration at Saharonim prison.

Israeli leaders have proclaimed that their tough approach — building a fence along the country’s border, denying work permits for illegal migrants, forcing them into a detention center in the desert — may ultimately save lives by dissuading migrants from attempting a perilous journey. Critics of the Israeli policy counter that a country built by refugees should be more accepting of those fleeing war, poverty and oppression.

Aaqil Ahmed has claimed that sending Songs of Praise to Calais is entirely non-political…well, that’s obviously not true.

We looked at it in the last post but Ahmed has said a lot more in other places that suggest he uses religious programmes as political vehicles to carry a message, and indeed even  uses programmes officially classed as non-religious to spread that message.

Broadcast magazine tells us that ‘the topic of religious broadcasting – and its growing importance for any understanding of foreign affairs – has come back into the mainstream, after years when the TV world, politicians and regulators preferred not to think about it.’

Clearly then on that basis a programme from a highly controversial place such as Calais is not intended to increase knowledge of religion but to add pressure onto the government by saying that it is the ‘Christian’ thing to do to be welcoming to migrants….a different take altogether on a religious educational programme, using it to push a political message.

A paradox that the BBC, so antagonistic towards Christianity, should now co-opt it, under the guidance of a Muslim head of religion of all people, to further its own political agenda.

Ed Stourton told us that knowledge of religion and religious issues was important for understanding current affairs…however that should not be taken as endorsement for religion itself…

‘I do think that there is a problem with British culture… in the way that we treat religion as a sort of curious ‘ghetto’-like thing,” he told Press Gazette.

“And I don’t say that from the point of view of arguing that religion is a good thing – because very often it’s not.

“But it does damage our understanding and our ability to perceive stories accurately.”

Having worked in broadcast journalism for 35 years, Stourton suggested the British media’s indifference to religion is “deeply engrained”.

He added: “But it’s been perhaps made more apparent than ever by events since 9/11, because a whole area of quite complex religion has become very essential to the understanding of mainstream news,” he said.

The problem is that Aaqil Ahmed is not just informing us about religion but selling it to us as well, to him it is a ‘good thing’.

He tells us that although ‘Rev’ was not officially classed as religious programming he himself classed it as that, the same with ‘Citizen Khan’….he believes these programmes ‘help the population understand about religion and diversity in our community’.  I wonder how he classes ‘Father Ted’?

As for Citizen Khan I doubt that had the intended effect….watching it rather confirmed the notions you might have had about what Muslims think of non-Muslims and of Islam….as David Goodhart said, the more people understand about Islam the more ‘alien’ they realise it is…and the more we should speak up for our liberal, secular, democratic society.

Ahmed also tells us that the BBC’s ‘The Ottoman’s: Europe’s Muslim Emperor’s’ was a programme commissioned by his religion and ethics department and did not come from mainstream programming.  Clearly from the title Ahmed was intending to make a powerful political statement, one that tried to tie in Islam to Europe in order to spin us a narrative that Muslims belong in Europe and to tell a further tale of just how wonderful Islam was..is.  This wasn’t just history but a heavily politicised narrative with a message.

However the title is deliberately misleading…The Ottoman’s were Turkish and Turkey is not European, the Ottoman’s certainly ruled some parts of Europe in the Balkans but were not ‘European Emperors’ as Ahmed’s programme provocatively proclaims.

What is interesting, and controversial for the BBC’s narrative about the Islamic State, is the blurb for this programme which states:

Few realise the importance of Ottoman history in today’s Middle East. And why you have to know the Ottoman story to understand the roots of many of today’s trouble spots from Palestine, Iraq and Israel to Libya, Syria, Egypt, Bosnia and Kosovo.

If you understand the Muslim empire of the Ottomans you will undertand events in the modern day Middle East….the ‘roots of many of today’s trouble spots’.  You may think that would undermine the standard BBC line that all the problems in the Middle East can be traced back only to the Sykes Picot agreement and then to the 2003 Iraq War.  All history before then, and indeed much of it in that period itself that is unhelpful to that BBC discourse, is wiped from the narrative by BBC journalists ‘explaining’ issues such as the rise of the Islamic state….explaining them as the fault of the West.  However it was not long into the first episode until we got to the usual suspsects, and it wasn’t the Ottomans.  The British were set up as the guilty culprits, the cause of all the tension and conflict in the Middle East today.

This BBC description of the Ottoman Empire is somewhat more truthful than the template BBC statements on Islam and the Middle East we so often hear now and indeed than the BBC’s own programme on the Ottoman empire…

The Ottoman Empire was the one of the largest and longest lasting Empires in history.

It was an empire inspired and sustained by Islam, and Islamic institutions.

Why was it so successful?

Why was the Empire successful?

The recipe for success

There were many reasons why the Ottoman Empire was so successful:

• Highly centralised

• Power was always transferred to a single person, and not split between rival princes

  • The Ottoman Empire was successfully ruled by a single family for 7 centuries.

• State-run education system

• Religion was incorporated in the state structure, and the Sultan was regarded as “the protector of Islam”.

• State-run judicial system

• Ruthless in dealing with local leaders

• Promotion to positions of power largely depended on merit

• Created alliances across political and racial groups

• United by Islamic ideology

• United by Islamic warrior code with ideal of increasing Muslim territory through Jihad

• United by Islamic organisational and administrative structures

• Highly pragmatic, taking the best ideas from other cultures and making them their own

• Encouraged loyalty from other faith groups

• Private power and wealth were controlled

• Very strong military

  • Strong slave-based army

  • Expert in developing gunpowder as a military tool

  • Military ethos pervaded whole administration

Did you spot these statements that never normally make it past the BBC censors?…

• An empire inspired and sustained by Islam

• United by Islamic ideology

• United by Islamic warrior code with ideal of increasing Muslim territory through Jihad

So the religion of peace expanded its empire by utilising the ‘Islamic warrior code‘ and engaging in Holy, religiously inspired, war….Jihad!

Who’d have thought?!

I was also interested in this anodyne claim…’Encouraged loyalty from other faith groups‘….really?  Just how did they ‘encourage loyalty’ from non-Muslims?  History suggests that it was more at the point of a sword than gentle persuasion and mutual respect.

This claim is also of interest…’Highly pragmatic, taking the best ideas from other cultures and making them their own‘….so the Golden age of Islamic science was in fact standing on the shoulders of giants….a golden age which was actually based upon the science of other cultures and civilisations.  Which provides the answer as to why Islamic countries have been so backward for centuries…once Islam kicked in fully and imposed itself properly upon the nations its rigid, uncompromising, unintellectual approach to life, guided by the Koran, stopped all innovation and the spread of ideas.  They created a desert where thought, science, innovation and intellectual development were choked off by religious rules and certainties.

Once we understand that we can see that many of the BBC’s recent lines about Islam, that it is the religion of peace, that there is no connection between Islam and ‘Holy war’, that we should thank Muslims for all scientific progress, are somewhat less than true and are purely meant to persuade us that there is no problem with having a backward, unpleasant religion [to quote Mishal Husain] thrusting itself upon the European civilisations.

In the video at the top of this post, “God: TV’s Holy Grail?“, Roger Bolton from the BBC’s Feedback programme, states that programmes like ‘Rev’ are religious and teach us to care for all humans, that all human life is valuable however criminal or destitute and broken. He claims this revelation about humanity is one brought to us through religion alone and has nothing to do with the Enlightenment or being just part of the natural human condition and thinking…we are not naturally ‘humane’ or altruistic apparently…we need God’s self-appointed representatives on earth to guide us to the moral high ground.

That’s complete hogwash.  Religion is the most divisive and judgemental of any of the ideologies, if you’re not a Christian or a Muslim or whatever you’re going to Hell….so where’s the valuing all humanity regardless of sin or condition?  Not there is it?  Religions value only their own and to hell with all the rest…..which is a bit ironic when Bolton complained that it was the ‘liberal, secular elite’ dominating TV that had ‘a lack of basic understanding about religion meant faiths such as Islam were being oversimplified, leading to dangerous levels of ignorance.  The BBC had a responsibility to improve understanding about religion and not just for educational reasons. “It is also frankly for the safety of society,” he said.

You have to know about Islam and religion generally ‘for the safety of society’.  Go figure.

He rounded off by saying Muslims should get a sense of humour…‘Mr Bolton also said many listeners and viewers had written to the corporation complaining “that Christianity is unfairly treated: that other faiths do not have to put up with what Christianity has to put up with”.

He added: “What I do think is that Muslims in particular ought to be mature enough in this country to be able to take that humour and that Christians do have a right to say it’s about time that the satire which applied to them ought to be applied to others.”

Amused to read this comment under Aaqil Ahmed’s interesting post on Jesus the migrant…

4. Posted by Tim

on 14 Aug 2015 15:13

Wonderful to see how scholarly BBC entertainment is reporting this! “The Dean of Durham, Decanus Borealis, wrote in a blog:”. Does no one know that Decanus Borealis means Northern Dean! The Dean of Durham’s name is Michael Sadgrove!

And indeed he is right, the BBC did name the Dean of Durham as ‘Decanus Borealis’ without noting it is in fact his blogger name….

Prominent figures from the Church of England have defended the programme including the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, who tweeted: “The love of Christ is freely offered to all, celebrated everywhere, for everyone to know, well done #SongsOfPraise and @giles_fraser”

The Dean of Durham, Decanus Borealis, wrote in a blog: “I’m glad that SOP can be there to give the migrants air-time in a broadcast forum where it would be so easy to pretend they don’t exist.”

[He is of course a Guardian reader]

And here he is, Michael Sadgrove…or as he is better known now….

Decanus Borealis

    On Blogger since November 2008

 

My blogs

• Wool gathering of a northern dean
• Michael Sadgrove’s Sermons & Addresses

The BBC’s head of religion has sent in the Hot Gospellers from Songs of Praise to stir things up in Calais. (H/T Guest Who) and he insists this is not a political move.

It is, of course, patently a highly political intervention by the BBC and is fully intended to stir up debate and put pressure on the government to open the borders as the BBC continues to drip feed us, if ‘drip’ is the right word, maybe deluge is better, with tales of hardship, danger and ‘desperation’ of the migrants intending to generate sympathy, empathy and compassion for them and a subsequent capitulation and surrender of all reason, common sense and intelligent debate in favour of short term emotion which long term will produce far more conflict and ‘desperation’ for all than is being ‘suffered’ now as economies and societies collapse under the massive weight of these migrants and tribalism and war breaks out.   The BBC could bring you endless tales of desperate lives from any country in the world including on our very own streets in the UK.  Why not send Songs of Praise to the back streets of Delhi or Mumbai and then suggest that perhaps all the residents should move to the UK….what is the difference other than the location of the ‘desperate’ and downtrodden…are those in Delhi or Mumbai not also in need of salvation and sanctuary? Or Shanghai or Moscow or perhaps Ferguson in the USA?

Not political?  Very few programmes seem to have come from abroad…I could find only one recent one which came from Kenya.  There are churches all around the world and yet the BBC doesn’t send in the Songs of Praise squad to visit them and to comment/intervene on the political issues of the day there…..clearly it is not the church at Calais that is of interest but the fact that the congregation is made up of migrants.

This is what Ahmed admits is the pupose of the programme..

Almost two weeks ago, I read about the make shift church in the Calais camp known as ‘The Jungle’.

It started a conversation with the Songs of Praise team about the faith of the people who built and use the Church in the camp, what is the Christian response to the migrant issue in Calais and would it be of interest to our audience. Songs of Praise is not only about Christian music, it also explores contemporary issues and modern themes from a Christian perspective. 

What would be the Christian response to the migrant crisis?  Exploring contemporary issues and themes?  Sounds just a little like this is highly political as this next quote illustrates as he lays out what he thinks the Christian response would be…let ’em all in basically…

The Gospels themselves are full of stories and teachings of Jesus to help those in need, to find the dispossessed and vulnerable and to love your neighbour as yourself, whether that’s close to home or in a global context.

Ahmed is of course Muslim…far be it from me to suggest an ulterior motive, but I have yet to hear a Muslim in the public sphere who doesn’t use his job to promote Islam.  Mishal Husain said she would use her position on the Today programme to improve people’s perceptions of Islam and Baroness Warsi in her role as minister for faith promoted the idea of more influence and a bigger role for religion in society knowing that promoting Christianity meant the government would also be obliged to do the same for Islam and provide it with similar privileges and powers.  A slightly more sophisticated version of ‘my enemy’s enemy’.

Ahmed knows that many, if not the majority, of illegal migrants and those claiming to be asylum seekers are Muslim…any chance he has stitched together this programme to promote migration and thence to further increase the Muslim population of Britain?  This Songs of Praise is about a Christian church but the real narrative is about migrants and if they should be allowed to come into the UK and Europe as a whole in uncontrolled numbers…and it would be uncontrolled…..have you ever heard a pro-immigration advocate name a figure which when reached migration could then be ‘controlled’?  The very same hue and cry about ‘desperate’ migrants would then kick off again and the well practised moral blackmail would be churning out of the BBC filling the airwaves.

If Ahmed is so enthralled with Christian values perhaps he should convert himself and adopt them rather than pay lip service to them and make a pretence of respecting them when we know that Islam condemns Christians and Christianity.

As for Ahmed’s association of migrants with Jesus as a refugee, well there’s plenty in the Bible that we could use for inspiration….how about killing all the first born? Or seeing how far food banks get with a couple of loaves and a few fish.  Or, as Jesus was crucified, perhaps, like in the film Spartacus, we could line the roads with crucified migrants as if they were so many Jesus’ living and dying as he lived and died.  If Ahmed wants the Bible to be taken as gospel and a guide for our lives let him be the first to try…..

No?  Too far?

Or perhaps like Jesus the migrants would have no need for boats and the Chunnel…..why not just walk on water across the Channel to Britain?…

The Jewish Chronicle has some serious concerns about Jeremy Corbyn’s associates:

We are certain that we speak for the vast majority of British Jews in expressing deep foreboding at the prospect of Mr Corbyn’s election as Labour leader.

Because, although there is no direct evidence that he has an issue himself with Jews, there is overwhelming evidence of his association with, support for — and even in one case, alleged funding of — Holocaust deniers, terrorists and some outright antisemites.

If Mr Corbyn is not to be regarded from the day of his election as an enemy of Britain’s Jewish community, he has a number of questions which he must answer in full and immediately. The JC asked him earlier this week to respond. No response has been forthcoming.

The Jewish Chronicle goes on to say:

In a nation where, thank heavens, racism and extremism are now regarded as beyond the pale, it is little short of astonishing that a man who chooses to associate with racists and extremists is about to become leader of one of our two main parties and could conceivably become Prime Minister.

Strong stuff.  You might think that such powerful sentiments as this ‘expressing deep foreboding at the prospect of Mr Corbyn’s election as Labour leader‘  would immediately find themselves being reported by the BBC.  Certainly if this had been said by a Muslim organisation about a leader with close associations to the EDL you can pretty much guarantee the BBC would be giving it plenty of coverage and Nicky Campbell would be dusting off his tired old phrases about the wonders of Islam whist expressing shock that someone so obviously connected to an ‘Islamophobic’ organisation could have the opportunity not only to lead a political party but perhaps to be Prime Minister.

However the BBC has shown not the slightest interest, despite a Labour MP also raising the same concerns…

Ivan Lewis, the shadow Northern Ireland secretary, attacked Mr Corbyn’s “anti-Semitic rhetoric” and said the party must have “zero tolerance” for such views.

On the Today programme BBC reporter Tomos Morgan (08:40) brought us yet another one of the BBC’s infamously emotive pleas on behalf of migrants everywhere as part of the BBC’s continuing campaign to undermine government immigration and refugee policy and to paint those who want to get immigration under control as something akin to Nazis.

Morgan presented us with a report about migrant traffickers who are probably British. He paints a picture of violence, threats and danger for migrants.  The intent?  Certainly not merely to ‘report’ but to impart a message….the migrants are suffering greatly therefore you must open your hearts and the borders.  What he doesn’t say of course is that the migrants don’t have to deal with these traffickers at all…it is entirely their own choice…and indeed they could have claimed asylum in France, or in any of the likely eight countries they travelled through to get to Calais with no need for traffickers at all.

To help with the message he tells us (around 08:48) that ‘In Calais walls of metal fences topped with barbed wire are continuing to be built around the port…it is beginning to look more and more like a prison everyday.’

No Tomos, it’s not a prison.  The fences are to keep migrants out not in, they are free to roam France or indeed Europe or the world in theory….maybe Morgan hasn’t quite got the idea of what a prison is….perhaps he takes his inspiration from the BBC’s reports that present the wall that surrounds Israel keeping terrorists out as a prison for Palestinians.

Starting to sound very much, more and more, like the BBC’s reporting from Gaza…it can’t be long before someone starts to call the migrants the new Jews of Europe….oh..hang on….here’s Laurie Penny in the New Statesman today….‘ The chosen minority must summon the fears of every social class at once. That’s why migrants, the bogeyman of choice, are presented as a paradox, just as the Jews were in the 1930s.’

The BBC must have taken fright that Morgan had gone too far and made the mistake of making it far too obvious that he was trying to manipulate the audience’s emotions and perceptions...in this website rerun of the clip it’s been edited (1 min 20 secs) to say merely that ‘More and more fences are being built around the port of Calais everyday but that is a short term solution for a long term problem.’

Have a read of this cloying PR for Joe Biden from the BBC’s Jon Sopel. I can’t imagine the BBC bigging up a GOP contender in this way and to honest Sopel’s view

The BBC brought us (08:30….and repeated during the day) a woeful tale of the growing ‘tension and anger’ in Kos as immigrants flood in and the situation spirals ‘out of control’.

Couldn’t help thinking that this is the same BBC that promotes open borders and no limits on migrant numbers, and about the number of times that we have been told of the huge  economic benefits and the blessed diversity that migrants bring to a country….why is Kos not happy to be awash with migrants?  Surely its economy should be booming and its inhabitants expressing delight at the cosmopolitan atmosphere so may different migrants bring to the island.

Of course the BBC was using the problems on Kos as  lever to apply pressure on ‘Europe’ to speed up the entry of migrants…..no thought that to do so would just increase the flow even more…and why are these migrants coming from the perfectly safe, and Muslim, country of Turkey when so many of them, we are told, are from Syria and Afghanistan?

Could it be that migrants are not really interested in asylum and safety but money as Migration Watch suggests, as does the aggressive attitude of the, what I thought, rather ungrateful to be safe on Kos migrants?

The main motivation to cross the channel is not to seek asylum (France is a safe country) but the ambition to work illegally in Britain and send money home. Furthermore, these migrants calculate, correctly, that they are very unlikely to be deported to their home countries. The report traces the decline in the credibility in the UK immigration system over the past twenty years and calls for early action to reverse the perception that, once across the channel, these migrants are home and dry.

The travel firm Thomson announced that profits would be down due to the effect of the terrorist attack in Tunisia…you could hear the sneer in the voice of the BBC news reader as she read out the number of dead and then said Thomson was blaming their deaths for its profits fall.

However on the flip side the BBC is happy to use Thomson’s profit’s plight to push a pro-immigration fast tracking of migrants off the island of Kos...Thomson boss: Greece needs help to tackle migrant ‘tragedy’.

We hear that …

It is time for European governments to help Greece deal with the migrant issue, coming as it does hard on the heels of the economic crisis.

“Here we have another tragedy unfolding in terms of those migrants and we have to have empathy and sympathy for them……I think the Greek authorities are doing all they can to be thoughtful and caring towards these migrants and process them through the system so they can go from the islands to the mainland where it will be easier to assist them.”

“I worry about the publicity putting people off going to the Greek islands,” Mr Long said.

“Those poor unfortunate migrants are located at the moment in Kos town and we have hotels throughout the island.”

“Therefore I hope the Greeks are able to process [the migrants] and I’m sure other European governments will look at ways of helping them through this difficult situation with so many migrants arriving at the same time.”

Hmmm….Cameron is castigated for de-humanising migrants with the word ‘swarm’ and yet a business boss who wants to get rid of migrants asap so he can continue to pull in the profits from his hotels on Kos is fine and dandy?

I guess when something coincides with a BBC interest anything goes and hang posturing on the moral high ground.

Elsewhere on the BBC we have a wonderful, heartwarming tale of a welcome ‘on the buses’ from a German, immigrant, bus driver to other immigrants…..the BBC of course holding it up as an example for us all…

Germany: Bus driver’s migrant speech goes viral

A German bus driver has garnered nationwide media attention after pausing to give a welcome speech to a group of migrants on his bus.

Sven Latteyer made the impromptu announcement as was driving around the quiet Bavarian town of Erlangen, with about 15 young foreigners – some from Africa – on board, the local Nuernberger Nachrichten paper reports. A fellow passenger recounts that the driver grabbed his microphone and said, in English: “Excuse me ladies and gentlemen from all over the world on this bus, I want to say something. I want to say welcome. Welcome to Germany, welcome to my country.” He then signed off with: “Have a nice day!”

The speech was greeted with stunned looks followed by laughter and applause, “including from the Germans”, the passenger says. “One of the African lads wiped a tear from his eye.”

Mr Latteyer says that he felt moved to make the speech by the experience of his brother-in-law, who fled the Kosovo conflict in the 1990s, and his grandfather, who was wounded in World War Two.

Curiously the BBC hasn’t bothered with this genuine and probably more important news story from Germany…

EU Immigration Crisis: German Police Want Border Controls In Europe To Address Migrant Flow

Germany’s police union is calling for a return to passport controls along the border to combat a growing migrant crisis in the country and across the continent, Agence France-Presse reported. The chairman of the German Police Union Tuesday made the argument for re-regulation along inter-European borders, saying it is a good idea from a policing standpoint.

From a policing point of view, a return to border controls would be the best of all measures,” said Rainer Wendt, the chairman of the German Police Union. “Germany should not take the threat of bringing back [border] controls off the table too readily.” Police have already ramped up security checks along some inter-European train lines, highways and at international airports.

Wonder why the BBC does not think you ought to know about the German police’s concerns about a ‘growing migrant crisis’.

Been away so sorry for the delay in the new Open Thread. Here you go – detail the bias!