Tory MP Daniel Kawczynski has criticised a Newsnight report on the war in Yemen, or rather it reports on the role Saudi Arabia plays in that war and the supply of arms to Saudi Arabia by the UK……never mind that the airstrikes by the Saudi led coalition are backed by the UN…the BBC implication is that Saudi is deliberately bombing civilians and that the UK is complicit in this ‘war crime’…

The airstrikes are backed by a resolution at the United Nations Security Council. But the UN’s top humanitarian official in Yemen, Johannes van der Klaauw, says attacks on civilian infrastructure are violations of the laws of war.

“Schools and hospitals, markets, enterprises and factories should not be stricken, should not be shelled. Even in warfare there are certain rules, and they are being violated in this conflict,” he said.

Since the conflict started, more than 2,000 civilians have been killed.

They quote a UN offcial but it is they who suggested to him that the Saudis were deliberately targeting civilians and asked him what he thought of that…so the UN official is not talking about facts just a bit of BBC whatifery passed off as truth.

Kawczynski suggested that the BBC’s coverage was biased against Saudi Arabia…

As far as I can see Kawczynski has a case, and Katz a case to answer.  The BBC’s whole programme was set up to attack the Saudi’s role in the war and any British involvement in it.  This was not journalism but propaganda…and it is no different to the BBC reaction to the war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The war in Yemen was started by the Houthi who have ousted the legitimate president in a coup and tried to take over the country, it wasn’t started by the Saudis.

The BBC has always been anti-war, or rather, anti wars led by Western interests…and Saudi Arabia is closely linked to the hated US.  Wars by doughty rebels of course are loudly applauded and cheerled….witness the BBC’s coverage of the IRA and the likes of Hamas.

Where is the BBC’s equally indepth coverage of Iran’s involvement in inciting and resourcing these wars?  Iran has been a dangerous provocateur in the Middle East for a long time and has frequently provoked wars that seriously destabilise countries…it has supplied the Taliban in Afghanistan, it helped create chaos in Iraq and stoked the civil war, it essentially created Hezbollah and backs the attacks on Israel and of course it now backs Assad in Syria.

The BBC though makes little mention of Iran’s baleful influence on events and its attempts to inflame Shia Muslims inside Sunni countries.  The BBC has always been somewhat pro-Iranian, often preferring to present it not as the aggressor but as a victim of the West…an excuse the BBC trundles out for everything really….blow up some trains in London and you’re a victim of racist oppression, kill Jews in a Paris supermarket and again you’re a victim of the West or its friends….so it’s OK to kill Jews if you are so oppressed!

The BBC’s excuse for not blaming the rebels and Iran?…

Houthi soldiers, some of them no more than teenagers, are accused of firing heavy weapons in built-up areas.

But it is the Saudis and their coalition partners, mainly Gulf Arab countries including the United Arab Emirates, who have overwhelming force.

 

So if you have the biggest army you must be guilty of something even if you didn’t start the war…sounds familiar…if you’re black you can’t be racist as you are ‘powerless’, if you’re a Palestinian you can’t be a murderous terrorist because the powerful Israelis have tanks and planes.

Sounds like the BBC is making up excuses in order to find a reason to peddle their own preferred anti-Saudi, anti- UK arms sales, narrative.

Kawczynski then gets invited onto Newsnight supposedly to allow him to voice his concerns….however it does look like this was just another set up to allow the BBC to attack him and defend itself rather than to do some serious journalism.

The BBC set their rabid attack dog James O’Brien onto him…now the BBC’s recruitment of O’Brien is visible evidence of its bias and intent.  O’Brien hardly merits the title ‘journalist’, his preferred method of attack is to hype a trumped up, malicious charge against someone and when they deny it and prove it is false, to then claim the charge is therefore proven and the defendant a liar….half truths, complete lies and fabrications are the stock in trade for O’Brien.  His infamous kangaroo court when he tried to smear Nigel Farage with a litany of falsehoods and nonsense was the thing that got him recruited to the BBC…as I said you have to raise questions about the BBC when it deliberately recruits someone who is so visibly prejudiced against UKIP and who clearly doesn’t let the facts stand in the way of a good character assassination.

His interview is arrogant, condescending and patronising.  When Kawczynski raises the question as to why the BBC is not also investigating Houthi atrocities O’Brien brushes that aside and claims that Kawczynski is trying to control what the BBC reports…..when in fact all he is doing is to raise a legitimate concern about the BBC’s very evident lack of balanced reporting.

The editor of Newsnight, the Guardianista, Ian Katz, intervenes with a Tweet claiming that Kawczynski is only complaining about BBC bias because he is paid to act in the interests of Saudi Arabia….

• Ian Katz ‏@iankatz1000 Sep 11

  Perhaps useful bit of context to tonight’s #newsnight interview with @KawczynskiMP from MPs’ register of interests

Curiously Katz doesn’t mention that Tory MP Crispin Blunt, who backs the BBC, has taken money from Jordan, also a member of the Saudi led coalition in Yemen…..surely, on the basis that if you receive money from one country you must therefore be representing their interests, Blunt should also be supporting the war.  Perhpas Jordan should ask for its money back…or Katz apologise for his deliberate libel.

He may have to apologise in court though…as Kawczynski suggests he may sue:

Mr Kawczynski told The Independent on Sunday, that he planned to write to the BBC’s  director-general, Lord Hall, to demand an apology and a correction about Mr Katz’s tweet.

“What [Mr Katz] is deliberately suggesting is because I’ve accepted hospitality from Saudi Arabia, I’ve somehow been in their pockets, spouting what they want me to spout,” he said. “That’s a huge, deliberate attempt to smear me and others, rather than engage in the debate … I consider it a libellous tweet and I’m considering suing him.”

Katz isn’t of course always concerned with details or too up to date on Middle East politics, being a sleepy little fellow…

Damien Thompson in the Spectator thinks that the champagne socialists at the BBC and the Guardian may be in fo a bit for a shock as their dreams come true…

The groans that must be coming from the newsrooms of the Guardian and the BBC right now! With a descant of coloratura shrieks from right-on luvvies. And, needless to say, vigorous hand-wringing – they’ll be sending out for Band-Aids to treat their sore fingers by the end of the day.

‘Progressive’ Labour supporters in higher income brackets did not want Jeremy Corbyn to win today. You only have to read the agonised Twitter streams of just about every liberal journalist in the country to realise that.

You don’t have to tell me that the man’s policies are bonkers and the sympathies of his far-Left supporters verging on the sinister. But the Guardian/BBC lobby weren’t bothered by these people when they were staging  ‘Stop the War’ protests, and though they didn’t join the ‘Occupy’ mob they looked benevolently on such marvellously spontaneous anti-capitalist street theatre.

Which was a bit rich, because – like bien pensant types everywhere – British liberal-Left professionals are obsessed with money. Spending it, mostly.

But now the socialist party they vote for has spoiled everything by electing an actual socialist to lead it, a man so uncouth that it never occurs to him to ease the stress of defending the marginalised by dropping essential oils into his jacuzzi.

It’s all so embarrassing, it really is. The Polish ‘help’ has been quite impertinent since you gently reproved her for voting Tory in May. Now she’s going to be insufferable…

‘Information is power. It is the route to hearts and minds. Information frames what we do, how we think and vote. It is fundamental to the operation of our societies and our lives. All leaders, in the public or private sector, know that any influence they have over information is crucial to their leadership, even to their hold on power. The media – the means of information transmission – are thus fundamental to power and are, inevitably and necessarily, political.’  Will Hutton

 

The lefty Will Hutton has never ranked too high in my thoughts but has sunk even lower once I read his childish and simplistic, not to say wildly misleading, plea for the BBC:

The BBC is loved by the nation. It can use that power to confront the Tories

To deplore – even viscerally to hate – the BBC has become a badge of what it means to be a Tory today. It is the kind of “behemoth” statist organisation with “imperial ambitions” that it is their mission to eliminate, especially given its alleged marriage to “liberal values”. It allegedly crowds out doughty private sector media companies, most of whom represent the Tory interest. It is funded by a “regressive” tax.

The BBC is well known for crushing local news organisations with the weight of its tax funded presence and it competes entirely unfairly against the bigger commercial media companies parking its tanks on their lawns in an ever increasing grab for power and influence.

Hutton is of course not an uninterested party in this having raged against Murdoch for years…

Murdoch has become one of the political issues of our time, as menacing in his own special way to democracy and conduct of politics as many other threats our society faces, only we do not see it, because his power is used behind the scenes to extend his commercial influence and so his grip on the flow of so much of the information in Britain.

Which is ironic really as those very same criticisms could equally be levelled at the BBC, a BBC which has far more of the news audience than Murdoch has…..and as the BBC has a vast swathe of the British public under its influence it is only fit and proper that the BBC comes under intense scrutiny and regulation as Hutton himself admits ‘information is power’ and those who control the information are therefore extremely powerful…

Information is power. It is the route to hearts and minds. Information frames what we do, how we think and vote. It is fundamental to the operation of our societies and our lives. All leaders, in the public or private sector, know that any influence they have over information is crucial to their leadership, even to their hold on power. The media – the means of information transmission – are thus fundamental to power and are, inevitably and necessarily, political.

Hutton tells us that ‘ It is a Tory’s sacred duty, in parliament or in the print media, to pulverise it into insignificance. The opportunity, with charter renewal happening next year, has now presented itself. It will not be passed up.’

But we know that is complete rubbish…the Charter Review will involve people and organisations from all points of view, naturally the BBC itself will have a big say in proceedings, the review panel, despite loud claims to the opposite, are in fact pro-BBC and don’t want to see it ‘diminished’, neither does John Whittingdale himself…

Describing himself as a “huge admirer” of the broadcaster, Whittingdale told viewers of BBC1’s The Andrew Marr Show on Sunday morning “the last thing I want to do is undermine the BBC”.

And..

Hutton then makes this claim…

Javid and Whittingdale’s twin job is to dismantle the edifice of public service broadcasting. ITV is to be sold abroad; Channel 4 is to be privatised; the BBC is to be scaled back enormously. At the next election, it will be the print and social media that set the political agenda in the Tory interest; public service broadcasters with their commitment to political balance will be greatly less influential and by 2025 largely marginalised. It is not technology driving this change, but political choice.

ITV is a commercial company, Channel 4 is well known as a left wing broadcaster and the BBC is far from impartial itself.  Hutton claims that it will be the right wing Press and social media that will set the agenda in the Tories’ interest in the next election.  However as the ‘dead tree’ Press is declining and the BBC is growing ever bigger and more powerful that’s hard to see…..and as for social media…again this is by-in-large dominated by the Left…and indeed here’s a campaign on 38 Degrees to ‘defend’ the BBC…

Protect our BBC

And of course we have just seen the ‘political earthquake’ of Corbyn being elected with a groundswell of activists as the Guardian notes:

Is grassroots politics the future?

Political candidates in the UK, US and Europe that would have seemed unlikely frontrunners a year ago are challenging establishment politics by harnessing enormous grassroots support. Has politics changed forever?

In the digital age, people aren’t ruled by what’s delivered to them by mainstream media; they decide on who and what they like on social sites – and then they share it – and it seems act on it.

I’m not entirely sure this is correct..’In the digital age, people aren’t ruled by what’s delivered to them by mainstream media’...I think the social media merely acts as an echo chamber not an opinion former and enables like-minded people to connect and then act together in concert to try and influence events.  There is a reason the Left, like Hutton, spend so much time and effort to defend the BBC.  That reason is because the BBC does retain so much power and influence and it acts as an enormous incubus and distribution hub for left wing ideas, culture and values.  The BBC is a powerful resource for the Left, one that politicians fall foul of at their peril….as Hutton admits in the title to his piece….’The BBC is loved by the nation. It can use that power to confront the Tories’.

Indeed the BBC has apparently been using that power to have a sly dig at Cameron when he was recorded making a joke about Yorkshire…apparently this was a BBC recording…but the BBC doesn’t admit that merely saying…

Mr Cameron was wearing a television microphone when he made the comments but was not aware he was being recorded.

You have to ask how the BBC could justify releasing Cameorn’s off-camera comment…it was obviously done to embarrass him and cause him trouble.  The BBC using its power to undermine a political opponent…just another one of the BBC’s dirty tricks.

Hutton himself pleads for some pro-BBC grass roots marching…something for BBC producer Tony Brown to do perhaps?…

Hilarious how he co-ops the public, the ‘we’, into his plans…this is the public that is so often disdained, belittled and held in so much contempt by the BBC and its fellow travelllers..until they need us.

Maybe when the BBC starts to acknowledge the concerns of the vast majority of the public and publishes the truth about immigration, Islam, Europe, Climate Change, and the Labour Party’s role in the destruction of the economy he might have a point.

Until then he is just another left wing useful-idiot trolling on behalf of his favourite propaganda news outlet.

Curious how the BBC so often only refers to Corbyn as ‘leftwing’ in its news reports [Despite knowing Corbyn was firmly on the side of the quasi-Marxist hard left.]  when those of similar strength of convictions on the Right are ‘Far Right’ and Farage is constantly alluded to as someone not unlike a Nazi…even today on Dead Ringers he was slandered as a racist xenophobe for his opinions on immigration…proof of his xenophobia?  He has a German wife.

Funny how the BBC often refers to the ‘dark days of the 80’s’ when looking at Corbyn’s politics because in reality they take the country back to the ‘dark days’ of the 70’s….have to assume this is just evidence of the BBC’s obsessive hatred of Thatcher……

Jeremy Corbyn’s election as Labour leader, at the age of 66, must count as one of the biggest upsets in British political history.

To his critics, he is almost a caricature of the archetypal “bearded leftie”, an unelectable throwback to the dark days of the 1980s, when Labour valued ideological purity more than winning power.

To his army of supporters he is the only honest man left in politics, someone who can inspire a new generation of activists, and make them believe that there is an alternative to the neo-liberal Thatcherite consensus that has let them down so badly.

Kuwait and the other Gulf Cooperation Council countries are too valuable to accept any refugees. In the end it is not right for us to accept a people that are different from us. We don’t want people that suffer from internal stress and trauma in our country.’

Fahad Alshalami, Kuwaiti official, explaining why the gulf countries aren’t taking Syrian refugees Via Douglas Murray

DB has spotted a BBC producer who has been marching to open the borders up to refugees as he calls them…though they are in effect economic migrants……interesting how the marchers all seem to  be right-on Middle Class people….and a lot of the protest is anti-war, pro-Corbyn and anti-Tory….not saying that it was hijacked by STWC…but good chance our BBC friend is just another useful idiot for the cause…..

Tony Brown ‏@tonyprod77 14 hrs14 hours ago  

“Say it loud and say it proud refugees are welcome here” #refugeeswelcome

And if you weren’t convinced of his views here’s another Tweet…

• Tony Brown ‏@tonyprod77 14 hrs14 hours ago

  The refugees fleeing war and dodgy governments must be encouraged if they see these #refugeeswelcome rallies #London

Brown also retweets this from a fellow media johnny…

Hmmmm…..as Corbyn is intent getting rid of Trident and the Army, intent on taxing and spending our way back to the 70’s if not to the Weimar Republic as he prints billions of pounds to help fund his lavish spending, siding with the terrorists and nationalising anything that moves…and oh yes…Protect the BBC from further cuts…I would imagine that the Tories are right on this one.  Interesting though that Brown’s Labour supporting friend has tweeted something that Brown thinks is spot on and relevant to any debate on Corbyn.

Brown responds to DB’s questions about whether it is appropriate for  BBC journalist to be taking part and Tweeting about such a highly political and controversial subject……

He obviously feels he is losing the argument and resorts to a patronising and childish attempt to gain the moral highground by suggesting DB is not being grown up…whereas a man who reacts purely on an emotional basis regardless of the consequences is a ‘grown up’.

So let’s be grown up and ask what are those consequences of having Europe flooded with migrants the vast majority of whom are young, male and Muslim…if they had AK47’s they would be called an army and this would be an ‘invasion’.  What are the social, political, cultural ramifications of having Europe invaded by young Muslim men?  Not a question Brown has ever considered, he’s just happy to get the feeling of warm glowing smugness of a man panhandling publicly for the credit for his humanity by his public display of compassion which he advertises on Twitter.

It is a question that is essential to ask and yet the BBC doesn’t dare…others do though.

The measured and rational Charles Moore in the Telegraph voices some of his concerns about this influx of Muslims to Western Europe:

Nothing has changed in 25 years to ease my concerns about Islam

Viktor Orbán is the prime minister of Hungary. It is through his country that very large numbers of migrants from the Middle East and the Balkans now pass. At the beginning of this month, Mr Orbán said: “I think we have a right to decide that we don’t want to have a large number of Muslim people in our country.”

Mr Orbán was fiercely attacked for the motives behind his remark. I do not know enough about Hungarian politics to say whether such attacks are justified. But, regardless of the precise facts about Mr Orbán, I would guess most people in western – let alone eastern – Europe would quietly agree with his general proposition. One of the biggest anxieties about the current immigration is its high Muslim element. Is it wrong to have such an anxiety, let alone to express it publicly, let alone to want to have a system of immigration based on it?

It seemed to me that most Muslim leaders saw their role not in integrating Muslims in Britain, but in asserting difference and increasing their muscle. Many favoured sharia law trumping British law. They would not support Muslim membership of the Armed Forces if those forces were deployed against Muslim countries. They wanted it to be illegal to attack Islam, let alone denigrate its prophet; and they waged constant “lawfare” to try to silence their critics. They tended, I thought, to see the advance of their cause as a zero-sum game in which the authorities had to cede more ground (sometimes it is literally a matter of territory) to Muslims.

It would also be wrong to deny that, in current conditions, a large Muslim community in a non-Muslim country produces more political disturbance, more communal tension, more intolerance of other faiths (and of non-faiths) and more terrorism. Few non-Muslims want to live near a mosque, see women veiling their faces or have Muslim practices introduced into state schools. Few non-Muslims want lots more Muslim immigrants.

An assimilated Muslim is not a contradiction in terms, but neither is he or she the norm in Britain today. With the Muslim world in ferment and on the move, the risks grow daily.

The election of Jeremy Corbyn and the foolish, naive motivations of those who supported his inclusion in the election must act as a warning to those who wish to brush aside concerns and bury their heads in the sand about the prospect of a ‘clash of civilizations’ and instead blunder on ramming their own ideological delusions and fallacies down everyone else’s throats in the interest of multiculturalism and diversity….the politics of ‘inclusion’….

When Corbyn thanked the Labour MPs who nominated him “in the spirit of inclusion” the room laughed, as well they might. This is the greatest joke of the campaign: the ‘morons’, as John McTernan’s put it, the MPs who nominated Corbyn because they thought he was too crazy too win and would make the rest seem centrist by comparison. But there is a new rule now: nothing is too crazy for the Labour Party. Not any more.

Being ‘inclusive’, pandering to Muslim activist’s demands, allowing an ever-increasing Islamisation of the public sphere in the hope that if Muslims are allowed to practise their religion more freely, and everyone else is forced to ‘respect’ that, then Muslims won’t beome radicalised….when the opposite is true…they will in fact become more and more ‘radicalised’, or devout, and intent on pressing their advantage, creating a situation where everything has to be done filtered through an Islamic perspective…out of ‘respect’ for Muslims.

Happy Christmas   Ramadan from the morons at the BBC.

H/T Alex in the comments:

Ok, I am sure you may well have seen the events unfold over the past hour. Labour embraces the hardline marxist Jeremy Corbyn. Thoughts on the BBC coverage?

Here you go, a new OPEN thread for your completion! Going into a weekend that may see Corbyn elected Labour leader, and has seen Khan win the gig to be Labour’s London Mayoral candidate, I expect the BBC will be fervently behind the comrades.

I have frequently heard guests on BBC programmes, and indeed BBC presenters, say that the UK is responsible for what happened in LIbya, that Britain initiated the war and is therefore responsible for the outcome and the resultant flow of migrants launching themselves from the coast of Libya.

However, just as the war in Syria has no link to the UK the war in Libya was not the responsibility of Britain.  The war began, as in Syria, after Libyans began demonstrations against the regime and were subsequently attacked by the regime.  The UN declared no’fly zones and authorised air-strikes to protect civilians in missions controlled by NATO.

This was a multi-nation operation conducted under UN jurisdiction to help protect civilians and to stop a massacre.

The BBC seems to think we should have stood back and let it happen….where’s that famous ‘moral obligation’ now then?  Guess it only gets run up the flagpole when it suits the BBC’s agenda……perhaps the BBC should remember its own previous analysis of events in Libya:

2011 February – Arrest of human rights campaigner sparks violent protests in eastern city of Benghazi that rapidly spread to other cities, leading to escalating clashes between security forces and rebels. Gaddafi insists that he will not quit, and remains in control of the capital, Tripoli.

2011 March – UN Security Council authorises a no-fly zone over Libya and air strikes to protect civilians, over which NATO assumes command.

The BBC’s Labour supporting old dinosaur, James Naughtie, is a man desperately in need of a common-man dictionary with the word ‘impartial’ explained for him rather than the BBC official issue that obviously has a different interpretation of that word to the everyday one as understood by the ‘common man’.

The Telegraph tells us that Naughtie is destined to be the voice of the BBC, the vessel through which our understanding of the EU referendum is filtered…

Mr Naughtie, 64, is leaving the Today programme in January after 21 years. He will instead becoming Radio 4’s Special Correspondent, and “will have a responsibility for charting the course of the constitutional changes at the heart of the UK political debate – devolution and independence, parliamentary reform and the changes in the UK’s relations with Europe”.

He will act as a roving reporter in the UK and around the world, covering the Scottish, US and French elections and the EU referendum, in addition to presenting radio documentaries.

The importance of that job makes it remarkable that a man such as  Naughtie, who can demonstrate an incredibly high degree of pig-ignorant arrogance, should get the job when you realise he is entirely unconcerned about the facts and has a sneeringly dismissive attitude to anyone who dares to raise the very serious problem of BBC bias…a bias ironically very ably demonstrated by Naughtie as he attempts to deny it and move the debate away from anything that might actually shed some light on matters…a sheer arrogance which the Spectator reports in full….

Jenkin: There is the other problem. Jim, you know the history of the BBC’s coverage of the European Union question. There was the report commissioned in 2005 under chairmanship of Lord Wilson of Dinton, the former cabinet secretary, that found that and I quote “we have found there is widespread perception that the BBC suffers from certain forms of cultural and unintentional bias”.

Naughtie: A widespread perception?

Jenkin: The BBC governance accepted that and we know that the Today programme basically got the presentation of the Euro wrong. We know that, that’s now been accepted.

Naughtie: Can we get back to the issue?

Jenkin: This is an important point Jim because every morning we have someone on the Today programme from business and they’re always asked the question “do you think we should stay in the EU?” but you tend to choose people from a certain sector of business who are going to say what they think the establishment wants to hear.

Naughtie: Sorry, we want to get back to the point but can I just tell you that is simply not true.

Jenkin: It’s an important issue and I hope you will address it in a future programme.

Naughtie: Finally, do you think that the fact the government was beaten last night on this indicates that particularly on European questions but on a whole host of things, the Prime Minister is skating on very thin ice?

Jenkin: Well, I think this question actually indicates part of the unintentional cultural bias of the BBC.

Naughtie: Oh for goodness sake.

Jenkin: No listen, let me just explain that.

Naughtie: This really is tedious.

Jenkin: This was a cross party dispassionate discussion about how to create a fair referendum. If there is to be a new politics, it’s this kind of politics where a select committee on cross-party basis makes recommendations and the opposition in a rather non-partisan way I have to say supports that case. That’s what happen last night and your question wants to see it through the lens of party politics, the party game at Westminster and who’s in and who’s out and whether the Prime Minister is weaker or stronger. That’s not what this was about, it was about a fairer referendum…

Naughtie: …a game you have never participated in…

Jenkin: …we’ve got a step closer to a fairer referendum, which is the kind of thing the British people want.

The BBC’s Chris Mason on 5Live today displayed a similarly arrogant and  dismissive tone when he told us that ‘inevitably‘ Nigel Farage raised doubts about the EU opening the doors to migrants.  ‘Inevitably’ suggests Mason thinks Farage’s views are also rather ‘tedious’ and without merit.