Yearly Archives: 2015

Well over due with this…sorry about that……Corbyn and the Pro-EU mob getting an easy ride?  Let us know….

Well, the BBC has done all it can to push the “Britain stronger in (sic) Europe” campaign launched today.

Staying in the EU can be the “patriotic course for Britain”, former M&S boss Lord Rose said as he launched the campaign for the UK to remain a member. Lord Rose, Britain Stronger in Europe chairman, said leaving was “not worth the risk” and said Britain was “surely bigger” than “walking away”.  The EU referendum is due to be held before the end of 2017.

It will be fascinating to watch this one unroll in terms of BBC coverage. I reckon that Rose is a poor choice – and the very NAME for the campaign contains an overt attempt to conflate the EU with Europe. It won’t be the first such effort and I am surprised the BBC’s world class journalists did not call Rose to account for it…..

Just a quick word to say I am back from my holiday and awoke to the Today programme’s relentless bias this morning. However to be fair to the BBC, although the item at 7.10am was ALL SET UP for some left wing self righteous indignation over our failure to embrace gazillions of …coughs …”refugees’ the interviewee – Catriona Jarvis who is a  retired judge of the Upper Tribunal – was unable to answer the simple question HOW MANY of them should we have then!!! Give it a listen if you missed it – her answers were truly pathetic.

Another week but the same old bias….let rip here…….

From the Mail:

BBC ‘ignored public’s views on its future and instead used paid-for-study to represent the views of the population’

The BBC Trust side-lined the views of the public from its official report on the future of the Corporation – despite lecturing everyone else that the public’s voice should be ‘heard loud and clear’.

It also skewed the results of a survey, even after telling MPs that any decisions about the future of the broadcaster should be based on ‘evidence’ rather than any preconceptions.

Rona Fairhead, chairman of the Trust, spent the summer arguing that the BBC’s future should not be dictated by ‘prejudice’.

Instead, she argued, it should be decided by the public who pay for the broadcaster, and based on firm ‘evidence’.

‘This should all happen through a proper debate in which the public’s voice is heard loud and clear. The BBC’s future is simply too important to be settled behind closed doors.’

However, it would seem that the Trust failed to listen to its own advice.

Around 40,000 people then responded to the Trust’s questionnaire about the BBC, in the belief that the governing body would then pass their views on to the Government.

But the Trust decided not to include the survey results in its official report on the future of the BBC, and relied on a much smaller, paid-for study to represent the views of the public instead.

Last night, people who filled in the survey were outraged that they took the time and effort to set down their views, only to have them dismissed in the Trust’s official report.

Caroline Levesque Bartlett, who runs a campaign to ban the licence fee, said: ‘I find it really irritating…we are allowed to share our view only once every ten years, and the BBC Trust rigs. What a sham.’ A BBC Trust source admitted that the results of the public questionnaire were not properly included in the official document, and hinted that it may have run out of time to do the analysis it wanted.

She added that some of the broad findings were ‘reflected’ in the report, and that the full analysis would be published at a later date – after the deadline for submissions to the Government’s Green Paper on the future of the BBC has already passed.

Lots to talk about …Nadiya, Mardell’s latest, the IMF praising Osborne, the EU exit campaign and of course the most important front page news….Murdoch’s latest Tweet…….over to you…

It’s getting nasty as the blame game starts…….

Scotland Yard accuses the BBC of hampering its investigations into historical child sexual abuse

Scotland Yard has accused the BBC of undermining its investigation into historical child sex abuse, claiming that the corporation’s actions risked deterring victims from coming forward.

Scotland Yard said that the BBC’s actions “could compromise the evidential chain should a case ever proceed to court”.

In a strongly worded statement it cited the example of Jimmy Savile, who was propelled to stardom by the corporation, to illustrate the dangers if potential witnesses are deterred from coming forward. Savile went unchallenged for years despite rumours of him abusing underage girls.

“Hundreds of people never came forward in part because they feared the consequences of making allegations against a powerful public figure,” said the statement.

“We are worried that this programme and other recent reporting will deter victims and witnesses from coming forward in future.”

Scotland Yard has insisted that the BBC’s handling of the investigation threatens to hamper its own criminal inquiries. .

A spokesman for the Met said: “We trust that the BBC has given due consideration to the impact of its reporting on ‘Nick’ and how it fulfils its responsibility to a witness making allegations of a sensitive and personal nature which were broadcast to millions of people.”

I’m guessing the police and the BBC won’t be teaming up again to raid a celebrity’s house on spurious, flimsy and unsubstantiated charges.

Theresa May said some sensible, measured and balanced things about immigration. The world went mad.  And the BBC gave the world a helping hand.

John Pienaar and Co told us that May used a tough tone, a hard, uncompromising message, she was deliberately setting out to polarise opinion.  Really?  Wasn’t she just saying the absolute truth about uncontrolled mass immigration, a truth that most people in this country understand?  The BBC might like to characterise that as a ‘hard message’ and ‘polarising’ but that is the BBC deliberately trying to paint May’s opinion as extreme, on the fringes and not supported by the mainstream.  Five Live told us that May once called the Tory Party the ‘nasty party’…and you know what?  She risks turning that label upon herself…says the BBC.  At least we know how the BBC views any open and honest debate about immigration….if you dare to say you want controls on it you’re basically a Fascist or as near as makes no odds.

Pienaar selected a wide range of opinion on May’s speech…or rather we heard of the ‘backlash’ from certain interested parties….the Institute of Directors, fervently pro-immigration, the Telegraph’s Kirkup. again fervently, if not rabid and dementedly pro-immigration as his frenzied attack on May illustrates, and of course not forgetting those immigration charities and NGOs (oddly the BBC’s complaints guru, Fraser Steel, is director of a company that helps immigrants).  Anyone not in favour of uncontrolled immigration?  Ermmm…no.   No inkling that the vast majority of the Public think that migration should be controlled?

So that’ll be the IOD whose members are more than happy to sack British workers and replace them with cheap migrants, who indeed are more than happy to sack British workers, pack the factories up and ship them to Poland or China or India…that’ll be the IOD members who haven’t bothered to go to the effort, expense and time to train British workers preferring instead to rob other countries of their trained workers.  I don’t think I’ll be taking any lessons on ethics from the IOD whose sole concern is the bottom line.

Strange we didn’t hear the same wild accusations for the same speech from Labour’s Andy Burnham not even a week ago….

EU migration hits low paid – Andy Burnham

Free movement of workers in the EU has made life tougher for low paid workers in the UK, Andy Burnham has said.  He was making a pitch to win back Labour voters from UKIP in his first big speech as shadow home secretary.  He said it was “not true” that free movement had benefited everybody as Labour had claimed in the past.

Mr Burnham said in his speech that Labour had not “faced up” to some of the impacts of EU migration and consequently appeared “out of touch……To win back the voters we lost to UKIP, I want to reframe the debate about immigration and the way Labour approaches it”.

“For too long, we have argued that free movement across Europe benefits everyone and affects all areas equally. That’s just not true.

“In places, a free market in labour benefits private companies more than people and communities. Labour hasn’t faced up to that and that’s why we look out of touch.”

“The truth is that free movement on the current rules is widening inequality. It has built the economic power of the big cities and that is good. But it has made life harder for people in our poorest communities, where wages have been undercut and job security lost.

Curious Pienaar didn’t reference Burnham’s speech especially in relation to the IOD as Burnham spells out who benefits the most from cheap, imported labour……..’a free market in labour benefits private companies more than people and communities.’

Note he also states that this cheap labour undermines British wages and jobs lost….two things May also pointed out and yet the Telegraph’s Kirkup savages her for…and not Burnham.

Pienaar has been highlighting the extremely negative reactions to May’s speech without any balancing pro-comments, or none that I heard…..though at least Tony Livesey on 5 Live (16:14) took the IOD to task and pretty well discredited their stance…accusing them of using the same inflammatory language the IOD accuses May of using.  Livesey also raised the point that even immigrants are concerned about immigration.  I well remember a Polish builder complaining that the next wave of East Europeans who came to the UK were undercutting him…after he had undercut the natives.

I can’t say I heard the BBC making such a fuss about Burnham’s speech, certainly not in the tone they use to describe May’s (Livesey aside). Pienaar has always leant towards Labour, Miliband could do no wrong and walked on water, Labour policies were always well thought out and workable whilst Tory ones were usually dismissed as far fetched and unworkable.  If I relied on Pienaar for the news I’d think May was striding around the stage in jack boots and a tiny moustache….Max Mosley’s dream come true?