Yearly Archives: 2015

Well, the weekend beckons. Here is a new Open Thread for you to detail the bias! Just think, each instance of bias causes Lenny Henry to shed a tear.

Four US Marines in America have been killed by a ‘Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez’ who has his supporters in ISIS apparently …via Pamela Geller..not sure the time stamp is correct…possibly tweeted after the shooting…

However the account(Now suspended) does make some threats for similar action in London, Berlin and Amsterdam.

Wonder if the coppers will still be passing by as people wonder around with ISIS flags wrapped around them.

If any thing should happen in the UK what casual excuse will the BBC make for the attackers, whilst naturally expressing sympathy and outrage at any casualties any doubt that there will be one of those big ‘but’s…….the attackers were unemployed/low paid/disenfranchised/discriminated against, angry about Israel/the West’s foreign policy/angry about not being able to live completely and totally as a Muslim in the UK?  Amazing how the BBC can, and does, excuse mass murder on the basis that someone is in a low paid job….‘on the margins of society’ is the phrase.

Let’s have a look at one of the BBC’s latest recruits who peddles the same line…the person they thought it was a good idea to send to Srebrenica to give us a ‘warning from history’ that was supposed to alert us to a coming Muslim holocaust…Muslims being under siege….Myriam Francois-Cerrah….a fanatical Muslim convert.

Just what is she saying about these young fellows out to kill the Kufaar?.…..

These kids are our kids – they are products of Western culture, and we owe it to ourselves to ask what it is about our current culture which makes the appeal of joining a nihilistic anti-Western guerilla group a more attractive prospect than remaining in the UK

“The reality about the guerrilla group that arrogates the term “Islamic State” is, if you take away the word “Islamic”, what you have are young, disillusioned Europeans entranced by the concept of an idealised state, a utopia to rival the hollow claims of a system that has failed them.”

For many young people who may have good reason to feel disillusioned with the current state of affairs, the oppressive mantra that liberal democracy somehow represents “the end of history” – something even Francis Fukuyama, author of the book of that title, has mitigated – engenders of a sense of a helplessness and apathy.

If this is as good as it gets, and we are not permitted to think beyond, then why bother? Or, as some clearly conclude, perhaps the system itself is the problem. 

It’s all our fault and yep, you can see all those disenchanted young Brits streaming towards Syria…..or can you?  One thing she misses out of course…all the recruits are Muslim.   Kind of a crucial element in the radicalisation and recruitment process.  Amazing how she can explain away mass murder, extremely brutal beheadings, rape and ethnic cleansing because ‘our kids’ feel a touch disillusioned with life.

On a lighter note……Nice to see that a contemporary, modern ISIS is keeping up with the latest trending hashtags on Twitter…as is the BBC…

What’s it like to grow up black, white, Mexican, Nigerian, Bengali….

How about #GrowingUpFrench?…….

• ابو محمد الخراساني ‏@K_H_O7777777777 10 hrs10 hours agoJe ne sais pas pourquoi je l’aime cette image ?? #Paris #GrowingUpFrench #OTRASeattle #DansMaVieJaimerais

Presumably this is a relative of his…..

• S&A; -29 /hbd luke ‏@90sflowerstyles Jul 15

  #GrowingUpFrench “mdr”: you’re amused. “mdr”: you’re happy. “mdr”: you’re sad. “mdr”: you’re angry. “mdr”: you wanna kill someone.

Busy day. I have been afforded the opportunity to comment on the future of the BBC itself on BBC Scotland, BBC 5Live and BBC London today. In essence, my argument is that the BBC is an anachronism, built on a financial model from a previous century that is TOTALLY unsuitable to digital 2015. The tide of history is going out and the BBC is being left high and dry on the foreshore.

I pointed out that the BBC is like a junkie, hooked on a £3.5bn license tax, and it needs to get off this. It needs to stop hiding behind the apron-strings of Government  and compete in the free market. It needs to have the confidence to BELIEVE the things it says. IF it has great output, people will choose to subscribe. If they don’t want it, why should they be forced to fund it?

I also went on to point out that the BBC has a left wing bias that many people take exception to. I see no issue with the BBC being BIASED so long as it stops pretending it is UNBIASED and pocketing £145 from everyone who owns a TV license.

I have to say I found the presenters perfectly reasonable in how they treated my heretical views and it would be ungracious not to acknowledge this.

Remember that letter from the luvvies lavishing praise on the BBC?

The Telegraph reports that the Times has discovered that ‘BBC Radio 1’s longest-serving presenter Annie Nightingale, who is one of the letter’s 29 signatories, said she had been invited to be a signatory by Ben Cooper, the controller of Radio 1.

She the paper: “I bumped into Ben a couple of days ago. He said Danny Cohen [the director of BBC television] was putting this letter together and said, ‘Would you like to be included?’ I said, ‘Yeah’. I understood vaguely what it would say. I didn’t read the letter before it went out.” ‘

So that spontaneous celebrity protest letter in support of the BBC was a BBC dirty trick?

Questions in the House?  I’d have thought so.  No such questions raised about this on the Today programme as they discussed the BBC…..listening to 5Live right now and the BBC is again the subject….can’t help thinking a couple of the last callers were BBC employees…suspicion raised when they kept saying ‘we’ when they should have said ‘the BBC’…also, not unexpected, when one caller said the BBC had an element of bias…guess what….a flurry of denials from those other callers…they’d never ever seen or heard bias…no really!  Any possibility Danny Cohen has been ‘suggesting’ his young employees ring in to 5Live and plug the BBC?

Not sure why anyone would be surprised about BBC dirty tricks, Hall has clearly been using the BBC’s resources, ie the licence payers money, not to merely to advise what he thinks the BBC can do but to demand its structure and capabilities be shaped to his vision.   The BBC did try to get Murdoch closed down so what can we expect…so much for helping to create a diverse plurality in the Media…only if you speak ‘BBC’, if you don’t they attack you and try to close you down.

As we noted in the last post Jeremy Corbyn has edged ahead in the Labour leadership polls at present.  He’s a lucky man having just got the endorsement of the Unite Union and Len McCluskey…and we know just how good they are at picking winners…the last one sank like a stone, an Ed stone….this time McCluskey backs Corbyn because he’s not boring..the ‘interesting’ Jeremy Corbyn….that’ll get ’em voting.

Unite has announced that it will also be ripping up the rule book and backing illegal strike action which the BBC seems in ignorance of as its political editor, Norman Smith, tells us that there is no excuse for the government’s anti-strike laws…

What is notable is that when Margaret Thatcher introduced her reforms, it was on back of a wave of industrial discontent. Today, unions are much diminished and tamed beasts which has promoted accusations from the unions and the Labour Party that this is all partisan politics designed to nobble them.

So despite already having several strikes and the prospect of many more illegal ones Norman Smith thinks there is no industrial discontent swilling around…the Unions being tamed and diminished?

We can’t say we weren’t warned as way back in 2013 McCluskey, in the Ralph Miliband Lecture, suitably, told us he would be using non-democratic means to smash democracy…

Let me start on my subject, working-class politics in the contemporary world, with a quote from Ralph Miliband:

“All concepts of politics, of whatever kind, are about conflict──how to contain it, or abolish it.”

Let’s not pretend that we are “one nation”, or that we will become one without the conflict that Ralph Miliband placed at the heart of politics.

So if we are on a march towards “one nation” and ultimately “one world”, it is a road that leads through struggle and conflict.

We are taught to believe that democracy is the cornerstone of a modern civilised society; but our Lords and Masters want to define democracy, limiting us to an ‘X’ on a Ballot Paper every 5 years.

This is not my definition of democracy.

They tell us strike action, civil disobedience, direct action and protest are all somehow unpatriotic.

Our history tells us they are not.

That is because our rulers are deeply afraid of Ralph Miliband’s assertion that politics is about conflict.

 There will be those here tonight waiting to hear my message to the Labour Party.

Well I won’t disappoint. Here it is:

Put simply, workers need a voice, and they should not be taken for granted.

Whatever the upshot of electoral politics, working-class politics must grow and develop, based on the socialist education Ralph Miliband called for.

So we can expect a campaign of ‘strike action, civil disobedience, direct action and protest’  in order to impose the utopia envisioned by the man who hated Britain and all it stood for…Ralph Miliband.

Oddly during the election the BBC interviewed McCluskey but never once mentioned this speech or later remarks in which he stated that if the Tories won the election he would be launching a politically violent campaign of intimidation and bullying to force his wishes upon the electorate…his vision of what democracy means….do what Len McCluskey tells you to do.

Fascinating to see this from 1992 after Labour’s election defeat…..check out the reasons they think they lost….sound familiar?  Never learn….of course nor does the BBC…Poll wise in 1992….

This should be interesting…let’s see how much the Beeboid’s socialist posturing continues to be pumped across the airwaves when hardcore Jezza gets in…are they still up for a bit of socailism, red in tooth and claw?….

Jeremy Corbyn set to win Labour leadership, shock poll reveals

The latest polling, seen by the New Statesman, puts Mr Corbyn ahead once second preference votes have been taken into account.

On first preferences Mr Burnham is said to be winning with 39 per cent of the vote. Mr Corbyn is second on 33 per cent, Ms Cooper third with 25 per cent and Ms Kendall trailing in a distant fourth with just 4 per cent.

But Mr Corbyn’s popularity among members as a second choice means that under Labour’s preferential voting system he has a significant lead over his rivals.

One campaign staffer said: “He is on course to win.”

The Telegraph suggests you give him a helping hand…

How you can help Jeremy Corbyn win

Thanks to Labour’s new leadership rules, it doesn’t have to be a joke. Anyone can vote in the Labour leadership election. So if you’d like to help Mr Corbyn deliver democratic socialism for all condemn Labour to years in the political wilderness, simply follow our handy five-step guide:

Step 1

Click on this link to go to the Labour Party page where you can sign up as a “Registered Supporter” able to vote in the leadership election.

And so on….

It should be noted that the poll at the bottom of the page indicates that a lot of people support Corbyn because he represents a strong voice for the Left….which of course is the point of Labour if nothing else…..now it might be suggested there are too many PPE graduates that don’t really represent the working man in Labour….they represent the latte swilling very well paid types that infest the BBC.

Champagne on hold once more?

Curious how the BBC frames the debate about the agreement with Iran over nuclear weapons on its Frontpage…..

Obama foes condemn Iran nuclear deal

They don’t oppose the deal because of genuine, considered reasons but because they hate the black guy in the White House?

Jeremy Bowen is claiming that the agreement is a major achievement as it removes Iran’s nuclear capability….

The agreement in Vienna removes Iran’s nuclear programme from the danger list. Two years ago, as Israel threatened to bomb Iran, it looked likely to lead to a major Middle East war. That in itself is a major diplomatic achievement.

Curious then that Israel is making threats to flatten Tehran as the World paves the way for a new nuclear terrorist super power…peace?  A major diplomatic achievement?…thanks to G.W.F..

The Telegraph says..

Iran nuclear deal: Peace in our time? Not with this shoddy agreement

If Mr Obama really believes his “historic” deal is going to bring peace to the region, then he needs to think again.

Then again Bowen did claim that the Muslim Brotherhood were moderates.

Deja Vu in the comments links to this reminder of past successes in controlling rogue states and their nuclear ambitions……

The BBC reminds us also how that went…

Has North Korea got the bomb?

Technically yes, but not yet the means to deliver it via a missile.

In 2006, 2009 and again in 2013, North Korea announced that it had conducted successful nuclear tests – they all came after the North was sanctioned by the UN for launching rockets.

Analysts believe the first two tests used plutonium as the fissile material. The North is believed to possess enough weapons-grade plutonium for at least six bombs. Whether it used plutonium or uranium for the 2013 test is unclear.

However don’t be afraid…..those nasty

Conservative Media Ignore The Differences Between Iran And North Korea Nuclear Agreements

What’s the difference?

The Iran Nuclear Deal Is Much More Detailed Than The North Korean Agreement, And The Countries’ Circumstances Are Different

So there!

The key lesson that the US learnt was that they must have more protocols in place to ensure that Iran doesn’t break its promises…which is all they are….

‘After the Agreed Framework, they [Korea] agreed to more intrusive inspections; but in 2002, when they finally broke its commitments, its violations were detected by the IAEA. We’ve also said very publicly that one of the reasons we have the Additional Protocol now, which is a key part of what we’re negotiating with Iran, is in fact because of the lessons we learned from the North Korea situation.

Its violations were detected by the IAEA…and then what?  Didn’t stop them breaking the agreement in the first place…and then couldn’t force them to bin their nukes.  Nothing to fear then!

Sleep in peace.

The BBC will live on for ever, or that seems to be the hope.

The Luvvies are out in force demanding the Public largesse that props up their lifestyle remains fully on tap…

Leave the BBC alone, Hollywood stars and TV presenters tell David Cameron

Daniel Craig, Dame Judi Dench and Sir David Attenborough are among the star names today warning David Cameron that his plans to reform the BBC will damage Britain’s global standing.

In an open letter to Downing Street, more than two dozen figures from the world of arts and entertainment claim that “a diminished BBC would simply mean a diminished Britain”.

Joining forces to defend “a very precious institution”, the celebrities express fears that the government will turn the BBC into “a narrowly-focused market-failure broadcaster”.

The letter states that…

“The Government and the BBC are now entering the Charter Review. We are writing to place on record at the very start of the process our concern that nothing should be done to diminish the BBC or turn it into a narrowly focused market-failure broadcaster.

“In our view, a diminished BBC would simply mean a diminished Britain,” the letter reads.

We already know that the alternate and more credible view is that the BBC in fact does enormous damage to Britain, a Britain that many in the BBC seem to hate, to its identity, to its social cohesion, to democracy, to free speech, to economics and national and international politics, by its attempts to manufacture a society in its own image, a society framed by the values and beliefs of the small group of self-selected liberal elite who control the BBC and much of the Media, government, academia and the various and powerful NGO’s and campaign groups….the other delusion that the BBC holds is that it is the voice of the People and that it listens and responds to their concerns…..all of the above makes this from Tony Hall laughable..

I believe in a BBC for everyone. The BBC is a profoundly democratic force. Universal usage of BBC programmes that inform, educate and entertain is central to our democracy and our shared culture. It is part of what makes Britain, Britain.

Tony Hall has again made the claim that the BBC is all about the British People….and he’s only looking out for them and their interests….

The people who will lose are not the commercial interests and people with particular vested interests – it’s the people who pay for us, the people who love us.

“The debate is too often in terms of this interest or that interest, not in terms of the people who are, in the end, our shareholders.”

He added: “The BBC does not belong to its staff. The BBC does not belong to the government. The BBC belongs to the country.”

Here he is in a statement made yesterday…

Statement from Tony Hall, BBC Director-General, regarding the BBC’s Annual Report and Accounts 2014/15.

The case for the BBC doesn’t rest on ideological arguments – it rests on this – what we do day in and day out. Great programmes and great services. That’s why people like the BBC. That’s why they enjoy the BBC. That’s why they trust the BBC. That’s why they value it. That’s what they pay us to do.

This argument is powerful because it is so simple. We enhance the lives of everyone in the UK, in more ways than ever before, and more often than ever before.

Liked this….not as if we can choose to pay for the BBC or not…

When people have so much to choose from, it’s testament to the quality of what we produce that 46 million people in the UK choose to use the BBC every day.

This is laughable as Hall makes a defence of the BBC based upon its ability to boost business and British influence abroad….entirely against the ethos that the BBC and its employees express everyday as they rant against nationalism, the imposition and control of borders, British power, British history, commercial companies and big business, success of any kind…Apparently the BBC is….

…. vital if the UK is to continue to punch above its weight as one of the most creative nations in the world. And grow Britain’s commercial success, and its global influence. 

Again he hypes the BBC’s commercial side…

To fund great programmes in an era of global competition for talent and ideas, we must work even harder at the partnership between the licence fee and our commercial arm, BBC Worldwide. Seventy-one per cent of the funding of BBC One’s Life Story was commercial funding. The licence fee paid for less than half the budget of some of our biggest dramas last year.

Worldwide makes its money by taking BBC programmes and exploiting them commercially. It’s an integral part of the BBC and gives licence fee payers better content for less investment. So, any proposal to remove it from the BBC simply doesn’t make economic sense.

So he admits the BBC is a massive competitor to other commercial Media companies and yet it has an enormous advantage in its public funding model.  No wonder Sky et al are pissed.

Then he’s playing the same old tune again…just how much the BBC loves the Public…in fact it is the ‘Public’…

The fundamental question remains. What does the British public want from the BBC?

Our audiences are not asking for a significantly smaller BBC. Properly tested, the public shows no appetite for that. Top of mind, the great majority are happy to pay the current licence fee, or more.

The BBC does not belong to its staff. The BBC does not belong to the Government. The BBC belongs to the country. The public are our shareholders. They pay for us. So it is their voice that will matter most in this debate.

You have to ask would the world really collapse if we had a smaller BBC or even no BBC?  Probably not….the commercial companies produce a vast array of highly entertaining and successful programming and much of the BBC’s output is in fact produced by those very same companies.

Would we be in a worse place if the BBC’s news service was silenced?  Again probably not.  The BBC mocks and scorns Fox but the BBC is in fact just as partisan, and perhaps is more damaging as it hides its extreme partiality under a cloak of claimed impartiality…Auntie is just Big Brother in drag.

The BBC relies upon its entertainment programming to capture its audience and their hearts and minds…it knows that audience will then be less inclined to examine their news output, and be less inclined to care too much whether it is biased or not as long as it keeps putting out lovely old friendly faced presenters like David Attenborough to front their programmes and create that familiar friendly atmosphere.

That’s why the BBC fights so hard against any suggestion that its entertainment programming be curtailed in any way….the BBC needs its sugar coating to help the medicine of its Newspeak go down more easily.

Read 1984, a book essentially about brainwashing and thought control, and you may recognise much that is reflected in how the BBC acts today…..consider a couple of famous lines from the book…..

War is Peace

Ignorance is Strength

Freedom is Slavery

 

‘Who controls the past controls the future, who controls the present controls the past.’

 

‘Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache.  O cruel, needless misunderstanding!  O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose.  But it was alright, everything was alright, the struggle was finished.  He had won the victory over himself.  He loved Big Brother.’

The end.

Love the BBC and all will be well.  Believe.

The end.

Always interesting how the BBC presents the ‘Right’ in America…from the Tea Party to Sarah Palin and George Bush.

But it doesn’t stop with the three usual suspects…here’s one on Trump...Trump card – or is he a joker?…a report by Jon Sopel which declares that Trump ‘expressed openly racist views?‘ for his concerns about mass uncontrolled immigration…a familiar tactic by the BBC used in this country to try and silence anyone who dares to suggest immigration is brought under control.  He finishes with this…

The smart money says that Trump will eventually crash and burn.

In the meantime, somewhere in New York , a 67-year-old lady will be sitting in front of the TV, a bowl of popcorn by her side, watching Fox TV, almost splitting the seams of her pant-suit laughing.

Hillary just cannot get enough of this reality show.

Is that reporting or something dressed up as ‘news’ but is in fact just a mocking and judgemental opinion piece?  And ‘Fox’…the ‘BBC’ of America?  Perhaps Cameron should hurry up with that ‘Fox’ hunting bill.

Then there’s this on another Republican candidate….A monster of their own making?  which was the headline on the BBC Frontpage…..which is about this…Scott Walker: A Republican candidate made by liberal activists?

Whilst reporting that the ‘monster’ was given its head by his Liberal opponents what we get is a long run down of the Liberal’s opinions of him and the ‘evil legacy’ of his ‘conservative achievements’….which apparently, the BBC tells us, Walker ‘spent nearly 40 minutes boasting of those conservative achievements’….

For the past five years Democratic opponents have fought the governor over every inch of political terrain.

Now many are wondering if they are, in part, responsible for his rise as a presidential contender. Is Candidate Walker a monster of their own making?

“I regard Walker as one of the most destructive forces in American politics today,” says Dave Obey, a retired Democratic congressman from Wisconsin.

Another Wisconsin Democratic insider, speaking on condition of anonymity, was more blunt about the recall effort.

The protests, although well-intentioned, were destined for failure thanks to Republican control of the state legislature. And the recall election was a “disaster” because the Wisconsin public wasn’t sold on the legitimacy of the effort.

“At its core was a sort of purity and innocence and stuff that would almost make you believe in American democracy – but it was just so tragically flawed,” he says. “It was not going to work, it was just a children’s crusade.”

So nothing to do with Walker’s Republican politics actually appealing to the voters?….they just like an underdog. he conned them….so how did the Republicans get control of the state legislature?  Must have been some sort of Right wing trickery!  The Public couldn’t be so stupid to actually like the Republicans!?

As well as being a monster Walker is ‘”a “tricky guy” who has been able to convince the Wisconsin public he’s something he’s not…..he governs like an extremist.”…one who has ‘has built a “throne of his enemies’ skulls”, as the Federalist’s Rich Cromwell puts it. ‘

A monster, a tricky guy who fools the Public, an extremist who built his reputation and standing by vicious assaults on Democrats and the Unions?

Only on the BBC.

Seen this?

Pay packets of highest paid stars are up by a fifth and the workforce hits 18,900 – but BBC bosses still insist they’re saving money! The BBC now employs at least 74 bosses who earn more than David Cameron’s salary of £142,500. The total wage bill for presenters on more than £1 million rose a fifth to £5.1 million. Those on more than £1million a year included Graham Norton, Gary Lineker and Jeremy Clarkson – before his recent departure.

Oh the austerity of it all! The BBC can only afford this because of the way it pickpockets £3bn+ per annum from anybody who owns a TV set. It’s time this anachronism went the way of the Dodo. Thoughts?