“As independent as resources permit”

The BBC is going all out on the Telegraph/Oborne story and remarkably shows no interest at all in widening its investigation to explore the likelihood of similar practises at other news organisations.

A familiar pattern of behaviour from the BBC which you may remember from the time of the phone hacking saga when the sole target was Murdoch and the BBC was seen to be acting in a way that was far from being neutral taking an active part in trying to close down a commercial and political rival.

The Telegraph, a Tory supporting paper, looks  set to be the BBC’s next target.

There must be many at the BBC who are laughing loudly at the damage they have inflicted upon their ideological rivals, the Tory Party and their media supporters, by the reinvention of a story that is over 5 years old.

Which, when you think about it, is an irony.  Here they are targeting the Telegraph for alleged practises that compromised their journalism and yet the BBC has been involved in one of the most blatant attempts to jerrymander an election, an attempt to undermine the democratic process, by manipulating the news.

Here the BBC gives Peter Oborne a platform to further castigate the Telegraph and demand an investigation into its practises…

Daily Telegraph’s Peter Oborne urges HSBC coverage review

“The Telegraph must now call an independent review.

“It can’t be done by the chief executive, he has been running the show, we need an independent outsider to come in and do a full assessment of the relationship between advertising and editorial.

“A fraud is being perpetrated on Telegraph readers who buy the paper expecting to get the news and instead get something that gives the impression it is vetted by the advertising department.”

 

The BBC then goes further and reports on its Newsnight ‘investigation’ saying…

More Telegraph writers voice concern

 

So that’ll be just the Telegraph that may or may not be involved in such practises then…the BBC has no interest in investigating just how widespread this is?

Hardly journalism on their own part is it?….they are doing exactly what they accuse the Telegraph of doing…limiting the scope of their journalism to reporting things that are in the interest of the BBC to highlight.

The Guardian has no such qualms, and in fact has allowed Simon Jenkins to criticise itself in a much more balanced and wide ranging look at the problem of advertising and its effects on the integrity of the Media’s journalism…

Yes, Peter Oborne, ads hurt press freedom. But the alternative is worse

Newspapers are institutionalised hypocrisy. They excoriate yet they cringe. They speak truth to power and then sup at its table. They stick their moral noses in the air while their bottoms rest on festering heaps of deals, perks, bribes and ads, without which they would not exist. The most amazing thing is that this murky edifice has delivered Britain a remarkably robust and free-spirited press.

Newspapers tend to downplay the scoops of others, as many did the Guardian’s WikiLeaks and Snowden revelations of 2011 and 2013. But a big story trumps such rivalry, as the Telegraph found to its advantage with its MPs’ expenses exposé in 2009.

 

Jenkins makes a remarkable claim about the Guardian’s own venality and lack of integrity…

Even the Guardian cannot be regarded as immune from such pressures.

In March 2007 Labour’s short-lived Pathfinder scheme, involving dire housing demolitions in the north, was inexplicably eulogised in a Guardian supplement in return for an undisclosed payment from the government.

Today its “branded content partner zone” is occupied by Unilever, “whose sources of revenue allow us to explore, in more depth than editorial budgets would otherwise allow, topics that we hope are of interest”.

The Guardian took money from the Labour government to promote one of its policies!

How much more damaging to the Media and a ‘Free Press’  than the Telegraph’s alleged actions is it when a news outlet dances to a government tune?

The BBC always prides itself on its supposed independence from government so where is the outraged shock that the Guardian, of all papers, has taken government money in return for favourable coverage?

Jenkins continues his wide ranging look at who compromises what for expediency’s sake in a harsh market….

Most serious publications have for half a century depended on subsidy, which leaves them at the mercy of their boards and benefactors. The Independent struggles under the generosity of an oligarch. The Times depends on some rich man craving its ownership. The Telegraph survives through staff cuts and deals with advertisers. The Guardian’s security has been bought at the expense of years of closures and job losses at its media subsidiaries.

Newspapers and broadcasters still have the resources and skills to digest, process and transmit masses of information in such a way as to hold the faith of readers. That is a vital democratic construct.

There is no question that the private sector is an insecure way of financing a free press that does not make money. But all other ways are worse. There are still as many daily newspapers published in Britain (nine) as there were 50 years ago, a continuous diversity available to no other western country. Online has not wiped out print. It has enhanced the penetration and prominence of both.

 

Evan Davis on Newsnight suggested that the Telegraph may have ‘prostituted itself for cash’ in a phrase that is purely perjorative and designed to be as unpleasant as possible…but then you have to ask what is the BBC’s own excuse for its compromised journalism?

The Telegraph may have altered its editorial to please its advertisers but then it is a commercial enterprise and the paper only exists because of its ability to make money from that advertising.  The BBC on the other hand has no such problems.  It has a licence to print money.

It’s coverage of the news and the way it allows its own bias and values to colour that news is far more damaging to democracy than the Telegraph’s actions.  The BBC has a vast audience that takes it on trust that the BBC is worthy of that trust and provides them with authentic, unadulterated news that helps to inform their decisions about politics and world events and therefore what the BBC tells them is more likely to be taken on trust than anything from a newspaper.

The BBC, as this blog exists to identify, abuses that trust and, as its HSBC story illustrates, seeks to change the political landscape and shape it to its own liking…preferrably with a Labour government ensconced at the next election…never mind the Middle East and climate change issues that the BBC interferes in rather than limiting itself to its job of reporting, not making, the news.

And on that subject, thanks to Guest Who in the comments, there is this…

Stephen Woolfe MEP: We must look at what a £22m bung from the EU has done at the BBC

“BBC bias in favour of the EU ‘project’ has been obvious for years. However, figures on the Financial Transparency website of the European Commission now indicate just how deeply the BBC benefits from the goodwill of the EU elite. Between 2007 and 2013 the BBC was paid more than £22m by the European Union.”

“These funds are not identified as EU money in the BBC’s annual report.”

“This is not the only fraud in BBC news coverage. Current affairs programmes often interview allegedly independent ‘experts’ on EU issues without mentioning the ‘experts’ receive funding from EU institutions.”

The BBC received from the EU, by year:
2007  €1,943,146
2008  €6,336,295
2009  €3,498,043
2010  €6,034,385
2011  €354,954
2012   €5,269,083
2013 €6,744,151

Total: €30,180,057 (£22,382,997 at exchange rate Feb 18, 2015)

 

Not forgetting that £15,000 Roger Harrabin received from a climate change propaganda centre..

A senior BBC journalist, acting on behalf of the BBC accepted £15,000 to fund seminars from an organisation including the university at the heart of the ‘Climategate’ scandal – and later went on to cover the story without declaring an interest to viewers..

 

MPs say BBC must reveal details of journalists’ commercial deals

MPs have demanded that the BBC reveals details of all commercial deals its journalists have with other organisations, amid fears of an increasing number of conflicts of interest affecting their work.

 

 

 

All that fuss about news content being  driven or influenced by sponsors eh.  Shocking revelations of shady dealings at the Telegraph by Oborne.

At least the Guardian is open about it….much of its news output is paid and bought for by its sponsors…..not just an advertiser withdrawing its account if it didn’t like one story but massive news coverage on world events brought to you courtesy of outside money and influence….

Sponsored content, advertisement features and content supported by foundations

Guardian News & Media produces a variety of content with funding from outside parties.

These sources of revenue allow us to explore, in more depth than editorial budgets would otherwise allow, topics that we hope are of interest to Guardian and Observer readers. The presentation of the content makes clear how the content has been commissioned and produced, and who has funded it.

 

Only it’s not quite so clear cut…remember the Guardian’s coverage of the riots in 2011?

It seems its reporting was shaped by a very left wing organisation …..

The Joseph Rowntree and the Open Society Foundations supported the award-winning Reading the Riots series

Funny thing is, the Guardian says it tells you that a sponsor is involved and yet I can see no sign of that on the page…just this hint that the reports might be driven by an outside agency and its data…

Reading the Riots

A data-driven study into the causes and consequences of the August 2011 riots

 

Then there is a huge amount of news that comes by way of the Bill& Melinda Gates Foundation…

The BBC approach to reporting on immigration has been to not report on immigration, or at least to brush the concerns about any problems that immigration may bring aside.  They do this out of a fear that any indication that immigration is not all rainbows and cupcakes will open the door to the army of jackbooted fascists that are just waiting in the shadows for any chance to take advantage of a change in Public awareness and mood on immigration and thence it will be a short skip and a jump towards deportations and…. worse.

The same mindset is perfectly illustrated by Dan Hodges in his latest hyperbolic gaspings.

Dan Hodges is normally reasoned and equitable…until the subject of race and immigration comes up whence he loses his marbles and all sense goes out the window

Thanks Chelsea fans. Now we know what proper racists look like…

This is where letting people get away with the odd remark about immigration leads

 

So we mustn’t talk about controlling immigration then?

Hodges tries to link UKIP with the Chelsea fan’s racism but somehow I doubt UKIP’s immigration policies had anything to do with their innate racist feelings.

They’ve been long in existence…

As a 15-year-old I attended most of Chelsea’s home matches. The fans of Stamford Bridge’s famous Shed knew me as ‘Crombie Ron’ in reference to the smart coat I wore in the winter. Crombies used to be uniform wear for self-respecting skinheads but for me, the thick, warm coat was mainly for practical purposes on the freezing terraces.

The Shed dedicated a song to me: “Oh Crombie Ron is colourful, Oh Crombie Ron is colourful. He’s a coon, he’s a wog, he’s a nigger. Oh Crombie Ron is colourful.”

It was the early 1970s and racism on the terraces was as normal as a half-time cup of tea.

 

Hodges dodges around the problem that UKIP’s immigration policy hasn’t the slightest hint of racism in it by saying that just mentioning in passing anything that links immigration to problems in the world must be fueling racism…

Hell, even Nigel Farage will take a break from attacking the Romanians, and the migrants clogging up the M3, and the people talking in funny languages during the rush hour, and condemn it.

Trouble is Farage was right as the BBC itself pointed out when it reported the concerns the Labour government had about Romanian immigration…

Ms Ryan put out another document saying that 45,000 “undesirable” criminal migrants from Romania and Bulgaria could settle in the UK next year.’

 

And a couple of million immigrants all wanting to use cars undoubtedly do help to clog up the roads…just common sense and numbers not racism….and why wouldn’t Farage feel uncomfortable when living in Britain and yet there being no British people around him?  The science backs him up saying people feel a lack of trust and there is a breakdown in civic health when surrounded by a greater diversity in a community….denying such feelings is disengenuous of Hodges.

Hodges said about Rotherham….

Those who tried to cover up the racial aspect of these crimes did so because they feared giving “oxygen” to racists. But what kind of perversion is that? You counter racism by covering up racism?

The children of Rotherham were abused racially, as well as sexually, physically and psychologically. We don’t just have a right to say that, we have an obligation.

Hosges seeks to cover up the problems associated with immigration for fear of giving ‘oxygen’ to racists just as the BBC does.

Surely we have an obligation to talk about immigration….mass uncontrolled immigration which itself fuels racism and conflict as people feel themselves under siege and put at a disadvantage as immigrants take their jobs, housing, and school places and cause them ever longer waits for NHS treatment.

Most people have no problem with controlled immigration and welcome it but to have it rammed down their throats creates anger and consequently antagonistic feelings about immigrants.

People like Hodges, and the BBC, who wish to kick any debate about immigration into the long grass, serve no one’s interests, least of all it might be said, the immigrants’ themselves, many of whom actually agree that immigration should be controlled.

This is UKIP’s policy on immigration…

Controlling and managing our borders 

– UKIP recognises the benefits of limited, controlled immigration.

– UKIP will leave the EU, and take back control of our borders. Work permits will be permitted to fill skills gaps in the UK jobs market.

– We will extend to EU citizens the existing points-based system for time-limited work permits. Those coming to work in the UK must have a job to go to, must speak English, must have accommodation agreed prior to their arrival, and must have NHS-approved health insurance.

– Migrants will only be eligible for benefits (in work or out of work)  when they have been paying tax and NI for five years and will only be eligible for permanent residence after ten years.

– UKIP will reinstate the primary purpose rule for bringing foreign spouses and children to the UK.

– UKIP will not offer an amnesty for illegal immigrants or those gaining British passports through fraud.

– UKIP will return to the principles of the UN Convention of Refugees which serves to protect the most vulnerable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBi_hDhR7GQ

The BBC has a disturbing habit of using spokesmen for Islam and Islamic issues whom anyone who had done a bit of research might think twice about using….Mo Ansar,  Moazzam Begg and anyone from MPACUK come immediately to mind…..not to mention the MCB.

Here for example is how the BBC referred to Sheikh Haitham Al Haddad in 2010….

There is some difference of opinion among Muslim scholars whether make-up from a high street store or supermarket is allowed to be used by Muslim women.

Sheikh Haitham Al-Haddad, a leading Imam in the UK, says there are two schools of thought.

 

Only last September they referred to him like this…

Two high-profile imams in the UK have made a direct appeal to Islamic State to free British hostage Alan Henning.

In a YouTube video, Shakeel Begg and Haitham al-Haddad said there was no justification for holding the 47-year-old, who was captured in Syria.

And yet just a few months later he was in a BBC Panorama film about Islamic extremism as a ‘radical preacher’.

Not to mention Shakeel Begg…who in January decided to sue the BBC when Andrew Neil said he was an extremist…

Imam at mosque where Lee Rigby’s killers worshipped sues the BBC for calling him an ‘extremist who encourages religious violence’

 

What a difference a couple of months can make.

Harry’s Place has written up many articles about Haddad…and this is the latest…

Denial fans the flames

It is bad enough that the world is plagued by one terrorist atrocity after another.

Yet there are some things which can make it even worse.

Denial is chief among them. It is common amongst British Muslims. Oh no, it’s not Muslims who did that, it’s a conspiracy! The real culprits are usually the CIA or Mossad, of course.

This way horrific violence can be simultaneously disowned and used to fan the flames of hatred. It’s intensely perverse and disturbing as well as deranged.

Run this short clip of hate preacher Haitham Haddad to see a recent example. Ever so clever, he has figured out that Islamic State is all “a big conspiracy”.

Haddad’s conspiracy idiocy alone should make him a laughing stock, left to babble in a corner.

Instead it is part of his appeal, and it is considerable.

It is an appalling and deeply alarming state of affairs.

 

Denial isn’t just common amongst British Muslims but it has a good home at the BBC which turns a blind eye all too often to the real messages that such people preach as long as they say something agreeable to Western ears when on the BBC making Islam seem reasonable, peaceful and tolerant.

How long before Haddad is back on the BBC, just as Begg [Moazzem or Shakeel, take your pick] is and Ansar, even though he has been exposed…and by one of the BBC’s top investigative programmes at that?

Watch this space.

It’s that old ‘mindest’ thing again.

The good Robert Fisk, where would we be without him?  The Independent doesn’t need a cartoonist with such a man who can paint a scathing comic picture with a mere 10,000 words.

Fisk, you couldn’t make him up, and surprisingly he is real, a real, living, green ink splurging journalist, he’s not some comic character dreamt up by Private Eye to run as a spoof columnist ala The Vicar of St Albions.

Fisk, the man who thought the Taliban had every right to punch his lights out for all the wrongs the West has inflicted upon the world, now wants to talk to ISIS about peace…

Talking to Isis could lead to peace, yet for some reason we’re not allowed to do it

Not sure exactly what he would offer in return for that peace, but as Tariq Ramadan suggests (23 mins in), peace for Muslims is a world run by Muslims on Islamic lines, we must start growing beards at the very least, very soon.

I paraphrase his thoughts…

The question is ‘Is Islam a religion of violence’? but I’m not going to answer that, we shouldn’t talk about that.  For me there is no bad Islam and no good Islam. People are naturally violent and religion channels that violence to serve its purpose….[but he then turns it on its head]….the problem is not the book [Koran] but the reader….but the reader is reading a text that accepts people are violent and encourages people to use violence.
Use violence to move towards peace…[but what is peace in Islam?….the domination of Islam.]

 

See below for what he really thinks about how Islam should proceed in non-Muslim countries.

And as ISIS has made clear their actual intentions…

“All crusaders: safety for you will be only wishes, especially if you are fighting us all together. Therefore we will fight you all together…..The sea you have hidden Sheikh Osama Bin Laden’s body in, we swear to Allah we will mix it with your blood.”

“We will conquer Rome, by Allah’s permission.”

…who can doubt what any negotiations would entail?

Still it’s good to talk.  It’s the same mindset that the BBC promotes…don’t fight the terrorists, embrace them, talk to them, surrender to them.

BBC One – Al Qaeda: Time to Talk?

Peter Taylor, BBC journalist, wanted us to talk to Al Qaeda…

Rhetorical and actual violence indicates that many years of struggle lie ahead. Taylor, like everyone else, knows there are no quick solutions to all this, but he considers the question of whether talking can help.

Taylor shows how, even at the height of IRA activity, a channel of communication existed with London which even Margaret Thatcher allowed to continue.

 

The Independent concludes…

Partly because of such contacts, the Provisional IRA has now passed into history.

 

Really?  The war goes on.  From this Sunday…

The smoking gun: how cigarettes became the IRA’s new weapon

Labour’s Margaret Hodge laid about the head of the HMRC for having lost track of an email from the supposed HSBC whistleblower in which he claimed to have information on tax evasion that HMRC might be interested in.

He also sent one to other governments and intelligence agencies and our own Foreign Office, in fact to the private office of our very own Foreign Secretary, who was at the time, David Miliband, brother of Ed Miliband who is now leading the campaign against HSBC and tax evasion in his election campaign…awkward.

Question.

Why has the BBC paid absolutely no interest in this vital second email that would lay Labour open to very serious criticism in the same way that the HMRC has been eviscerated?

The BBC is one of the most powerful and richly resourced news organisations in the world and yet it pays no attention to this subject… any investigative journalist worth his salt would be burrowing away at this story with a great deal of vigour and relish.  It would be the scoop of the year to find that missing email.  A nail in the coffin for Labour.

A nail in Labour’s coffin.  An end to their election campaign based upon that very slippery ‘moral highground’ that they seek to occupy.

Maybe the BBC doesn’t want to look as it would be a shame to waste all that champagne that’s on ice at the moment waiting for a Labour victory.

Or maybe they’re just bad journalists…from the Independent:

Why is the BBC just so bad at TV news?

It’s quite a charge: that a mixture of cuts, caution and complacency has destroyed the corporation’s ability and will to report or analyse events with any rigour. But the distinguished critic Michael Church is sticking by it. As part of his personal mission to revive standards, he has been glued to the Beeb’s bulletins and current affairs programmes. And, in his opinion, the BBC could learn a lot from competitors such as Al Jazeera – once it’s got its balls back.

 

When you read this the most important thing that you have to know is that Oborne is a supporter of Miliband and is anti-Murdoch and the right-wing press.  Only days ago he wrote a glowing panegyric on behalf of the leader of the Opposition claiming he has led the political debate…whereas in fact Miliband has hidden in a left wing comfort zone pandering to his 35% with announcements that are designed to catch the mood and news headlines but would be  highly unworkable and very damaging in practise….as Dan Hodges says, Labour’s policies are in tatters and all they have left is posing on the moral highground as ‘ethical’…which is why HSBC is so important to Labour…

Moral superiority is basically all Labour have left now. Ed Miliband’s party long ago gave up trying to convince the country Labour could govern more efficiently or prudently than the Conservatives. Their entire offer is now based upon convincing people they can do so more ethically.

 

So can we trust Oborne?  No.  HSBC is now at the centre of Miliband’s attack on the Government and Oborne complains that the Telegraph is not reporting enough about the HSBC affair…. the Telegraph is not a supporter of Miliband…so put the two together and we have a backstabbing journalist who took the Telegraph’s shilling but has jumped ship and tried to sink it as he left to help out his inspirational political guru, Ed Miliband.

You have to ask what is so interesting about the HSBC business..it’s a story that is five years old and was only raised from the dead by the Labour supporting BBC and Guardian in the hope that a bit of mud would stick to the Tories as Labour ran with the narrative of a Tory Party that only helps out the richest in society.

What has Oborne got to say about that?  Nothing.  And where will he now slink off to to get work?  He’ll have to look hard to find a righteous and advertising free rag to peddle his own brand of piety.

Best of all, practically everything he says  could be applied to the BBC’s news coverage….corrupted not for money but for ideology.  Is that ethical enough for him… a  corruption of the news for ‘principled’, ideological reasons?  I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot more of Oborne on the BBC from now on.

 Rod Liddle says something quite different to Oborne’s ‘delicious cant’…

I have worked for publications owned by Conrad Black, the Guardian’s arch-Satan Rupert Murdoch, and the Barclay brothers. I have also worked for Polly’s pristine conduit — and I can tell you that when it comes to political interference in copy, the only place I’ve had even the remotest problem, in 15 years, was the Guardian.

Only the Guardian. I’ve never had any kind of problem with any of the scumbag oligarchs, tycoons, fascist corporations — despite dissing Sky, sniggering in print about Barbara Amiel, suggesting people should vote Labour, demanding increases to the minimum wage, opposing the war in Iraq, criticising our trade links with China and referring to the Barclays as ‘the Ribbentrop twins’ the week they took over this magazine — hell, I could go on. Never any political interference at any point from all those bad guys. Only the Guardian.

 

 

Peter Oborne has sloped off from the Telegraph in high dudgeon claiming it is a principled stand against a newspaper that has allowed commercial interests to shape its news output.

The BBC reports…

This is not just a parting swipe at an employer by a disgruntled member of staff, it’s an explosion of anger about an issue that is worrying journalists across the industry.

Newspapers are in a state of crisis. The Telegraph has seen its print sales drop by around half over the last 10 years.

The less we spend on papers, the more our news will have to be paid for by companies.

I like that ‘an issue that is worrying journalists across the industry’….the BBC smearing the Press with an across the board, unproven slander.

Think we can see where the BBC is going with this…and you don’t have to wait long…a few lines on and the subtle slurs continue…

Peter Oborne has gone further, saying that “shadowy” executives are interfering on an “industrial scale” with basic news coverage.

This is strong stuff and the Telegraph denies it all – saying it’s all unfounded and full of inaccuracy.

Of course, these are turbulent times. The Telegraph is, like almost every other paper, having to reinvent itself.

Ah yes turbulent times in which any underhand method must be used to turn a buck and keep afloat…like the Guardian’s off-shore tax haven I suppose.

The BBC tells us that Oborne…

‘… had intended to “leave quietly” until he saw the paper’s coverage of HSBC and its Swiss banking arm.

In comparison to the coverage of the story in other national newspapers, “you needed a microscope to find the Telegraph coverage”, Mr Oborne said.

“There is a purpose to journalism, and it is not just to entertain. It is not to pander to political power, big corporations and rich men.

“Newspapers have what amounts in the end to a constitutional duty to tell their readers the truth.”

 

Curious Oborne has nothing to say about the BBC’s and the Guardian’s clearly political intervention into the election run up by running this story, a story that was at least five years old and brought nothing new to the table.  The contents of the emails to the various governments were known in 2010…but what is odd is that it is only the email to HMRC that Labour’s Margaret Hodge is interested in and not the same one that went to David Miliband as Foreign Secretary.  The BBC has also shown not the slightest bit of interest in this second email.  Why not?

Funny how Oborne, supposedly a great journalist, looking through his microsope, didn’t see any of these recent reports from the Telegraph that are either about HSBC or are critical of HSBC’s services…..funny how the BBC hasn’t bothered to check the truth of Oborne’s claims preferring instead to publish them verbatim as if they had the ring of complete truth to them…..for some reason…

Former Tory minister Lord Green under pressure over HSBC tax claims

HMRC pulls top official hours ahead of stormy session with MPs

HSBC sued for ‘ignoring warning signs of British businessman’s fraud’

Global financial system on brink of second credit crisis

Lord Green quits amid HSBC row

‘HSBC cancelled my repayment plan just before
I cleared my debt’

The BBC’s relentless preaching to us about immigration continues apace.  It retains  its patronising, elitist attitude that the ‘rest of us’, not blessed with being ordained into the cloistered BBC priesthood and thus bereft of the intellect, compassion and understanding that they have judged to be bestowed upon themselves by virtue of a vocation within the BBC, are not capable of understanding the issues surrounding immigration and world events without their guidance and tutoring.

The flow of migrants across the Mediterranean particularly catches the BBC’s imagination and they like to paint a vivid picture of the suffering of people who choose to cross in overcrowded boats…..the BBC suggesting such suffering alone earns them a place in Europe and that you should be responsible for feeding, housing,  schooling and clothing them and theirs.

Here’s a little plea from the BBC to open your hearts, your wallets and your doors to all and sundry…from FOOC…

Understanding a little of the migrants’ pitiful journey

Tomorrow, right now, more desperate people will be stepping into dinghies, inflatable rubber boats, handing over money for a place in the engine room of a rusted cargo ship. I understand a little now of how pitiful their journeys will be. I daren’t guess as to how they will end.

Then there is this little piece of historical hokum which tries to paint the UK in the colours of the left as a ‘nation of immigrants’…there being no such thing as an ‘English or British identity’.

A few tricks from the BBC….this is about England…but much of the ‘immigration’ is from other parts of the British Isles so somewhat of a bluff from the Beeb…and note the rather loose association when they try to link anyone called good old British names like Smith or Baker or Shepherd to immigrants, you might think you’re English but you know what, you’re probably not…..and then there’s the bits from the research that the BBC doesn’t mention such as how the research was made possible and the meaning behind that.

Here is what the researchers said was their aim……

It is our aim to reveal and highlight the diversity of the medieval immigrant experience, and in so doing to contribute an important historical dimension to current debates about immigration to Britain from Europe and the wider world.

 

Quite clearly their aim is to influence how you view immigration today and make you more accepting of immigrants.  No wonder the BBC makes room for it in their busy schedule.

Here’s the BBC write up, such as it is…..

England’s medieval immigrants revealed by universities

In medieval England one person in every hundred was an immigrant, new research has shown.

About 65,000 people came to the country between 1330 and 1550.

Lots and lots of people who today have names like Baker, Brewer, Smith or Cooper could actually be descended from immigrants in the Middle Ages who were given a name when they came into the kingdom.”

“The England’s Immigrants project transforms our understanding of the way that English people and foreign nationals, of all levels of society, lived and worked together in the era of the Plantagenets and early Tudors”, added Prof Omrod.

Here you can see the limits of the project…it’s about England and immigration comes from all over the British Isles as well as abroad…

The England’s Immigrants project by the universities of York and Sheffield details the names and occupations of those arriving from other parts of the British Isles and mainland Europe.

What the BBC doesn’t tell you is that they know how many foreigners were here because they each had to pay a special tax, and if they wanted to stay another tax…so if we’re making comparisons with today as to how immigrants should be treated….special taxes, oaths of allegiance, expulsions and close control of who was in the country seem to be in order…..

From 1440, a series of specific taxes, known as the ‘alien subsidies’, were levied upon first-generation immigrants resident in most parts of England, and the returns for these provide a vast amount of information regarding their names, places of residence, origins, occupations and gender.

On various occasions, the government took action against, or made demands upon, certain sections of the resident alien population. For instance, in 1436, people from the Low Countries were required to swear an oath of allegiance to prove their loyalty; in 1394, the patent roll contains a list of Irish people who purchased licences to remain in England following the general expulsion ordered by Richard II’s government; and from the outbreak of the Hundred Years War onwards, there were numerous attempts to identify resident subjects of the king’s foreign enemies, both lay and clerical. From the 1290s onwards, the government also issued letters of protection and denization, offering resident aliens (or at least those willing and able to pay) the opportunity to buy the right to remain within the realm, and to receive partial or total rights of naturalisation.

 

No wonder the BBC dodged reporting that bit.

Here you go, I’m back in Blighty so time to catch up! BBC being its usual effortless BIASED self? Detail it here!

The BBC is pumping out yet more pro-immigration propaganda meant to challenge your ignorance and prejudiced stupidity should you be one of those ‘furious faced Ukippers’ who think having control on who and how many people come into the UK is a good idea.

As you may imagine the BBC have handed the baton to Jonathan Freedland who picks it up and runs with it ….to the left of course.