Monthly Archives: February 2016

Circling The Bandwagons

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On the 22nd of October 2015 the BBC published a report about Jeremy Hunt ‘misleading’ us about the figures for weekend deaths in hospitals.

Strangely this story resurfaced today as the BBC once again delved into the  subject, and curiously it just happened to be Prime Minister’s Questions today with Jeremy Corbyn leading with the BBC’s claim and actually quoting the BBC’s ‘research’.  No questions at all about the EU and the referendum but as Jon Pienaar told us afterwards the British public are apparently more interested in the Junior doctors’ challenge to Jeremy Hunt as the subject is closer to home.  Why is Pienaar making up excuses for Corbyn leading PMQs with a BBC story?

Not saying at all that the BBC and Corbyn have colluded in this although Guido has found a BBC employee who has been feeding Corbyn questions for PMQs.….little ‘Rosie’…who thinks Corbyn is ‘strong and Cameron ‘misleading’…

 

 

Cameron told Corbyn that yes indeed the figure of 6,000 was misleading because the true figure was 11,000….

“Now we’ve had time to go into these figures of more detail, I can tell the House that the Health Secretary was indeed guilty – he was guilty of an understatement,” Mr Cameron said.

“The true figures for excess deaths at the weekend were 11,000, not 6,000.  So perhaps the right honourable gentleman will now withdraw his totally unjustified attack on the Health Secretary?”

What did the BBC choose to report in its news bulletins? (03:02)  They aired Corbyn’s question in full but then oddly didn’t feel the need to give Cameron’s reply to that question instead telling us he said that there were misleadiing figures but they came from the BMA….he did indeed say that but that was not his answer to Corbyn’s question…which was that there are 11,000 deaths at the weekends above what might be expected on weekdays.

But were Hunt and Cameron misleading?

This is what the BMJ article concluded…..

Appropriate support services in hospitals are usually reduced from late Friday through the weekend, leading to disruption on Monday morning. This could go some way towards explaining our finding of a “weekend effect” extending into Friday and Monday.

We have shown a clear association between weekend admission and worse patient outcomes. Our analyses show that an increased proportion of higher risk patients are admitted on Saturday and Sunday, when services inside and outside the hospital are reduced. There is evidence that junior hospital doctors feel clinically exposed during the weekend and that hospital chief executives are concerned about levels of weekend cover. This has led to calls from the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, Medical Education England, the Royal College of Physicians, and the Royal College of Surgeons, for a review of the way services are provided in hospitals at weekend, with a particular focus on urgent care.

So not only do more deaths occur at the weekend as a proportion of patients but the Junior Doctors are extremely concerned about it and the levels of weekend cover and although the report does indeed say that to conclude these deaths are all avoidable would be ‘rash and misleading’ they then said….

From an epidemiological perspective, however, this statistic is “not otherwise ignorable” as a source of information on risk of death and it raises challenging questions about reduced service provision at weekends.

Yes, more patients come into hospital with severe problems at the weekend but that’s ‘more’ only as a proportion of patients as in fact the number who go to hospital at the weekends is considerably lower than on week days….therefore in fact the actual numbers of severe patients is lower than on a weekday.

A higher proportion of patients were admitted to hospital as emergencies on Saturday (635 020/1 261 085; 50%) and Sunday (621 356/952 375; 65%) than on weekdays (3 951 971/13 646 048; 29%).

The study in the BMJ begins with this…

Intuitively, reduced provision of healthcare at weekends adversely affects all of these domains…..

Our previous study of all NHS hospital admissions in England during the financial year 2009-10 indicated that admission at the weekend (Saturday and Sunday) was associated with a significantly increased risk of in-hospital death compared with midweek admission.

Pretty clear where the study is pointing….weekends do result in more deaths due to reduced services.

Why is the BBC being so dishonest about this and misleading the public on what Pienaar thinks is the most important subject politically today?

The study clearly states that 11,000 extra deaths occur at weekends and yet the BBC is blatantly claiming that Cameron and Hunt are doing the ‘misleading’ and have even edited out Cameron’s answer to Corbyn…Here’s the final words from the report…..

Key messages

  • Patients admitted at the weekend are more likely to be in the highest category of risk of death

  • Patients admitted on Saturday or Sunday face an increased likelihood of death even when severity of illness is accounted for

  • An additional risk of death exists for admission on Monday and Friday extending the weekend effect to these two days

  • Around 11 000 more patients die each year within 30 days from admission occurring between Friday and Monday compared with admission on the remaining days of the week

 

The real question is of those 11,000, although the report says it would be ‘rash and misleading’ to think they could be avoidable, just how many of them could be saved with the provision of appropriate services?….clearly many could be saved, the report itself makes that clear, reduced services cause problems at the weekend…but the BBC and Corbyn want to gloss over that whilst they make strawman attacks on Cameron & Co.

The BBC weren’t so concerned about causality in previous reports when it suited them to ignore it when attacking the government on nurse numbers…the BBC used a single study to claim that a fall in nursing numbers led to deaths….but the report they based that claim upon made no such link…..

Implications of the California nurse staffing mandate for other states.

We have tried to minimize this source of potential bias by obtaining reports from nurses in states without legislation and by using in-dependent patient data to validate the better outcomes for California hospitals. Our study is cross sectional and we cannot establish causality in the associations we observe.

The BBC basing its report on a study which admits there was no causality, no baseline and little evidence elsewhere to say that staff, like HCA’s, were detrimental to patient outcomes.

 

Back in 2014 the BBC were happy to ignore reports of 13,000 patient deaths under Labour‘s stewardship of the NHS…..

Labour is accused of operating a ‘Denial Machine’….welll yeahhh…it’s called the BBC.

Professor Sir Brian Jarman, of Imperial College London, worked on a government review which will this week show that 14 hospital trusts have been responsible for up to 13,000 “excess deaths” since 2005.

He accused Labour ministers of presiding over a “denial machine” and ignoring his data on high death rates for a decade.

Sir Brian said: “We felt we were banging against a locked door. They were denying out data even though there was no real reason. At the time there was pressure from Downing Street and pressure from ministers.

“The government was in the position of providing the health service and monitoring it, it was a conflict of interest. Ministers have an electoral interest in getting out good news.”

 

 

 

 

Tartan Terror Hijacks The BBC

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Lord Hall Hall is weak and foolish.  He surrendered without a fight to George Osborne over the licence fee and the over 75’s, he has surrendered the BBC’s reputation as a broadcaster that we can trust to deliver accurate and impartial news as it now acts as a conduit for Islamist propaganda, and let’s not talk about its climate change reporting, and now he has surrendered to the tyranny of the Tartan Blackshirts of the SNP who have terrorised him into handing over the BBC to their tender mercies and control freakery…that is the ultimate consequence of his latest move as he buckles to SNP pressure…

BBC to introduce ‘Scottish Six’ news programme next year

The BBC intends to replace its flagship UK six o’clock news bulletin with a separate Scottish programme from next year despite viewers expressing opposition.

Senior Corporation insiders confirmed that a so-called ‘Scottish Six’ news programme is on course to start in 2017 despite a “rear-guard action” by some senior figures in London who are opposed to the controversial plan.

The hour-long bulletin between 6pm and 7pm would take the BBC One slots currently filled on weekdays by the UK-wide BBC News at Six and Reporting Scotland.

If the head of the national BBC buckles to SNP pressure just how much more vulnerable is the head of BBC Scotland and the boss of BBC Scotland News?

Hall has long boasted of the BBC’s independence from political pressure and the importance of that….he shows little sign of actually putting that into practise as he succumbs to the SNP’s bully boy tactics…..this is the thin edge of the wedge…how many more thuggish ‘protests’ will now be seen outside BBC premises and how much more inordinate political pressure targeted at the BBC will we see now as they sense the weakness of Hall as he allows the BBC to be used to push ever more political and ideological messages having already pandered to Lenny Henry and to the Muslim pressure groups who demand more positive news about Muslims on the BBC?

 

 

 

 

The Clash……Should We stay or should We go?

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David Dimbleby front’s the BBC’s EU coverage and will lead a debate to be held at Wembley Arena just two days before the referendum.

This is pure showbiz from the BBC….there’s absolutely no need to hold such a major debate at such a massive venue and at such a dramatic time. The BBC’s description of the event is possibly more truthful than they intended to  let on….’The corporation’s biggest ever campaign event’.

What if, for the sake of argument, the BBC stage managed such an event and it turned out to be strongly in favour of staying in Europe?  What if it nudged the vote in favour of staying? Two days before the referendum it’s a bit late to complain…if it swayed the vote it’s way too late and there would be no way to go for a steward’s enquiry…we’d be in Europe for the long haul.  There are naturally other BBC debates but this looks to be purposely designed to be the eye catching spectacular.

Such a huge debate should be held long before the actual referendum to allow people to digest what was said and to allow those involved in the debate to expand on what they have said…this should be a debate that stimulates more discussion and knowledge… Dimbleby himself likes to think such debates should be ‘open, provocative in the sense that you provoke ideas and thought, where you get a cut-and-thrust of to-and-fro between individuals across a spectrum of opinion. ‘…difficult to make that work with only two days to go.

Such a ‘spectacular’ is liable to be hijacked by a sensationalist and persuasive speaker, from either side, regardless of what he/she is actually saying, winning the headlines and they hope, the votes.  Only this morning on the Today programme we heard how the Scottish referendum was really ‘won’ by the silver tongued and charismatic (compared to Alistair Darling) Salmond and Sturgeon….’won’ in the sense that they won the hearts but not the minds… ‘project fear’ won the actual vote.

Will Dimbleby be rigorously impartial?   The jury’s out on that….he certainly doesn’t come across as critical of Europe in any way and rather gives the impression of being in favour.

During the election he famously clashed with Nigel Farage as to whether the audience was biased…BBC CHALLENGERS’ DEBATE ‘SERIOUSLY BIASED’ AGAINST EU WITHDRAWAL CASE

Dimbleby said that the audience was hand-picked by an independent, reputable polling company and there was no bias.…a company that seems to always give the worst possible picture of UKIP.

His proud boast that the audience was hand-picked and impartial rather goes against this statement from him last year about another BBC debate programme on Europe and the value of a random audience….

We don’t select scientifically our audience for these programmes. We invite those who want to come, so it is also transparent and democratic, in that sense. Anyone who wants to come to the programme, anyone who wants to pose questions, can do so.

What is more interesting and possibly informative as to his leanings is his other comments in the same interview….

I think the British public is woefully under-informed about the structure, organisation and leadership of the European Union.

And I think that is in part the failure of the communicators, not excluding even the BBC, that tries its level-best, but doesn’t always succeed. But there is a relentless media debate, which either deliberately, sometimes, or by default, offers a distorted image of Europe.

That’s to say, it has a strong view, there are parts of the media – this does not apply to the BBC – which are strongly anti-European Union, and so they cover the European Union in ways that reflect that attitude.

How patronising is that?  I imagine the British public is pretty well informed on the essential details of the EU and how it effects their lives.  Dimbleby is of course talking about the Euro-sceptics and not the ‘British Public’ in general….so the Sceptics don’t like the EU because they don’t understand it or know enough about it…classic BBC.

That statement alone gives a clue as to what Dimbleby thinks about the EU, but if that weren’t enough we get a further clue in his claim that it is ‘certain parts of the media that are strongly anti-European Union’ that have misled the British Public with a distorted image of Europe.

So Euro-sceptics are only sceptical because they are being lied to and are under-informed….otherwise they would, of course, be wildly in favour of the EU if only they could see how amazing it really is.  Pretty clear Dimbleby is for the EU.

He could of course have been talking about the BBC which is well known to push a pro-EU line…..as a House of Commons scrutiny committee confirmed….

We also took this opportunity to review how the BBC covers the EU scrutiny process and EU issues.

We deplore the fact that we had to repeatedly press for Lord Hall, the Director-General of the BBC and its Editor-in-Chief, as well as the previous BBC Trust Chairman Lord Patten, to appear before us.

As the nation’s public service broadcaster the BBC has very particular obligations under its Charter and Framework Agreement, both to be impartial and also to educate and inform.  We do not believe this is currently being achieved in the context of the BBC’s EU coverage. Furthermore the BBC has not properly carried through its compliance with its own published aims following the serious criticisms made of the BBC by the Report by Lord Wilson of Dinton in 2005 relating to the BBC’s coverage of EU issues.

 

Somehow I don’t see the Wembley debate being of any real service and, as said, is more showbiz that real politics though the BBC will be hoping it can get enough pro voices on the night to project ‘fear’ into people’s hearts making them just nervous and jittery enough to stick with the devil they know.

 

 

BBC’s Continental shelfishness

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From Julia Hartley-Brewer in the Telegraph…note the click poll at the end of the artcicle where 93% [at time of posting] think the BBC is biased against Eurosceptics…….

The BBC thinks all Eurosceptics are frothing extremists. How can we trust it to be neutral?

Our national broadcaster has already picked a side in the EU referendum – and it doesn’t even realise its own bias

Forgive them, for they know not what they do. But make no mistake about it: the BBC has a problem with Eurosceptics.

Despite being legally bound to political impartiality, the BBC nevertheless has a habit of treating Eurosceptics with the same respect which it usually reserves for cheese-rollers, the people who risk life and limb to run downhill after rounds of cheese every year in Gloucestershire: amusing and brave British eccentrics but nevertheless quite, quite mad. by Ofcom rules.

Yet our national broadcaster’s biggest problem isn’t simply that, as an institution, it doesn’t like Eurosceptics and is instinctively pro-EU. The real problem is that the BBC doesn’t even realise it has a problem in the first place.

So ingrained is the veneration of the European Union as a force for good at the BBC that they are totally unaware of any bias in their reporting on the question of Britain’s future relationship with the EU.

They don’t mean it, of course, but the BBC bias against the Leave camp starts long before even the first question is asked on air.

I know from first-hand experience the look of horrified pity that I get from BBC producers when I say that I am a Eurosceptic, which is something akin to the mixture of revulsion and bemusement they would feel if I had just confessed to a secret passion for killing puppies while listening to Barry Manilow’s greatest hits.

I say this more in sorrow than in anger, as a staunch admirer and supporter of the BBC as a world-class British institution, but the truth is that many BBC employees, like those of the Guardian newspaper, move in a world where they rarely come across people with different views from their own.

They have therefore come to regard support for the EU as a mainstream, centrist opinion, because that’s what everyone with whom they work and socialise thinks, while anything else is seen as an extremist, minority view.

There are some honourable exceptions, of course (stand up Nick Robinson and Andrew Neil) but, after years of appearing on the BBC, my guess is that most of the corporation’s staff are completely unaware of having any bias at all and believe themselves to be utterly neutral when they patently are not.

Indeed, the bias starts even before the first question is put to guests on any BBC radio or television show, when producers decide which guest to book in the first place.

Again and again, Remain guests appear from the ranks of the well-briefed front benches and senior business worlds, while Leave guests are foaming-at-the-mouth Ukip local councillors or so-called “ordinary people” who are sneeringly portrayed as ignorant xenophobes simply for daring to question the economic and social case for mass immigration.

Once a guest has been booked, the questions are routinely loaded with unconscious Europhile bias.

“Why do you think Britain will be better off out of Europe?” is a typical BBC starter for 10 for an interviewee supporting the vote to Leave.

It is a question you will hear time and again over the coming months, despite the fact that no one in the Leave Camp is suggesting that Britain fills the Channel Tunnel with rubble and ups anchor to float Britain out to the north Atlantic, far away from the teeming hordes of our continental cousins.

This is doubly important because the Remain campaign deliberately uses “Europe” in place of “the EU” as a political tactic.

In the event of a vote to Leave the EU, we are no more going to “leave Europe” than we are going to sail away to join South America or Asia or the Antarctic.

Europe is a physical continent, the EU is a political entity. This is a not a difficult distinction, yet it is one that the great Oxbridge minds of the BBC appear to confuse on a daily basis. That sends out the subtle message that wanting to “leave Europe” is the stuff of madmen.

Then there is all the questioning of Eurosceptic politicians about splits in the Leave camp and who certain politicians will or won’t share a platform alongside – whether it be Nigel Farage, George Galloway or anyone else.

These are of course perfectly reasonable questions. Yet the same questions are rarely asked of those on the Remain side. Is it not equally pertinent to ask if David Cameron is happy to share a platform with his fellow Remain supporter, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, a man whom he recently described as a “risk to national security”?

And is it really the case that those campaigning for Remain see eye-to-eye on every single issue given that they include true blue Tories, far left Labour socialists, Liberal Democrats, the SNP and Green supporters among their tribe?

Meanwhile, pro-EU political grandees like Lord Heseltine and Kenneth Clarke are treated like gurus of wisdom and truth rather than simply voices on one side of a debate – let alone asked why anyone should take their scaremongering claims about the terrible fate awaiting Britain if we leave the EU when they made the very same predications if we failed to join the euro.

Rarely, too, do you hear a chief executive of a FTSE 100 company being asked if he is supporting Remain not from a deeply held love of international cooperation, but simply because his annual bonus is dependent upon company profits which are boosted by a large supply of cheap foreign labour that keeps wages down.

And while the Leave campaign is routinely portrayed as full of right-wing Little Englanders, this ignores the fact that many on the supposedly progressive Left, including the rail unions Aslef and the RMT, take a staunch Eurosceptic stance in the name of protecting wages.

The bias in the BBC’s coverage is all very subtle and much of it is totally unconscious, but it is nevertheless real, and it will have an effect on how the BBC’s many millions of listeners and viewers perceive the two competing camps and their campaigns.

We have another four months until voters get to decide Britain’s future on June 23. Until then, all of us – even the cheese-rollers of Gloucestershire – deserve to hear the full, unbiased facts, not Europhile half-truths, from our national broadcaster.

 

We’re all in this together…just not you lot…

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Been listening to the BBC reports on the letter from the FTSE businessmen concerning Brexit…..now Justin Webb did a good job this morning on the Today programme (08:30) but BBC news did the usual chop, change and edit and reduced things to the usual soundbites that give an entirely false impression of events….and despite Lord Digby-Jones giving a robust statement on Wake Up To Money this morning (33 mins) saying we should leave the EU his comments weren’t broadcast in the bulletins whereas the pro-EU business peoples’ were.

What else was missing?  I had no idea that the letter was actually written in No 10 by a civil servant….the BBC didn’t let on at all in the reports I heard today despite it being open knowledge yesterday.  The BBC know about it because they give a small nod to it in passing buried down in this report…

For politicians supporting Britain remaining in the European Union, the blessing of business leaders is seen as a positive step.

And the list signing the pro-European letter – at least in part orchestrated by Number 10 – are certainly a hefty bunch. But a few health warnings.

Guido reported it yesterday:

Guido has got hold of a draft letter sent to FTSE 100 bosses by Downing Street business adviser Chris Hopkins yesterday, soliciting support for Dave’s deal. It was due to appear in tomorrow’s Times, but you can read it on Guido today:

From: Chris Hopkins
Sent: 21 February 2016
To: XXXXX

Dear Sirs

We run businesses representing every sector and region of the United Kingdom. Together we employ hundreds of thousands of people across the country.

Following the Prime Minister’s renegotiation, we believe that Britain is better off staying in a reformed European Union. He has secured a commitment from the EU to reduce the burden of regulation, deepen the single market and to sign off crucial international trade deals.

Businesses like ours need unrestricted access to the European market of 500 million people in order to continue to grow, invest and create jobs. We believe that leaving the EU would deter investment and threaten jobs. It would put the economy at risk.

We believe Britain will be stronger, safer and better off remaining a member of the European Union.

Give me a call if you have any issues.

Regards,

Chris

The letter was sent around yesterday, after the new rules limiting what Leave ministers are allowed to do with public resources came into effect. No.10 are unsportingly using the taxpayer-funded civil service machine to campaign for Remain, within the rules…

Surely that is quite a revelation, never mind the use of civil servants to do what is nothing to do with the official government….IMHO the pro-EU campaign should be entirely separate from government and its resources….why is the pro-EU campaign allowed to hijack the government and adopt an ‘official government position’...and then ban those who campaign against the EU from accessing information?….The Telegraph reports that Sir Jeremy Heywood has nobbled the Brexit campaign…..

Ministers campaigning for Britain to leave the European Union have been banned by Whitehall’s most senior civil servant from accessing official documents and prevented from receiving briefings.

“It will not be appropriate or permissible for the Civil Service to support who oppose the Government’s official position by providing briefing or speech material on this matter.

“This includes access to official departmental papers, excepting papers that ministers have previously seen on issues relating to the referendum question prior to the suspension of the collective agreement.”

He adds: “Departments may check facts for such ministers on request. And civil servants should continue to support such ministers in undertaking all official government business in the usual way.”

The rules from today until May 27, when the official Whitehall purdah period begins.

Hardly a democratic referendum when the government sets itself and its propaganda machine against what maybe the majority of the People.

Might surely be worth a comment from the BBC’s finest….especially as, irony of ironies, the government insisted the BBC remain impartial…

The BBC has been warned by the government to remain impartial during the EU referendum amid Tory fears that the Corporation’s “pro-European bias” could influence the result.

 

 

 

Kiss-Ass

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Andrew Marr’s not having a good week.

I’ve just been watching ‘Kick-Ass’ [WARNING SMOKING AND DRINKING], the movie in which an everyday geeky kid dreams of being a super hero and saving the world.  Has Andrew Marr not grown out of that phase yet?  Clearly Paul Mason (You can’t keep a good man down…yep he’s back) hasn’t as he tells us of his bizarre utopian child-like dream of a world where capitalism is banished and lovely things happen and everything is free….and oh yes those nasty far-right people are saved from their dreadful little lives and turned into decent, latte quaffing Guardianistas who just want to love and be loved, and oh yes, do good things.

Sounds like I’m joking don’t it?  I’m not, it’s just another day at BBC Central and Start The Week.

Marr is looking towards a dystopian future where the digital world means we’re all redundant, nobody wants to pay for anything, which is just as well because the only people with money are the masters of the digital universe….and capitalism is history.

Paul Mason is brought on as the prophet of doom with a narrative that is jammed packed with excruciatingly left-wing socio-techno-psycho-babble, as inventive and outlandish as any comic book heroics and more deserving a place in the BBC archives filed under satirical comedy than serious comment on the economy….was he really Newsnight’s economics editor?

Just a few examples of his crazed mind….apparently Apple, Google and Facebook aren’t capitalist…they’re not producers but ‘rent-seekers’  Hmmm….The utterly ruthless Apple with more cash in the bank than the US government not capitalist?  Google and Facebook worth billions and selling billions?  Not capitalist?   They sell hardware, software and services.

The Uber app is apparently something anybody could have thought up and produced….except of course it’s not just an app, not just a few lines of software…..just like the Black Cab ‘Knowledge’ is what you might call an app and yet is so much more…anybody could do that…if they put the work in….and yet it is treasured and highly valued skill.  Uber is worth $50 billion on paper but is making losses as it invests to buy market share (as Saudi Arabia slashes the oil price to kill off the Frackers) …capitalism dead in the digital economy?  Don’t think so.  Apps, Mason might have noticed, sell for millions if successful…..Internet entrepreneur sells app firm for $30million – just three months after he founded it

Mason dismisses software as if it is worthless and meaningless.  Tell that to Microsoft.

He mentions Linux as free and an example to be emulated…and yet it’s not..it’s a billion dollar business….just as Wikipedia and Firefox are ‘free’ but always ask for donations to keep going or live off the goodwill and free services of its users.

Mason then tells us that the car-wash is the perfect example of how the machine takes over from the man….except of course people still flock to the hand-wash…usually done by East Europeans on a low wage.  There’s one down the road from me and its always full of customers…..so there’s always a place for the human and the vinyl record, as Northern Soul fan Mason should know.

Even more bizarre than Mason’s fantasms is the shoe-horning into the programme of a narrative about the Far-Right….seemingly Marr just wanted to attack the Far-Right and thought up a great excuse to do so conjuring up a wonderfully convenient line that only had a passing connection with reality and the subject under discussion.

We heard that groups like the EDL were angry white people, working class, left behind people, marginalised outsiders who were really protesting about economics. This is of course the same narrative that the BBC uses to explain Muslim extremism…it’s not Islam but economics…never mind most extremists are from good families and highly educated. The EDL most definitely weren’t up in arms about Islam (why would they be?)…. some were racist scum…it was all a consequence of industrial decline….a decline of the utopias based upon work (Mason™)…and oh yes…they were adopting the identity of ‘white Christian’ as the only way to stake a claim and a place in society.

Let’s think what the BBC are trying to do here……firstly by saying this is all about economics they are attempting to dismiss the claim that the likes of the EDL are protesting about Islam and the Islamification of Europe which we know is exactly what they are protesting about…in other words the BBC wants us to believe there is no real problem with Islam in the West….it’s all a front for racist losers wanting to be noticed.

Second…trying to label them as ‘white christian extremists’ is trying to equate them with the Islamists and in drawing such a parallel tries to say ‘look Christians are extremist too…so therefore Islam isn’t the only religion that spawns terrorism and extremism’.  Except of course Christianity doesn’t tell you to kill the unbeliever or charge them protection money.

We also heard that the government is victimising immigrants and refugees…all in order to pander to the Far Right….so anyone who wants to control immigration is Far-Right then?  The usual BBC toxic narrative.

Marr tells us the Middle East and North Africa is full of young people, and we need young people to????…to do those jobs that Marr and Co just spent 45 minutes telling us were history.

As always fantasy and wishful thinking overrides reality with the BBC lefty dreamers.

 

 

The gloves are off

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The phoney war is over and the BBC’s pretence of maintaining a neutral stance on the EU referendum is over.  That pretence of neutrality was always straining for credibility even before Cameron’s ‘win’ as the BBC managed to fill the airwaves with people who ‘just happened’ to support staying in the EU. Now however the gloves really are off and the BBC discussions that are supposed to inform us and bring both sides of the story to us are stage managed to appear to discuss the issues but remarkably end up with the conclusion that staying in the EU is the safest bet….and the BBC’s frontpage headlining story?…from a Michael Fallon interview…given prime spot on the Today programme at 08:10….

EU referendum: Leaving EU ‘big gamble’ for UK security

Strange how soon the BBC forgets that Cameron was described as a diplomatic irrelevance in regard to pressurising Russia over Ukraine….and it wasn’t ‘Europe’ that put that pressure on Putin but France and Germany.

David is right about the immediate attack on Boris, presaged of course by Nick Robinson’s attack on him on the Marr show.  Boris is being set up as a calculating, unprincipled man out to further his own career…based on what evidence?  And why look so closely at Boris’ motivations when others like Cameron get off scot free?

5Live brought on Sonia Purnell (at around 12:10), a former colleague and biographer of Boris…..apparently Boris and Purnell do not get on….but you weren’t told that by the BBC who presented her somewhat poisonous comments as gospel…….she claimed Boris was a fraud, secretly wanting to stay in the EU and his 30 years of writing Euro-sceptic columns was all a front….this is all about being PM she suggested.

 

Some comments about her biography which might indicate she is no friend of Boris….

Sonia Purnell’s Just Boris is an indispensable examination into the mind, ambitions and deep insecurities of London’s mayor; Boris hates it because she dares speak truth to power.’

(Nicholas Lezard Guardian – Best of 2012)

‘Through fast prose and a vast array of interviews, Purnell … portrays better than any predecessor the arrogance, opportunism, and irresistible buffoonery of our most celebrated politician.’

(Independent on Sunday)

No wonder the BBC chose her…..as did the Guardian for numerous hatchet jobs on Boris and the Tories.

 

Looks like she is pro-EU as well……

  Sonia Purnell ‏@soniapurnell 5 hrs5 hours ago

I do think this piece by William Hague is significant for all sorts of reasons

Later on on 5Live we had a discussion about security (9 mins 30 secs) asking would we be more or less secure if we left the EU?  We had on the ‘independent’ think tank Chatham House.…independent but of course not necessarily without its own ideas and indeed what we got was an assessment that we would be safer to stay in Europe…no one put up to oppose that view as it was given.  I can’t see too much, if any, pro-Brexit comment on the Chatham House site and indeed here is the head of Chatham House, Robin Niblett, giving his own editorial comment which is pro-staying in Europe…as this line makes clear…

The risks to Britain’s position in Europe and, therefore, to its international influence are inescapable in the next parliament, irrespective of who wins the election.

Other comment from the Labour party on the site is clear on which direction we should go…

Making the Case for Britain in Europe

Hilary Benn will make present an internationalist case for Britain remaining in the European Union. Drawing on his experience in government, he will contend that being in Europe strengthens the UK’s voice on major international challenges such as regional conflict and climate change.

Britain’s Place in Europe: Why the Future Lies in the EU

Alan Johnson MP, leader of the Labour In For Britain campaign, will set out why in an increasingly interconnected world, Britain is stronger as part of Europe.

 

Chatham House may be ‘independent’ of government or any other vested interest but it looks like it has a line to take and that is to stay in Europe so for the BBC to present it as completely neutral is not entirely true and adds to all those other commentators the BBC drags in that are supposedly neutral but turn out, funnily enough, to support the EU.

The same 5Live programme (15 mins) went to some length to dismiss a claim by hairdressers on a previous 5Live programme that their businesses were being effected by EU regulations on the power of hairdryers…..the BBC told us this was rubbish….not having heard the hairdresser’s original claim I can’t comment on the reasons for them but it is interesting the lengths the BBC go to to try and undermine criticism of the EU and bolster its reputation by disproving ‘myths’.

Trouble is the EU may not have actually banned such hairdryers at present but it really did want to ban such high power machines, and will no doubt try to in future...as the BBC once told us…

High-powered hairdryers are on a list of household electrical items the EU is considering banning in an attempt to curb energy consumption.

A study, commissioned by the European Commission, has identified up to 30 appliances including toasters and kettles which could be restricted.

The study forms part of the EU’s energy efficiency directive aimed at helping to tackle climate change.

From the Telegraph:

The power of hairdryers could be reduced by as much as 30 per cent in order to be more eco-friendly, a draft study commissioned by Brussels suggests, threatening many of the models favoured by hairdressers and consumers for speedy blow-dries.

Günther Oettinger, the German EU energy commissioner, said that legislation preventing consumers from buying high-wattage appliances was necessary to fight climate change.

“We haven’t got round to these devices yet, we want curb power consumption,” he told Bild newspaper. “All EU countries agree that energy efficiency is the most effective method to reduce energy consumption and dependence on imports and to improve the climate. Therefore there needs to be mandatory consumption limits for small electrical appliances.”

From Salon Magazine:

Celebrity colourist and NHF past president Mark Coray, who uses a 2,100-watt dryer in his Cardiff salon, warned the plans could be deeply damaging to the UK industry: “You have a salon environment and somebody in their lunch-break wanting to have their hair done; you have time constraints,” he says. “The more powerful, the faster the blow dry – it’s as simple as that.”

All of which goes to show that the EU does want to ban such products and that such bans would have an effect on hairdresser businesses….so not so laughable after all.