Monthly Archives: June 2016

As 50 people lie dead in Orlando, killed by a Muslim with alleged links to Islamic State, the truth gets buried even before they do.

The BBC has already moved into damage limitation mode and has told us that the killer was ‘mentally unstable’ and not religious…quoting liberally from the Washington Post.  Curiously the BBC missed this from the same article….

A friend of Mateen’s said the young man became steadily more religious. The friend, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Mateen several years ago went on the pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia known as the umrah.

“He was quite religious,” the friend said.

Why did the BBC miss that out?

The BBC, in time honoured fashion, lays the blame squarely at the door of the security services who failed to spot and stop this guy…..

As questions emerged about the gunman’s history, FBI Special Agent Ron Hopper told reporters that Mateen had been interviewed by FBI officers twice in 2013 following inflammatory comments to colleagues asserting ties to the Islamic State group.

The investigation ended after officers were unable to substantiate the claims. However, Mateen was questioned again in 2014 about a potential connection to Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha, the American known to have carried out a suicide bombing in the Syria conflict.

The FBI investigation found no “substantial relationship” between Mateen and Abu-Salha and the case was closed, said Special Agent Hopper.

Remember this is the BBC that has relentlessly campaigned against Guantanamo and against the Prevent anti-terror programme in the UK…and now they demand profiling,  ‘Sus laws’ and Muslim internment?  The same BBC that regularly claims that Muslims are ‘under siege’ in the US and illustrate that with the sad tale of ‘Clockboy’…..naturally the BBC fail to tell us the whole truth about ‘Clockboy’ and his look-a-like clock -bomb.

Still, could be worse….no wonder the Independent went tits up…it’s not the Muslims what done it…it was the Christians…..

The senselessness of blaming Islam for the LGBT shooting in Orlando

Islamophobic sentiment is currently engulfing social media – but Chase Strangio, a lawyer who works with the American Civil Liberties Union on LGBT and Aids related issues, took to his Twitter account to point out a sad truth about gay rights and religion in America.

Religiously motivated legislation from the right-wing Christian lobby has been trying to stifle gay civil liberties as long as there has been a gay rights movement:

The Christian Right has introduced 200 anti-LGBT bills in the last six months and people blaming Islam for this. No. #PulseNightclub

— Chase Strangio (@chasestrangio) June 12, 2016

From Nick Cohen in Standpoint:

Shame On The Liberals Who Rationalise Terror

Every step you take explaining radical Islam away is apparently rational and liberal. Each takes you further from rationalism and liberalism. In your determination to see the other side’s point of view and to avoid making it “really angry about this or that”, you end up altering your behaviour so much that you can no longer challenge the prejudices of violent religious reactionaries. As you seek rationales for the irrational and excuses for the inexcusable, you become a propagandist for the men you once opposed.

Apparently we should applaud the BBC for its openness and transparency as it ‘reported’ the fact that some ‘Syrian’ immigrants had been arrested (22 mins) and charged with raping a 14 year old girl in Newcastle.

Well done the BBC.

One of the ‘Syrians’ was, unfortunately for the BBC, a member of a family that the BBC was following after they were brought to the UK by the government as part of its refugee programme.

The BBC had a significant interest in this story which is why the police say they told Newsnight, over a month ago, that they had arrested and charged the ‘Syrian’ youth.  Guess the BBC were just trying to establish the facts as they waited over four weeks to break the story….or did they find out someone else was about to break it and were forced to come clean in what is a highly embarrassing story for them as they try to promote the idea that we must accept more refugees?  No reason at all why the BBC would sit on this story for a month is there?

And when they finally did admit the truth it was not a ‘report’ or an ‘investigation’ but a mere acknowledgement that this had happened…it was a tick box exercise to make it look like they were being open and transparent.

The Mail reckons there is more to this…the police, as with Rotherham and Rochdale, covering up the crime…and the BBC helping them just as they did with Rotherham and Rochdale.

Police were last night accused of burying allegations that a gang of Syrians sexually assaulted two teenage girls in a Newcastle park.

Three young men and a teenage boy, at least one of them a refugee, were arrested last month over claims two 14-year-olds had been attacked in the centre of the city.

But even after the suspects were charged and appeared in court, Northumbria Police – which claims to have made sexual violence a top priority – did not announce the case to the public or press. Even the local MP only heard about it last week.

Last night, it also emerged that the force published more than 100 incidents and public appeals, including those on sexual assaults and indecent exposures, on its website in the same month the alleged attacks took place – but not the case allegedly involving the Syrians.

Other crimes included the theft of 19 prawn pots from a harbour wall and a car being scratched.

Details on the alleged attacks emerged on Friday in a report by the BBC, which had been following the progress of the refugee defendant’s family since they arrived in Britain last year under the Government’s high-profile scheme to resettle vulnerable Syrians.

However, the BBC’s Newsnight programme has refused to say when it first heard about the case.

A police source told The Mail on Sunday the BBC had been informed four weeks previously in early May, when the teenage refugee had been arrested and charged.

It comes after police in Germany and Sweden faced damaging claims they tried to cover up sex attacks by migrants for fear of stoking public anger against new arrivals.

Last night, Ukip leader Nigel Farage – who has been criticised for warning the migrant crisis could put British women at risk – said: ‘Serious questions need to be asked about both the vetting of those the Government are allowing into the country, and of the authorities, including the BBC, who appear to have been involved in a conspiracy of silence over the case.

‘When did they know what was happening, and why is it only coming out now?’ 

A real news report would have been asking about the police reaction and why they allegedly covered up the crime and how this shows they haven’t learnt anything from the previous cases in Rotherham and Rochdale and elsewhere when Police, Media and political silence allowed young girls to be attacked and abused for years.

As said, this wasn’t ‘news’ this was the BBC covering their own backside….very reluctantly.

Perhaps Newsnight, instead of wasting time ridiculously trying to gauge how an England result in the European Championship might effect the EU referendum, could explore the issues surrounding the influx of millions of Muslims into Europe and how that might effect our society, culture and stability.

Thanks to Pounce for the video which shows a Muslim cleric stating that the sentence for homosexuality is death….he says it is the compassionate thing to do…to ‘get rid of them’.  Will the BBC be exploring the issue of how homosexuality is treated under Islam?  Christianity doesn’t approve of homosexuality but it doesn’t say ‘kill them’….whereas Islam does…the only question is, according to a well respected, moderate Muslim cleric and ‘friend’ of Ken Livingstone…do you throw homosexuals off a mountain or stone them to death?

Gays Abandoned by Left’s Appeasement

The growth of Islam in Europe has consequences for gay men. But you wouldn’t know it from a cursory perusal of the issues which preoccupy at any one time what is known as the “gay community”. Civil partnerships, gay adoption or problems with Christian bed-and-breakfast owners and the allegedly latent homophobia of the Conservatives are all up there on the list. But, with a few honorable exceptions, such as the consistently principled activist Peter Tatchell, few voices are raised about the possible future problems for gay men in a rapidly changing demographic landscape. 

A mass killing in Orlando.  The killer? A Muslim with possible “leanings towards Islamic terrorism”.  But who is really to blame?  Trump?  The irresponsible Media that keeps recklessly highlighting things such as rapes and er, mass murder by Muslims?  Islamophobia? Government anti-terrorism measures? [Must stop those…stop anti-terror measures and we stop terrorism…it’s so obvious]  This was an angry young man driven to kill by the discrimination and marginalisation that American society imposes upon Muslims. He is the real victim here. And.  As the Orlando killer’s father said…this has nothing to do with Islam.

Oh…and the victims were gay…so presumably the BBC will be telling us they deserved it as they so offended Muslim sensibilities….just as Jews shopping in a Paris supermarket can be gunned down legitimately because Israelis are Jewish and women across Europe have to dress defensively, go about in groups or not go out at all due to certain dangers arising in the new reality of multicultural Europe.

I await the BBC’s list of excuses for the killer as they delve into his life and background….probably not so bothered about the genuine victims.

Interesting to note that the BBC are already trying to downplay what is being reported as an act of terrorism and conflate it with other mass shootings that had no political or ideological motivations…Just as Mark Mardell tried to claim the 13 soldiers killed in Fort Hood were a ‘senseless tragedy’, just as they did with San Bernardino pronouncing it “Just Another Day in the United States of America”….No, no it wasn’t…that, just like Orlando, was mass murder in the name of Islam…there was rhyme and reason to it…..to terrorise Americans in order to further the interests of the Islamic religion by Muslim fundamentalists……not just another day at all….

..

The BBC in its report on Orlando continues this attempt to downplay the reasons for the killings listing domestic, non-ideological mass shootings with the Islamic ones…

Worst US mass shootings in last 25 years

• At least 50 dead, 2016 – Omar Mateen opens fire on revellers at gay club in Orlando, Florida

• 32 dead, 2007 – Student Seung-Hui Cho massacres students at Virginia Tech university before killing himself

• 27 dead, 2012 – Adam Lanza kills 20 six- and seven-year-old children and six adults before killing himself at Sandy Hook, Connecticut

• 23 dead, 1991 – George Hennard drives through the wall of a cafe in Killeen, Texas, before opening fire and committing suicide

• 14 dead, 2015 – Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik open fire at a staff gathering in San Bernardino

• 13 dead, 2009 – Maj Nidal Malik Hasan opens fire at army base in Fort Hood, Texas

• 13 dead, 2009 – Jiverly Wong shoots people at New York immigrant centre before killing himself

• 13 dead, 1999 – Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold kill fellow students and a teacher at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado

Yet another laughable BBC ‘Reality check’.

Labour are panicking and we heard that Labour voters are at odds with the ‘Hampstead intellectuals’ who lead the party….the voters are very concerned about immigration.

Odd that this BBC web report, the ‘Reality check’, doesn’t mention immigration which is central to those voters’ concerns and indeed seems to have scrubbed any mention of it from the records as it reports John Mann’s words…but I’m sure he had something further to say to explain his concern..

Mr Mann, MP for Bassetlaw, in Nottinghamshire, told the BBC on Friday: “It’s not that Labour’s not getting its message across, it’s that Labour voters are fundamentally disagreeing.”

Yes…but ‘fundamentally disagreeing’ with what?  Labour’s immigration policy that’s what…the one Corbyn doesn’t want mentioned on leaflets and the one the BBC now seems reluctant to mention itself.

The BBC on the radio earlier in the day had reported Mann as saying that Labour voters felt left behind and disadvantaged by immigration and that the Labour Party had left them….why has that vanished from the record?  Odd that the BBC didn’t then immediately refer to the obvious quote from Labour’s Andrew Neather who admitted that leaving behind the working class was all part of Labour’s plan as they imported cheap European workers…

“I’m glad he takes the English pronunciation of Farage rather than the rather poncey foreign-sounding one that he seems to prefer,” the prime minister said.

And is it not odd that the BBC and the permanently outraged Left do not castigate Cameron for his constantly derisive remarks about Farage’s name?  The Guardian seems happy that Cameron is mocking Farage….   If Cameron had mocked Sadiq Khan and told the world that he pronounced Khan as ‘Can’ the BBC and the Guardian would have blitzed him…no such outrage over his pathetic playground bullying of Farage though….the Farage who is descended from those Huguenot migrants that the BBC always use as examples of the wonders of immigration….

• The Huguenots successfully merged into the population:
  • The Huguenots brought new methods of wool-dyeing, cloth-printing, nail-making and paper-making. They set up silk and lace factories. Some historians believe that they ‘kick-started’ the Industrial Revolution in England.
  • In 1694, Huguenot traders helped to set up the Bank of England, and its first governor was a Huguenot.
  • The Huguenots brought French fashions to England – as well as new foods like oxtail soup and chips.
  • Some estimates say that today three-quarters of English people have some Huguenot blood in them.

The EU benefits from being one of the most open economies in the world and remains committed to free trade.

Over the next ten to 15 years, 90% of world demand will be generated outside Europe. That is why it is a key priority for the EU to tap into this growth potential by opening up market opportunities for European businesses abroad. One way of ensuring this is through negotiating agreements with our key partners.

European trade policy

Funny old thing…it looks like the BBC’s Kamal Ahmed is a one man hit squad for the Remain camp out to neutralise any Leave campaign ‘good news’.

We’ve already noted his immediate rebuttal to Steve Hilton’s claim that all economic forecasts about Brexit are so much bunk and now as James Dyson tells us that it is ‘cobblers’ that the EU won’t trade with us Kamal again slips in a spoiler.  Just a week or so ago he was painting a gloomy picture of the economy on Brexit…

All the different effects are actually derived from one significant starting point – that the economy would be smaller if the UK left the EU relative to where it would be if “remain” won on June 23.

On this issue, with varying degrees of pessimism, there is widespread – though not total – agreement among economic institutions from the International Monetary Fund to the Bank of England.

On trade, most economists agree that moving out of the single market will negatively effect Britain’s economic relationship with what is left of the EU.

It is also argued that British exporters will find it difficult to replace that trade by increasing economic links with countries such as America and China, particularly in the first few years.

Now, with the famous and credible billionaire businessman Dyson rubbishing claims that trade will stop Kamal changes his tune…Brexit – and stay in the single market? Here’s how.  However, this being the pro-EU BBC, it’s not that simple as a seemingly pro-Brexit piece still pushes the ‘Brexit is a huge risk’ scenario the solution to which is still in doubt…

Today, Wolfgang Schaeuble, the German finance minister, appeared to say as much – a vote for Brexit is also a vote for leaving the single market, and all its advantages.  “If the majority in Britain opts for Brexit, that would be a decision against the single market,” Mr Schaeuble told Der Spiegel.

“In is in. Out is out. One has to respect the sovereignty of the British people.”

For some business leaders sympathetic to Brexit – and close to the Prime Minister – this is a problem.  They agree that leaving the single market could result in significant economic headwinds.  But, they tell me, there is a solution – the UK remaining in the single market but without the need for full free movement as presently constituted.

Kamal ends with this after having set the scene that Brexit will be an economic disaster for Europe…

The economic needs of businesses in the rest of the EU may force the hand of political leaders.

Why has the BBC’s economic editor only just realised the truth that has been obvious for a long time…as indeed we set out before in April…..

Would the EU lock the UK, the 5th largest economy in the world and an important trade partner with the EU, out of its markets?  Hardly seems likely when it is committed to open markets and free trade……import tariffs very low or zero…..

The EU benefits from being one of the most open economies in the world and remains committed to free trade.

• The average applied tariff for goods imported into the EU is very low. More than 70% of imports enter the EU at zero or reduced tariffs.

• The EU’s services markets are highly open and we have arguably the most open investment regime in the world.

• The EU has not reacted to the crisis by closing markets. However some the EU’s trading partners have not been so restrained as the EU has highlighted in the Trade and Investment Barriers Report and the report on protectionism.

• In fact the EU has retained its capacity to conclude and implement trade agreements. The recent Free Trade Agreements with South Korea and with Singapore are examples of this and the EU has an ambitious agenda of trade agreements in the pipeline.

   

And here was our very own PM back in 2012 urging the EU to finalise a trade deal with Canada and all without free movement of people…

Cameron urges EU to strike free trade deal with Canada.

27  Jan 2012 Toronto Star, page A4

OTTAWA— British Prime Minister David Cameron is urging his fellow European leaders to move quickly to sign a free-trade deal with Canada.

He said opening up export markets for the European Union’s 27 member countries is a key part of an urgently needed effort to strengthen the continent’s economies.

“Let’s get EU free trade agreements with India, Canada and Singapore finalized by the end of the year,” he said in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

If these trade liberalization deals were in place, it could generate an additional $118 billion in economic activity in EU countries, Cameron said.

And now?  Cameron tells us such deals are impossible.

Funny how long it takes Kamal to come anywhere near close to reporting that the EU is desperate to do free trade deals with all and sundry as a matter of course.  Remain must love him…Attaboy Kamal.  Good lad.  Keep up the good work and keep Leave down.

Here you go, a new OPEN thread to see us off into the wide blue yonder of the weekend.

From BBC Watch:

In conclusion, with the exception of a vague and tardy mention of mortar and shooting attacks on the Gaza Strip border, the BBC News website did not report any of the terror attacks which took place during May. The corporation’s record of English language reporting of the missile attacks launched from the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the year remains at 0% and its record of reporting all terror attacks in the same period stands at 4.07%.

Have all those in the Remain camp converted to Islam?  Are they budding Muslims?  Do they kneel in submission and pray towards Mecca?  You might have thought so from the reverence that the BBC treats them with…nary a word agin them…Andrew Neil aside.  It has become apparent that a Remainer’s word is Gospel, or is that Koranic?, and is now taken as The Truth by default with the Leave campaign forced to counter it in the face of hostile BBC questions.

After Cameron’s mauling last week, a mauling unless you get the news from the BBC who saw it as a victory for the PM, we heard on 5 Live from the BBC presenter that the economic benefits of immigration were very positive, according to one academic study, and that ‘we should be hearing more of that in this campaign’…as she lectured the Leave spokesperson and claimed by implication that Leave were lying about the effects of immigration.

The BBC headlines after the Cameron bashfest were all about how Cameron would control immigration (LOL), never mind that the BBC has been previously heavily criticising him for his obvious and massive failure to do just that.  In the news bulletins we had clips of Cameron and Miliband talking about immigration at length…and Leave?  They got a 2 second mention…‘Leave disagrees with all that’…or something along those lines…blink and you’d miss it.

Last Saturday Today (08:20) brought on Kinnock, to speak for the Stay camp, who got such a free ride, such an easy ride it was embarrassing…compare that to how Whittingdale, Leave, (08:55) was treated…continually interrupted and abused in an aggressive manner…..Leave were accused of ‘masquerading as leftwingers’ in their concern for workers (never mind that the Church of England has just admitted it was wrong about Thatcher in the 80’s and that her policies were good for workers…not see the BBC make a song and a dance about that!) and that the things that Leave say they might do, such as spend more on the NHS, will never happen…ie they are lies suggests, speculates wildly, Nick Robinson.  No bias there then.

Throughout this week whenever I’ve tuned in, and it must just be a coincidence, the BBC has been plugging the Remain campaign’s ‘issues’…whether its the EU health card for travellers (you probably automatically pay insurance anyway as part of your holiday cost and there is no good reason to cancel the EU arrangement on Brexit…it is unconnected to the ‘EU’ as such).  Then we had warnings about the ‘EU’s law enforcement agency’…otherwise known, when not in EU referendum mode and bigging up the EU, as Europol…curious how the BBC decides to use that turn of phrase recently to describe Europol….and so many times.

This morning I heard the usual format in operation on ‘Wake up to money’ (34 mins) as the Remain spokesman was given a freeride to state his case, this was taken as the baseline correct version of how things are and it was up to the Leave person to counter that ‘truth’ with the BBC presenter butting in to argue against him…unlike the Remainer who was not interrupted or questioned in any way he might find inconvenient or displeasing.

We also heard that the EU was responsible for creating the success of the City…hmmm…again wasn’t that Thatcher and the ‘Big Bang’?  Curious how the BBC flip-flops on history when it suits….Thatcher has always been the bête noir of the BBC for creating the ‘capitalist monster’ that is the City (Gordon Brown’s subsequent deregulation free for all ‘golden age’ that helped create the crash is always ignored by the BBC)…and now…not so…our jobs and prosperity depend upon the City and the EU is the cause of all that prosperity from the wonderful City.

When Wollaston jumped ship the BBC were constantly stating that Leave were claiming that the whole £350 million would be spent on the NHS and that they didn’t ever qualify their claim with acknowledgements about the rebate and EU spending…the BBC always, deliberately, misses the point on that…that it is us in the UK that should decide how to spend that money not bureaucrats in Brussels who also take their own huge cut.

Wollaston was clearly a Remain stooge…whether from the start or just persuaded to come over and time that betrayal to suit Remain you decide…but she had a script ready from No10 when she announced it…..it might have been Cameron speaking as she talked of being ‘safer in Europe‘, tick, that we get more back on research spending than we give (curiously a comment made by Cameron on PMQs just the day before)  tick, that Brexit would mean world war…tick.  I’m sure her 81 year old father, whom she claims sees the very real threat of  ‘conflict in Europe’, would be ashamed of the daughter he spawned who exploits his name and betrays the democracy he served so long in the Forces to defend.

Wollaston was given, not unexpectedly, a very easy time and was barely challenged at all on her betrayal made all the more remarkable by the number of ‘concerns’ she suddenly has about Brexit and yet previously was ardently for …how can that be credible?  The BBC didn’t delve too deep.  I thought Montague was getting ready to tackle Wollaston and suggest she was a Remain plant…and indeed she suggested Wollaston was always a Remainer…oh hang on…she continues……‘But you didn’t think through the consequences early enough’….ah…silly girl….Remain is the default, obvious choice and Brexit has inevitable dangerous consequences…what were you thinking?  The interview is here (08:37)  No bias there then.

The BBC’s ‘Reality Checks’ and analysis of claims made by the two camps are laughable….Remain are hardly challenged at all on their numerous claims whilst Leave are forensically gone over.  The BBC’s Kamal Ahmed is a perfect example as he examines, LOL, Remain’s economic claims.

When Steve Hilton suggested we should Brexit and that the EU made the UK ‘ungovernable’ and that the economic claims were so much guess work…’the bottom line on the economic argument is that no one really knows. It’s clearly ridiculous to claim that it’s settled in either direction; there are risks whatever we do.  The real choice is not economic security or economic risk, but what kind of government will equip us best to cope with a risky, fast-changing world?’

Ahmed immediately produced a counter to Hilton’s piece claiming that the Treasury’s analysis was credible….

Political hubris to one side, the Treasury analysis can be set apart from the “he said, she said” tenor of much of the EU referendum debate. It is based on a well-understood and tested economic model.

It might be wrong, or the outcomes might be substantially different once real events take hold – as is true of all forecasts – but it is very much worth the paper it is written on.

The Treasury’s analysis is pure guess work and projected impossibly way into the future…but not for the BBC’s Kamal who just adores it…never mind the Treasury is Osborne’s domain and the Bank of England’s governor is his placeman.

Peter Allen yesterday was sure the NHS would collapse on a Brexit as the economy will tank.  When it was suggested that the EU economy wasn’t working Allen claimed that it was the same for the whole world…curious how when Cameron claims it is the worries about Brexit that create uncertainty and a falling pound etc the BBC didn’t challenge that with the obvious point that America is also in exactly the same boat as us and they don’t have a referendum in the offing.  The EU economy, Germany aside, is tanking….and it is to do with the single currency and the restrictions that places on countries limiting their possible actions to deal with problems.

Later we heard that the Leave crowd are more passionate in debates…why? Because they don’t care about the consequences of Brexit says Allen…it is all about emotion for them…whereas, Allen suggests, the Remainers are all pragmatic and can see the real problems that will be caused by Brexit.  No bias there then.

Just a few examples of many that illustrate the slanted, pro-Remain ‘reporting’ from the BBC.

Must be nice to have not only the full resources of the government, and its friends in high places, on hand to support your campaign but also the massively resourced, influential and unprincipled BBC backing you as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FL4UjHmroE

Interesting to hear Laura Kuenssberg’s take on events as she reported on how the Remain campaign have targeted Boris as they see him as not only leader of the Leave campaign but also as next Tory leader….Kuenssberg says this claim, that Boris wants to be leader of the Tory Party, is out in the open after having been merely ‘vicious rumours’ before.  Just ‘vicious rumours’?  Somewhat surprised to hear that as the BBC’s Kuenssberg has been reporting it as ‘fact’ for the last few weeks and implying that Boris is a fraud with no real interest in Leaving the EU and is only using the campaign as a lever to take the Tory leadership.

Just the BBC doing its usual bit to undermine the Leave campaign and help Remain.