The Today programme had an astonishingly dishonest report from Manchester this morning (0819) ostensibly looking at the effect of Brexit upon the city….the city that is wonderfully cosmopolitan and so European the BBC announces as it headed for a pavement cafe table full of foreigners to ask if they had noticed a difference in how they were now treated. The report was entirely one-sided and aggressively anti-Brexit, painting a picture of a raicst Britain on the verge of econoic disaster because of Brexit. Since 2010 the BBC has presented Manchester as a failing city abandoned and neglected by the Tories, now it is a thriving, cosmopolitan success story…thanks to the EU and immigration naturally.
And naturally the foreigners were all now under attack from new born neo-Nazis given licence to be racist by Brexit….they just aren’t welcome here in Brtiain due to Brexit. On the other hand apparently British people now feel ashamed of the vote and how it has treated our foreign legions. So are the British racist bastards or are they all really Remainers and regretful Leavers who wish they’d voted to stay as the BBC would like you to believe? Curious how a few comments and some actual attacks are taken as representative of all Brits…and of course blamed absolutely on Brexit.
A similar tone was taken by Sir Richard Leese, leader of Manchester City Council as the BBC told us. What they didn’t say was that he was a Remain campaigner and a Labour man.
Manchester is to lead other major UK cities to campaign to stay in Europe , the M.E.N. can reveal.
City council leader Sir Richard Leese has agreed with chiefs in Leeds, Sheffield, Cardiff, Glasgow, Nottingham, Birmingham, Liverpool, Bristol and Newcastle that remaining in the union is in their best interests.
He told us of the terrible rise in racism since Brexit and the dire effects of Brexit upon the city….we must be more tolerant and welcome people from all over the world…hmmm….no one said we shouldn’t…so that’s just lie calling Leave voters racist.
Interesting that the BBC pointedly asked about ‘European’ funding being cut off by Brexit. ‘European’ funding? This is from a BBC that insists the Leave campaign lied throughout its campaign telling everyone that we sent £350 million a week to Brussels. In exactly the same way if the Leave campaign was lying then so is the BBC by claiming this is ‘European’ funding. It is not…it is UK money sent to the EU and then sent back to us. We could, as the Leave campaign pointed out, cut out the middle-man and his enormous EU cut, and keep the money in the UK and decide how best to spend it ourselves.
The BBC went on to wonder about the ‘Northern Powerhouse’, something which they had derided and mocked for so long. Now apparently it is essential to the North…but is it to be abandoned due to Brexit?
Note though that government cuts to funding were on the cards long ago…
Leese talks about both these things with obvious enthusiasm, but there are caveats, not least when it comes to the cuts. At one point, he anxiously considers what might happen in Manchester thanks to Osborne’s looming spending review. Advance chatter, after all, has suggested cuts to local and city government budgets of between 25% and 40% – and even the lower number would cause the city no end of problems, leaving the council able to do little more than seeing to statutory social services.
And that success had little to do with the EU but a worldwide search for business partners…
…..relentlessly focused on developing necessary relationships, something seen latterly in the council’s close work with everyone from the Beijing Construction Engineering Group (who have a 20% stake in a huge new development around Manchester Airport), to Masdar, a set-up based in Abu Dhabi who have invested in work with graphene, the versatile industrial material pioneered at Manchester University.
The only mention of Europe’s contribution, not the EU, to Manchester’s success ifs how they tried to shape the inner city social culture in a Northern European style…
“From the late 80s, the council very consciously supported the notion of bringing people back to live within the city centre,” Leese says. “We very consciously supported creating pavement-bar culture. But it still needed people to come along and do it: it did need your Tony Wilsons and so on. But that was very much based on northern European cities. Stockholm is a good example. We looked at what was going on in other places and borrowed bits.”
Curious how the News is so fluid when the BBC comes to intepret it for us…one moment Manchester is a grim, failing Northern backwater, next it is the new Venice. One moment we don’t send the EU ‘our’ money, the next the EU sends us ‘its’ money’ to kindly help us thrive and prosper.
And just to note this from Sir Richard Leese, Labour…a narrative that completely undermines Labour’s, and the BBC’s, narrative of the last 6 years about welfare and jobs…….
Leese became a city councillor in 1984, and eventually played his part in a convulsive debate between two tendencies within the Mancunian Labour party – the result of which, he says, set the city’s co-ordinates for the next 25 years. “There was the welfarist wing of the Labour party and the labourist wing,” he explains. “The welfarist view of how you tackled poverty was to just increase people’s benefit payments. The labourist wing said, ‘Well, hang on – what are the causes of poverty? The biggest cause is that people haven’t got jobs, or they haven’t got jobs that pay decent wages.’ The labourist side won the argument, when we were in the midst of very significant public sector cuts. Which meant that if we were going to create jobs and get people into them, it wasn’t us who were going to do that – it was going to be the private sector. And if we wanted to develop the city, the same thing applied.
“That debate probably took nearly four years. It went from 87, through to the introduction of the poll tax. But we came out of that period with the mantra of ‘jobs, jobs jobs’. And that’s been the driver of politics in the city ever since.”
And what does Leese think of Jeremy Corbyn’s policy for the North?
“It’s a load of rubbish,” Leese tells me. “First of all, there’s no coherent economic policy there. Second, it ignores completely the devolutionary route that Labour local authorities in the north have been driving. Nearly every solution in there has the word ‘national’ in front of it … And it ignores that northern cities, not just Manchester, are in a far healthier place than we were in the early 80s. We’ve all created new economic bases that we can grow from. You wouldn’t know it from that.”
Perhaps something the BBC could have asked him considering there is a Labour leadership contest ongoing. But they didn’t. Too wrapped up in peddling EU propaganda to report something useful. Not that they ever seem too keen to report anything negative about Corbyn….and odd they don’t mention it as earlier (0725) in the programme they were asking…
What effect has the referendum and the leadership contest had in the labour heartlands?
I was shocked at the one-sidedness of the Today programme this morning. Any attempt at a balance of opinions was abandoned. it just strikes me as mischievous stiring up of dissent – a definite agenda.
To offer people the mistaken idea that another vote is a possibility is subversive & anti-democratic. I don’t mind such material being broadcast but not when I am paying for it!
There is indeed a frightening rise in hate crimes in this country, but it’s not the type that BBC, the Independent or the Guardian want to talk about. Anti-semitism is all over the place and the Labour party is riddled with it all the way to the top; and we all know where this disgusting hatred against Jews comes from, but just like in Islamist terror attacks the media cover it up with pathetic excuses. However, the BBC are quite happy to ignore this vile bigotry and instead make up myths to do with the ‘far-Right’.
Indeed, this ‘far Right’ notion is becoming increasingly absurd. We have heard it conjectured about almost every time there has been an ‘incident’ even when a child of ten would have worked out what was really going on. And yet apart from occasional sorry outburst of some imbecile throwing a bacon sandwich at a mosque just how many examples of anything even remotely resembling what the BBC and its fellow travellers claim to be the woik of the ‘far Right’ have there been in this country?
What it reminds me of is the sort of nonsense you used to hear behind the iron curtain or in the PRC when something went wrong: that it was the work of ‘reactionaries and fascists’. And, of course, that is precisely where the BBC’s technique was honed to perfection.
The BBC has gone into overdrive since the referendum. Pro-EU, pro-Clinton, delusionally thinking they can promote feminazism and LGBT yet still apologise for Islam which attacks both (which of course is then blamed on white men), and apologising for Black Lives Matter and encouraging it to gain traction here after several cops have been murdered due to mythical police racism. Critical comments getting deleted on the very few message boards they open online, and the last couple have seen a noticeable and curious increase in comments sympathetic to the BBC’s causes and down-voting of criticism. Not necessarily the BBC itself behind this, could easily just be the same Twitter trolls that forced this site to pre-moderate users, but either way it’s been extremely noticeable that they’re once again trying to change the narrative and despise anything that challenges their insular and limited ideology. One particularly outrageous comment on there for Kamal’s article on Thursday spoke volumes for how aggressive and anti-democratic the supposedly fair and liberal leftist thugs have become, as it suggested the result was ‘doutable’ and ‘had no mandate’ because the margin was ‘only’ 4% . Never mind that it was a 52% majority based on a 72% turnout compared to the government getting a parliamentary majority based on a quarter of the votes from a 30% turnout. Apparently this is somehow more ‘sovereign’ and legitimate in the eyes of the Remainers. Just shows how childish they are in defeat, and no amount of superficial pseudo-intellectualist dressing can disguise it.
The BBC should not be allowed to tax us for the privilege of being lied to and force-fed nonsense. Apologists again make the argument that it’s not really a tax as we don’t need broadcast TV, which is like claiming we should pay a forced tax on newspapers we don’t read because we don’t have to read print media at all if we don’t want to. It would be somewhat amusing how infantile the left is becoming were it not also actively destroying lives and cultures in selfish pursuit of a paradigm based on bigotry.
I think the figures for the Tories for the last two General Elections were: (2010) 36.1% of a 65.1% turnout; (2015) 36.9% of a 66.1% turnout.
Still, your point is valid: in relative terms, 51.9% of a 72.2% turnout is a clear win.
Have they brought out the ‘mental health issues’ line yet to label Brexiteers?
The BBC should be investigating why there was no ‘right-wing’ backlash after the London Tube and bus bombings, or Lee Rigby’s death, or industrial-scale rapings of white girls, or violence against whites in ‘Muslim’ areas, or any of the vile anti-western, anti-British, Islamofascist demonstrations that have seen calls for jihad and national symbols defiled. Our tolerance has been tried to breaking point but for some strange reason it still holds. By contrast, even the slightest slur on Islam (cartoons of the ‘prophet’, abusing the Koran etc) spawns violent protest by young Muslims who look like they’ve just stepped off the No. 72 from Kabul.
And
Advance chatter, after all, has suggested cuts to local and city government budgets of between 25% and 40% – and even the lower number would cause the city no end of problems, leaving the council able to do little more than seeing to statutory social services.
Wheover penned that should get off their fat arse and take a look at the several miles of kerb-protected cycle lanes Manchester is installing from Didsbury to the city centre at a cost of millions – but ignored by the majority of cyclists who insist on using the much-narrowed roads and holding the traffic up, including and endless stream of near-empty ‘eco-friendly’ buses.
Anybody who listens to the BBC and still believes it is not agenda-driven is living in cloud cuckoo land.
All very good points and they raise yet another question about the BBC’s lack of curiosity. Isn’t it time the BBC investigated local council spending and the way politically approved of projects (like the cycle lanes you mention) always seem to escape the axe?
Can anyone imagine the BBC doing anything of the sort?
They’ve really cocked up with the cycle lanes from Manchester Road, Cheadle, through Didsbury and into the city of Manchester. Mile upon mile of empty cycle lanes with virtually no cyclists, and traffic slowed to a crawl because the roads are now so narrow that you can’t pass the cyclists who are in the main carriageway! Madness. And all it can do is frustrate the majority, and increase pollution.
I also heard this propaganda piece on the Today program. And it really was propaganda.
I also noted that it was billed as first in a series that would visit UK cities to “report” on the effect of Brexit. Just like the equally biased “Brexit Street” on the PM program is scheduled to go on for months.
I’m sorry to say that the BBC has a clear agenda to reverse or rerun the referendum, and this time with months or years of pro EU propaganda in the run-up.
Will the Government do anything to bring the BBC into line ? Or are they actually encouraging it ? Worrying.
Richard Leese, oh him, the leader of Manchester council, the senior figures of which have just awarded themselves a 60% pay rise – that Richard Leese. Yes we are all in it together….
http://order-order.com/2016/08/04/60-pay-rise-for-senior-manchester-council-staff/
With all these brutal cuts how the hell were Manchester city council able to buy stansted airport 3 years ago. Lying devious bastards
If our economy is so bad , why are millions of people trying to get here ?
Manchester is an extreme example of a lopsided economic renaissance in a number of northern cities since the Blair years. City centres have been regenerated and a small minority of no doubt pro EU types have gone to live in trendy warehouse conversions and blocks of apartments . Yes, cafes and restaurants have sprung up to cater for their consumer preferences . However the rest of the north , including inner cities and Iess fashionable towns such as Sunderland, have not experienced even the partial revival of Manchester.
Theresa May is well aware of this even if the BBC isn’t . The brexit vote was a cry from the north to do something about the horrendous north – south prosperity and productivity divide.
The new Government’s policy of homing in on the productivity problem and the wider deprivation problems will only work if it does something for the north. Wingeing from foreign workers sitting in pavement cafes in central Manchester is irrelevant to this challenge . If we had voted to remain the north would have continued to be largely forgotten with Osborne’s concentration on big city prestige projects and vanities such as HS2 masking the real challenges .
Interesting you should highlight that. It reminds me of a comment made on another site (don’t recall which) about the centre of Leeds some time ago:
“100 yards of plate glass and LED lighting, and that’s about it.”
Hyperbole, obviously, but with a strong grain of truth. In the youthful, shallow, media dominated world we now seem to occupy, everything comes down to cool shops, restaurants and appearances. Grotty inner city areas with bad schools and the wrong type of immigration – not interested, unless there’s talk of a “backlash”.
So far as Leeds is concerned, they have the (failing) Royal Armouries Museum, so what are they complaining about?
Local government, which you would expect to understand local problems, is no better. Adherence to socialism doesn’t help.
Leeds is a similar case to Manchester. As the regional commercial capital, it has been able to regenerate its centre and expand it somewhat to the once dismal wastelands of Hunslet. But it still has many problems outside of the trendy areas or the centre. Meanwhile other towns and cities in the old West Riding continue to have far worse problems and no glitzy centres. In addition of course they have had huge influxes of RoPers which has added mightily to their problems .40 years of E U money, in fact our recycled money, has done nothing to halt their relative decline .
Excellent points EE and MB. Manchester (and Leeds to a lesser degree) are like regional versions of London, sucking in all the investment and creating huge congestion problems as people cram themselves onto trains and roads to get into the centre to work, shop and play whilst smaller (but still relatively large) towns around them are semi-deserted dumps due to never having properly recovered from the loss of industry and the architectural scars left by the industrial revolution. Most are stuck in a 1970s timewarp with a smattering of ill-judged 1980s and turn-of-the-millenium developments.
At least the larger towns dahn sarf never suffered the impact of industry in and around their centres so by and large remain pleasant places to live, shop, eat etc. and being in a more prosperous part of the country attract a level of investment to keep them thriving.
There seems to be no will on the part of government to do anything for these towns, whilst cities like Manchester greedily ensure any worthwhile investment keeps on going to them.
Re-reading my own post, I should clarify that in referring to the Royal Armouries Museum, I’m criticising the idea that a bit of glitz transplanted from London is somehow a substitute for proper jobs.
Totally agree with you Maria, while the Tower of London had insufficient space for the displays, I think it was a mistake to move the Armouries to Leeds. It’s just not a tourist hotspot so I’m not surprised the Armouries are losing money. Plus these are the wrong kind of jobs to halt the growing gap between north and south on productivity. The north needs high value added industries not more tourist attractions.
It’s not like Opera North, which tours and has a changing varied repertoire. All cities benefit from a theatre or two, they’re flexible, but the appeal of swords, pikes and suits of armour is limited. After a year or two, everybody who wanted to go had been and, without tourists, there were virtually no customers left apart from bus loads of children. And even then …..
It might have worked in York, but Leeds was a moronic decision.
Then there was the National Centre for Popular Music in Sheffield. Just what you need when the steel industry is in decline and you don’t have a job. Again, it might have worked in Liverpool, but Sheffield?
Hull is the current obsession. Clue: help the region get its fishing industry back and if it wants a museum, it will either build one or ask.
It’s this obsession with equality – all cities are not the same, they just aren’t. Speak to the locals but ignore the municipal vanity projects.
it all sounded like a PR job . I suppose Manchester being the BBC’s new home it was designed to reassure prospective employees.