Monthly Archives: October 2016

I think you’ve really got to be careful about stereotyping Trump supporters in the same way I think in the UK, some commentators were guilty of stereotyping Brexit supporters as angry white working class racists

Mark Thompson may have fled to the US but he’s still making waves here as Guido notes:

Listen to former director-general Mark Thompson, in a Media Masters interview last week he said: “journalists as a group tend in their personal politics towards the Left.” That it would help “to have Conservatives, people who tend to think from a perspective that goes with the Right rather than the Left, across your newsroom.”

The full transcript is here.

Thompson is still panhandling for the BBC…here telling us how vital the BBC in a world where private companies cannot afford good journalism…

Do you think Tony Hall is doing a good job?
I do think he’s doing a good job, and I think Tony and his colleagues, it must be said, with the government have achieved I think a really strong royal charter. It’s going to guarantee the BBC is of real scale and scope, serving the British public for years to come, I hope with high quality programmes. The licensee settlement for the BBC is a tough one, by the way, it was it was tough in 2010 as well, and I think that all over the western world you can see governments and the commercial critics of public broadcasting tightening the purse strings and trying to limit the public broadcasters by reducing their spending. And I think that’s a bad thing. I think commercial media faces so many challenges that it’s a pity and a problem that the public’s source – not just in the UK but in many other countries – the public source of high quality, independent and free journalism is probably going to diminish over the coming years, at the very time when the commercial players are less able to pay for it.

But he then goes on to complain about C4 spending so much on Bake Off…though he ‘understands’ it…

I suppose essentially I’d need a bit of persuasion that it makes sense for Channel 4 to take a programme from the BBC and to spend what I think is going to be £25 million a year, which could be spent on new programming on an existing hit with existing talent.

He also goes on to make a plea for more public subsidy because only that will produce the creativity necessary to bring great programming to our screens….when the vast and successful range of US programmes is brought up he then dismisses that as the result of vast sums of money being spent to produce large numbers of shows out of which the winners are chosen and others go to the wall….so no shortage of money there then?

American TV is very commercial but it must be said, I mean, creativity in this country comes from an extraordinarily expensive process of making many pilots many which are… many millions of dollars go into, out of which then shows are selected.

What of James Purnell?  Apparently you need to have his ‘biased’ opinion so that you get a balance of perspectives…

James Purnell? So, look… I mean, it seems to me that, as a big media organisation, you know, and I think if Dean Baquet, the editor of the Times, was next to us, I think Dean would say, “You want a broad range of perspectives in your newsroom so that you can cover the news in a way which reflects the full range of opinions.”

How exactly does a left wing ex-politician bring balance to a left wing news organisation?   Interesting that he should be there to voice his political ideas and use them to influence how the news is reported….shouldn’t he just be reporting the news that happens and not from a ‘perspective’?  Surely the ‘perspective’ is just opinion…which all too often pervades BBC ‘analysis’.

I’ll finish with this comment from Thompson…

I think you’ve really got to be careful about stereotyping Trump supporters in the same way I think in the UK, some commentators were guilty of stereotyping Brexit supporters as angry white working class racists.

Take note BBC.

Steven Woolfe has apparently gone off bleating about a ‘rotten UKIP’ according to the BBC and the BBC is delighted enough to plaster it over its frontpage as the top story….really?  Not sure why the BBC thinks this merits top news status…

MEP Steven Woolfe quits ‘rotten’ UKIP

How the BBC must have loved writing that.  Curious Woolfe thinks UKIP so rotten when just a very short while ago he was aiming to be the leader of the very same ‘rotten’ party.

Hmmmm…why has the BBC chosen to use that supposed quote about a ‘rotten’ UKIP?….Woolfe doesn’t use it in a Telegraph [A very anti-UKIP paper] ‘exclusive’ interview and article…he says the same as what he said in a BBC interview…that the party is ‘ungovernable’ whilst there is an anti-Farage faction [Caerswell?] embedded within. Indeed that is his own title for his article…

Ukip is ungovernable. I hoped to be leader – instead, today I quit the party

So just why did the BBC go with ‘rotten UKIP’ when even in their own report they haven’t given us the clip of him saying that.

What he does say is that there will always be a place for UKIP in British politics, a vital place, as the elites will be trying to stop Brexit…..now there’s a headline.  Why did the BBC not go with that?

The BBC still doing its best to undermine and smear UKIP…suppose ‘rotten’ is better than ‘far right’ or ‘Nazi’….so often the BBC’s preferred smear…..never mind that Labour seems to be closer to the anti-Semitic Nazis than any other party just now.  Then again the LibDems aren’t far behind…speaking of which Guido notes this from Jenny Tonge…..

Subject: Tough on anti Semitism/ tough on the causes of anti Semitism?

Dear Sir,

The recent Select Committee Report on anti Semitism is to be welcomed, but it would have been more useful if it had investigated the causes of anti Semitism too. It is difficult to believe that a 75% increase in anti Semitism it reports, have been committed by people who simply hate Jewish people for no reason. It is surely the case that these incidents are reflecting the disgust amongst the general public of the way the government of Israel treats Palestinians and manipulates the USA and ourselves to take no action against that country’s blatant disregard of International Law and the Geneva Conventions…

Be tough on the causes of anti Semitism as well as the loathsome sentiment itself.

Yours sincerely,
Dr Jenny Tonge

As long as you’ve got a good enough reason to hate Jews it’s OK to do so.  Sounds familiar…One BBC journalist is of a similar frame of mind when he told French Jews that they should expect to be attacked because of what Israel does in Gaza…the BBC presuming that what Israel does is of course bad.  Naturally enough it is the BBC that has helped highlight the Israeli’s ‘inhumane’ behaviour and peddled the blood libel around the world, helping to spread anti-Semitism.  Just what does the Balen Report say?  BBC News kills Jews?  There must be some reason the BBC spent hundreds of thousands of pounds suppressing the report.

Bizarre that it is UKIP that is labelled ‘Far Right’ when the BBC, Labour and the LibDems are spreading the hatred so usually associated with the Far Right.

Oh hang on…it’s the Tories…as Guido reveals…

Odd the BBC’s logic…Boris writes up a puff  ‘pro’ the EU to clarify his thoughts but decides that Brexit is the best course for Britain.  The BBC has decided that Boris’ pro-EU scribblings are the only considerations that should be counted and as such this proves Boris is really a Remainer and that Brexit is therefore a hopeless hoax.

Logic of that?  If Boris had decided to nail his colours to the Remain mast instead then surely the BBC would be promoting his alternative ‘Leave’ scribblings that he drew up as his real thoughts…and that he must surely be a Brexiteer….therefore Brexit is brilliant and the future bright.

Having read Boris’ piece in the pro-EU Times it is more than apparent that this is a half-hearted piece that in fact puts the case for Brexit more than for the EU….despite that the BBC quotes his pro-EU musings and fails to mention the other thoughts that damn the EU….fortunately, saving me the bother, we have Fraser Nelson in the Spectator to do a comprehensive take down of those who wish to try and exploit the ‘revelation’ for their Remain cause…

Boris Johnson’s ‘secret’ article is not the smoking gun his critics had hoped for

As part of its preview of Tim Shipman’s keenly-anticipated Brexit book, the Sunday Times today reveals draft article written by Boris Johnson intended to make the case for his voting to stay in the EU. The existence of such an article was known, and a lot of his enemies thought it would expose him as a fraud. In fact, the article (full thing here) reads like an advert for Brexit with a pathetic “but I’m still going to back Cameron” bolted on to the end. It purports to balance both arguments, but weighs in far more favourably for Brexit. It’s not the first time he describes the case for remaining (he revealed his agony in the Daily Telegraph on 7 Feb). So what’s new? 

Rather than damn Boris, I suspect his “secret” article will underline the authenticity behind his support for Brexit. Reading his tortured argument reminded me of my own little agony over Brexit: I started off wanting to vote for Remain, hoping that Cameron’s deal would assure me that the EU would reform. But when the deal turned out to be a dud, what to think? How can you convince yourself to forget all of your misgivings? As Boris’s draft article demonstrates, it’s just impossible.

If Boris had published this article, it would have had all the sincerity of a hostage statement – complete with the wink at the end.

Here’s my take:-

Boris starts by saying that Cameron’s ‘deal’ with the EU was useless, and that the mission to fundamentally renegotiate Britain’s membership has ended in abject failure. Which is exactly what he said all the way through the campaign.

This European Union deal is not perhaps everything that we would have liked. It is not what we Eurosceptics were hoping, not when the process kicked off. We were hoping he was going to get really deep down and dirty, in the way that the Bloomberg speech seemed to indicate. He was going to probe the belly of the beast and bring back British sovereignty, like Hercules bringing Eurystheus back from the underworld. I had the impression that this was going to be the beginning of a wholesale repatriation of powers — over fisheries, farming, the social chapter, border controls, you name it: all those political hostages joyfully returning home like the end of Raid on Entebbe. I don’t think we can pretend that this is how things have turned out. This is not a fundamental reform of Britain’s position in the EU, and no one could credibly claim it is.

In other words: David Cameron failed his own test. But to be fair, it’s “not wholly insignificant”. This is the best Boris has to say about Remain in his draft article. And he dispenses with the balancing argument in a sentence, before returning to the case for Brexit.

It is not pointless; it is not wholly insignificant; it is by no means a waste of time. But it will not stop the great machine of EU integration, and it will not stop the production of ever more EU laws — at least some of which will have deleterious effects on the economy of this country and the rest of Europe.

So that’s clear: Boris says the ‘deal’ won’t stop what he sees as the insidious and undemocratic EU encroachment on British common law. And he has more to say…

Never mind the Tusk deal; look at the elephant in the room: the great beast still trampling happily on British parliamentary sovereignty, and British democracy. So there are likely to be a significant number of people — perhaps including you — who will feel that in all honour we can now only do one thing. We said we wanted a reformed EU. We said that if we failed to get reform, then Britain could have a great future outside. We have not got a reformed EU — so: nothing for it, then — ho for the open seas! Viva Brexit!

By the time Boris wrote “Viva Brexit” he must have worked out that his attempt to give loyal support to the Prime Minister was not going very well. Pretty much every word of what he has written in supposed pro-Remain piece makes the case for Brexit. So he attempts to present the case for staying – except he doesn’t, really. He just says…

That would seem to be the logic, and yet I wonder if it is wholly correct. Shut your eyes. Hold your breath. Think of Britain. Think of the rest of the EU. Think of the future. Think of the desire of your children and your grandchildren to live and work in other European countries; to sell things there, to make friends and perhaps to find partners there.

Ask yourself: despite all the defects and disappointments of this exercise — do you really, truly, definitely want Britain to pull out of the EU ? Now? This is a big thing to do, and there is certainly a strong political- philosophical imperative leading us to the door.

Do we really want to leave? He asks the question, he doesn’t give the answer. And he asks an unhelpful question. Polling showed this was a problem for Remain: people were fretful about the short-term consequences about pulling out of the EU, but more optimistic about the long-term consequences. Thinking about their children and grandchildren made them incline towards Brexit: they thought it would free Britain from the grip of a failing EU apparatus, even if wrestling free from that grip would be painful in the short term.

Exhausted by the strain of these 114-word case for Remain, Boris resumes to the case for Leave. The force and sincerity returns.

We are being outvoted ever more frequently. The ratchet of integration clicks remorselessly forward. More and more questions are now justiciable by the European Court of Justice, including that extraordinary document, the European Charter of Fundamental Rights. This bestows on every one of our 500m EU citizens a legally enforceable right to do all sorts of things across all 28 states: to start a business, to choose any occupation they like, to found any type of religious school, to enjoy “academic freedom”. I shudder to think what is going to happen when UK citizens start vindicating these new “rights” in Luxembourg. There is going to be more and more of this stuff ; and I can see why people might just think, to hell with it. I want out. I want to take back control of our democracy and our country.

Vote Leave! Again, any of the above could have come straight out of his Wembley speech.

If you feel that, I perfectly understand — because half the time I have been feeling that myself. And then the other half of the time, I have been thinking: hmmm. I like the sound of freedom; I like the sound of restoring democracy. But what are the downsides — and here we must be honest.

A-ha! After all of this banging the drum for Brexit, he’s going to tell us about the downsides of Brexit. The one he’s supposed to really believe in. The supposed killer argument. Stand by…

There are some big questions that the “out” side need to answer. Almost everyone expects there to be some sort of economic shock as a result of a Brexit. How big would it be? I am sure that the doomsters are exaggerating the fallout — but are they completely wrong? And how can we know? And then there is the worry about Scotland, and the possibility that an English-only “leave” vote could lead to the break-up of the union.

Was that it? As it turned out, the Doomsters were wrong. Everyone who predicted a recession after the vote has now withdrawn their prediction. Scottish polls show no increase in support for independence after the Brexit vote.

There is the Putin factor: we don’t want to do anything to encourage more shirtless swaggering from the Russian leader, not in the Middle East, not anywhere.

This was the ‘security’ argument that Cameron had to abandon because it was seen not to be credible. Boris pays it lip service, but nothing more.

But finally, he does come out for a decent case for remain:-

Then there is the whole geostrategic anxiety. Britain is a great nation, a global force for good. It is surely a boon for the world and for Europe that she should be intimately engaged in the EU. This is a market on our doorstep, ready for further exploitation by British firms: the membership fee seems rather small for all that access.

A good point. And one most Brexiteers would concede even now: the single market is good for Britain and it will be a shame to lose it. The question is whether these economic benefits outweigh the encroachment on sovereignty.

Why are we so determined to turn our back on it? Shouldn’t our policy be like our policy on cake — pro having it and pro eating it? Pro Europe and pro the rest of the world?

Boris-ism in a nutshell: “My policy on cake is pro-having it and pro-eating it”. He says he’d like the best of both worlds – but is this on offer? Can he assure the reader that it is? Erm, nope.

If sovereignty is the problem — and it certainly is — then maybe it is worth looking again at the prime minister’s deal, because there is a case for saying it is not quite as contemptible as all that.

Oh such salesmanship! The is the best he can say about Cameron’s deal: only “that there is a case” for saying it’s not “contemptible.”

He is the first prime minister to get us out of ever closer union, which is potentially very important with the European Court of Justice and how it interprets EU law. He has some good stuff on competition, and repealing legislation, and on protecting Britain from further integration of the euro group.

Now if this were baked into a real EU treaty, it would be very powerful. Taken together with the sovereignty clauses — which are not wholly platitudinous — you can see the outlines of a new role for Britain: friendly, involved, but not part of the federalist project.

He says a new treaty would be “very powerful” but then instantly undermines this logic by reminding us that the sovereignty clauses are “not wholly platitudinous” i.e., almost entirely platitudinous.

Yes, folks, the deal’s a bit of a dud, but it contains the germ of something really good. I am going to muffle my disappointment and back the prime minister.

And thus concludes perhaps the least convincing case for staying in the EU attempted by any player in the campaign. All told this makes the case for leaving, not staying, regardless of his quarter-hearted conclusion. He doesn’t even back Leave, he simply says he will “back the Prime Minister” – leaving the reader under no doubt that he would do so under duress.

This is a Mark Anthony-style piece that claims to bury Remain, not to praise it. Had it been published, mischief would have been set afoot. How very Boris.

Arrogant megalomaniacs have sought through the ages to unite Europe…..we see yet another attempt to do just that as the grand political project steamrollers on regardless of cost….the economics of the situation are of little consequence to the grand overlords of the EU, just ask Greece, Italy or Ireland….and we all know who really runs Europe right now and we must all march to the same tune…unity, unity, unity.

As such the EU has much in common with the defunct [one hopes] Soviet Union and Communism in that ideology trumps all and those who wanted to leave were shot…or in the case of the EU will be ‘punished’ for having the temerity to want to leave and set out on their own….certainly made to vote until they get the right answer…oh so Soviet like….as Peter Spencer [lol…see below] says

It will be in the EU’s best interests to make an example of the punishment it will dish out on deserters.

An irony that Europe celebrates that famous moment when an East German border guard fled to freedom with a statue…

The BBC provides the EU with an immeasurably valuable propaganda service, yes it may have lost the first battle but the war goes on and they aim to grind us down….as economist Peter Spencer says….

A vote to leave on June 23rd would most certainly not be the final position.

Peter who?  Peter Spencer…you know, from the EY Item club….if you don’t know him have a look at the BBC website where they are running a story today that is in fact nothing more essentially than the same story they ran in July...naturally it is desperately trying to paint a picture of the doom that awaits us….

UK economy ‘faces prolonged weakness’, Item Club report says

Brexit fallout to hit UK economic growth: EY Item Club

Peter Spencer is also the author of this comment in reply to Alan Sked, founder of UKIP….let’s just say he’s not a little biased…

Yep…if we stay in the EU all will be rosy and the future bright and prosperous.

Hmmm…that’s, to be blunt, bollocks, isn’t it children?  Even the most half-witted person recognises that Europe is in crisis…politically and economically.

Where is the BBC’s report and analysis on Stiglitz’s devastating look at the future of the EU…and the causes of its decline?  The BBC, whilst happily regurgitating Spencer’s doom-laden prophecies for Brexit, seems to have now wilfully forgotten Stiglitz’s damning verdict on the EU….

Joseph Stiglitz: ‘The EU’s monetary union was the mistake’

The theme of Stiglitz’s book is that monetary union was basically where it all went wrong for the European Union. A project that was meant to bring countries together has succeeded only in tearing them apart in a manner which now threatens wider European economic and social stability.

Stiglitz is not the only voice questioning the EU’s mismanagement….I’ve looked but cannot find any report from the BBC on this despite its significance…

Euro ‘house of cards’ to collapse, warns ECB prophet

The European Central Bank is becoming dangerously over-extended and the whole euro project is unworkable in its current form, the founding architect of monetary union has warned.

“One day, the house of cards will collapse,” said Professor Otmar Issing, the ECB’s first chief economist and a towering figure in the construction of the single currency.

Prof Issing said the euro has been betrayed by politics, lamenting that the experiment went wrong from the beginning and has since has degenerated into a fiscal free-for-all that once again masks the festering pathologies.

“Realistically, it will be a case of muddling through, struggling from one crisis to the next. It is difficult to forecast how long this will continue for, but it cannot go on endlessly,” he told the journal Central Banking in a remarkable deconstruction of the project.

Is that really a Europe that we should wish to be an integral part of, joined at the hip to?  Europe may well blow apart due to its own failures…arrogance and ideology over economics and the will of the people, and never mind Merkel’s mad invitation to all in the Third World to come and make their homes here.

The dangers of being part of that are far, far more serious and likely than any problems associated with Brexit…a Brexit that could in fact save us from the worst of the EU’s implosion.

Any analysis from the BBC on the EU’s problems and how they would effect us if we were part of that?  No.  Of course not.  The BBC has no intention of saying anything that will undermine the glories of the EU…once again politics and ideology over commonsense and truth.

New week and a new Open Thread. Please detail the astounding bias of the BBC here!

The BBC cannot help itself. Each day, it cries its Remainer Brexit tears and looks for consolation, anywhere it can find it. So the pro-EU pro Remain Sunday Telegraph is a friendly source on this occasion;

Boris Johnson has defended his writing of a pro-EU article days before he publicly backed Brexit, saying the article was “semi-parodic” and the UK’s decision to leave was right. In a newspaper column drafted in February, and now published by the Sunday Times, he suggested staying in the EU would be a “boon for the world”. Mr Johnson says he was “wrestling with the issue” at the time and was merely trying to make the “alternative case”.

Now then, Boris being two faced is perhaps a story (or not) but the BBC in their infinite wisdom elevate to the lead story in their news feed. Along with them propagating the whole fantasy “Soft Brexit vs Hard Brexit” the BBC continues to show contempt for the will of the British people.

Seven times Cameron and Osborne suggested they might vote Leave

Funny what interests the BBC.  And what doesn’t.

Their top headline today…an old story from a couple of weeks ago being rehashed by the Times to keep the story bubbling…and the BBC obliges…

Johnson defends writing ‘pro-EU column’

The pro-EU Times and Sunday Times are bashing away at Boris and the BBC is on it like a tramp on chips.  Did you know Boris gave a great deal of thought to the subject of whether or not to leave the EU, that he weighed the evidence and came to a conclusion?  A conclusion the BBC curiously ignores as it tears into him for considering all the options.  Reckless, thoughtless, cunning old Boris.  The BBC has always tried to claim Boris’ Brexit stance was a ‘job application’ for the leadership of the Tory Party…an analysis somewhat undermined by the way he so easily gave up the chance to stand and the fact that he has always been a Eurosceptic should the BBC have cared to check.  Strange, in contrast, how the BBC makes so little of Cameron’s resignation and the way he left the country in the lurch after leading it to this ‘disastrous’ and ‘ruinous’ Brexit.  The BBC seem more interested in attacking Boris for having considered the options than the reality of Cameron’s actions and never mind what Boris actually, finally supported.

What is important to the BBC is what Boris might have done rather than what he actually did.  A very odd way of ‘reality checking’ the world.  All aimed, of course, at discrediting Boris and thus undermining Brexit…look you fools, you who voted Leave…Boris conned you, he tricked you…..vote again!!

Odd though that the BBC utterly refused to remind us during the referendum campaign that both Project Fear orchestrators, Cameron and Osborne,  said that Britain could easily leave the EU if major reforms were not forthcoming…which they weren’t.

2014:

David Cameron: I’m ready to lead Britain out of Europe if migrant reforms fail

2015:

David Cameron says he will not rule out Britain leaving EU

“If we can’t reach such an agreement, and if Britain’s concerns were to be met with a deaf ear, which I do not believe will happen, then we will have to think again about whether this European Union is right for us. As I have said before – I rule nothing out.”

2015:

‘Asked if he[Osborne] could imagine calling for the UK to leave the EU, if he did not get what he wanted, he said: “We don’t rule anything out.”‘

During the campaigning for the referendum the BBC neglected to highlight Cameron’s and Osborne’s previous comments even as they changed tack and told us leaving the EU would see the onset of an economic apocalypse…the BBC didn’t see fit to question that at all….in fact they did everything they could to push that message.

Which brings us to Stephen Glover in the Mail last week, and other ‘right-wing’ commentators who have claimed that the BBC was even-handed in the referendum campaign.

What planet have they been on?  We’ve looked at this previously.

Interesting to see several ‘right-wing’ commentators suggest that the BBC is giving us a balanced view of the EU referendum…and yet it’s just not true.  Certainly there have been many debates and interviews that give the suggestion of balance but comparing them the Remain camp gets an easy ride and the underlying tone of the BBC narrative is pro-Remain…very uncritical of Remain’s claims…such as Brexit will cause a new world war, that Brexit is based on the racist hatred of foreigners or that the economy will plunge off a cliff on Brexit…where is the ‘Reality Check’ on the latest ‘Treasury’ claims?  The BBC pushes those claims as fact…the language used is intended to make them sound credible and authoritative…the ‘treasury analysis’ sounds scientific rather than the obedient regurgitation of the Treasury’s boss’s (ie Osborne) words and Osborne ‘warns’ rather than ‘claims’…altogether more dramatic and intense than a mere ‘claim’.

Glover suggests that the BBC was ‘laudibly impartial during the referendum’……nothing further from the truth than that…but he now sees that post-referendum the BBC has ‘reverted to type’…

What is indisputable is that the commendable balance which BBC journalists for the most part exhibited during the referendum campaign has been jettisoned, and replaced by an hysterical anti-Brexit partisanship which offends against the Corporation’s obligation to be neutral.

The transformation in the way Brexit was covered by the Beeb was evident soon after the result. Every bit of apparently bad news, such as initially declining business confidence, was gleefully reported, while abundant good news about consumers’ enduring confidence was largely neglected.

This of course is still going on as the fall in the currency is unremittingly painted as bad news, or bad news in the pipeline.

He finishes with this:

I believe that in taking sides Auntie is playing with fire. She justifiably remains for the most part popular and loved. But if she seen to obstruct the will of the majority by trying to undermine the result of the referendum, she risks ending up by being widely hated by Brexit supporters.

For its own sake, as well as the country’s, the BBC must recover that sense of fairness and balance which characterised its coverage of the referendum campaign. Why do I fear that it will fail to do so?

Indeed MP’s are already asking questions…

MPs condemn BBC’s biased covering following the referendum: Group write to director general to protest the number of pro-EU speakers 

Even pro-EU Dan Hodges thinks those who seek to undermine Brexit thwarting the will of the people will end in tears….

If you want a revolution, this is how to spark it. The people spoke on Brexit – but MPs stuck their fingers in their ears and ignored them. This could get nasty… 

Cameron said we should all have our say.  We’ve spoken.  And yet our so-called representatives in Parliament want to overturn our decision.

Pitchforks at the ready!!!

The BBC is trying to pull the wool over our eyes again as it peddles more pro-Muslim propaganda that is meant to tell us that the Koran, and this is about the Koran and Islam, is meaningless and can be interpreted in many different ways….and therefore the people in the likes of ISIS can’t represent the authentic Islam as there is no authentic, single version of Islam.  Except..er…that is the whole point of Islam…revealed to Muhammed as the last and authoritative scripture because the Jews and Chrisitians altered their scriptures, didn’t follow the teachings and split their religions into different sects all believing different things and worshipping in different ways….Muhammed famously smashed the idols, just as ISIS do, because Muslims worship just one God, one faith.

That is why Muslims waggle one finger at us…one god, one faith, one mosque…not a myriad of breakaway religions based on whatever you want to believe…the Koran is the unchangeable word of God and that means the meaning not just the words themselves. It is the one, single true guide to life for genuine Muslims.  ‘Muslims’, or people who call themselves Muslims, may practise ‘Islam’ in vastly different ways…but this makes them not genuinely ‘Muslim’.   Hence Ahmadis and Shi’ites are not considered Muslim by the ‘true’ Sunni Muslims.

Highly amusing watching the frantic death throes of the subservient EU lapdogs who desperately want to stay on Juncker’s leash.  Make no mistake though…it’s not a joke in reality, they fully intend to have that leash back on, have us all chipped and collared and back in the EU backyard doing tricks for the unelected elite.

They talk of ‘soft Brexit’ but this is nothing more than a lie, a cynical con to make us believe that we can have a Brexit and stay in the EU.  There is no such thing as ‘soft Brexit’….similalry talk of freedom of movement for a skilled group is equally deceptive…it is still giving control to the EU…and who defines skilled?  It will just open the door to a continual litany of complaints from Business and a watering down of the criteria to make them meaningless…and Brexit along with it….of course that is the intent.

Brexit was about one thing in the main and that was stopping freedom of movement, not stopping immigration full stop but giving us the ablity to decide who came here and who could then make use of our resources such as the NHS, schools and housing.

No stopping freedom of movement, no Brexit.  Therefore that is the one and only policy that is absolutely essential.  If we can’t then have access to the single market in its full, supposed glory, then so be it.  The Remain camp are now trying to insist nobody voted to leave the single market but that’s precisely what they did vote for in effect.  But let’s not forget that we will still be trading massively with Europe…Germany has huge markets here and Germany runs the EU….and the EU boasts that it is desperate for free trade with the whole world as it realises that 90% of trade is outside the EU.  Life and business will not stop when freed from the EU yoke.

The BBC doesn’t concern itself with the nuances of the EU debate such as sovereignty and political control, never mind the future of the EU as it heads relentlessly towards ever closer union and all that that entails…when do you hear the BBC talk of that?  Surely a massively important part of the debate during the referendum as it is still now…..Britain would inevitably have been dragged in but the consequences of that hardly register with the BBC.  In contrast Sturgeon’s bluster is given full credence and goes pretty much unchallenged…indeed the BBC seem to be actually reporting her words about an independence referendum as a fully plausible and democratic exercise…and the BBC fully accepts that ‘Scotland’ voted to stay in the EU and therefore it is only democratic for it to have a separate agreement allowing it, by some political trickery, to stay in the EU whilst the rest of the UK departs.

Let’s be clear, as the BBC doesn’t seem to want to think about this, the independence referendum was a vote to stay in Britain…and to do so come what may.  There were no clauses saying if this happens or that happens we get the option to rerun the vote if we don’t like the result of the EU referendum, which, was not a national, regional or party vote, it was a vote by Britain and it is totally irrelevant that so many in Scotland voted to stay in the EU.  Sturgeon’s premise is completely daft, not to mention dishonest and undemocratic….she says that Britain may have voted out but her small stub voted in so therefore she’s for in and will break away…OK…then in any independence vote, should it go the SNP way, any town, village, or cluster of residences in Scotland that vote to stay in the UK will be allowed to do so and breakaway from Scotland and remain ‘British’ citizens….that’s the logic of Sturgeon’s posturing…shame the BBC don’t tackle her on her undemocratic attempt to rig both an independence vote and Brexit.

Sturgeon isn’t the only one blowing smoke up their own backsides…the Don Quixote of the media world, Paul Mason, is back, and if he’s replacing Shameless Milne as Corbyn’s comms guru I think the Tories don’t have a thing to worry about.  Incredible that the BBC, knowing he was prone to such thoughts, employed him on Newsnight.

His latest on Brexit?   His answer as to how to win back all those Labour voters who have decamped to UKIP?

It’s up to the labour movement to rescue the elite from the self-inflected wound of Brexit.

With a vastly expanded membership, Labour is the de facto party of the urban salariat. Its heartland is Remainia – the cities that voted to stay in Europe. Its electoral battlegrounds are now places such as Bury, Nuneaton, Corby and Portsmouth, where the “centre” (as measured by the Lib Dem vote) has collapsed, to be replaced by thousands of Green voters and thousands more voting Ukip.

Labour can only attract back a million Green voters and hundreds of thousands of Ukip voters in winnable marginals with a combination of social liberalism and economic radicalism.

A new strategy – to combine social liberalism, multiculturalism and environmentalism with left-wing economic policies aimed at reviving the “communities left behind” – was, for me, always the heart of Corbynism. Jeremy Corbyn himself, whatever his personal strengths and weaknesses, was a placeholder for a political strategy.

Quite extraordinary.  Mason is utterly delusional.  All those UKIP voters…how to get them back?  A heady mix of communism, multiculturalism, enviromentalism and more tax and spend policies that work so well….not to mention….

The elite – the bankers, senior managers, the super-rich and the ­upper middle class – do not want Brexit. Nor does a significant proportion of Middle Britain’s managerial and investing classes.

The first aim should be: not just oppose hard Brexit, but prevent it. This entails the Labour front bench committing to an attempt to remain inside the European Economic Area.

So Mason promotes Labour as the party of the elite and the unelected, undemocratic and bullying EU and aims to do their bidding by stopping Brexit.

Gotta love Mason, he’s such good value….all those clowns running around with chainsaws and baseball bats have nothing on the real tragic, self-destructive comedy that Labour has become.

Had to laugh this morning as the Today programme discussed the important topic of fussy eating in children and after an indepth discussion of chicken disguised as apple the presenter suddenly turned to one of the contributors, Annabel Karmel, who runs a children’s food company, and completely at random and off topic suddenly asked her if her company was being destroyed by Brexit and the drop in the pound….well…not quite as bluntly as that but you get the idea….a very pointed question.

Yesterday we had another discussion, this time on that very topic with the drop in the pound actually being given a positive spin by the contributors as the presenter struggled to get them on-message and tell us all about the negatives as well.  Eventually she got one to do the necessary…and you could hear the contributor laughing as she did so….yep, prices will go up as the pound falls.  You got the distinct impression that she was only saying what she knew she had been brought on to say as she laughed her way through it…You got the idea that the presenter was sat there mouthing to her and gesticulating to her to keep going, keep it up….pound down, prices up, Brexit apocalypse.

The drop in the pound can be good news for British manufacturers, including those of course who export to Europe…and those who sell at home as imports become more expensive making home grown products relatively cheaper.  So good for British manufacturers and sellers at home and abroad and good for British jobs….and the drop in the pound could more than cancel any rise in tariffs….supposing any were to be imposed…the EU is after all very, very keen to have tariff free trade with the whole world not just EU countries.   And as for freedom of movement…that is purely a political exercise and nothing to do with economics….the purpose to undermine national identity and loyalty to the nation state….to be replaced by a Euro Citizen loyal to the EU….

The Treaty of Maastricht introduced the notion of EU citizenship to be enjoyed automatically by every national of a Member State. It is this EU citizenship that underpins the right of persons to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States…..the Schengen area is ‘one of the major achievements of European integration’.

Always amusing to hear how BBC presenters rush to qualify such good news and warn us the good times cannot last but don’t react with similar qualifications to bad news.

After Brexit the BBC was issuing dire warnings that food prices would sky rocket…hmmmm…July’s news?

Food prices in ‘biggest fall’ for a year in June

But of course Brexit would put an end to that soon enough……er…September?

Sainsbury’s sales slip as food prices continue to fall

Maybe next month eh?

Remarkable how the BBC are so concerned about the globalisation of corporate tax and the free flowing of taxable income to low-rate States to minimise taxes and yet now they are not at all concerned about the same big corporations globalising labour, dumping local workers when it suits and importing cheaper labour to replace them or shifting work to low pay countries in order to minimise wages, in fact the BBC celebrates and supports this as it promotes freedom of movement of low cost labour in order to stay in the EU.

Kinda get the feeling that workers’ welfare, jobs and wages are not the real concern of the BBC….far, far more to do with the well-heeled Euro life-styles of the BBC cosmopolitan set continuing than about Joe Blogs being undercut for building jobs.