Monthly Archives: January 2017

I’m sorry, we were going to have a new open thread to start the week off but we have just had an email [via Moscow curiously] from the BBC’s James Harding.  He tells us that in view of the fact that this site inconveniently shines a brutal light of truth upon BBC’s prejudiced and partisan reporting, exposing liars, charlattans and those who peddle misinformation as news, we unfortunately don’t match the criteria that conform to the BBC’s stated aims of closing down debate, curbing free speech and imposing boundaries on free thought and thus we are to be shut down.

Still…rules are made for breaking…I’m sure you’ll find a way to have your say…..

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

The BBC continues with its highly partisan reporting, or its anti-Trump, anti-Brexit propaganda as we should call it because the truth is important no?…unless you’re a BBC reporter.

Theresa May was about to deliver her speech on Brexit and the BBC decided the one voice we needed was that of Remainder Anna Soubry giving us her thoughts on it.  Anna Soubry, politically, morally corrupt, dishonest, with something of the night about her.  The women who tells us she fully respects and accepts the vote to leave the EU, then denounces Leave voters as stupid, ignorant racists, and continues by telling us we must put ideology aside [yours not hers] and do what is best for the economy…and that is…stay in the Single Market and the Custom’s Union….and of course thus obliged to continue with freedom of movement.  In other words totally, totalitarianly, ignore the vote for Brexit and carry on as if it had never happened.  As said, corrupt and dishonest, a liar.  Oh, and stupid.  Trump and Brexit were a reaction to precisely that type of deceitful, shamelessly corrupt and contemptuous politics, trying to present a total lie as the truth whilst bizarrely denouncing the voters as ‘deplorables’.  Just the way to win the voters around.

We were also treated to the slippery Mardell trying his best to run down Trump whilst trying to give the impression he was being impartial and fair….it didn’t work.  He brought on American author Jonathan Franzen to give us his considered opinion of Trump…Franzen being in love with Obama.  Trump, we hear, is heinous, he has a mastery of Twitter that is terrible to behold and his use of Twitter as a propaganda tool is also heinous.  Trump will create disaster after disaster and it is appalling that so many people who get their news via Twitter will be fooled by him.  Just another day at the BBC coalface. Twitter has 140 characters, Franzen seems to have none at all.

We can’t even get away from it when we try to relax and enjoy a bit of fantasy and outlandish behaviour with Sherlock as statues of Thatcher are smashed [the lefty writer said he was very conflicted about putting that in the script…of course you were luvvy], we are told ‘civilisation always relied on elective ignorance’ [oh you dumb stupid Leave voters] and that ‘we must be careful not to burn our bridges’[nudge nudge wink wink….stay in the safe harbour that is the EU]…oh and Sherlock went into a bizarre exhortation, the dramatic Henry V speech at Agincourt….a satirical, mocking, sneaky sneer at the ‘little Englanders’ who voted to leave….have to say I stopped watching about there as the programme was crap…you can put up with the nonsense if the show grabbed you but it didn’t…pretentious and overblown and far too up its own backside now.

That’s the BBC shaping its news and programming to deliver a message but they aren’t content with just preaching to you, they aim to make sure that the only message, the only values, the only beliefs, you receive are theirs.

Remember back in November when we said this…

Note how once again the news source feeding the BBC the story is Buzzfeed…..the BBC seems to have a very, very close partnership with Buzzfeed….does it use Buzzfeed to dig out stories it can’t break for fear of looking partisan and then reports them as ‘Buzzfeed stories’? [It did the same with Whittingdale…they couldn’t break the story of his dalliances with a prostitute because it would look too obviously a politically motivated hit job…so they, in collaboration with anti-Press campaigners, got a small, almost unknown, website to break the story]

The BBC et al are aiming to control who is allowed to publish on the internet and what they say….they want to have the right to judge what is news, what kind of news stories are published, to make judgement calls on not just their truth but also on their merits ethically and morally or merely whether they fit in with the likes of the BBC’s own values and beliefs.

It is an extremely sinister attack on free speech and thought.  The BBC aims to police the internet so that news and views are filtered through a left-wing prism….want to talk about immigration or Islam or climate change?  No, sorry, they can’t approve that.

As said many times here, the BBC is one of the greatest threats to democracy, freedom and a civilised society.

Since then of course Buzzfeed has continued to be the vehicle of choice to smuggle in news stories that a respectable news organisation wouldn’t touch…such as the sensationalist Trump ‘dossier’.   The BBC were then given an excuse to report on the ‘furore’ and just what it was all about…..never missing a chance to trash Trump of course.  But what else?  What of that ‘extremely sinister attack on free speech and thought‘?

It seems that the BBC is exactly intent on doing just that as it sets out to police the internet and exploit its resources and power to decide what is news, what is true and what is ‘acceptable’…

Tristram Hunt has fled Corbyn’s car crash communism for the V&A Museum.  What will be one of its newest acquisitions to put on public display?  Perhaps the Labour Party now that its time has past and the rats are leaving the sinking ship abandoning all hope along with it.  I’m guessing all that champagne in the fridges at BBC HQ must be nearing its sell by date.   Better drink up now boys and girls of the BBC…it could be a long wait otherwise. Still, you’ve got important work to do fighting Trump, Brexit, Far-Right, or even just Right wing, ideology and political success and of course defending the ramparts of the liberal, or not so liberal, bunker against the ravages of ignorant peasantry in revolt, grievously misled as they are by lies and misinformation in a post-fact, post-truth world where elective ignorance is the new enlightenment.  Once more unto the breach dear lefties until you fill up this breach with your hideously English dead…as a very subversive, err elitist and pro-Establishment, Sherlock might say as he once again is used as a vehicle to peddle hidden messages for our Progressive masters.

Which is more credible, Trump, the Trump dossier or the BBC’s reporting of the dossier?

The BBC has known of the dossier for a long time and could not  justify publishing it because it was completely unsubstantiated.  What the BBC needed was a Forlorn Hope, someone to sacrifice themselves for the cause, to publish what the BBC suspects is fake news knowing that this will open the door for the BBC and its ilk to report on the dirty dossier without tainting their own reputations whilst generating massive, negative headlines and trending rumours about Trump…Buzzfeed stepped up to be the fall-guy.  The fact that the allegations are almost certainly untrue  is irrelevant, the hugely damaging headlines and rumours will inevitably hurt Trump and that seems to have been the intent from the start rather than a seeking after the truth.

The BBC clearly knows the dossier is a nonsense, it reads as if it were written by a student set on spoofing someone…indeed people are claiming just that...but the BBC doesn’t report the doubts about the file, it rather spends its time trying to insinuate that the dossier is credible and authentic.

The BBC of course expects that few people will read the dossier and that the BBC version of the truth will become The Truth.  They know that if people did read it they would instantly become aware that the dossier was suspect, written as it is in a very unprofessional style, packed with inconsistancies, errors of fact and detail.  Supposedly written by a highly educated MI6 officer who speaks Russian and specialised in Russian affairs the dossier made mistakes that such a person should never make but I have yet to see the BBC make anything other than a cursory qualification of the accuracy and veracity of the dossier.

Read it for yourself.

The document makes what seem personal comments that don’t fit with an intelligence document, the author expresses what are his own personal feelings it seems and the dossier has inconsistencies throughout….it states that Russia took fright at the reaction to the email hack and decided not to produce any more intelligence and ‘leaks’…then it states that Russia will in fact exploit the emails further and go as far as to create uyet more content. It tell us that Trump’s team were also utterly dismayed at the reaction to the emails…or not…apparently the Trump team was also entirely relaxed about the email scandal because it distracted the Media from Trump’s corrupt dealings with the Chinese.  Oh..hang on…the MSM have tried for months to substantiate the claims in the dossier and they cannot find any dirt about China and Trump?  Then again why did the people who commissioned the report, supposedly Jeb Bush at first, then the Democrats, not use the dossier?  Surely the Dems would have seen it as a very powerful weapon to take down Trump and as Trump makes very undiplomatic statements about China why does China, with a famous cyberwarfare capability, not respond by ‘leaking’ Trump’s apparently corrupt practices in China?

The dossier is written in such a way that little that is claimed can be verified….the FSB will not be releasing any compromising material it has on Trump and it is unlikely they admitted having such material to an ex-MI6 agent to help him damage Trump when according to GCHQ and the CIA Russia was trying to help Trump [The BBC can’t have it both ways].  The dossier claims Trump’s team were feeding Russia information on Russian oligarchs in the US in return for dirt on Hillary….really? The Russians couldn’t find out for themselves what their own people were up to?  They have their own ex-pat community in the US who could provide plenty of information if so inclined. …or just read it in the newspapers.

We read that Trump was offered substantial business deals in Russia which mysteriously he didn’t accept…then we read that it was Trump making great efforts to find investments in Russia but failed…and instead had to ‘settle for the use of extensive sexual services there from local prostitutes rather than business success’.  That sounds credible no?  What rubbish is this?  Why has the BBC fallen hook, line and sinker for it?

The dossier claims that the Russians have been grooming Trump for 8 years….so the CIA et al had no idea and did nothing to stop Trump becoming President?  Did the Russians really see Trump as the next President 8 years ago?  LOL.  No one thought Trump would be President 8 weeks ago.

The dossier, for all its complete lack of proof and evidence, has a remarkable level of detail in some respects….it knows exactly what very senior people in Russian government were saying and indeed what they were drinking at the time.  For a one man band Mr Steele seems remarkably effective and wide ranging in his information gathering…not only having extensive contacts within the Russian intelligence services and with senior Russian politicians but also moles in the Republican Party, Russian ex-pats in the US and Democrat sources amongst many others.

There’s lots more nonsense in the dossier…read it and laugh.

Curious though that the CIA itself didn’t know any of this and indeed has been unable to substantiate any of it…as neither has the well resourced MSM which has tried for months to do so….even the Guardian takes a swipe at Buzzfeed….

Prestige, trust, truth: flimsy and amorphous but essential for the survival of good journalism, as opposed to rumour and lies. In these dangerous times – both for journalism and the world – “newsworthy” is not enough. It is wrong for any respected news organisation to publish information it knows may not be true.

Hmmm…’wrong for any respected news organisation to publish information it knows may not be true.‘   And yet the BBC has been peddling this story as it it were true for days now…..but shamelesly it has also thrown its collaborator to the wolves as it also attacks Buzzfeed and boasts about itself….

Just as traditional media included many different types of publisher – tabloids v broadsheets, for example – so new, digital media include those who exhaustively check their facts and proceed with caution and those who are prepared to publish unverified allegations because they think the public should know…..The BBC is in the former camp.

I’m sorry what?  The BBC checks their facts and proceeds with caution?  Indeed, the BBC refused, as said to publish this dossier itself because they knew it stank and their reputation would be ruined….and yet as soon as its partner published the BBC were there to exploit it and make the headlines with lurid claims about Trump….all ‘caution’ cast to the wind because there was a separation between the dossier and the BBC now.

The dossier is nothing that could not be produced by someone in a broom cupboard with an internet connection joining up the dots to make a whole that is false but superficially believable…Trump was here, his colleagues were there…spin a web of intrigue around that, associate it with world events, throw in some completely unprovable claims that Trump had met and was working with Russian intelligence and bingo…a conspiracy that had enough legs to at least get people talking even if most respected media outlets refused to touch it with a barge pole despite absolutely hating Trump.  It was meant as a media hit job, a character assassination, but it seems to have backfired due to its amateurish nature.   The BBC liked it though….Frank Gardner, the security expert, loved it.

Oh and lastly….loved this.

Remember, ironically, that Buzzfeed was the BBC’s and the Guardian’s organ of choice that fed them stories about the shocking rise of fake news with which they berated the right-wing press as the supposed purveyors of  of such untruths…now both the Guardian and the BBC aren’t so enamoured with such claims….very childish they think…playground taunts and pernicious umbrella terms….

The Guardian….

After admitting that he wasn’t entirely sure whether the dossier was dodgy or not in his note to staff, Smith predictably earned the ire of Trump, who called BuzzFeed a “disgrace” and the website “a failing pile of garbage”. The next US president then resorted to the modern version of the playground chant of “liar, liar, pants of fire” when he said of the report: “It’s all fake news.”

The BBC….

Finally, life has been made harder for other news organisations, such as The New York Times and CNN, who Trump targeted in his remarkable press conference.

They have now been conflated with Buzzfeed under Trump’s pernicious umbrella term “fake news”.

I think we can safely conflate the BBC under Mr Trump’s pernicious umbrella…very useful when there are golden showers about no?

The BBC and Buzzfeed, an  unholy alliance of the old media and the new clickbait monster…have they come together to take down Trump and overturn American democracy?  How many more times can the BBC ask if Trump will resign or be impeached?  Wishful thinking.

The BBC once said of Buzzfeed “If that  that is the future of journalism, heaven help us all”

Buzzfeed, on trying to explain why they published the ‘Trump Dossier’, a blatantly obvious piece of disinformation, said that they and their latest reckless and irresponsible effort to smear Trump was indeed  ‘ how we see the job of reporters in 2017’.

Good then that the BBC has teamed up with such an outfit in the search for the youth market and also as a useful idiot that breaks the controversial and less than credible stories that the BBC wants to publish but daren’t because they know it’s unsubstantiated rubbish.  This allows the BBC to then move in but still keep a distance between the two, enough to deny any connection to the story,  and ‘report’ on the latest breaking scandal that has arisen ‘due to other media breaking the story’.

The BBC knew of the ‘dossier’ a long time ago but wouldn’t touch it because it lacked authenticity and credibility.  But times are desperate.  Trump was elected against all the odds and expectations and now he’s going to be President. He must be stopped.  Can he be stopped just as the Establishment manoeuvres to stop Brexit?  One last desperate attempt…but the BBC’s fingerprints cannot be on this one.  Step in Buzzfeed.   The BBC knows that once the story breaks it can then move in and start its operation to break Trump with a stream of half-truths, concocted analysis and half-baked opinion presented as news.  Not as if the BBC hasn’t used the same modus operandi before…remember John Whittingdale and the allegations about prostitutes and drugs which the BBC sat on and sat on until just before the final drawdown of the BBC Charter renewal review?  The BBC as a last desperate measure to apply pressure onto Whittingdale had its friends in the anti-hacking co-conspirators organise another smaller, fringe media organisation to publish the allegations which then allowed the BBC to move in and give them a good airing too…just reporting on the reporting as it flung mud far and wide…not a BBC story you understand…plausible deniability.

It is something  of an irony that only yesterday Lord Hall Hall was telling us how the BBC was the gold standard, the copper bottomed, iron clad mothership which maintained and encouraged high standards of journalism and which would concentrate on ‘slow news’, news that was not just ever changing, eye-catching soundbites but solid analysis, grounded in deep thought, experience, knowledge and reason, journalism that only the BBC can bring to you,  journalism that presents the world as it really is and brings a deeper understanding of world events to our screens.

Not so far.  The very same day the BBC was reporting as fact that Trump is in hock to the Russians and is essentially a Russian agent and that what looks like a shoddy, superficial and discredited hatchet job is credible and authentic.

The BBC tell us that they are only reporting the Buzzfeed story because the dossier was ‘deemed important enough for the CIA to report it’ to both the President and Trump.

Not true…the BBC report it because Buzzfeed did the dirty work for them and broke the story and then BBC itself tells us that the US intelligence agencies didn’t take the dossier seriously but only reported it because the circulation of such material had to be noted as a matter of course and procedure because such material, however untrue, can be used to malign an undermine a target and their reputation…as we see as the BBC turns legend into fact whilst the US intelligence tells us it’s nonsense…

“Part of our obligation is to ensure that policymakers are provided with the fullest possible picture of any matters that might affect national security.”

He said: “We did not rely upon it in any way for our conclusions.”

For some reason, and at odds with their own actual evidence, the BBC keeps insisting the CIA thinks the material is ‘credible’..and yet provides no quote and no evidence to back up that claim…

I understand the CIA believes it is credible that the Kremlin has such kompromat – or compromising material – on the next US commander in chief.

I heard Frank Gardner, who is ever more hopeless in his analyses, that the crreator of the dossier obtained his information from close contacts in Russian intelligence.  LOL.    That’s right, the Russians provided damaging information on Trump at the same time as they tried to get him elected.  The author tried to interest the FBI, they passed on it, he tried to interest the British, they passed, he then went to a left wing magazine..and they half took the bait.  Doesn’t quite seem that may people thought the dossier at all credible.  Here’s another oddity…the Brits decided not to have anything to do with the dossier saying it was a US matter…and yet we are told at the same time they were passing on information that the Russians were hacking the DNC emails and engaged in cyberwar to influence the election…just why would they ignore the dossier then?

I have close contact with people in News International.  I asked them if they had any juicy gossip and compromising scandal about the BBC’s Lord Hall Hall.  This is what they provided me with…I can’t authenticate any of it, there’s no proof that any of it is is in any way true but then again there is no evidence to say that it isn’t true….so I’ve decided to publish and let you decide despite there being no facts, no proof and no evidence whatsoever…

Allegedly tapes exist of Lord Hall Hall pleasuring a blow-up life-size Lenin whilst being beaten about the buttocks with rolled up copies of the Daily Mail by three prostitutes who all bare a remarkable resemblance to Margaret Thatcher, beaten on his hideoulsy white bottom cheeks until they glow a hue of red that matches the glorious red of the Soviet flag, the flag in which he rolls himself up in every night and goes to sleep dreaming of a motorcycle tour of the old Soviet Union with only Diane Abbott for company.

As I say, you decide…it’s the new journalism….it might or might not be true…but if it maligns and undermines Lord Hall Hall we don’t care if it’s fake news.

Frank Gardner warned us not to trust anybody…not the intelligence agencies, not the politicians, not the Russians….what he missed out were the people like himself…the so-called journalists.

I can confirm this site has not been hacked, filmed in salacious acts, had secret meetings with shady Russian backers nor conspired to bring down America. This is all our own work….apart from the kompromat provided by our excellent agents in the field who leak the sordid details of BBC bias to us via various nefarious and secret methods….carry on the good work chaps…your country needs you…whichever country that maybe…..detail your kompromat here…

Forgetfulness, a useful quality, a quality which ensures we can stand tall in the world as it crumbles around us and we can forget that it is we who helped cause that world to crumble.  ‘We’ being the BBC.

Interesting to hear the new narrative from Justin Webb on the Today programme.  Now Obama’s grand tour of the UK as he was bussed in by Cameron and the Remainers was Obama ‘getting it wrong’ as he announced that if we voted for Brexit Britain would suffer his wrath and be dumped at the back of the trade deal queue.  Funny, I seem to remember the BBC eagerly making that headline news during the campaign.

Then there’s Syria and that vote in Parliament….we hear from the horse’s mouth that Obama backed away from decisive military action because of the vote in the British Parliament in which Miliband betrayed the Syrian people and left them to die.  Funny how Miliband never gets a mention when all this is being discussed on the BBC.  Now that military action, the lack of, is a bad thing.  Odd how the BBC’s presentation of events changes to suit…the BBC being part of the problem when the vote to approve miltary action was on the table, doing all it could to help block it…such as not broadcasting a video of a chemical attack on a  school just before the vote, a vote based precisely on such considerations….would the film have changed the vote at all?  The BBC didn’t take the risk and censored it until the vote was safely out of the way.

The ‘deep left’ Mary Riddell and someone from the Economist, the Economist which just printed a hatchet job on May, on the Today programme to discuss May, Brexit and ‘muddle’….no bias there then.  The BBC failing to challenge Corbyn as he says he is not wedded to freedom of movement but, oh, hang on, demands we remain members of the Single Market which entails keeping freedom of movement…so pretty much wedded to freedom of movement just not to the truth….Jon Pienaar calls Corbyn ‘deep Left’…sorry what? The extremist  ‘Far Left’ surely?  The BBC once again covering for Corbyn.  I’m sure there’s plenty more bias out there…..

The BBC knows that most people when asked about Islam will reveal that they have negative views about the ideology judging it unpleasant, backward, homophobic, mysogynist, anti-Semitic and violent, not to mention most terrorists are Muslim.  The BBC, tasked by its Charter with maintaining a civil society and cohesion, has decided that the best way to tackle such prejudiced, ill-informed and ignorant beliefs is first to create an understanding that Islam is the religion of peace, second that ‘Muslim’ terrorists are in fact not Muslim and are distorting the beautiful teachings of Muhammed [never mind that the BBC also insists we shape our society to suit Muslim demands so that they don’t radicalise and become terrorists…if Islam is the religion of peace and the terrorists aren’t real Muslims why is that necessary?] and finally of course we have the most ingenius of counters to the terror that is engulfing our cities and countries….remind people that a thousand years ago in lands where Islam ruled supreme [due to a violent blitzkrieg of conquest and colonisation ala ISIS…nothing to do with Islam of course!] there were scientists and scholars who continued to study and develop the sciences and extend learning.  This the BBC tells us was the Islamic Golden Age of Science.

What do you suppose the BBC intends we take from this?  Are we supposed to suddenly dismiss all we know about Islam and its beliefs, teachings and values and embrace its culture and values just because one thousand years ago a man who happened to be Muslim by accident of birth or conquest was good at science?  Are we to dismiss our concerns about terrorism done in the name of Islam because someone one thousand years ago made a better mouse-trap?  Of course that really is the BBC intent…redeem Islam’s reputation…show ‘Muslims’ were good at science and somehow that must translate into having warm fuzzy feelings about Islam today which must over-ride our everyday, parochial concerns about Islamic conservative values and practices being forced upon our society…..helped along by the useful idiots who set off bombs, who aren’t Muslims remember, but erm, were radicalised because they were Muslim and alienated by a society that marginalised and ignored them.

Odd how science done by Muslims [though in fact many scientists and scholars were atheists/Christian or Jewish] is ‘Muslim’ and yet terrorism done by Muslims is not ‘Muslim’.

Perhaps that’s why the BBC does all it can to hide the fact that the Jews/Israelis are brilliant at science and have achieved astounding things from the deserts of the Middle East when all around them is backward and hopeless, and Muslim…and all despite being under siege by Muslims for over 70 years.

The BBC clearly thinks that if you knew what geniuses the Israelis are you wouldn’t believe a word that the BBC’s Middle East correspondents pump out about Israel…you know all that bad, fake news that spreads anti-Semitism around the world and makes it acceptable around the dinner table or down the gym.

BBC Watch notes that the BBC just isn’t keen on letting its viewers and readers know just how good the Israelis are at science and high tech….

The BBC’s “soft boycott” of Israel

A few weeks ago Jewish Chronicle editor Stephen Pollard drew attention to the BBC’s “soft boycott” of Israel. The term, coined by Mr Pollard, describes the BBC’s tendency to report on Israeli innovations and technological breakthroughs without mentioning that they took place at Israeli institutions and companies. Most recently, the BBC recently reported on a breakthrough in cancer treatment by the Weizmann Institute, but the Israeli origins of the research were significantly downplayed.

There are times when the BBC completely ignores Israel’s connection to a newsworthy company, times when Israel’s connection is significantly downplayed and times when Israel’s connection is specifically focused on, in cases which fit a particular agenda and narrative of Israel as a militaristic and pariah state.

In some cases brilliant Israeli inventions are reported by the BBC but their Israeli origins are completely ignored.

Following our look at the Guardian’s concerns about Ofcom’s pro-BBC bias have a look at why a genuinely independent and effective BBC regulator is badly needed…from ‘News-Watch’ as it reports the BBC’s stone-walling response to its complaint about the BBC’s constant, malicious and racist, anti-white, labelling of post-Brexit Britain  as a nastier, more racist place…..[if you read Press reports on the day you will actually note that the attack mentioned below was more likely the result of drug-taking, alcohol and teenage boredom/stupidity/abandon…all of which the residents had complained of for months as the ‘gang’ had attacked many people at random previously]

On August, 31, Arkadiusz Jozwik, a Polish man living in Harlow, was killed in a late-night fracas in the pizza parlour where he worked.

In the immediate aftermath of the crime, police arrested six local youths (all under 16) but quickly released them on bail without charge.   There were no further developments until this week when a 15-year-old from Harlow was charged with Mr Jozwik’s manslaughter. Of fundamental importance, it has also emerged that a race hate charge in connection with the death is not being pursued.

When news of the killing emerged, the BBC’s news operation went into hyper-ventilating overdrive.

On the BBC1 News at Six, reporter Daniel Sandford compiled a report in which the fulcrum was there were now fears that this was a ‘a frenzied racist attack triggered by the Brexit referendum’.

A few hours later, John Sweeney, on BBC2’s Newsnight – one of the Corporation’s main investigative journalists – took matters a step further in the editing of his report. He included as the conclusion so that it could not be ignored this inflammatory sounbdbite from another local Polish man:

‘But I mean, Nigel Farage, I mean, thank you for that, because you are part of this death, and you’ve got blood on your hands, thanks to you, thanks for all your decision, wherever you are, er . . . yeah, it’s your call.’

Clearly in play and being reinforced to maximum extent by the Corporation was the central idea – evident in other programmes, too, as is documented on the News-watch website here –  that June 23 had unleashed a torrent of racist venom. In the BBC’s world the jackboots were now out – and on the march.

The following Monday, Guardian columnist and political activist (sorry, ‘rights campaigner’) Garry Younge was allowed to put together for a BBC Radio 4 series a barrage of sensationalist allegations in the same vein: that Britain, overnight since June 23, had become a seething cesspit of race-hate. Attacks were underway in terrifying, unprecedented volume.

On the advice of a senior BBC news executive – who claimed that the Corporation was listening to problems about post-Brexit coverage – News-watch submitted a formal complaint about the coverage of Harlow killing to the BBC Complaints Unit, focusing principally on the Sandford report.

Over seven-pages, it detailed that his approach was sensationalist, deliberately contrived to give maximum impact to the race hate claims, and also pointed out that it was seriously irresponsible and premature – in the light of the facts known to the police on August 31 and more generally about race-hate crime – to speculate so prominently either about race-hate motivation or about the crime’s possible link to Brexit.

The BBC’s response? A curt high-handed letter. It asserted that such speculation was legitimate because there had been a rise in reports of race-hate crime since June 23, and because other possible motives for Mr Jozwik’s death had been included in Sandford’s report.

The letter – which was mostly in an obviously standard format, and was so slipshod that it even spelled the name of Sandford incorrectly, omitting the ‘d’ – glossed over with what can only described as haughty arrogance the key points.

In response, News-watch submitted a second complaints letter pointing out the omissions and stating that the reply was totally unsatisfactory. That was on October 20.  On November 30 (ironically, the day of the manslaughter charges were laid) came the Complaints Unit’s second reply. It states:

‘We are sorry to tell you that we have nothing to add to our previous reply. We do not believe your complaint has raised a significant issue of general importance that might justify further investigation. We will not therefore correspond further in response to additional points, or further comments or questions made about this issue or our responses to it.’The lessons learnt? The core BBC complaints process, which will remain as the conduit which will deal with most of the complaints submitted to the BBC after Charter renewal, is intrinsically and, irrevocably unfit for purpose. The Corporation remains the primary judge of what is deemed a ‘significant issue of general importance’

The second Complaints Unit letter does point out that the BBC Trust, in some circumstances, does entertain appeals. But the fact is that – as Richard Ayre, one of the current Trustees, has admitted – it has not upheld a complaint on EU-related matters in its entire existence.

Will Ofcom change that approach? Don’t hold your breath. And meanwhile, the totally inaccurate BBC assumptions about Brexit and race-hate continue to spew forth.