Monthly Archives: May 2017

OK folks, it’s a new week but the BBC won’t stop the daily output of fake news, deceits and half truths. DETAIL the bias here…

Michael Fallon was quizzed by Marr on Army numbers, Marr saying a promise in the 2015 manifesto to keep regular army numbers above 82,000 has been broken…the BBC’s Reality Check agrees….

The Ministry of Defence publishes monthly figures for the size of the armed forces, the most recent of which are for March this year.

It has fallen gradually in the two years since then, so that it now stands at 78,432.

The actual pledge from the manifesto was: “We will maintain the size of the regular armed services and not reduce the army to below 82,000.”

But is that true?  The BBC seem very selective in their choice of figures…The MOD report quoted by the BBC actually says…..

As at 1 March 2017, the Tri-Service Full-time Trained Strength was 142,720. A Service breakdown is shown below in Table 3. Comparisons prior to October 2016 are not available for the Army because it is not possible to identify a split between Phase 1 and Phase 2 training prior to that.

Don’t know about you but a figure of 82,390 is higher than 82,000….isn’t it?

Or another figure from the same MOD publication…bearing in mind there are differences in how regulars are categorised in these reports…as to phase of training and trades and the inclusion of reservists who work and are contracted as regulars….

So again a figure for the regular army of more than 82,000….83,310 in fact…..

The BBC has chosen to quote this figure alone, 78,430……which is the figure only for fully trade trained soldiers…there are raw recruits, then those who have qualified as soldiers and then those who go on to do their specialist trade training….the figure here is of that last unique group and does not include those with no trade training and those still in basic training……

As at 1 March 2017, the FTTS (RN/RM & RAF) and FTTTS (Army) is 138,760, a decrease of 1.3 per cent (1,800 personnel) since 1 March 2016. Of this, the FTTS for the RN/RM is 29,480 , 30,850 for the RAF and the FTTTS [full time trade trained service]  is 78,430 for the Army.

The BBC has not taken into account the regular recruits still in training, trade or basic, and just uses the one figure that suits them to ‘prove’ the Tories failed to deliver on their manifesto and inteprets the manifesto comment in a similar vein.

The BBC’s fact check is deliberately misleading not making clear the differences between trained, trade trained and those in training and not including the figures for the total number of regulars including those still in training.

It tells us that….

  [The Army strength] currently stands at nearly 78,500 so that pledge has been broken.

Fake news.

Deep joy…

As a Harvard Law Student, Barack Obama Said Becoming Donald Trump Was The American Dream

In 1991, Obama, a 29-year-old soon-to-be Harvard Law School grad, wrote a paper with a friend, Robert Fisher, called “Race and Rights Rhetoric.” Obama summed up the average American’s mindset with the following sentence:

“[Americans have] a continuing normative commitment to the ideals of individual freedom and mobility, values that extend far beyond the issue of race in the American mind. The depth of this commitment may be summarily dismissed as the unfounded optimism of the average American—I may not be Donald Trump now, but just you wait; if I don’t make it, my children will.”

 

Privatisation has been a huge success….playing a critical and successful role in the economy.

The network is a victim of its own success.

Britain’s railways are the most improved in Europe

It was found to deliver good value for money.

We have the safest and fastest-growing railway in Europe.

According to a Eurobarometer poll, satisfaction with rail of UK respondents is the second highest in the EU, behind Finland. The poll found that average UK satisfaction over four different areas was 78%, ahead of France (74%), Germany (51%) and Italy (39%)

 

The BBC seems pretty keen on the re-nationalisation of the railways and far from taking a critical look at Corbyn’s claims actually tells us they are quite attractive and could possibly work well.

Trouble is…the rail system never was really privatised as such…the government pulled a fast one and kept control whilst generously allowing private companies to pay for the privilege of running a rail franchise and also having to invest heavily in it.  Corbyn however proposes we, the tax-payer, pay for everything.  Some moan about the paradox that companies owned by foreign governments are running British railways so why can’t the British government run them?  Hmmm…nice to have the French subsidise our railways no?  Corbyn has invented a ‘problem’ the answer to which only he has the key….but the ‘problem’ is just that, an invention.

Naturally everyone has forgotten or never knew what the old British Rail was like….and they don’t actually know what the privatised system is like…we just get fed tales of misery and failure which do not represent the truth in any way…consider that passenger numbers have leapt enormously…..a service so unpopular people just can’t stop using it?

‘Since privatisation began, passenger numbers have doubled to an average of 4.5 million per day.’

What’s the truth about the privatised rail network?

This is what Labour’s Lord Adonis said in 2009 when discussing the East Coast line [which ‘failed’ due to the recession…Labour’s recession] and the rail system as a whole….

Today’s events do not represent the failure of the system, but the failure of one company. The rail franchising system was examined by the National Audit Office last year. It was found to deliver good value for money.

In respect of rail services at large, they are steadily improving. Passenger numbers are at their highest levels since the 1940s, punctuality is over 90 per cent and overall passenger satisfaction is rising, as shown in the latest independent National Passenger Survey, published yesterday. Moreover, the revenue from rail franchises is enabling us to make record investment in upgrading the network and services on it.

So the franchise system is good value for money, services are improving with high passenger satisfaction and record investment.

What did the European Union say?

What did the Guardian say?

Forget the nostalgia for British Rail – our trains are better than ever

Passengers may be grumbling about the planned fare increases, but on balance rail privatisation has been a huge success.

As so often, conventional wisdom is wrong. For all the defects of a rushed privatisation, rail has evolved into a privately run public transport system playing a critical and successful role in the economy. The reality could hardly be more different to perception: passenger numbers booming, productivity rising, the number of services soaring, and customer satisfaction at near-record highs. Even those hated fare rises are not all they seem.

The Independent?

Britain’s railways doing well despite privatisation

As calls grow for renationalisation, 20 years on, our Travel Correspondent Simon Calder argues that the network is a victim of its own success.

It is easy to see why Jeremy Corbyn’s pledge to renationalise the railways has wide support, including from some Conservative voters.

Yet there is an intellectual disconnect between delays, overcrowding and fares. If enough passengers regarded tickets as punitively expensive and insufficiently reliable, they would switch to other modes of transport or simply stay at home. In fact, the main problem facing train operators is one that other industries would love to have: too many customers.

Since privatisation began, passenger numbers have doubled to an average of 4.5 million per day.

Mark Smith was station manager for the key London commuter stations of Charing Cross, London Bridge and Cannon Street in the early 1990s. “BR would make cutbacks to meet budgetary targets even if this reduced revenue and lost money overall,” he recalls.

Today, Mr Smith runs the seat61.com international rail website, and observes Britain performing significantly ahead of the European pack:

“We have the safest and fastest-growing railway in Europe. We’re re-opening stations and branch lines whilst France and others contemplate closures and cuts. We are revitalising our Caledonian and Cornish sleeper services whilst the Germans prepare to surrender all of theirs at the end of this year.

And the case for a bogus ‘nationalisation’ is?  This is political grandstanding of the highest order by Corbyn, an industrial-sized smoke and mirrors operation to buy votes….the ‘privatised’ railways are very successful and get high passenger satisfaction rates…and is not in reality ‘privatised’ anyway….so what benefit is there in carrying out a paper exercise of ‘re-nationalisation’ other than to fool and con the public into thinking there is a problem that Corbyn, with a bit of help from Marx, can solve?

BBC fact-checkers?  Where are you?

Consider this from Corbyn’s manifesto…

Labour will halt the NHS “Sustainability and Transformation Plans” which are looking at closing health services across England and ask local health groups to redraw the plans with a focus on patient need rather than available finances.

Corbyn is suggesting there will be absolutely no limit to spending on the NHS.  Any criticism from the BBC for that completely fanciful, not to mention dishonest and misleading, promise?  No.  A statement entirely in line with Labour’s philosophy…spend, spend, spend to buy votes regardless of the cost and the fact there is no money and that future generations will be paying for this largesse one way or the other…through higher taxes or austerity….been there, still doing that, due to the last Labour mis-government.

Ever get the impression that the BBC is playing  down Corbyn’s radical politics, his links to terrorism and anti-Semitism and the ruinous reality of his manifesto which seems to get a by from the BBC’s fact-checkers and is presented as if there was nothing at all really controversial in there….many of its promises actually getting promoted as being quite a good thing in fact and a rear-guard action seems to be being mounted to defend Corbyn and undermine attacks on him.

We are told that claims Corbyn will drag us back to the 70’s is so much nonsense from the right-wing Press and the Tory Party…and you know what, weren’t the 70’s in fact glorious, culturally inventive and significant…wasn’t it the period of civil disobedience when the People took power? [Hint hint….oh…er…not you nasty populist Brexiteers…you can bugger off!  Violent Occupiers, terrorists and radicals only thankyou]…and it was so much better.  This romancing of the 70’s, on the Today programme, was undoubtedly meant to illustrate that not only would going back to the 70’s be harmless but Commissar Corbyn would actually lead a people’s revolution, not only tranforming and energising the economy, politics and society but the Arts and the cultural world as well…brilliant!

The News Quiz curiously also came up with a similar line [any institutional editorial direction going on?] and then went on to blatantly provide what was a party political broadcast on behalf of Labour cheerleading Corbyn’s policies whilst slagging off the Tories.

May has come in for mass criticism and mocking for her ‘soft’ interview on the One Show and yet that was a BBC interview…so whose fault is it if there was little rigour…in fact there were some probing, political questions….the critics just chose to ignore them, and that was not the purpose of the interview anyway…it was a ‘get to know the person’ job.  We constantly hear that May is ducking questions and yet she will face the Public on Question Time and there will be many ‘hard’ interviews in the course of the next few weeks.  Having Corbyn and May lob questions at each other serves little purpose other than what would be a circus entertainment.  May would proobably wipe the floor with Corbyn anyway.

Emma Barnett brought on Harry Fletcher who once worked on Corbyn’s campaign team…she introduced him as having left that team because of the chaos it was in.  You may have thought you’d be getting an expose of the Corbyn chaos….but not a bit of it because this was not at all true.  Fletcher told us he left because he was working as an unpaid volunteer and he was offered a paid job elsewhere.  He went on to say that Corbyn’s policies were pretty good and that he would be voting for him.  So yet more pro-Corbyn cheerleading slipped in under the radar.  Barnett then read out [to prove how much of a fearless journo she is] an email she’d received from a pro-Corbyn supporter who complained of  BBC ‘bias’ putting on such a critic of Corbyn.  Barnett said it was a good day when she was attacked by both sides….she then knew she was doing something right.  Well no, not really…this was a very obvious pro-Corbyn piece, policies great, will vote for him… so just because a Corbynista claims bias where there is none [none that is anti-Corbyn that is] doesn’t mean she has it right…it just means the Corbynista is an idiot or is part of the Corbynista’s campaign to intimidate the BBC with a barrage of complaints….a useful idiot.

What about the railways and renationalisation?  The BBC is actually pretty keen and sees little problem…

Renationalising actually happens from time to time anyway. The East Coast Main Line spent several years in public ownership after it was handed back to the government by National Express in 2009, before being privatised again in 2015.

It performed pretty well in public hands. It paid nearly £1bn in fees to the government and still managed to make a profit for the Treasury, while carrying more passengers and getting good passenger satisfaction scores. So there is some evidence that repeating that exercise each time a current rail franchise expires could work.

However all is definitely not what we are being told….the past is buried, the present is not understood and the future is a political football.  But more of that in the next post as this post is long enough.

This is the view of the BBC on Muslims in the UK…

Male, Muslim and marginalised

Mahtab Hussain’s photographic portraits of Muslim men in the UK explore complex themes of identity and marginalisation.

He says Muslim men in Britain have had a “plethora of labels” thrown on them, from terrorist to sexual groomer, and that they are struggling to find their place in society.

The problem, as the BBC sees it, is the way we look at them.…but the reality is that the problem is the way they look at us…through the distorting prism of the Koran.

The BBC though at least is admitting there is a problem with Muslim integration, they just refuse to admit the real cause…..and the real consequences of that…Douglas Murray is more honest and open…however even he won’t admit that the answer is a hardcore non-immigration policy…we recently looked at Murray’s latest book,  The Strange Death of Europe,  here...

What has been one of the major news stories today, one that the BBC has been giving priority to throughout the day?

BBC cameraman run down by Corbyn perhaps?  Well nothing that exciting.  Labour’s deputy leader, Tom Watson, has been in the Guardian revealing the bombshell news that Labour might get beaten in the coming election..and beaten by a landslide.  What’s new, what’s news, about that?  Nothing.  However the BBC has been giving his words almost top billing all day so far telling us that ‘Tom Watson has warned of a Tory landslide’.

The BBC’s choice of word is interesting…’warned’…why did the BBC choose that loaded word instead of saying Tom Watson claims or states or predicts that the Tories will win by a landslide?  ‘Warned’ is alarmist, it says a Tory ‘landslide’ is a bad thing…something that needs to be warned of.

And why is the BBC giving such a nothing story such a  high profile?  Watson is clearly giving out a message here and it’s not at all subtle or missable…he’s ‘warning’ of a Tory landslide in the hope that disenchanted Labour voters will put aside their dislike of Corbyn and rally to the Party’s aid if not to win then at least to reduce the Tory majority.

The BBC must know that…so you have to ask why they have been pumping out what is obvious Labour propaganda all day?

And if you think that’s a very cynical and suspicious view of the BBC then listen to what Nick Robinson said this morning [yes he’s still around if not on the election team]…

‘Now you might think predicting Labour can’t win is a bit of Right-wing propaganda but of course this morning we’ve been reminded that some in the Labour Party, not least the deputy leader, Tom Watson, want to get that message out because they think warnings of a Tory landslide are the best way to bring their voters back home.’ [to Labour]

Nick Robinson dobs in his own side….caught red-handed filling the airwaves with Labour spin.  Let’s get that message out luvvies…champers on ice for the big win!!!!

Nick Robinson has allegedly been sidelined by the BBC for this election in favour of younger presenters…he’s not happy…

Veteran star Nick Robinson, 53, at war with BBC bosses as he’s left off General Election team in favour of young female stars

VETERAN presenter Nick Robinson is at war with BBC bosses after being left out of the election team.

Young stars Steph McGovern, 34, and Tina Daheley, 36, have key presenting roles instead.

Former political editor Nick, 53, hosts Radio 4’s Today show and has been part of the BBC’s election coverage since 2001.

He has demanded a meeting with Jonathan Munro, the head of newsgathering, and James Harding, the director of news and current affairs.

A source said: “Nick is really unhappy and downright confused. He wasn’t told in advance and only discovered when the line-up was announced earlier this week.

“He fired off a furious email to Jonathan to voice his disappointment. Nick also has serious questions about his future at the BBC.

“It’s very likely bosses wanted to try out younger talent and make their election line-up more diverse.

“It’s bonkers. Nick is the best political voice we have.” [lol]

Maybe the bosses just thought Nick was not firing on all cylinders these days as we’ve pointed out on these pages many a time…and he seems just a little bit biased on many occasions….no doubt his recent rambling defence of the BBC didn’t help as it stirred up even more controversy.  Maybe Kuenssberg should be given a rest as well….certainly stopped from giving us her ‘informed’ opinion.  The facts will do nicely, I can make up my own mind about how to interpret them thanks.

Can’t say I’d miss him if he is sidelined…his interviews never seem to hit the spot and often appear more about point scoring than informing.

The weekend approaches and so we need a new Open Thread to see us off into the wide blue yonder! Detail the hateful BIAS of the BBC here!

What world does Katty Kay live in?  Her own little personal post-truth bubble presumably.  Why did Trump sack Comey?  Because Trump is a thin-skinnned, grumpy, crazy, old man.

Is Trump’s thin skin getting in the way of his presidency?

What if the Comey firing is nothing to do with the Russia probe or the Clinton email server but is actually just a result of the president’s thin-skinned character?

And would that be more or less alarming than Comey being fired in order to impede the Russia investigation, which is the case Democrats are making this week?

New reporting from the Washington Post, and other US media outlets, which are the recipients of a huge amount of leaks this week, suggest Mr Trump was upset by the Comey testimony at the Senate last week.

Oh the Washington Post…the rabidly anti-Trump Washington Post?

Hmmm…er….wasn’t the actual reason that Comey misled Congress …a fact the BBC knows about but other than this one mention refuses to admit is the given reason for the sacking…

The move came as it emerged Mr Comey gave inaccurate information to Congress last week about Mrs Clinton’s emails.

The Telegraph reports the true reason for the sacking…

James Comey ‘gave wrong information’ to Congress in his testimony about Hillary Clinton’s aides emails

How is it that Katty Kay misses that and goes off on a tangent invented by the Washington Post?

Kay goes on kattily…

But is being thin-skinned now getting in the way of his ability to do his job effectively? The sacking of James Comey might be evidence of that.

Mr Trump hated what he heard in Mr Comey’s testimony. It made him angry, he felt disparaged and he hit back. This, we understand, was Mr Trump’s MO as a business man.

But the scale now is far larger and he hit back in a way that undermines his credibility (because the story is not straight) and diminishes trust in the institutions of government.

It may simply be about Mr Trump’s personality. He doesn’t forgive grudges and feels somehow unfairly treated. Then he acts fast, sometimes impulsively, especially when he’s angry.

At 70 years old, his character is unlikely to change.

If the firing of Mr Comey is an example, it’s not a good sign for long-term stability in this White House.

So desperate to spread this slanderous tripe that she even sidelines the claim that Trump is in league with the Russians.  Bizarre stuff from KK.