Today leapt upon a stupid mistake in a Fox News interview (17 mins 15 secs) when a ‘terrorism expert’ claimed Birmingham was a no-go area for non-Muslims.

Following the terror attacks in France, Fox News interviewed Steve Emerson, who describes himself as a “terrorism expert”. During the interview, Mr Emerson claimed that Birmingham is “totally Muslim” and non-Muslims “simply don’t go in” to the city. This resulted in a comic backlash on Twitter, with users expressing their outrage and disbelief at Mr Emerson’s words. People began tweeting satirical comments about an Islamic Birmingham / Britain, using the hashtag #foxnewsfacts. Emerson later apologised for the gaffe.

 

Emerson said he had relied upon sources of information that proved wrong.

Of course if this had been on one of the liberal TV news stations in the US nothing would have been said.

Hilariously Naughtie told us that BBC comedian (apparently they exist) Mitch Benn, from the Fast Show, had tweeted something rather funny about this.

Trouble is, Benn is from the Now Show.

Guess everyone can get things wrong occasionally.

Islam being the religion of peace you understand, or so the BBC keeps reporting.

Jews And Muslims United Against Hate!….Well only in the BBC’s mind.

David revealed the film of BBC journo Tim Wilcox suggesting that it was perhaps OK that Jews were being killed in France because the Jews, not Israelis note, were killing Palestinians…presumably he thought the deaths were somehow equivalent…cold blooded murder of Jews compared with accidental deaths caused in battle with a huge terrorist organisation that has deliberately targeted Jewish civilians for decades...731 civlians being killed in 4 years between 2001 and 2005…Woman shot on her way to work…Teenager shot…School teacher and driver shot on the way to work…Man and his wife shot dead by Palestinian snipers…Two abducted and executed…Woman stabbed to death….Pregnant woman shot…Five teenagers shot…and so on….mostly ignored by the BBC which repeatedly lists Palestinian casualty figures.

Would Wilcox go up to the relatives of a victim of 7/7 and suggest they stop complaining as Muslims were being killed in Iraq…mostly by other Muslims?

Come to think of it that is precisely the message the BBC has been pushing these last 10 years….’blowback’.

Here is an interesting interview  (18:41) with a Jewish community representative by Tony Livesey in which, starting off wth the inevitable ‘no proof that the supermarket was deliberately targeted because it was Jewish’ comment,  he seemed less than sympathetic, or at least markedly less gushing than we get from BBC interviews with Muslims complaining of ‘Islamophobia’.

Livesey interrupts the woman’s reply as she tells us that Jews aren’t the only targets of terrorism…the French way of life, democratic values are also under attack.

Livesey suggests that ‘one of the main concerns’ is that people will look at Muslims as if they are all extremists and look at Muslims with a sense of fear when really it is a case of radicalisation…of a small percentage….thereby ignoring and dismissing non-violent ‘conservative’ Muslim attempts to impose their values on Western countries…case in point the ‘Trojan Horse’ plot….essentially a devious plot to put into action an MCB plan to Islamise schools in the UK…the MCB representing over 500 British Muslim groups…so not unrepresentative you might suggest.

Livesey then tries to say that ‘Jewishness’ or religion in this context is unimportant…why can’t the woman just say she is French?

She says she talks of ‘French Jews’ because that is who is being targeted by anti-Semites….

Jews aren’t being targeted because they are ‘French’…but because they are Jewish….curious how the BBC wants to deny the religious aspect to their identity and the reason for them being attacked.

Here’s another BBC report that tries to deny the religious aspect…but in a different way….here making out there is little difference between Jews and Muslims.

The Today programme this morning (07:44) when Matthew Price had an intriguing little report that told a big lie about ‘important issues that had to be addressed’…..it told us Jews were fleeing France because of persecution, though the BBC refrained from telling us who was doing the persecuting….they then went on to tell us Muslims were also living in fear in France….the unspoken implication being that it was the ‘Far Right’ doing the fear mongering.

Curious remark from Price about the ‘well to do’ Jews.

So there we have it…both the Jews and Muslims are living in fear….the two are the same.  United in their fear.

Only that’s not true.

Who is the main persecutor of the Jews?  Muslims….and not just in France…the BBC is extremely reluctant to report on the pogroms in Sweden.

Who is the main persecutor of Muslims?…assuming they are being ‘persecuted’…it’s not the Jews that’s for certain.

Here’s the thing…the Jews are being persecuted, shot and killed, for being ‘Jewish’.  Jews are not terrorists roaming around France killing people who criticise their religion or who don’t believe their religion.

Muslims are being ‘persecuted’, because some Muslims, in the name of their religion and to further its interests, have launched many deadly terrorist attacks on Jews and on the very basis of the ‘West’…democracy and free speech.  And not just ‘terrorist’ attacks but increasingly political and social attacks on French society and culture pressuring France to adopt Muslim values and practises.

To make out that the persecution of the Jews and the persecution of Muslims is in any way comparable when it is Muslims persecuting the Jews is a perversion of the truth.  Attacking Muslims who are innocently going about their business is utterly contemptible but for the BBC to hide the fact that Jews are attacked by Muslims is dangerously dishonest and is a deliberate twisting of the truth for political reasons….and is indeed adopting the narrative that the Islamists, such as Tariq Ramadan, want to be used.

Note that this strategy, of making false comparisons between two groups in order to give Muslim ‘suffering’ some credibility is one used by that other ‘master of deception‘ Mehdi ‘Media’ Hasan…..

The truth is that Islamophobia and homophobia have much in common: they are both, in the words of the (gay) journalist Patrick Strudwick, “at least partly fuelled by fear. Fear of the unknown . . .” Muslims and gay people alike are victims of this fear – especially when it translates into hate speech or physical attacks. We need to stand side by side against the bigots and hate-mongers, whether of the Islamist or the far-right variety, rather than turn on one another or allow ourselves to be pitted against each other, “Muslims v gays”.

Trouble is it isn’t just the ‘Islamists’ who are ‘bigoted hatemongers’…..

0% thought that homosexuality was morally acceptable

Not a single British Muslim said homosexuality was morally acceptable, compared to 58 per cent of the general public who believed it was.

 

 

No holding back from Marr asking awkward question to Miliband…Did he use the word ‘weaponise’ in relation to the NHS?

Miliband refused to answer, saying somewhat surprisingly in an interview that ‘This isn’t about the words we use…’.  I’m sure the televised debates will be fascinating without the correct words in the right place.

What’s interesting is that the BBC has been holding ‘secret’ meetings with, presumably, all the political parties….which ones we don’t know…well, we know they had one with Miliband….

Ed Miliband said he wanted to ‘weaponise’ NHS in secret meeting with BBC executives

Ed Miliband has come under pressure to admit that he plotted to “weaponise” the NHS as an election issue after it emerged he secretly briefed up to 15 executives at the BBC over his plans, The Telegraph can disclose.

Just a little tale in praise of the NHS….something the BBC doesn’t tell you about….we hear of the 7.4% who don’t get treated within 4 hours at A&E but what of the 92.6% who do?

My neighbour felt some chest pain during Friday night.  111 was called and as he was feeling relatively OK they sent paramedics only first thing in the morning.

Taken to hospital for a thorough check up he then had a more serious attack and needed an operation.  He was moved to another hospital to have that…successfully.  Amazingly he is due out and back home on Tuesday.

So even during this ‘crisis’ in the NHS they still manage to do the business and do it quickly when urgency is required.

Perhaps the BBC should stop putting so much emphasis on the relatively small things that go wrong and look at what goes right as millions of people are treated and go home happy and fit.

Birds of a feather……Jon Donnison thinks this is superb journalism from the great James O’Brien, the man who ‘masterminded’ the kangaroo court for Nigel Farage…..

Superb MT @AudreyCarville A masterclass in how to deal with people demanding Muslims apologise for #Charliehebdo http://t.co/ujJzB3csF8”

— Jon Donnison (@jondonnisonbbc) January 10, 2015

If that’s what Donnison calls a masterclass in journalism…well compared to his I guess it might be.

O’Brien is his usual smug, intolerant, incoherent and illogical self….very amusing to hear him as he preens and puffs himself up as the intellectual giant in the conversation.  Sure the other guy is lost for words but then he’s an amateur not a ‘master’ of the medium as O’Brien is, well practised in dissembling and aggressive obfuscation.

Supposedly a journalist would be trying to encourage a caller to articulate what they mean, helping them make their point.  O’Brien in contrast thinks it is his job, if you have views he doesn’t like, to belittle you and say things of such monumental stupidity that they stun you into a confused silence as you try to work out if O’Brien is really that stupid or is just acting the prat.

The caller suggested that perhaps Muslims as a ‘community’ should apologise for the terrorism in France done in the name of their religion.

O’Brien thinks not.

O’Brien makes a bizarre comparison and asks if all Geordies should apologise for something done by a Geordie, or, as the caller is called Richard, all ‘Richards’ should apologise for the shoebomber Richard Reid.

The caller seemed flummoxed…but that didn’t make him wrong of course, just startled and tongue-tied by O’Brien’s outlandish kookiness.  O’Brien does what the BBC does all the time, ignore the ideology that the people follow and assume being a Muslim is just the same as being White  for instance…..purely a feature of your physical identity with no ideology behind it, Islam being a ‘race’.  Such a progressive intellect as O’Brien would surely recognise that skin colour cannot be used as an identifier of a person’s thoughts, actions or beliefs…such profiling is racist…but an ideology might,  just might, indicate your beliefs and thereby your actions.

Being a Muslim is of course somewhat more meaningful than having a particular skin colour…there are rules.  Don’t follow them and you’re not a Muslim.  Follow them and you are.

Which brings us to the point…should Muslims apologise?

They choose to be Muslim, they choose to follow a religion that has some very obvious and unpleasant beliefs that fly in the face of a secular, democratic, liberal, progressive society.

Do they do anything to change that religion?

If not then perhaps they should apologise for what is done in their religion’s name using commands that come from the Koran itself.

They should perhaps acknowledge the problems inherent in their religion and spell out exactly what they are doing to change it.

When so many Mosques are known to be the source of so much ‘radicalisation’, otherwise known as following the fundamentals of your religion, and do so by quoting from the Koran and Hadith, the touchstones of Islam, then there is a problem.

If everytime someone criticises Islam and Muslims set up a hue and cry declaiming about Islamophia they are defending that status quo…and so should not complain when people say hang on, you’re defending the very verses and beliefs that are being used to give divine sanction to those who terrorise us….any wonder people might argue that Muslims should feel embarrassed by their religion and might consider apologising for acts done in order to further its interests…..especially when so many of those Muslims would be happy to take advantage of the benefits that come their way as a result of the terrorism as the politicians crumble and start making concessions to their religion… politically, socially and legally?

Happy to take the benefits reaped from terror but not the responsibility for the wrongs.

Some might say.

Interesting as well that O’Brien, for the purposes of his argument, has decided that there is no such thing as an overarching ‘Muslim community’.  Funny how, when it suits, ‘Muslims’ are offended and insulted by cartoons…and ‘Muslims’ must be protected from Islamophobic attacks.

So ‘Muslims’ have no need to apologise, but ‘Muslims’ can be offended as a group?

The Metropolitan Police were labelled ‘institutionally racist’….why then is it not conceivable that Islam can be labelled ‘Institutionally’ a system of beliefs that creates the necessary mindsets that  encourage acts of terror, or anti-Semitism or homophobia or misogyny?  Not all police officers, hardly any in fact, will be racist, and yet they were so labelled.  Hardly any Muslims are terrorists and yet……O’Brien would be outraged by the suggestion that Islam is institutionally terrorist, I suspect not so outraged about the police being labelled racist.

Guess this was just another ‘job interview’ for the BBC…I think he will have passed….sure to be appearing on Newsnight once again very soon.

Apologise?  Who knows, but you could make a case for it, a better case than for not apologising….not responsible for the terrorist’s actions but responsible for upholding the teachings and beliefs that give sanction to their terrorism?  But you have the problem of the lip-service Muslims, the cultural Muslims, the semi-practising Muslims.  Just how Muslim would you have to be?

Best let sleeping dogs lie…however I profusely apologise for slavery (only practised by whitey), Christian sex abuse scandals, the potato famine, colonialism and One Direction….oh and not forgetting global warming!

Jon Donnison….in OZ but still reporting the same old pro-Islamist schtick.

Did he have anything to do with is?

A Muslim’s ambush: how I was stitched up by Australian breakfast TV

Guess he could get a job on Oz tv anyday, fit right in stitching up Israelis and pro-Israeli Muslims.

Not much sympathy on his Twitter feed for the dead in France…in fact he prefers the narrative that slippery Islamists like Tariq Ramadan are peddling…..ignore the attack on Charlie Hebdo because there are worse things in the world…mostly happening to Muslims.

Donnison tweets this:

Which is ironic really as the BBC has spent years ignoring the Islamist Boko Haram and the plight of Christians around the world, or excusing their violence as a reaction against perfidious Western influences….nothing to do with Islam.

You have to laugh, never mind the West’s favourite Islamist, good old Tariq, what about this retweet from Donnison…blatant if nothing else….

And then there’s this:

Presumably Donnison’s Twitter account is about to be hacked and closed down then?

Something to leaven the BBC Islamist propaganda.

From Standpoint magazine in 2011.

Mole Special: A Stranger in My Own Land

‘I have just returned to London, where I have lived since I was 11. I have been away for four years, living as an ethnic minority in a monocultural part of the world, amassing a host of stories to tell to disbelieving friends. On the whole, I am glad to return. I shan’t miss some locals’ assumptions that, being a white woman, if I was outside after dark, as I occasionally was, usually to walk the few metres between my house and the church, I must be a prostitute eager to give them a blow job. I shan’t miss the abuse my priest husband received: the daubing of “Dirty white dogs” in red paint on the church door, the barrage of stones thrown at him by children shouting “Satan”. He was called a “f***ing white bastard” more than once, though, notably, never when in a cassock. I will also not miss the way our garden acted as the local rubbish dump, with items ranging from duvets and TV sets, to rats (dead or twitching) glued to cardboard strips, a popular local method of vermin control to stem the large numbers of them which scuttled between the rubbish piled in gardens and on pavements. Yes, I am very glad to have left Britain’s second city.

For four years, we lived in inner-city Birmingham, in what has been a police no-go area for 20 years. We know that because some plain-clothed cops told us when they asked to use our vicarage as a stake-out to bust drugs rings that pervade the area. Having heard a parishioner’s tales of what his neighbours did to him when he was wrongfully suspected of having grassed up a cock-fighting ring, we refused, explaining that we had to live here, they didn’t. Even during this time we saw the area change. When we arrived, the population was predominantly Pakistani. Now Somalis are there in equal number. Most of the run-down Irish pubs were turned into mosques during our time.

As a woman, it was difficult for me to gain many first-hand impressions of the Muslims. I was generally ignored by both men and women, and on the rare occasion that I had to interact, when for example a car was parked illegally and blocking my gate, I was addressed as if inconsequential. My husband, however, faithfully reported conversations which you may find somewhat alarming. One of our favourite dinner-party pieces is this: opposite our vicarage there is a “library” which has some computers, some burkas and occasionally tracts that say offensive things about Jews and Christians. My husband did his photo-copying there, and got on rather well with everybody. One day he was chatting to a man with a passing resemblance to Lawrence of Arabia, who had just arrived from Antwerp — one of an increasing number of Muslims who are arriving here with EU passports. He asked him why he had come to Birmingham. He was surprised at the question: “Everybody know. Birmingham — best place in Europe to be pure Muslim.” Well, there must be many places in Europe where Muslims are entirely free to practise their faith, but I suspect there are few places in which they can have so little contact with the civic and legal structure of a Western state if they choose. It seems to be particularly easy to “disappear” if that is their intention. A parishioner once described a lorry pulling up outside his house, the side opening to reveal stacked mattresses full of sleepy, and presumably illegal, immigrants, who staggered out into broad Brummie daylight. We heard tales of how houses are exchanged for cash payments in our area. An untaxed car was once clamped by a frightened-looking official at 8am, but within hours the owner of the vehicle had organised the clamps to be sawn off, and he sped away.

Another instance of separation from the Western world is revealed in the following: my husband frequently chatted to a neighbour who could be described as one of the more questioning Muslims, and who has often provided an insight into the locals’ mindset. Even this man, however, believes what the whole community thinks: the 9/11 planes were organised by Jews. Everybody knows there were no Jewish people in the World Trade Centre that day, as they had been tipped off. Oh, and the Mumbai terrorists had been kidnapped and brainwashed by Indian people. The tendency towards denial is strong. When my husband mentioned the “dirty white dogs” graffiti to a local Muslim, the response was, “One of your people did it.” I have to say that the police’s response was no better when the local Methodists complained about the same thing. They chose not to believe it had happened, since we had removed all sign of it with the buckets of anti-graffiti chemicals we had stocked since we arrived. They asked, somewhat pathetically: “Are you sure it was racist?”

To a London reader, born and bred with multiculturalism, I know that my stories may come across as outlandish and exaggerated, and that I must surely be a BNP voter — I have observed people’s expressions as they have listened to my tales of life in Brum. When I recently told a friend how a large Taliban flag fluttered gaily on a house near St Andrew’s football stadium for some months, her cry of “Can’t you tell the police?” made me reflect how far many of our inner cities have been abandoned by our key workers: our doctors and nurses drive in from afar, the police, as mentioned before, have shut down their stations and never venture in unless in extremis — they and ambulance crews have been known to be attacked — even the local Imam lives in a leafier area.

Only the priest remains, if you can get one — the thriving but clerically-vacant church down the road has had no applicant in two years. In their absence, we get stabbings that never make the news, dog- and cock-fighting rings, cars torched as pranks and cars used for peddling heroin. (One of the more amusing moments of our time came when a local lad provided one reason people often gave us stares when we drove past such deals: “Two white people wearing seatbelts — you’ve got to be cops.”) In their absence, we simply have the witness of those who are unlikely to be heard, who, through a variety of unfortunate circumstances, have not been able to move out: the elderly, the infirm, the illiterate, the chronically poor. Indeed, some of the Muslim residents deeply regret the flight of the non-Muslim population. It is they who now have to live in a crime-ridden ghetto.

On holiday in Germany recently, we watched a TV documentary about how schools were coping with Essen’s growing Muslim community, and how the community itself felt. When it was over, we turned to each other, and said simultaneously (a drawback of having been married for a while), “This could not have been made in Britain.” At the moment, also in Germany, the whole country is debating Thilo Sarrazin’s controversial book Deutschland schafft sich ab (“Germany abolishes itself”), in which the author — a former member of the board of the Bundesbank and the German Social Democrats — examines research about immigrant communities and then makes specific recommendations about the integration of the Muslim community. I have only seen scant reference to this in the British press, which usually dismisses it, wrongly and lazily in my view, as good old German racism. This has nothing whatsoever to do with race. The Muslim community in Birmingham, for instance, is made up of people from many continents and races, including Afghans, Yemenis, Pakistanis, Indians and Somalis.

There is no doubt in my mind that we need to have the same openness in discussing what is happening to many cities in Britain. If current demographic trends continue over the next few decades, the West Midlands, as well as other parts of the country, will become a predominantly Muslim area. Much more needs to be done to integrate the communities among whom I lived, and we need to be much less negligent of our own values too. Frankly, if we happened to walk down Broad Street on a Friday night, where mobs of identically undressed and mostly aesthetically unpleasing gals and lads were on the piss and pull, it was almost a relief to drive back to our ghetto enclave.

It is time to rub the rime from our eyes and to look clearly at the shape of Britain today. Everyone living here needs to be able to talk about what they see, without the lazy or fearful, but certainly paralysing, accusation of racism. Only then will we be able to discern what is best for the future.’

What is best for the future?

A good question.

When reason sleeps monsters appear

The Islamists are winning.

Who is helping them in their quest to Islamise Europe?  The BBC.

Historian Sir Alan Bullock said that ” One lesson well understood in both Stalin’s Russia and Nazi Germany was that propaganda is most effective when it is backed by terror”.

Today he would have included the Islamists in that group.

It isn’t just terrorists who know that of course but here’s their calculation…they want to spread Islam and do so by setting bombs to go off, killing and injuring hundreds in a European capital or they shoot high profile targets for maximum shock value and they know, on past experience, that the immediate reaction is not to place the blame where it belongs but for Liberal Europe to turn upon itself, blaming its treatment of Muslims within its borders as sufficient justification for mass murder.

The Liberals excuse cold blooded mass murder because someone was apparently unemployed or in a low status job, they were ‘disenfranchised’, alienated, disaffected, ignored and demeaned as John Simpson once claimed.  (Never mind European countries were rated the best places in the world to practise their religion!)

Don’t like your job stacking shelves at a supermarket?  Kill all the staff.  Preferably at a Jewish supermarket. It’s OK…the BBC will smooth things over and blame the staff.

As I said it isn’t just the terrorist who knows that calculation, Muslim activists are fully aware of the potential for making such ‘tragedies’ into momentum for more Islamic ‘freedom of religion’.

And they know where they can get a sympathetic, uncritical shoulder to cry on whenever they want in any BBC studio up and down the land.  Who needs a Mosque when you have the new religion of the Media at your beck and call to spread the word?

The Islamic activists know that to cry that they are the real victims of these attacks, that Muslims are being set upon and Mosques attacked, tugs at the BBC heart strings and all reason and thought goes out the window.

This morning on the BBC’s ‘Sunday’ we had just that….the answer to terrorists who want to Islamise Europe is to have more Islam….to Islamise Europe.  Ed Staunton nodded along in happy agreement.

The BBC is in effect in bed with the terrorists, they produce propaganda that no amount of money could buy….and for the terrorists the price is low, a few bullets, a few dead cartoonists, a few dead Jews.  The price for everyone else is much much higher.  Two thousand years of civilisation being put to the torch.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

The BBC and those who guard those freedoms aren’t alseep but choose to deliberately ignore the real course and cause of events….the BBC is betraying the very values it is supposed to cherish and protect, instead propagandising for a ruthless medieval, backward, ideology that won’t stop until it has won and doesn’t care who has to die in order for them to win.

Is Labour Shadow health Minister, Andy Burnham a liar or just delusional?  Perhaps he should see a doctor.

Hitchinbrooke Hospital was privatised and the company that took it over has now decided to do a runner and hand it back to the nation.

This, as Labour tells us, is evidence that privatisation does not work and has been the cause of the ruination of this hospital.

The BBC finds little to disagree with in that claim.

Here is their report on the matter:

Hinchingbrooke Hospital: Circle to withdraw from contract

What’s curious is that there is absolutely no mention that it was the Labour government that privatised the hospital.  They tell us that ‘Circle took on Hinchingbrooke in early 2012, as it faced closure. ‘  which puts the blame squarely at the Coalition’s door.  The closest they get to even hinting that the process might have started earlier is this ‘….the idea of the contract started being discussed in 2009‘  which is a statement from which you could garner very little, there being no sign of who was responsible for initiating the contract talks, i.e the Labour ‘We’ll never privatise the NHS’ party.

The BBC goes on to report this with a straight face:

Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary, said: “Patients who rely on Hinchingbrooke will be worried about their hospital following this announcement.

“It was the decision of the coalition in November 2011 to appoint Circle and they must take responsibility for this mess.

“The government were explicitly warned two years ago about the risky business model Circle were operating, but failed to take any action.”

Today on 5Live at around 13:30 (the programme is unusually unavailable at present)  Burnham came on.

Now normally when a Tory minister is on he gets the third degree.  He is immediately put on the defensive by the first question which is usually highly aggressive.

The usual format is for the BBC interviewer to set out an entirely negative view of a government policy and demand the minister then explain why everything is so bad.

The minister has to then deny things are as bad as claimed by the BBC, then explain what is actually happening and then defend their policy.

Today, with a Labour politician it was different.  What did the BBC presenter ask?  This is the hard hitting question…..‘What do you think about what happened?’  [In relation to Hitchinbrooke]

Now that is not even a question in reality, merely an invitation to say pretty much what you please and fill the airwaves with your own, very one sided, view of events….as indeed is exactly what happened.

Burnham informed us that this had nothing to do with him, he had ‘inherited the mess’.  He also warned people that it was likely to be a failure and didn’t want private companies involved anyway.

The BBC presenter did indeed mention Labour’s role in the farce but didn’t challenge Burnham’s rhetoric.

As we know from the above Burnham stated that “It was the decision of the coalition in November 2011 to appoint Circle and they must take responsibility for this mess.”

Just how true is that?  The BBC could have delved a bit further but haven’t bothered.  When the BBC’s own Norman Smith tells us that the argument about the NHS will have ‘huge political ramifications’ you have to ask why they are not more conscientious in their investigations and reporting.

Firstly why did the hospital end up being privatised?

This process started in 2009. At that time, Hinchingbrooke was failing financially and was the most indebted trust in the NHS, having built up debts of £40 million (almost half of the hospital’s £100 million turnover).

So when Labour and the unions claim privatisation will destroy the NHS how do they explain the fact that Hitchinbrooke NHS hospital  was about to close?  Never mind the events at Stafford.

Who started the process of privatisation?

This led to a decision by the East of England Strategic Health Authority (SHA) and then Health Secretary Andy Burnham to put the hospital out to tender and allow another organisation to take it over, a decision enabled by legislation passed in 2001 and 2006.

Oh..that’ll be Andy ‘not me guv!!!’ Burnham.

Now Burnham may be guilty of more porkies.  Here he is earlier this year:

‘The contract for Hinchingbrooke hospital was signed under the Coalition, and when the previous Government left office there was still an NHS bidder in the competition.’

Trouble is there wasn’t…even the BBC tells us this in February 2010 (pre-election):

Hinchingbrooke NHS hospital poised to be privately run

A failing hospital looks set to become the first of its kind to be run by a private firm, after the only NHS bidder withdrew from the race to manage it.

And then there’s this:

Tory MP Stewart Jackson then followed that up with another point of order arguing that ‘on 27 March 2010, The Times recorded that he [Burnham] had signed the agreement to restrict the number of providers to just three, in the private sector’.

So there were no NHS bidders left in the race when Burnham was still in office….though Peterborough NHS Trust was still in partnership with Serco.

Why did all the NHS bidders drop out? Here’s a clue:

Earlier this week Cambridge University Hospitals Trust withdrew from the race to run the large, debt-ridden hospital in Huntingdon from April 2011.

A spokesman for the Trust said: “The competitive bidding process will involve considerable investment in both time and money.

So the bidding process was too expensive and time consuming.  Who created such a complictaed and expensive process that led to bidders dropping out?  The Labour government.

So why were all the bidders private companies?  Because Labour made a huge mess of the bidding process.

Burnahm is claiming that ‘If the NHS stays on its current course it will be sunk by a toxic mix of cuts and privatisation.’

But as we know he wanted to cut the NHS budget because in 2010 the same Andy Burnham in an interview with the New Statesman said:

Burnham:  Cameron’s been saying it every week in the Commons: “Oh, the shadow health secretary wants to spend less on health than us.”

NS:  Which is true, isn’t it?

Burnham:  Yes, it is true, but that’s my point.

And as for privatisation……

What did Labour say in its 2010 manifesto, when Burnham was still Health Minister?….bearing in mind that Labour complains loudly that just the act of reforming the NHS is problematic….

‘We will continue to press ahead with bold NHS reforms. All hospitals will become Foundation Trusts, with successful FTs given the support and incentives to take over those that are under-performing. Failing hospitals will have their management replaced. Foundation Trusts will be given the freedom to expand their provision into primary and community care, and to increase their private services – where these are consistent with NHS values, and provided they generate surpluses that are invested directly into the NHS.
We will support an active role for the independent sector working alongside the NHS in the provision of care, particularly where they bring innovation – such as in end-of-life care and cancer services, and increase capacity. ‘
Where changes are needed, we will be fair to NHS services and staff and give them a chance to improve, but where they fail to do so we will look to alternative provision.

Burnham was Health Secretary when the Manifeso was drawn up and he must have agreed with it and signed it off.  He cannot now claim he had no desire to privatise many areas of the NHS when the manifesto clearly states that Labour were happy to do this.

Where is the BBC analysis of all this when it is at the heart of the election?

The 5Live ‘interview’ with Burnham had ended after his free ranging promotional broadcast and the BBC went on to look at A&E.  At the end of the piece we find that Burnham has managed to hang on for nearly 10 minutes and is ‘willing’ to have a say on this subject.

The BBC man asks how we can get people out of hospitals quicker so as to free up beds.

Burnham takes his cue and claims that this is the ‘root cause of the crisis in A&E’…..lack of care in the community for patients who don’t need treatment but are not fit to go home and look after themselves…naturally government cuts were to blame for the lack of care facitilities.

The BBC’s Warburton didn’t say a word to challenge that claim…never mind that just minutes earlier we had been told that hospital management were not processing and filtering patients adequately and that if they had of done the ‘crisis’ in A&E wouldn’t have happened…..not forgetting of course that there is an ‘unprecedented number’ of patients coming to A&E and maybe one third of those don not actually need to be there.

We don’t seem to be getting the full picture on the NHS from the BBC.  The BBC in fact seem to be doing all it can to hide Labour’s guilty little secrets and exaggerate the Coalition’s problems.

When they fail to mention Labour at all in a report on privatising an NHS hospital, a process in which Labour was intimately involved you have to ask questions about what is going on at the BBC.

For example as we previously noted, this is how the BBC reported on Stafford:

This  BBC report makes not a mention of Labour or a Labour politician…however it does say:

‘In response to the inquiry, Prime Minister David Cameron apologised for the “truly dreadful” mistreatment and neglect.’

 

That gives you the impression Cameron and Co were to blame for Stafford.

The BBC also gives the impression that the Tories were to blame for the building of a new, overly expensive hospital in Peterborough but this from the Independent gives us the truth:

‘A hospital now losing £44m a year was allowed to go ahead with a private finance deal to build new premises despite the Government being warned that the project was unsustainable.’

‘It is embarrassing for Labour because, at the time of the approval, Andy Burnham was a Minister of State in the Department of Health. He is now shadow Health Secretary.’

“This was a disastrous Labour PFI blunder. Labour was warned repeatedly by their own regulator that this PFI deal could bankrupt Peterborough Hospital but they pressed on regardless.”

 

Those last two examples were from a post I wrote two years ago which ended with this thought:

I imagine that if you look at many of the BBC’s reports a pattern might emerge….Labour involvement is quietly sidelined with minimal comment whilst any Tory involvement is twisted to turn responsibility onto them.

Two years on and I think I can say the case for that statement has been proved.  The BBC is downplaying Labour’s NHS disasters whilst playing up the Tories and is trying to pass off  Labour’s incompetence as Tory incompetence.

Why should we have imagined that radical Wahhabism would create moderates? Or why could we imagine that a doctrine of “One leader, One authority, One mosque: submit to it, or be killed” could ever ultimately lead to moderation or tolerance?

From the pro-Hamas Alastair Crooke

It didn’t take long for the BBC to revert to type and start peddling the Islamist line only hours after the slaughter of fellow journalists by AK47 toting Islamists and telling us that Muslims are the real victims of this attack, whilst the real threat is from the Far Right.

Today we had wall to wall Muslim apologists telling us ‘How terrible the shootings were’…but then came the inevitable weasle word…‘however’.

Apparently Newsnight was choc-a-bloc with them (h/t Is the BBC Biased?) but of course no day would be complete without the likes of sly Islamist Tariq Ramadan and Ibrahim Mogra, Assistant Secretary General of the Islamist Muslim Council of Britain, who told us that we should respect Islam and consider ‘common human courtesy’ before we criticise the religion…..that’ll be the religion that tells Muslims not to make friends with Christians and Jews, in fact it tells them to kill unbelievers.

Nicky Campbell was asking ‘Has this made you think again about freedom of speech?‘…..but that question should really have been ‘Has this made you think again about freedom of religion?’.

Muslims and their apologists fill the airwaves with talk of the insult to Islam…Newsnight dragged in Iqbal Sacranie, ex head of the extremist MCB, who once told us there is no such thing as a moderate Islam, nor an extreme Islam, there is just Islam.  Today he was demanding censorship and blasphemy laws.

If you consider that the Koran calls unbelievers unclean, people who will suffer eternal torment in hell and trashes the Christian religion’s deepest held beliefs then you can see the hypocrisy when they tal of insults to Islam and the hurt feelings of Muslims.

According to Muslims Jesus is not the Son of God, the Holy Trinity is a Kufar belief, Jesus did not die on the cross and was not resurrected.  All central to Christian belief and yet day in day out trashed in Mosques and Muslim schools up and down the country as Muslims like to make the provocative claim that Jesus is one of theirs….a Muslim prophet.

And fight them on until there is no more sedition (literal translation) and religion becomes Allah’s in its entirety (Surat Al-Anfal 8:39).

 

We’ve had many of the usual suspects peddling their Islamist views on the BBC but there was one blatantly missing, the cut rate Tariq Ramadan that is Mehdi Hasan.

Not a peep from him about Charlie Hebdo, at least not in his usual form of a long diatribe apparently saying one thing but meaning the entirely opposite as he tries to ingratiate himself with the secular Establishment and worm his way into a position of influence from which he can push his Islamist fantasies…being the devout Muslim that he insists he is.

He has made a lot of comments on Twitter...but they are not in solidarity with the dead of Charlie Hebdo, instead he prefers to spend his time defending Islam…..and indeed his latest retweet seemed particularly divisive and seemed to indicate a certain hesitancy about denouncing the killers of the journlalists:

Whilst the normal over productive Hasan has not bothered to pen any commentary denouncing the killers the self-serving Hasan did publish a letter to ‘angry Islamists’ in 2012, in which he, on the face of it, criticised their ‘extremism’.  This letter re-appeared yesterday in the New Statesman but has since been taken down for some reason.

However no fear…..someone else thinks Hasan is the dog’s doodahs….the BBC’s Mishal Husain:

You have to remember whenever you read something from Hasan that he has told Muslims to take jobs in the media in order to proselytise for Islam, to push the case for Islam, to gain influence in order to make Islam more powerful and dominant.  Ironically perhaps the pen for Hasan is mightier than the sword in the fight for Islamic dominance.

Hasan is a Muslim preacher but a Shia one…so when he criticises ISIS and says the ‘Caliphate’ does not represent him he isn’t being progressive and secular he means a Sunni Caliphate that defines Islam as ‘Sunni’ is not something he can accept….ISIS (and many Sunnis) does not consider Shias to be ‘Muslim’.

Hasan criticises the Wahhabi Saudis for demolishing the house of one of Muhammed’s wives….he of course as a Shia is no supporter of the House of Saud…so such criticism is again a sign of his slippery nature as he pretends to be a critic of ‘Islam’.  Does he similarly criticise the building of the Al Aqsa Mosque on top of the holiest Jewish site at Tempe Mount when Islam conquered and colonised the Middle East?  No, of course not.

When Hasan criticises those who challenge the teachings of Islam and rages about Islamophobia remember this is the man who, not only is a devout Muslim and a preacher, tells his followers that non-Muslims are ignorant cattle, they are immoral animals, they are Kufar.

No problem insulting and demonising other religions there then.

And what other benevolent line does he push? It’s the same one the ‘extremists’ do…..

Extremists point to western foreign policy to explain their acts. Why do we ignore them?

Often, the likes of Michael Adebowale and Michael Adebolajo, who used violence to make “points” about the Muslim world in Woolwich, aren’t “religious fanatics”. The trigger we refuse to see is our foreign policy.

 

 

And why has he maintained a studied silence about Charlie Hebdo?  Could it be that he recently called for the prosecution, bullying and victimisation of those who criticise Islam or rather those whom he claims are ‘smearing Islam’…

Mehdi Hasan: sanctions for ‘dishonest, demonising press coverage’ of Muslims

Note that after intense criticism Hasan asked for this to be added to the piece in the Guardian about him:

“I’m all in favour of free speech and the robust criticism of all religious beliefs. But it’s the made-up stories and the smearing of individuals and whole communities that I have an issue with. ‘Why isn’t anti-Muslim bigotry as unacceptable in the press as anti-Jewish bigotry?’ That’s the question that needs answering.”

 

What about the ingrained anti-Christian and anti-Jewsih bigotry in the Koran?

Good though that a fellow Muslim at the BBC, who said that she felt she could use her job on the Today programme to further people’s understanding of Islam, should support this charlatan Islamist.

The actions of the Islamist killers are ‘unislamic?’  The Koran orders Muslims to defend Islam if it is ‘assailed’…..

If they … assail your religion, then fight the heads of disbelief. …
Fight them! Allah will chastise them at your hands, and He will lay them low and give you victory over them 9:12-14