It is incredible what nonsense some politicians, amongst others, are allowed to get away with on the BBC.

Labour’s Frank Field came out with a doucey yesterday (6 mins) when talking about recycling unused food to charities and how the systems for doing so are not good enough claiming that:

‘…This practice has grown up [in the past], it was clearly very wrong [even] in times when people in this country were not hungry and now we have people who are hungry in this country…..’

So no one was hungry before the Coalition came to power then?

An astonishing, and highly political, claim that the BBC let slide.

Just a reminder to Frank and the BBC…the Trussell Trust set up its first foodbank in the UK in 2000:

The foodbank is born

Whilst fundraising for Bulgaria in Salisbury in 2000, Paddy received a call from a desperate mother in Salisbury saying “my children are going to bed hungry tonight – what are YOU going to do about it”. Paddy investigated local indices of deprivation and ‘hidden hunger’ in the UK.

Guess the hunger was so hidden that poor old Frank didn’t see it….and when did the fabled  ‘cost of living crisis’ begin, should there actually be such a thing?….in 2003 under Labour’s guiding hand…

Has the ‘hunger’ gotten worse?

No.

The black line being the rise in foodbanks, the red line being the number of people using the foodbanks….a direct linear relationship.

The figures show that the numbers using the foodbanks have grown in direct proportion to the number of foodbanks.

‘…you see the need has always been there, this is about volume and it’s about awareness. It’s primarily about awareness and I would say the one thing that the recession and economic downturn has done for Foodbank is to enable journalists to have a reason to pay attention to what we’re doing.’

The increased use of foodbanks as a whole is purely because of increased numbers of them and increased awareness.

The Trussell Trust is a highly poltical organisation that knows how to manipulate the Media to garner publicity and political support in order to influence government policy which is its intention…….

‘The Trussell Trust mission is to replicate the Foodbank Project throughout the UK: ‘Every Town Should Have One’. This will be achieved by empowering Churches and Christian organisations with the necessary tools, training and back up required to set up and run a successful Foodbank in their town.’ [Trussell Trust 2004 p.2]

The Trust must take active advantage of the fact that they are uniquely placed to raise awareness of the social injustices faced by their clients, to promote and facilitate change.
in recent years the Trussell Trust has developed an approach to campaigning which aims to raise awareness of the issues faced by clients visiting Foodbanks and to advocate policy change.
Since approximately 2007 the Trust has been developing their campaign work, driven by the imperative to ‘speak out about justice’. The campaign work revolves around raising awareness of ‘Hidden Hunger’ and is designed to both raise public consciousness and to influence government policy.

‘We’ve put a lot of effort into marketing and we’ve adapted and improved our marketing and we learned a bit better about targeting. […]So there’s a thing about us and the effort we make and we do plan, we do strategic plans, business plans, we think about it’ [Strategic Interviewee]
 It’s really, really hard to set up your first couple of projects in any replication. […]But there’s something that happens down the line where it starts to multiply of its own accord, if you do the marketing so, you know, our efforts, we target churches and we target the media.’[Strategic Interviewee]

Janet Daley asks the question the ‘elite’ should be asking themselves:

‘It has become received wisdom that the reason for that massive electoral rebellion against the EU was that the people were throwing a harmless tantrum: they were just letting off steam because they knew that their votes in this election did not matter.’

And what do people do next when they realise that their votes don’t matter?

We are in many respects living in an apartheid state…the rich, elite politicians, supposedly representing ‘us’, aided by ‘their friends in the Media’, who decide amongst themselves, regardless of public opinion, how they will run the world.

In apartheid states throughout the last century such elitist, powerful vested interests were met with differing strategies.

As Janet Daley asks, when the People really understand that they have no say in the decisions that they consider of major importance and decide to change that situation what will they do?

What would Gandhi do? What would the ANC do?

Today has brought us two perfect examples of the ‘Establishment’ moving to protect its interests…and all without a demurring word from the BBC.

Europe has seen anti-EU and anti-immigration movements becoming increasingly popular and those in charge do not look kindly upon such threats to their hegemony.

In response the unelected left-wing EU Commission has proclaimed that the UK must follow a new path economically...one remarkably similar to Labour’s own thinking…probably not a coincidence…and more than likely done at the instigation of Labour EU fanatics Mandelson and Blair…..both now increasingly in the headlines seeking to promote more ‘Europe’.

Nice that the EU dishes out pro-Labour propaganda in election year….designed to boost thier election chances and ensure an immigrant friendly government takes the reins?

And remember this?:

EU should ‘undermine national homogeneity’ says UN migration chief

The EU should “do its best to undermine” the “homogeneity” of its member states, the UN’s special representative for migration has said.

Peter Sutherland told peers the future prosperity of many EU states depended on them becoming multicultural.

Mr Sutherland recently argued, in a lecture to the London School of Economics, of which he is chairman, that there was a “shift from states selecting migrants to migrants selecting states” and the EU’s ability to compete at a “global level” was at risk.

The UNHCR has decided that Europe should be taking in more refugees…it calls them refugees but in reality they are anyone who wants to get aboard the welfare gravy train in Europe…no coincidence they mostly want to get to Germany, the Nordic states and the UK.

The BBC was reporting this all day on the radio presenting it as an issue about Syrian refugees but then moving on to encompass all migrants from the Middle East and Africa…..telling us without blinking an eye that the UN wants Europe to have an open door policy….essentially if you can get on a boat, train or plane and land in Europe you’re here for good and entitled to all the benefits that Europe can provide…or should provide according to the UN.

The BBC, as with the EU Commission’s intervention in UK politics, didn’t raise any questions about the UN policy and didn’t present us with anyone who would provide any challenge to the pro-immigration narrative.

Curiously the BBC has not reported the UN’s demands on its website as far as I can see….perhaps deciding it is too inflammatory.

The Guardian reported it…but got the story wrong:

Europe faces ‘colossal humanitarian catastrophe’ of refugees dying at sea

The United Nations has been forced to consider establishing refugee holding centres in north Africa and the Middle East due to the spiralling numbers of migrants attempting perilous journeys across the Mediterranean in a desperate effort to reach Europe.

The EU had not found effective mechanisms to prevent migrants dying at sea, he said.

Instead of focusing on ever tougher border controls, the EU needed to establish safe routes.

Note that last sentence….forget border controls…just let them in.  A familiar tale from the UN….The EU should “do its best to undermine” the “homogeneity” of its member states….a “shift from states selecting migrants to migrants selecting states”

The UN does clarify one point:

UNHCR Clarification on Guardian Article

In an article entitled ‘Europe faces ‘colossal humanitarian catastrophe’ of refugees dying at sea’ published on 2 June by The Guardian, UNHCR is paraphrased as saying the UN is considering Africa holding centres for asylum-seekers trying to reach Europe using irregular sea crossings. UNHCR wishes to make the following points by way of clarification:

UNHCR is not considering “holding centres” as an alternative to address the challenges of refugees and migrants risking their lives at sea.

UNHCR is calling for urgent, concerted action by coastal and non-coastal states to improve search and rescue at sea, ease disembarkation, ensure protection for refugees, asylum-seekers and the stateless, and halt harmful measures such as pushbacks and detention.

Asylum seekers should have their claims for asylum processed in a secure environment with adequate procedural safeguards in line with international refugee and human rights law.

So the UN opposes any restrictions on migrants, opposes any detention, and demands what amounts to massive handouts to the illegal migrants.

Which all might seem a bit odd…as the UN admits we can’t even cope with the problems created in 1995 in the Balkans….so how can we possibly cope with millions of migrants of vastly different cutlures, beliefs, values and demands?…..

‘The difficulty of integrating beneficiaries of international protection into their host societies in many European countries requires UNHCR to give priority to promoting good practices in this area in 2014.

UNHCR continues to search for durable solutions for those displaced during the 1991-1995 conflicts in the western Balkans and during the two conflicts in Georgia. It is cooperating with the Balkan States on the Regional Housing Programme, which is expected to provide sustainable housing solutions for some 74,000 vulnerable refugees. At the same time 97,000 IDPs still remain in need of solutions in Serbia. In Georgia, the Government successfully implements a durable solutions strategy and action plan, supported by UNHCR. However, 284,000 IDPs are still awaiting solutions.’

So 20 years on and they still look for a ‘durable solution’ to refugees created way back when…..the UN is clearly taking a political, ideological approach to immigration much as Labour did when in power…..such an approach is unworkable and undemocratic and once again demonstrates the reality of ‘democracy’ in Europ and the futility and dishonesty of the UN’s immigration ‘policy’.

The BBC  seems to have decided that there are no downsides to this flood of humanity heading towards Europe or if there are any they have decided to suppress such difficulties in the hope that people will not notice…and if they do they can be shouted down as racists and nazis.

Apartheid is alive and well in Europe…the political and media classes are fighting hard to maintain their grip on power and suppress the masses, keeping them in ignorance and what is basically servitude.

Why isn’t the BBC raising any challenge to any of this?  Because it is part of that class that has its boot on the neck of the People…the People who pay for the comparatively vast salaries and benefits, the hobnobbing with the rich and famous, the networking, the sporting, cultural and political access enjoyed by BBC staff…..the BBC is a bit of a parasite….greedily leeching off the working man and gorging on the licence money whilst sending in the bailiffs or police officers to lock up the poorest in society who can’t afford the TV poll tax funding the BBC grandee’s Dolce Vita.

Gandhi or the ANC?  How will people react when they realise they are being ignored?

As Janet Daley says ‘what do people do next when they realise that their votes don’t matter? ‘

‘First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.’

The BBC have seen the uncomfortable shadow of UKIP and its popular immigration policies upsetting the cosy apple cartel of elitist politicians and their media friends who want to keep the doors firmly propped open.

This article is a rather desperate attempt to claim that the Tory immigration targets are being met…and so ‘nothing to worry about here then‘ about immigration:

A shortcut to hitting net migration target?

The government could already have hit its target to bring net migration down to the “tens of thousands” a year – if short-term migration was included.

Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures show a lot more people leave the UK for between three and 12 months than move to it from other countries.

Yes that’s right…go abroad for an extended holiday or to work for 6 months and you have emigrated.

Desperate stuff from the BBC.

Channel 4 News editor Ben de Pear has mixed feelings about the BBC. He sees Newsnight as his main rival and variously describes the corporation as “stifling”, “crippling” and “a monster”. Equally, though, he speaks with relish about the level of competition it offers him.

“I think it’s an incredibly healthy time for British broadcast journalism to have two strong, daily broadcast journalism programmes.”

He goes on to point out the challenges presented by the BBC. “When it comes to the digital side, we are swamped. I wouldn’t even call it David versus Goliath. We are like an ant versus Goliath when it comes to the BBC. It stifles competition online,” he says, adding that a good online exclusive for Channel 4 News will often get far more traffic on the BBC website when it is followed up.

Channel 4 News has, he says, no more than 50 journalists, eight of whom will be working online “on a good day”. He says that the BBC has thousands of journalists who are able to work online each day (BBC News says it has 8,000 staff including 5,500 journalists).

“We know that we can compete in television news – because it’s all about that hour-long programme, or that three minutes of television. We know our journalists and cameramen are as good as theirs, if not better,” he says.

“But we are swamped by the BBC’s online resources. We constantly think how can we put this out and keep the traction we have, because it’s such a monster. It’s just a massive thing.”

He adds: “Our biggest priority is to extend even further our digital reach. But we are, in terms of television news websites, swamped by their size, their ability to deploy resources.”

Nicky Campbell ran a phone in about the state of the economy…notably several callers said that when they raised the question of a pay rise with their bosses the answer was ‘There are plenty of East Europeans who will do it for a lot less’.

Whilst Campbell eventually highlighted such comments this is what the BBC’s economic genius from Wake Up to Money, Adam Parsons, said in response (55 mins):

‘Fascinating that, that disaffection that people sometimes have and their limited horizons…..it’s one of the symptoms of that long period of downturn and the change in the dynamic really of the British economy…we have got people who are prepared to work for lower wages, there’s a lot of them coming in, but I wonder sometimes whether the spectre of that, the memories of all those Polish plumbers who came along, resonates in people’s brains as much as the reality of it.’

Even as he admits there are workers being imported who undercut British wages he denies it saying it is just some sort of residual mythical belief generated by the Daily Mail no doubt.

So not, maybe, he says, the reality….never mind the callers stating quite plainly that it is happening to them here and now.

Of course Parsons does a double act with the venerable Micky Clark who is always more than happy to be unhappy about good news….the other day as the British Chamber of Commerce and the CBI stated that they believed the economy was bouncing back Clark decided (ala Flanders and the OECD) they couldn’t be trusted….saying they had got it wrong so many times before.

On that basis Clark and Parsons should be taken off air.

One of our occasional off thread rambles to provide a short break from the usual.

I see the BBC is employing the services of a firm that employs Lord Hall’s wife to headhunt a new BBC Trust Chairman.

As the BBC previousily spent £350,000 to headhunters to fill two vacancies and then filled them from within its own ranks perhaps the money might be better spent on employing the services of a cleaning company, whether or not it has relations of Lord Hall on its books.

BBC’s new £1bn HQ a ‘toxic waste pit that is making staff sick’ claims presenter Peter Dobbie after contracting a vomiting bug that left him needing treatment in intensive care

Newsreaders at the BBC’s flagship £1billion headquarters have complained that the revamped building is a ‘toxic waste pit’ which is making them ill.

Staff at the new Broadcasting House in Central London claim there is a ‘trend of filth, human waste products and a badly built building’.

They have called on bosses to intervene ‘as a matter of urgency’ over the ‘unclean and dangerous’ premises they say are so unhygienic that staff regularly become sick.

AA Gill comments on the BBC’s coverage of the Euro elections on Vote 2014.

His conclusion….

Political reporting on television…..moribund, unchanged and unconsidered.  Politics on televison is a shabby, undemocratic national disservice.

No kidding.

He goes on to say that BBC 2 has been good, but is now ‘an arty social worker.’

No kidding…and of course that is a description that could sum up pretty much all of the BBC’s output more concerned as it is with social engineering than entertainment and genuinely, truthfully, informative programming.

Will the BBC spend a day pouring relentlessly over this report, as they did with the ‘racial prejudice ‘ one,  that over the past 10 years overcrowding has become a huge problem:

The Telegraph reports:

Figures show surge in ‘overcrowded’ homes

More than three million people now live in a household with at least five other individuals, according to figures from the ONS

The BBC reports:

One third of Britons ‘admit being racially prejudiced’

Nearly a third of people in Britain admit being racially prejudiced, research has suggested.

The British Social Attitudes survey found the proportion had increased since the start of the century, returning to the level of 30 years ago.

Some 30% of the 2,000 people polled by social research company NatCen described themselves as either “very” or “a little” race prejudiced.

Penny Young, chief executive of NatCen, said the findings were “troubling”.

An organisation called ‘Natcen’ has conducted a poll of people in Britain asking them to reveal if they think they are racially prejudiced.

Now you would expect the BBC to leap upon the results which claim that 30% of British people admit to being racist.

The BBC did indeed leap upon the results but contrary to expectations the analysis has been fair and critical of the poll and its interpretation by various interests.

However the BBC did fall into its usual habit of providing the context, nuances and analysis in programmes like ‘Today’ but when it comes to the news bulletins all that good work is thrown away and the message we get is that ‘30% of Brits declare themsleves racist…a level not seen since the ’80’s…this could be explained by UKIP stirring up anti-immigrant feeling.’

Dan Hodges notices the same habit…one he says Sky also falls into:

What was amazing was the way it was clear neither Sky nor the BBC were taking the slightest bit of notice of their own output. They were engaged in a logistical exercise – “Let’s make sure we don’t miss the returning officer from Torquay” – rather than an analytical one.

We’ll start by looking at the poll first and see if its claims hold water.

First thing to note is that this poll usually comes out later in the year.  So that must immediately raise suspicions when it is now being released only days after UKIP trounce the pro-immigration parties….and the interpretation is that anti-immigration rhetoric increases racism…therefore UKIP is to blame.

In this graphic the pollsters show how prejudiced people with different political allegiances are….note the ‘other‘, being the highest,  coloured a  fetching UKIP purple…no doubt a deliberate choice to smear them by association…..just how true these stats are is questionable…….I know many Labour voters who readily express racist views….I doubt very much that there is such a gap, if any, between the parties’ supporters…especially as they can change allegiances so often.

The next thing that might confirm the suspicion that this is a political stitch up is just who releases the information.  It isn’t Natcen themselves as they tell us:

Data released by the Guardian in May 2014 reveals there is more self-reported racial prejudice in Britain than there was 10 years ago.

The Guardian is the sole recipient of the information from Natcen….a mainly taxpayer funded organisation and supposedly independent….but one which is ‘troubled by the results’.

It looks as if the Guardian has released the data at a time most politically convenient to its own causes and has been interpreted by the Guardian in a way that doesn’t actually match up with reality.

This is their report title:

So racism is on the rise?  That’s not born out at all by the data as you’ll see later.

They then use this photograph of the EDL underneath the title…..

The EDL was not racist, it was an organisation set up to campaign against islamic extremism and so should not be used by the Guardian to illustrate an article on racism.

Nearly all the voices in the Guardian article are immigrants or from ethnic minorities…here is a sample of their rather poisonous narrative:

Omar Khan, acting director of the Runnymede Trust – Britain’s leading independent race equality thinktank – said the data should be noted by all the main parties.

“This nails the lie that the problem of racism has been overcome in Britain or that somehow when Jeremy Clarkson said the things he did it is some sort of anomaly that does not tap into a wider problem.

So we’re all racist…if you’re white that is.

The white voice given a say?….One carefully selected to portray a certain image by our clever metropolitan elite in the Guardian offices who tell us…..

“What we need to do is get better at creating public spaces where people can mix, at serving really diverse communities and addressing some of the underlying problems of poverty and isolation.”

However, some people remain unconvinced. Christine Deeming, 71, is waiting at a bus stop around the corner from the polling station in Smethwick.

“If I got the chance and the money I would leave tomorrow,” she said. “I have been here all my life but, you know, it’s not Great Britain any more is it? … To be honest I feel like the foreigner these days.”

Ah yes…you’re meant to think…. old, white, working class, ‘uneducated’, ignorant….therefore she can be dismissed as ‘prejudiced’.

So that’s the Guardian…so much so usual for that Tabloid-like paper.

But how does the actual poll stand up to scrutiny?  Not well at all.

Firstly the results don’t show more people are prejudiced, they show only that people are ‘more prepared to admit racial prejudice’.

And just how many are ‘prejudiced’?  30% or 3%?

Natcen claims 30%….but admits that the reality is that 3% described themselves as “very prejudiced”, 27% said they were “a little prejudiced”, and 68% said they were “not prejudiced at all”

So only 3% admit to being very prejudiced….but what you might ask is ‘a little prejudiced’?  That could cover a whole range of alleged sins.

What did the people think was ‘racist’…..what were they admitting to?  We don’t know.

Natcen claims the rise in racism started in 2001 post 9/11….if they claim that link then the ‘racism’ is not racism but more than likely a natural concern about Islam when Muslims seem to have a launched a war against the West.  Hardly an irrational fear or prejudice. Certainly not racism….Islam is not a race for one thing.

Similarly the claimed link to mass immigration…the concerns about the NHS, housing, schools, jobs and wages being undercut are all perfectly legitimate, rational ones …and not therefore ‘racism’.

It is almost a racing cert that what  those polled classed as ‘a little bit prejudiced’ was in fact a result of the guilt imposed upon them by years of the left barraging them with accusations that such thinking is racist… therefore any admission of ‘racism’ is likely an unwarranted guilty feeling that they may be ‘a little bit prejudiced’ when they are merely reflecting the propaganda of the left….there has been no one to stand up to defend their views…the BBC joining in with the Left’s views.

But just who are these people in the polls?

You may well be wondering how we carry out the survey and select our sample. Each year, addresses are randomly selected from the Post Office’s postcode address file. We write to the inhabitants, and then it is up to our interviewers to knock on their doors and convince people to take part. We usually interview around 3,300 people each year.

So the people could be anyone, any race, and indeed immigrants…Natcen tells us:

Once the survey is over we compare the profile of the people we have spoken to with the true demographic makeup of Britain (as recorded by the census) to make sure that our results are properly representative.

One conclusion from the poll was that the inner cities were less prejudiced…but why might that be?  Is it becausse they are all remarkably progressive and cosmopolitan or some other reason?

The reason is because there is a high percentage of immigrants and ethnic minorities in those locations, a high churn of population who don’t care and a rich, metropolitian elite who also don’t care as they aren’t ‘touched’ by immigration in a directly negative fashion…..and few of whom will admit to being racist.

There is a fairly disgraceful slur being spread about those who oppose immigration….that it is mainly the old, white, uneducated, working class who are so prejudiced….and that the highly educated, cultured, well-off elite are far less so…..a slur readily accepted by the BBC who seem prepared to demonise some sectors of society in their drive against UKIP.

The problem is of course that this poll is based purely on self admitted prejudice….and as we saw that may not in fact be prejudice but ‘fair comment’….but another problem is that people may either be lying or have a genuine belief, but mistaken, that they are not prejudiced…when in fact, naturally, they are.

Such an attitude is a recognised fault in these type of polls:

Aversive racism is characteristic of many White Americans who possess strong egalitarian values and who believe that they are not prejudiced. But many also possess negative feelings and beliefs of which they are either unaware or try to dissociate from their images of themselves as being non-prejudiced.

As for mainly ‘old’ people being so prejudiced…who is it that actually carries out most of the racist attacks?

60% of the attacks are perpetrated by children or young adults under 25, many of whom are active in gangs.

What of the statistics themselves….Natcen claims racism is shown to be on the rise from 2001, before that it was falling.

How then do they explain these police records of racist incidents from 1996:

Recent s95 statistics showed that in 2003/04, there were 52,694 recorded racist incidents in England and Wales (Home Office, 2005). The number of recorded incidents, unsurprisingly, varied between forces, in line with their size and resident population. Figure 2.1 shows that between 1997/98 and 1998/99, recorded racist incidents in England and Wales rose by two-thirds, increasing from 13,878 to 23,049. In the following year, incidents doubled to 47,814. They rose by 11 per cent in 2000/01, and by a further two per cent in 2001/02 to 54,351.

However since 2004 the recorded incidents have fallen:
The overall number of racist incidents recorded by the police decreased by two per cent from 56,387 in 2008/09 to 55,056 in 2009/10.
The overall number of racist incidents recorded by the police decreased by seven per cent from 54,872 in 2009/10 to 51,187 in 2010/11.

The overall number of racist incidents recorded by the police decreased by 8 per cent from 51,585 in 2010/11 to 47,678 in 2011/12.

So the reverse pattern to Natcen’s claims is shown by actual recorded racist incidents…a rise pre-2001 and a fall shortly after….continuing to the present day.

It is fairly obvious that Natcen’s, and the Guardian’s, claims are unfounded and based more on wishful thinking and a creative interpretation of the ‘evidence’ than any substantial proof of a genuine rise in racism or racist feelings.

To conflate concerns about immigration and Islam with racism is lazy and dishonest, designed to promote a certain political agenda as illustrated by the Guardian’s take on this which pronounced that racism is on the rise…driven by UKIP’s immigration policies.

Interestingly today I heard that there had been a poll in Brazil along similar lines. (19 mins)

The result?

97% claimed they were not prejudiced.

A similar number, 99%, claimed they knew someone who was.

Somebody was lying.

Brazil is famously racially divided.

The BBC journo’s conclusion…‘Beware what anyone tells you about Brazil.’

The same could be said for polls conducted by left wing organisations filtered through a left wing newspaper.

But how did the BBC report this poll?  I have already said they did do some good analysis and raised some challenges to the pollster’s claims…let down by the news bulletin’s simplistic and seemingly more ideological, pro-immigration approach to reporting the poll.

John Humphrys on the Today programme pretty much dismissed the poll as worthless in his interview and forced an admission out of the Natcen rep. that it was not more people admitting racism but:

People ‘more prepared to admit racial prejudice’

Nicky Campbell of course tackled the subject but surprisingly drew a line when his ‘expert’ commenter from an ‘African think tank’ claimed only white people could be racist, and the programme was quite fair in its approach….however clips taken from the show to use in later news bulletins highlighted a call attacking the British attitude to Muslims from someone it’d be hard to take a shine to (38 mins 40 secs) with his self righteous, naively sanctimonious views…he isn’t prejudiced himself because he has a very close Muslim friend….the rest of us are just ignorant and don’t understand Islam.

Derbyshire and Fogarty both followed on but just accepted the figures from the polls and no doubt Jeremy Vine, Bacon, 5Live Drive and Nolan would have followed suit….I hazard a guess there based on past experience.

The BBC certainly went to town on this story despite it being old hat and not showing that alleged increase in racism at all.

Here is the Mail in 2012:

Is Britain a racist nation? One in three Brits ‘admits to being racist’, according to poll

The best I’ve saved till last….someone you would never expect to diss the poll has come out very definitely against it…Mark Easton.

I have often criticised Easton for his decidedly pro-immigration, pro-Europe reports, so if he says he can’t support the conclusions of a report that prima facie undermines UKIP’s position by alleging they are successfully stirring up race hate then something must be seriously wrong with that report.

Easton asks:

Is Britain really becoming more racist?

Journalists like their stories to fit into an accepted current narrative. With domestic politics dominated by concerns over Europe and immigration, and the rise of the far-right elsewhere in the EU, it is understandable that editors are alert to evidence of rising racism in Britain.

But today’s figures are not evidence of rising racism. In fact, if anything, the trend is of flat or declining levels of self-reported racial prejudice.

To suggest that the latest figures represent a return to the racism levels of the 80s is clearly premature.

There is another difficulty with this data – it is a self-reported measure. We cannot be sure what people mean when they agree they are “a little bit prejudiced against people of other races”. Could it be that the phrase today has as much to do with anxiety about the arrival of East European migrants as a belief that those from a different racial group are inferior?

Flat or declining levels of self reported prejudice….and a confusion over exactly what that ‘prejudice’ actually is.

The complete opposite of the conclusions reached by Natcen and the Guardian….and trumpeted unfortunately by the rest of the media…..including the BBC in its news bulletins…..only saved from total embarrassment by Humphrys, Campbell and Easton.

It is unfortunate that not all responsible Media haven’t taken the time to critique the claims made by Natcen and the Guardian….the highly damaging effects of those claims can be seen in this article in the Telegraph which has taken the bait and declared that Britain is getting more racist:

The deeply distressing and rapid rise in racial prejudice among the British people over the past 13 years maps on to a period of uncontrolled mass immigration. Cause and effect could not be clearer. Nor could the solution. I only hope it’s not too late.

Just who are those ‘British people’ though?