Wonder what the BBC will make of this…if anything…..Boris Johnson in the Telegraph….

The children taught at home about murder and bombings

Radicalisation is a form of child abuse, and the authorities must have the power to intervene

There is that fatal squeamishness about intervening in the behaviour of a “protected group” – in this case ethnic minorities, often but by no means always from the Horn of Africa. There are still Left-wing academics protesting that the war on FGM is a form of imperialism, and that we are wrong to impose our Western norms.

I say that is utter rubbish, and a monstrous inversion of what I mean by liberalism. On the contrary: we need to be stronger and clearer in asserting our understanding of British values. That is nowhere more apparent in the daily job of those who protect us all from terror – and who are engaged in tackling the spread of extremist and radical Islam.

Question is just what is ‘radical’?  A book that teaches you to think all non-believers are filthy, immoral and ignorant?  A book that tells you to kill the unbeliever?  A book that tells you to beat your wife? A book that teaches you to kill gay people?

A book that is used up and down the country and is held up as a book of peace and tolerance.

Curious what is considered radical, or not, these days…especially if you are on the Left.

Events in Syria, or the Ukraine or even China should highlight the dangers of ‘multi-culturalism’, importing many different peoples, religions and cultures.

The BBC is an ardent supporter of multi-culturalism.

Which is why it doesn’t report stories like this which might undermine the multi-culturalism narrative and ‘damage social cohesion’….via Harry’s Place and the Sunday Times….

Religion in schools:  Operation Trojan Horse

The Sunday Times (£) is reporting that an alleged conspiracy to destabilize some state schools in England, enabling them to be taken over by fundamentalist Salafists, is being investigated by both council officials and the police.

The documents suggest that the strategy, called Operation Trojan Horse, should be used in Bradford and Manchester as well as Birmingham. “We have an obligation to our children to fulfil our roles and ensure these schools are run on Islamic principles,” they argue.

The papers say the first step is to identify poor-performing state schools in Muslim areas; then Salafist parents in each school are encouraged to complain that teachers are “corrupting children with sex education, teaching about homosexuals, making their children say Christian prayers and mixed swimming and sports”.

The next steps are to “parachute in” Muslim governors “to drip-feed our ideal for a Muslim school” and stir up staff to urge the council to investigate. The strategy stresses the importance of having an “English face among the staff group to make it more believable”.

Allegedly, the schools targeted included Regents Park, Adderley Primary School and Saltley School, all in Birmingham.

Assuming the allegations are accurate, this is a shockingly calculating and underhand attempt to subvert the system.

Not shocking enough for the BBC to report though.

Allegedly, the schools targeted included Regents Park, Adderley Primary School and Saltley School, all in Birmingham.

Assuming the allegations are accurate, this is a shockingly calculating and underhand attempt to subvert the system.

Occasionally we have something off topic to amuse or amaze…hopefully.

Here is something, that despite being narrated by the Guardian’s resident Green guru, George Monbiot, is worth a looksee……

How wolves have the power to move rivers

The story of how a few wolves in Yellowstone Park transformed the ecosystem and even changed the course of rivers shows the impact that even small changes to an environment can have

Milipedia: n  Condition of a BBC journalist being unaccountably attracted to the person and policies of Ed Miliband

John Pienaar….what to say?  He just can’t seem to find a harsh word to say about young Eddy….or can he?

Today on ‘Pienaar’s Politics’  he had Ed Miliband on the rack for half an hour, he took no prisoners and cracked the whip…Miliband was given a proper roughing up over serious issues of State…the union take over of his party, Syria and the Russian invasion of the Ukraine and PIE.

Actually…no…I made that all up.  This is Pienaar photographed preparing for the interview….

Miliband was given the softest of interviews, not even an interview really just a series of soft questions designed to allow Miliband as much time as possible to sell us his pitch.

Paxman’s interview with Russell Brand by comparison had something of the Spanish Inquisition about it….and we all know how laughable that was as a serious bit of journalism.

Nobody should expect any such ‘inquisition’ from Pienaar for his favourite adopted ‘nephew’.

Perhaps this gives us a clue as to why Pienaar is so mellow…….

The programme started promisingly with the Sun’s political editor, Tom Newton Dunn, nailing it on the head saying….

‘What can they say, Obama, Cameron and Miliband, to Putin who is totally satisfied that he has called the West’s bluff on Syria.  The West blinked over chemical weapons, arguably a defeat inflicted upon the government by Ed Miliband and now Putin can do what he wants across the world without anyone caring.’

A pretty damning statement about Miliband’s influence….Putin does what he wishes because Miliband ducked not the actual use of force but merely the threat to use it in Syria…leading to Assad remaining comfortably in place with no intent, or need, to negotiate and Putin doing as he pleases knowing no one will lift a finger.

Pienaar has always claimed that Miliband is leading the way….over energy price freezes and Syria.  But Miliband’s ‘influence’ has terrible consequences…in Syria….

and as for an energy price freeze…that has consequences too…..via Bishop Hill…..

Deepening Energy Crisis: Britain Has Become ‘Uninvestable’, Analyst Warns

The loss arises from pollution taxes that are forcing the closure of old coal-fired plants. Big subsidies for renewable energy, meanwhile, have made even gas-burning plants, which are much cleaner than coal stations, loss-making.

The hit will alarm Whitehall, which is increasingly worried about the lights going out. Companies have stopped building new power stations amid a political and regulatory backlash, sparked last year by Ed Miliband’s pledge to freeze energy prices.

“I can think of a dozen very good reasons not to invest in the UK, and not one good one to invest here this side of the election.”

OK I’ve had a few jokes at Pienaar’s expense but the issues are serious…..and yet Miliband was nowhere near breaking into a sweat at anytime…except when he was shown up by a much more articulate and personable Jermain Jackman.

Pienaar was supposedly getting to the bottom of the union’s influence…but instead declared that the newly approved rules would mean that no one could call Miliband a ‘creature of the unions’…and the Tories couldn’t call him Red Ed any more.

Miliband is allowed to get away with calling his new rules ‘an incredibly brave step’…and then he says that ‘I’m not factional’.

Pienaar says nothing…Miliband not factional?  The leader of a Party that bases its politics on generating class warfare and ‘them and us’ name calling? The Leader of a Party that is controlled by Unite, whose leader wants to end democracy and impose Communism ala Ralph Miliband?

Pienaar does suggest Miliband owes his leadership to Union power but doesn’t follow up and challenge Miliband’s answer…a pattern followed throughout the interview with a soft question and Miliband allowed to answer without fear of contradiction.

Again another pertinent question…this time about Miliband’s ‘One Nation’…Pienaar taking his cue from Labour MP’s who have disagreed with Miliband’s approach…..Pienaar asks what does it mean, what are the policies?…it’s an old argument that people are turning away from.

But there is no rigorous questioning of Miliband’s reply.

We then had Jermain Jackman, singer on the BBC’s ‘The Voice’ and Labour activist pop in.

He gave a good account of himself, managing to sound more plausible than Miliband himself….but had to be silenced when he said we should be using songs, poetry, scripts and dance to push the politics….probably all too close to the truth for the BBC which inserts subliminal politics into all its programming and loves to bring on a celebrity to give anti-Tory rhetoric a bit of street cred…or so they think….ala Labour’s ‘Cool Britannia’ no doubt.

Pienaar tells Jermain he’s great and he’ll have his pick of Labour safe seats.

It all turned into a bit of a Labour love-in with no real answers wrung out of Miliband….there was no mention of the big scandal of the week that has dominated the headlines….Labour’s connection to the NCCL and PIE in the 70’s and 80’s…an extraordinary omission.

Tim Newton Dunn’s opening accusation was also completely ignored despite it being an extremely serious one that utterly undermines Miliband’s credibility as a serious politician who can be trusted to take difficult and complex decisions.

Note that Miliband spoke ‘outside the BBC’…….because he wasn’t asked about it inside the BBC.

Playing it safe whilst thousands die and millions suffer.

Miliband’s stance on the Union’s, Syria and his populist energy price freeze him to be someone without a stomach for the fight, someone without the necessary grit and judgement to be the leader of a nation, someone who will duck from those hard decisions but still try to take the credit for being ‘reasonable and moderate’ as people die or are forced to flee their homes and country in their millions because someone like Miliband didn’t dare take that decision that could change things….and the BBC is there to watch his back telling us what a fine job he is doing…..

Here is a site that is keeping an eye on the BBC:

In 2006 the BBC was found to have a pro-EU bias by a report commissioned by itself:

The report may conclude that direction does not come from the Top but the problem is that the ‘troops’ are the ‘believers’ in the EU and they are the ones who mold the tone and direction of any programme as admitted by the report:

We were also told by Helen Boaden, the BBC’s former director of news admitted in July 2013 that:

The BBC has a “deep liberal bias” and has failed to reflect the public’s growing concerns about immigration and the European Union.

Seems nothing has changed.

The Spectator looks again at revelations that the BBC has pocketed money from the EU despite its claims to be ‘independent’ of politics:

The millions in EU funding the BBC tried to hide

Over the last three years the BBC has secretly obtained millions of pounds in grants from the European Union. Licence fee payers might assume that the Corporation would have been compelled to disclose the source of this money in its annual reports, but they bear no trace of it specifically. In the latest set of accounts, for example, these funds are simply referred to as ‘other grant income’.

Instead of making an open declaration, the BBC’s successful lobbying for this money had to be prised out of it using a Freedom of Information (FoI) request lodged for The Spectator, proving that there was never any danger of the state broadcaster’s bosses volunteering it willingly.

The FoI response confirms that BBC staff applied for, and accepted, about £3 million of EU funds between April 2011 and November 2013, most of which has been spent on unspecified ‘research and development’ projects, with the remaining £1 million spent on programming.

Rob Wilson MP, says:

‘The whole point of the licence fee is to protect the BBC’s political independence and impartiality by providing it with a source of funding that is outside the hands of governments and politicians. Thanks to this FoI response, we now learn that it has been going cap in hand to the EU for millions of pounds on the quiet over the last few years. Such outrageous flouting of the principles on which the BBC is based and funded will only promote cynicism about its political impartiality and lead to a loss of trust in the BBC’s independence.’

But it isn’t just the money…the BBC has been sidelining Labour MPs who are Eurosceptics so as to present ‘Euroscepticism’ as a rightwing plot:

When Newswatch [a site that checks for BBC pro EU bias] provided oral evidence [Of the BBC’s lack of reporting of Labour scepticism] to the House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee in March 2013, Labour MP Kelvin Hopkins said that the figures gathered by Newswatch were ‘a revelation’ to him as a Labour withdrawalist, and added: ‘Even in the House of Commons, at least one in 10 speeches are made by Labour withdrawalists, so the imbalance is very clear.’

Eurosceptic Labour MP Kate Hoey, now part of an unofficial coalition of politicians overseeing the privately-funded organisation Newswatch, which monitors the BBC for EU bias at a cost of £60,000 per year, says the FoI disclosure is ‘shocking’. She says:

‘I have grave concerns about the bias of the BBC when it comes to EU matters. I find the whole thing shocking. The lack of transparency is unjustified. Why does it seem so worried about people knowing where it gets its money? What has the BBC got to hide other than knowing that many of us don’t trust them on EU matters and the need for a referendum on Britain’s EU membership?’

Ms Hoey adds that she has concerns that the BBC ‘very rarely’ reports Labour MPs’ views on Europe. She says:

‘Even Today in Parliament [on Radio 4] always tries to convey Tory splits on Europe, and this doesn’t help the perception of an EU bias. There are Labour MPs with strong views on Europe as well. It doesn’t help that the BBC very rarely reports these views.’

 

 

 

Three interesting ways of looking at things from the BBC today:

1.  Moazzam Begg has been charged with terror offences…..the BBC throughout the day has been tacking on to each bulletin about this that Begg, though spending 3 years in Guantananmo, ‘was never charged with any offence’.

Why emphasise that?

Why is that relevant to this?  Surely of more relevance is that the US thought he was guilty of exactly the same offences he has been charged with now.  He admitted attending terrorist training camps pre-9/11…but the BBC doesn’t find that relevant here.

Not just on every radio bulletin but it seems they are pretty keen for you to know that on the web as well……..2 reports, the same words….

Mr Begg, who is now a director of campaign group Cage which helps the families of people who have been detained, has never been charged with an offence.

Mr Begg, who is now a director of campaign group Cage which helps the families of people who have been detained, had never previously been charged with an offence.

Why no mention of Begg’s well known links to Jihadists?

2.  Miliband has had his changes to Party rules approved……the BBC has been telling us that ‘the Union’s influence in choosing a leader will be reduced’.

Sorry…but that’s just not true….the Union’s influence will increase and even Labour insiders acknowledge that.

The BBC tells us in this long pro-Miliband report:

The BBC’s chief political correspondent Norman Smith said it was interesting that opposition to the reforms had come from ordinary party members rather than trade unionists – perhaps underlining concern about how the changes would affect their own votes.

…..interesting indeed…….but the BBC doesn’t care to elaborate.

Why let the facts spoil a good PR stunt for their Boy?

3.  Then on Saturday Live this morning they were talking to a Ukrainian girl who told us that the internet allowed them to find the truth about things that the Russian news service was distorting….democratising the media.

The BBC presenter told us it ‘was great that the new media is subverting the mainstream’.

Of course that attitude is a bit different at home when bloggers are the enemy…..as you can see from the first two examples of BBC journalism above it’s just as well there are others out there providing the truth.

Nothing by the BBC about the founder of Greenpeace coming over to the dark side:

Confessions of a ‘Greenpeace Dropout’ to the U.S. Senate on climate change

There is no scientific proof of man-made global warming and a hotter earth would be ‘beneficial for humans and the majority of other species’, according to a founding member of environmental campaign group Greenpeace.

The assertion was made by Canadian ecologist Patrick Moore, a member of Greenpeace from 1971 to 1986, to U.S lawmakers on Tuesday.

He told The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee: ‘There is no scientific proof that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are the dominant cause of the minor warming of the Earth’s atmosphere over the past 100 years. If there were such a proof it would be written down for all to see. No actual proof, as it is understood in science, exists.’

Hmmm….all a bit inconvenient…especially for politicians arguing about it in PMQ’s and telling us CO2 is the most dangerous substance on Earth essentially….and all with nobody to challenge and disabuse them as the BBC fails miserably to do its job properly.

However the BBC is happy to report that the ‘slow down’, as they term it, in global warming has a cause….that must be what…cause number 341?

…and it’s not global cooling……

Smell of forest pine can limit climate change – researchers

New research suggests a strong link between the powerful smell of pine trees and climate change.

Scientists say they’ve found a mechanism by which these scented vapours turn into aerosols above boreal forests.

These particles promote cooling by reflecting sunlight back into space and helping clouds to form.

The authors believe that this is playing a significant role in reducing the impact of rising temperatures. They argue that this effect is likely to strengthen in the future.

Oh……so global warming will actually be producing global cooling?

err……

A Guardian report from 1975 about a Campaign for Homosexual Equality conference…the CHE has Labour peer Chris Smith as a vice president….the CHE was kicked out of ‘Liberty’ for its stance on child abuse…in 2009.

Cover-up has become part of the story of child abuse

From Nick Davies in the Guardian in 1998:

The sheer scale of child sexual abuse in Britain

The sexual abuse of children is a special crime, not simply because of the damage it does to its victims, nor even because of the anger and fear it provokes in communities, but more particularly because it is so easy – easy to commit, easy to get away with.

We have seen the results of cover-up and concealment, occasionally of corruption, of whistleblowers who are punished for trying to expose the truth, of local authorities, churches and other organisations who have closed ranks to deny or conceal allegations against their staff.

Of course it’s especially easy to get away with when people in positions of power or influence turn a blind eye to what is happening.

‘Speaking to the Radio 4 Today Programme O’Carroll said: ‘At the time Harman and Hewitt couldn’t just kick us out, or they could but they didn’t try. The reason was their careers in the NCCL depended upon them not rocking the boat too much.’ ‘

And it still goes on.

‘Is the BBC biased”s Craig, notes that Newsnight has again done a decent job:

Laura Kuennsberg v Harriet Harman (Part Two)

Perhaps a stint at ITV might be good for a few more BBC journo’s and might make them remember why they entered the job n the first place.

However, Newsnight apart, the BBC wanted to ignore this story and sweep it under the carpet.  Even now as they ‘report’ it they downplay the story itself and concentrate on the politics or try to spread the ‘blame’.

Here is a Labour spokesperson trying to dodge the bullet:

 “There’s an argument that the Daily Mail has got an agenda against certain senior figures in the Labour Party.”

And oddly enough here is Labour’s favourite BBC reporter, John Pienaar, giving us exactly the same line: (13:30)

Pienaar tells us that this story has plenty of mileage left in it especially for the Daily Mail which will keep digging away….‘objectively [?], this accounts for the deep hostility towards the paper from Harman’.

Really?  I thought it was because they’d dragged up something that was extremely uncomfortable for her from her past that she didn’t want to deal with.

Sheila Fogarty feeds Pienaar a question….

‘Is this  fight between the Daily Mail and Harriet Harman following a pattern such as when a paper tries to draw in an MP or politician?’

So dealing with the politics and not the substance of the issue.

Pienaar says….‘Not in this unpleasant form…..’

So now we know what he thinks…the Daily Mail raising the question is ‘unpleasant’….never mind the truth then.

Pienaar reduces it to a matter of a ‘feud and vendetta’ by the Daily Mail against Harman…..we must remember, he tells us, that it is important that the story is put against the background of not what Harriet Harman did but what she didn’t do…it’s crucial to reiterate that there’s no accusation that she acted in any way to support the paedophiles.…..the damage to her is by connecting the word paedophiles to her name in the same sentence…that’s what caused the outrage from Harriet Harman’.

So Harman didn’t work for an organisation that had close ties to PIE and she didn’t push for photos of naked children to be considered legal as long as the children weren’t ‘harmed’?

Pienaar goes on….‘The damage has been done and the war will continue but as far as this is concerned that context needs to be clear.’

So context is all…once again never mind the truth…or the actual context.

Pienaar portrays this as solely a political feud between a right wing paper and the Labour Party….downplaying the actual story itself.

But is it just a story cooked up by a right wing press to embarrass Labour?

Curious no mention of this from Labour’s Tom Watson only last year:

After 30 years without an answer it’s time to find out who protected the infamous Paedophile Information Exchange

It was established in 1974 to campaign for the age of consent to be lowered to four years old

Did previous Tory and Labour governments fund the infamous Paedophile Information Exchange?

Or this from the Daily Mirror recently:

There is a paedophile elephant in the corner of Labour’s living room

Everyone in the country is talking about perverts except people who have reasonable questions to answer about perverts

Deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman and her MP husband Jack Dromey waited three days until the scandal reached boiling point and then accused the newspaper which started it of being more pervy than they are and running a political smear campaign.

The Daily Mail is pretty pervy, but it’s not political for the simple reason that a Tory politician with the same provable, documented links to PIE would be front page too.

You can’t blame it on one newspaper because pretty much everyone’s done it, except the BBC which was conspicuous in its absence from reporting the allegations.

It’s undeniably a story.

And was the NCCL so innocent?  Apparently not….Patricia Hewitt has surfaced and done Harman up like a kipper:

Patricia Hewitt ‘sorry’ for stance on paedophile group

Did she have anything to apologise for?  And did the NCCL sideline the ‘appalling PIE’ as claimed by Harman?

It seems not…….

From the Daily Mail in 1983:

And even the Guardian digs for more dirt:

The BBC’s adopted son, Moazzam Begg, has been arrested by anti-terrorist police:

Ex-Guantanamo detainee Moazzam Begg arrested by terror police

Can we expect the BBC to bring out Jimmy Savile’s old caravan and park it in the car park again as they must have done the last time Begg was incarcerated and his father became a constant fixture on the airwaves demanding his innocent son’s release.

Of course being arrested doesn’t mean you are guilty…let’s face it Begg admitted he attended a terrorist training camp before his stay at Guantanamo..and yet the BBC campaigned for his release loudly and often.

Whilst in the training camp in Afghanistan Begg said he “… met men who seemed to me exemplary in their faith and self-sacrifice, and seen a world that awed and inspired me.”

Guantánamo files leaked in 2011 reveal that the Department of Defense had secretly concluded that Begg was a “confirmed member of al-Qaida,” and that he had been an instructor at the Derunta training camp, as well as having attended the al-Badr and Harakat aI-Ansar training camps

Good old BBC…always ready to promote those who would do us harm…..

A letter from Guantanamo: In full

Lawyers for the British Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg say they have received the first uncensored letter from him in two-and-a-half years.

Mr Begg, 36, is being detained at the US military base without trial. Three other Britons also remain there.

The letter, seen by BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, claimed he had been tortured, threatened with death and kept in solitary confinement.

The BBC, ever ready to attack the intelligence services whilst ignoring terror:

Binyam blames UK for torture

Questions ‘came from Britain’

“Literally dead” in ‘dark prison’

Interrogators ‘brought in MI5’

Moazzem Begg and friends owe MI6 and MI5 an apology