It was apparent from the start that Labour HQ knew of attempts to rig certain elections, not just Falkirk….and ignored them, even threatening disciplinary action against one person who raised the subject.

This is surely political dynamite, and yet the BBC are consistently ignoring or underplaying it.

Embarrassingly this is from a Labour man prepared to state the truth that the BBC dare not:

So now we know: Ed Miliband struck a deal that allowed Unite to rig the Falkirk selection

In Falkirk, over a hundred new applications were received in the space of a week. And as a result, those members were not, at that stage, being entered into the Labour Party central processing system.
Given the impending selection in Falkirk, it did not take a genius to work out what was going on. Nor did it take long for the Compliance Team to appreciate the political significance of what was unfolding. And that was why the issue was raised directly with Ed Miliband’s office.
A heated debate ensued amongst Miliband’s team about how to proceed. But the key voice in that debate was Tom Watson, a key Miliband confidant, and boss of Murphy. At the time I was told Watson had “spoken to people” about allowing the Unite members on to the system, and letting the selection proceed. Two days ago this intervention was confirmed. In an email dated 14 January, from Stephen Deans to an unnamed recipient, and cc’d to Karrie Murphy, Deans writes: “There have been some membership processing issues that Tom Watson has been helpful in resolving. Tom has asked that you send me an updated list for Falkirk West and the wider membership list to enable us to validate these memberships.”
Another series of leaked emails a week later show mounting concern that the members had still not been placed on the system. One, from Unite political coordinator Tom Wartnett to Karie Murphy says: “I sent them [the membership forms] up with a letter saying Tom Watson has approved them.”
Tom Watson very effectively argued it was in Ed Miliband and the Labour Party’s interests to simply process the membership applications, stand back and let the Falkirk selection run its course. No one wanted a row with Labour’s biggest funder. Miliband’s team agreed.

Ed Miliband did not tackle the machine politics of Falkirk thoroughly. Or swiftly. Instead, he connived in it. Those of us who have been perplexed at his actions over the past fortnight now have our answer.

Why did Miliband capitulate so readily…apart from possibly agreeing with Unite’s politics (McCluskey being a big fan of one Ralph Miliband’s Marxist views):

Unite still Labour’s largest backer despite Falkirk row

Once again the BBC dashes in to ‘protect’ Muslims by debunking claims about Christian deaths:

Are there really 100,000 new Christian martyrs every year?

On the internet, the statistic has taken on a life of its own, popping up all over the place, sometimes with an additional detail – that these 100,000 lives are taken by Muslims.

The BBC did the same when claims about Muslim birthrates suggested we might be over run in the near future, the BBC even producing their own film and placing it on YouTube to counter the film ‘Muslim Demographics’.

Unfortunately for the BBC they will have to work a bit harder….with only 157,000 viewers they have a bit of catching up to do with ‘Muslim Demographic’s‘ 15 million.

Always interesting and informative what the BBC tries to debunk…fair enough you might say if those figures were wrong……but why not other claimed figures that have important social and political consequences?

Such as the ‘rising tide of Islamophobia’ figures produced by the discredited ‘Tell Mama’  pressure group.

Come onto the BBC to tell of a mass uprising against Muslims who now cannot walk the streets in peace and you will always get a welcome at the BBC it seems.

632 anti-Muslim hate incidents recorded by Tell Mama

There doesn’t seem to be a level playing ground here….figures that are damaging to Muslims are debunked…figures that support the Muslim cause are given credibility and authority by the BBC when they definitely don’t deserve such preferential treatment.

Pounce spotted an extraordinary piece of BBC propaganda in the BBC Magazine.

It tells the story of Somali immigrants to Norway.

First thing to note is that this is not an article in the magazine, the cartoon is placed, in prime position, without explanation, there is no attempt to explain what the cartoons are supposed to say, who produced them, nor who the audience is supposed to be.

It is therefore, as said, pure propaganda….because it does of course have a message.

The question you then ask is….who produced the cartoon, and then you ask why?

Who is easy……a small link at the bottom of the cartoon leads you to the ‘Open Society Foundations’.

Who runs and funds that?  George Soros.

So the BBC is placing Soros propaganda on its website without even attempting to make the pretence that it is part of an article or report.

Soros is a multi-billionaire…who massively funds political groups that he favours…notably the Democrats in the US amongst many others around the world trying to topple governments he doesn’t like.

The second question is what are these cartoons for?  Who is the intended audience?

On the OSF’s website you find this:

Through research and advocacy, the At Home in Europe project focuses on advancing equality for groups that are excluded from the mainstream of civic, political, and cultural life in Western Europe—including Europe’s Muslims and white working-class communities.

Muslims excluded?  Really?….if at all….only by their own tendencies and religious convictions.

Here is the cartoon site:

Meet the Somalis    The illustrated stories of Somalis in seven cities in Europe

Meet the Somalis is a collection of 14 illustrated stories depicting the real life experiences of Somalis in seven cities in Europe: Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Leicester, London, Malmo, and Oslo.

Unfortunately it’s a very selective, narrow collection of stories….ones designed to paint a picture of desperate immigrants battling prejudice.

But who is that ‘audience’?  It can’t be recalcitrant Somalis..because it is in English (and because as the cartoons tell us….there are no really recalcitrant Somalis)….therefore the supposition must be that the audience is intended primarily to be the natives of the countries receiving the Somali immigrants….in other words propaganda.

Not surprising when you see who is running the programme:

Nazia Hussain   Director, At Home in Europe Project

A Muslim…..not going to be exactly neutral going by the experience of ‘professional’ Muslims in the UK like Mehdi Hasan…and looking at the cartoons that is bared out….

The intention is to show how wonderful the Somalis are, how willing to integrate, but thwarted in that wish by a prejudiced native population and harassment by the police.

Look at some of the stories….the one on the BBC pages, or Malmo or the Netherlands for instance….Western culture is often derided, the police are always harassing them, Islam is the answer to everything…but you know what….the Somalis all really, really want to integrate and become good Norwegians or Swedes or Dutchmen.

No mention of terrorism, rapes, crime, drugs, anti-Semitism or any other difficulties arising from Somali immigration.

Just out and out propaganda published by an extremist left wing organisation and given prominent ‘top billing’ in the BBC Magazine.

Albaman quotes this in reference to wind strengths over the Philippines:

Haiyan hit Guiuan, on the Philippine island of Samar…the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) assessed Haiyan’s sustained winds at 195 mph, gusting to 235 mph, making it the 4th strongest tropical cyclone in world history. Satellite loops show that Haiyan weakened only slightly, if at all, in the two hours after JTWC’s advisory, so the super typhoon likely made landfall with winds near 195 mph. The next JTWC intensity estimate, for 00Z UTC November 8, about three hours after landfall, put the top winds at 185 mph. Averaging together these estimates gives a strength of 190 mph an hour after landfall. Thus, Haiyan had winds of 190 – 195 mph at landfall, making it the strongest tropical cyclone on record to make landfall in world history.

Unfortunately, as stated before, the Philippines own weather bureau reports top wind speed on landfall at the same place, Samar, as 235kph….147 mph, not 195mph:

So who is correct…the US JTWC based in Haiwaii or the Philippine’s own weather bureau?

Guess we will just have to wait and see.

Though of course the BBC seemed to have changed its mind:

BBC now reporting reduced wind speeds that would make it a Cat4 storm:

Typhoon Haiyan – one of the most powerful storms on record to make landfall – swept through six central Philippine islands on Friday.

It brought sustained winds of 235km/h (147mph), with gusts of 275 km/h (170 mph), with waves as high as 15m (45ft), bringing up to 400mm (15.75 inches) of rain in places.

 The Spectator asks:

Why can’t we admit we’re scared of Islamism?

The article reveals that an art exhibition examining freedom of expression had to be moved to a different location due to ‘threats’ towards the gallery….

‘Enemies of the exhibition’ had made threats, and it was worried about a ‘potential terrorist attack’

The article continues:

There was no secret about its decision. But not one of the arts correspondents for the broadsheets or BBC covered the threat to an international exhibition featuring the work of dozens of artists. I have argued many times that censorship is at its most effective when no one admits it exists. The first step to freeing yourself from oppressive power is to find the courage to admit that you are afraid. The more people confess to being afraid, the less reason there is to fear and the easier it is to isolate repressive forces.

Such threats to relatively small events are the tip of the iceberg…the massive drive by Muslim nations to silence any criticism at all of Islam is extraordinarily sinister and should be resisted at all costs.

Of course people have to know what is going on.

But they don’t.

There is already seems to be a self imposed silence on this reinvention of the Spanish Inquisition:

The OIC Secretary General appears to be laying the diplomatic groundwork to persuade non-elected bureaucrats at EU headquarters to enact hate-speech legislation that would limit by fiat what 500-million European citizens — including democratically elected politicians — can and cannot say about Islam

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), an influential bloc of 57 Muslim countries, has officially inaugurated a Permanent Observer Mission to the European Union (EU). The primary objective of the OIC, headquartered in Saudi Arabia and funded by Islamic countries around the world, has long been to pressure Europe and the United States into passing laws that would ban “negative stereotyping of Islam.”

I can’t find any references on the BBC to the OIC’s drive to impose Islam upon the World…..as you can see from the Spectator’s article there is already a willingness from Judges in Europe to silence any critic of Islam by labelling such criticism as ‘racist’….

a criminal record for condemning honour killings and clerical misogyny — proving yet again that the interests of women always come last.

Of course the law of untended consequences could come into play.

If criticism of any religion is to be banned then the Koran would have to be banned, and Islam along with it……the hate that spews out of the Koran for non-Muslims must surely raise a few Judicial eyebrows:

‘The unbelievers among the People of the Book and the pagans shall burn for ever in the fire of Hell. They are the vilest of creatures.’  98:6

Believers take neither Jews nor Christians for your friend.  5:51

‘Fight against such of those to whom the scriptures were given as believe in neither God nor the Last Day, who do not forbid what God and His Apostle have forbidden, and do not embrace the true faith, even if they are People of the Book, until they pay tribute out of hand and are utterly subdued.’  9:29

‘Make war on them until idolatry shall cease and God’s religion shall reign supreme.’  8:39

Front page news:

Broadcaster David Dimbleby gets first tattoo aged 75

Not front page news, in fact not news at all on the BBC:

Roma migrants could cause riots in cities, warns Blunkett

British cities could face race riots as an influx of Roma migrants creates “frictions” with local people, David Blunkett warns

The BBC though, does find time and space for more Hacking tales:

Hacking jury hears David Blunkett voicemails

The reliability and predictability of the licence fee has been a huge reason for the News Division’s success.
  MarkDamazer ex R4 Controller

Andrew Marr, BBC journalist recently voted top political reporter by Press Gazette describes “we have become too powerful, too much the interpreters, using our talents as communicators to crowd them (politicians) out. On paper we mock them more than ever before and report them less than ever before. On television and radio, we commentators are edging them out ever more carelessly”.

John Lloyd “you have to ask the question: is it the purpose of the news media to make an impact or to report the news?”.

As our most powerful cultural institution, the BBC is increasingly drawn into fierce debates about politics and morality, as well as its growing dominance of Britain’s media.

The BBC has become a victim of its own incredible success. It has emerged as a hugely powerful player over the last 10 years across national and – increasingly – international media. During this time it has raced to increase its number of TV and radio stations and has managed to establish a dominant position in online news.

Emma Duncan, deputy editor of the Economist, highlighted the specific threat that the BBC’s online news service poses to newspapers: “The Corporation has a fantastic website. That’s hardly surprising since it spends £145m a year of licence-fee payers’ money on it. Britain’s national newspapers put together spend around £100m on their online efforts. If the BBC is allowed to go on dominating online news it will undermine other news providers’ ability to survive on the internet, and thus threaten the diversity of news sources that is crucial to a democracy.

As Emily Bell, Guardian News & Media’s director of digital content, noted last year…[The BBC is] on a path which could … squish dozens of other media businesses, from magazines to daily newspapers, to local radio stations, to rival terrestrial broadcasters. The ecology of some parts of the UK media is now so uncertain and fragile that it can be depleted by a single blow from the end of the BBC’s tail as it rolls over in its sleep.”

As respect for other national institutions (politics, church, traditional family hierarchies) recedes, the BBC has assumed more cultural influence. It has become the place where national debates about moral, political and ethical disputes are increasingly being aired.

So not just the ‘usual suspects’ complaining about the BBC…even the Guardian, and the Economist, recognise the danger of its dominance.

The other media groups realised the growing dominance of the BBC and complained vociferously about the licence fee funded monster:

Media groups unite against BBC

News International, Associated Newspapers and the Telegraph Group have taken the rare step of joining forces to demand that the government curtail the BBC’s “digital empire-building”.

Commercial media groups are worried about the BBC’s digital ambitions, outlined recently in its Creative Future policy.

The submission on the BBC white paper, draft royal charter and agreement is also signed by David Elstein, the chairman of the Commercial Radio Companies Association and David Newell, the director of the Newspaper Society. The group said it had a grave concern about “the extent to which the BBC is being given a public policy directive to build a digital empire”.

Mark Thompson admitted  ‘there’s a big shock coming’...

Delivering the Royal Television Society’s Fleming Memorial Lecture this evening BBC Director-General Mark Thompson will say: “There’s a big shock coming…….The second wave of digital will be far more disruptive than the first and the foundations of traditional media will be swept away, taking us beyond broadcasting. “
“The BBC should no longer think of itself as a broadcaster of TV and radio and some new media on the side. We should aim to deliver public service content to our audiences in whatever media and on whatever device makes sense for them, whether they are at home or on the move. ”

Journalism
A new pan-platform journalism strategy, including mobile devices, is already underway, putting 24/7 news on the web, broadband, TV and radio at its heart for unfolding stories as well as analysis.
Current affairs will be reshaped and BBC News will work with the education sector to get BBC journalism into secondary schools across the country through initiatives like Schools Question Time.

So the BBC wants to spread its journalism into schools…why?

‘…unless the BBC worked harder to reach younger audiences and those that felt increasingly distant more effectively, the BBC could lose a generation forever.’

I guess they just want to keep their stranglehold on what people think…get ’em young and keep ’em.

Which might be one of the reasons why we get headlines like this today:

BBC website is ‘destroying’ local newspapers and harming democracy, warns Home Secretary Theresa May

The BBC is ‘destroying’ local newspapers by using its taxpayer-funded dominance to squeeze out competition, Theresa May has warned.
The Home Secretary condemned the BBC for using the licence fee to fund websites in direct competition with regional and national newspapers.
And she warned that as papers close, fewer sources of news will become ‘dangerous to the health of democratic politics’.

Though nothing new there….from 2006:

Tories attack BBC’s web dominance

The Conservative party will today launch an attack on the BBC, saying the corporation must be stopped from “abusing its privileged position and huge resources to crowd out smaller players” on the internet.

George Osborne saying:

“As new forms of media develop, I believe that the BBC must be very careful about not abusing its privileged position and huge resources to crowd out smaller players.

“I am concerned that in too many of its non-core activities, particularly on the internet, it is stifling the growth of innovative new companies that simply can’t compete with BBC budgets,” he will say, giving video downloading as an example.

“Another example is the BBC’s plan to launch programming for local communities – what it calls ‘ultra local television’. This might sound like a reasonable idea, but it could have a ruinous effect on local newspapers and local radio stations.

“This isn’t in the interests of the British public – who are denied new products and services, and ultimately, it isn’t in the interests of the BBC who need the competition.”

So I suppose the question is ‘Will the government have the bottle to do anything about it?’

Probably not.

unless the BBC worked harder to reach younger audiences and those that felt increasingly distant more effectively, the BBC could lose a generation forever.

The 181,880 people prosecuted last year for not paying for a TV licence, presumably some of the poorest in the country, will be delighted that if they had paid up their money would have gone into Labour Party coffers, or representatives of, and would undoubtedly be put to good use campaigning for the poor and needy:

BBC pays seven times more to Labour MPs, figures show

The corporation paid more than £32,000 in fees to Labour MPs whilst only shelling out £4,650 to their Tory counterparts in the past year

Alan Johnson, the former home secretary, was the biggest earner and was given £15,800 for 51 hours work contributing to radio and television broadcasts.

It means the former postman, who already picks up a £65,000 salary, is earning almost £310 per hour.

That’s £310 per hour.  Basically more than many earn in a week….living standards crisis?

Not in Alan Johnson’s house.

Who wants to be a Slumdog waif and stray?…well it seems quite a lot of Indians don’t mind so much despite the best intentions of those who know what is good for them…and you and me.

The BBC has given Miliband a free ride over his ‘Living standard’s crisis‘, pretty much allowing him to get away with murder whilst making headline grabbing claims for policies that even the most ardent fan would admit don’t hold water and are solely intended to grab those headlines and make Miliband look like he is driving the narrative and is a really good, caring guy….come the election and a possible Labour win and they will all be quietly shelved.

Money and higher spending are always the road to happiness….unless the BBC is in a contrary mood and is lecturing us about ‘consumerism’ and wanting too much.

Having to pull in your belt for a bit, spend less on fags and beer, and your lifestyle has been shockingly curtailed by an uncaring Tory government.

Call the UN. Call the special rapporteurs to investigate this breach in your human rights!

Thankfully not everyone has yet fallen for that line of thinking…..the BBC leapt to the defence of India when critics attacked it for spending a billion pounds on its space programme….and in doing so revealed an amusing tale of rebellion and independence from the depths of the Indian slums in From Our Own Correspondent:(about 11:40)

For India, its mission to Mars is an opportunity to come out top of a new Asian space race. Justin Rowlatt examines the question: couldn’t the cash instead have been used to lift many Indians out of poverty?

The ‘Slumdogs’ weren’t interested in the charities’ charity so much….claiming,  literally from  the gutter, that ‘Life’s not that hard’.

The charities couldn’t persuade the children and youths to come off the streets and into their care …they wanted their freedom.

I guess there’s some things money can’t buy.

Strange that the BBC continually gives so much credence to the claims in this country that families on anything up to £70,000 a year benefits are in poverty and are therefore unhappy.

The BBC has often helped to spread the belief that the next generation is going to be poverty stricken whilst the baby Boomer generation live the Dolce Vita.

BBC journalists have gone as far as to ask why the young aren’t out on the streets ‘protesting’…whatever that might mean.

In 2011 Alvin Hall reported in a similar vein:

Alvin Hall: The generation poorer than their parents

Many young people in Britain are set to be in a worse economic position than their parents, but is there any sympathy among older generations and is their cause gaining support from politicians?

“I’m 100% livid, I think that’s the best way of putting it. We’re going to get more angry than we are now.”

Twenty-five-year-old City worker George Lewkowicz is mad about the economy.

He is typical of many young Brits under the age of 30 who have come to realise that their financial prospects are substantially less bright than that of their parents’ generation.

Today, George predicts this disquiet is only set to escalate:

“There is this huge population of older people who have essentially had it all, and my generation are then paying for their retirement.”

When this dawns on people, George argues, “the riots will happen”.

Personally I have yet to see evidence of that ‘poverty’…when the ‘youth’ are carting around £500 phones it kind of makes a mockery of such claims.

The Sunday Times suggests Hall and his kind are blowing smoke up our backsides:

Relax, Boomers, the kids won’t be bust.

The children of today will be far better off than any previous generation, according to one of the country’s leading economists.

Sir Andrew Dilnot, chairman of the Statistics Authority, believes technological advances mean young people have never had it so good and life will continue to improve for several more generations.

What else is interesting is the claim that whilst we maybe materially better off ‘our moral lives have been damaged…….by divorce, separation and lack of responsibility for community’.

And who exactly brought that about?   Those who set out to destroy the family, deny responsibility for our own actions and respect for authority…and the turning over of all responsibility for your own life to the government.

Amongst others it was all those Trotskyist and Marxist revolutionaries who worked for the BBC  in the sixties…..trying to implement all those things that Ralph Miliband was so enamoured of…….as a Marxist.  Even Joan Bakewell admitted she was so minded, suspected by the BBC hierarchy of wanting to overthrow the government.

Dilnot tell us that matters are not actually worse but that expectations have changed…we expect more and more…and who drives those expectations?…..the Media.

No one wants to work in a factory now…they have all seen that getting on the ‘Telly’ and becoming a celebrity is the easy way to fame and fortune without having to grind out a living.

The BBC and the Left continually demand an improvement in living standards as Miliband does now…..and yet where does the money come from for that?  The jobs all go to cheap old China.

Day in day out the BBC gives enormous airtime to any charity that stakes a claim on government spending…always demanding more.

Listening to the BBC report these charities’ claims  over the last two weeks and you would know that poverty is the cause of so much harm…..

Poverty means choosing heating over eating, and not eating causes obesity (no really), and obesity causes a housing shortage as fat people can’t fit into normal houses, and living on the streets causes cancer from the fumes of automobiles,  and cancer patients can’t get into hospital as they’ve all been closed down because they can’t afford the energy price rises, so patients are left in the streets to die…their decaying and rotting bodies giving off gases that cause climate change and doom the planet.

And all because of poverty.

Oliver Twist had nothing on these Charity scroungers….and Dickens nothing on the BBC for spinning a good tale.