Author Archives: Alan

“The road to Paris and London lies via the towns of Afghanistan, the Punjab and Bengal”  Trotsky

 A politician has woken up to reality:

LIAM FOX explains why Pakistan is the most dangerous country on earth

I’m not holding my breath but maybe the BBC will start looking to places in the world other than Israel for bad news stories, perhaps it will stop pandering to the likes of the PSC and other pro-Palestinian propagandists. Perhaps they will call the ‘Barrier’ what it is …a security fence to stop terrorists bombing, shooting and stabbing Jews….

The BBC uses the term ‘barrier’, ‘separation barrier’ or ‘West Bank barrier’ as an acceptable generic description to avoid the political connotations of ‘security fence’ (preferred by the Israeli government) or ‘apartheid wall’ (preferred by the Palestinians). 

I would suggest that the BBC not using the correct terminology, which gives the reason for the fence, is highly ‘political’ in itself as this not only hides the Palestinian’s terrorist activities but allows the Palestinians to make political capital out of the image of the ‘Barrier’ as an oppressive imposition upon them, vicitmising them for being Palestinian.

… perhaps the BBC will come round to using the term ‘terrorist’ in relation to such attacks.

The word ‘terrorist’ itself can be a barrier rather than an aid to understanding. We should convey to our audience the full consequences of the act by describing what happened. We should use words which specifically describe the perpetrator such as ‘bomber’, ‘attacker’, ‘gunman’, ‘kidnapper’, ‘insurgent’, and ‘militant’. We should not adopt other people’s language as our own.

‘Terrorist’ is a word which has a meaning….and once  again to hide that fact, that such actions are ‘terrorism’, hides the intent behind such attacks…..not to use the word hides the motivation, the politics behind the bloodshed.  Just to have a body count and an interview with a shocked eyewitness and a grieving mother or two means nothing in the big picture.

So no, not a barrier to understanding but a clear pointer to explain events and the reasons behind them.

Perhaps it will get round to examining Pakistan in the same light that it shines upon Israel…

The major charge levelled at Israel by those who wish to make it ‘disappear’ is that it is ‘illegitimate’, a creation of the West imposed upon the Arabs.

The BBC does little to dispel this…comparison with many countries in the world would find that they too are ‘created’….Germany is a creation, Belgium, Liberia, Sierra Leone, South Africa, …well, every country in fact.

But there is one that was created in the exact same way that Israel was, at the exact same time for the exact same reason….only that country’s reason could be considerd to have far less legitimacy than Israel’s.

That country of course being Pakistan….a Muslim Zion, created to provide a homeland for Muslims.

Which is strange as there were already many ‘Muslim’ countries around the world that they could have gone to live in….but there was no ‘Jewish’ land.

For the BBC never to raise the question of Pakistan’s legitimacy whilst at the same time allowing Israel to be demonised and undermined itself raises a few questions.

If one is illegitimate then so is the other.

If using the term ‘security fence’ or ‘terrorism’ is political and to be avoided surely they should avoid the far more political implications of  suggestions that Israel is an ‘illegal’ state….the use of which gives a nod and a wink to the ‘terrorists’, sorry, militants, the brave resisters,  fighting to take back ‘their land’.

The Government has waited a long time  but it looks like it will  take the opportunity to wield the knife and cut off the BBC’s head…the head that always looks the other way when difficult questions are asked of it.

Ther Sunday Times reports that they plan to hand regulation of the BBC to Ofcom  removing the BBC Trust from its double headed position of being both champion and regulator of the BBC.

A ‘senior source’ at the DCMS said ‘It is clear that the Trust, which is both cheerleader for the BBC and its regulator, does not work.  There are contradictions.’

‘Nobody could be left with any confidence in this governance structure.  It is just jaw dropping.’

Labour’s Ben Bradshaw also wants Ofcom to take over from the Trust which may bode well for such an eventuality happening.

It is perhaps an irony that it is ‘Money’ that has brought the BBC low….never mind the bias…just like Al Capone the BBC is untouchable for its real crimes but gets caught with its fingers in the till.

The BBC that lectures us so primly about the greed of  the Bankers, that sternly upbraids us for consumerism, that hectors us about saving the planet whilst flying to work.

I’d quote something from the Bible but no one at the BBC would get the reference…perhaps Giles Fraser could translate…then again perhaps not.

For the BBC troopers on the frontline bombarding us with its left wing, liberal cluster bombs not much will change….at least in their minds.

However that may change, though slowly, if Ofcom takes a more independent and rigorous view of the BBC’s coverage and forces change at the BBC with rulings that do challenge its imposition of its particular world view upon us all. 

 Oborne in the Telegraph lays into the BBC:

Television launched a direct, head-on attack on our traditional institutions (Parliament, monarchy, Army, Church), diminishing them, and then occupied the public space they were forced to vacate. Concepts such as truth, honour, duty, self-deprecation and service were mocked and replaced by a mixture of sensationalism and the cult of celebrity. Only a very few institutions, of which the most successful was probably the Armed Forces, managed to resist.

Earlier today I was listening to a couple of people with their finger on the pulse…..one being James Brown, one of the founders of Loaded magazine.

Sorry…on R4 somewhere today but can’t remember when.

Biggest load of tosh spoken for a long time.

Apparently the 90’s changed British politics forever…that was the era when politicians were sidelined  and the new social and cultural movements made the running defining what politics would be….Tony Blair and New Labour not being politically influential or definitive in any way.

Presumably Brown has never heard of the Sixties and the cultural, social and political revolution that entailed…see Oborne above…nor indeed Punk, Rap, immigration or American movies, clothes and fast food, the Vietnam War etc etc etc….

Always fed up when we get these cultural commentators on…..always talk bilge interpreting history not as it happened but through their own personal prism….not just from their own perspective, their own place in the actual events,  but reshaping memories and history to suit their beliefs and values.

The BBC has started a 10 part series on the history of the Conservative movement:

The changing face of British conservatism

You might think ‘Oh yeah,,,I know what that’ll be like’….but reading the article based upon it the programme may give a far more rounded view of the Tories than you might expect.

 Or that’s the impression I got on first read…on a second reading I think perhaps it is no more than an ‘Occupy’ tract against Capitalism, trade, progress, work and the Establishment.

For instance:

Thomas Carlyle set himself up as the great enemy of the newly dominant idea of utilitarianism.

This preached that people should be managed on the basis that they liked pleasure and shied away from pain.

So you should never pay someone more in “poor relief” than the lowest wage.

Life seemed to be governed by a “cash nexus” of contracts and transactions.

And in this Carlyle saw the death of the old, more caring, Christian society.

Hmmm…isn’t that just what Occupy and Giles Fraser preach now on the BBC?  The argument about ‘poor relief,’ ie welfare, being too high compared to wages is of course very current politically…are the BBC trying a bit too hard to influence thinking however modestly?

And how about this:

‘….this brings us to a character who sums up the spirit of this series: Lord George Bentinck.

Here was an MP who was so keen on horse riding that he turned up to the Commons covered in mud, and didn’t bother speaking for his first eight years in Parliament.

But when Free Trade loomed, he reared up out of his apathy and joined Disraeli to defend the old social systems.

A ‘Tory’ MP who never bothered to speak for 8 years in Parliament and then only to defend the status quo…he ‘sums up the spirit of this series’?

Really?… what does that mean?  All Tory MPs are lazy reactionaries defending privilege and advantage?

Strange that it is a Labour MP that has rarely appeared in Parliament for over 3 years…Gordon Brown…remember him?

Or how about this:

In 1864, when the merchants of Bradford invited him to advise them on the design of a prestigious new building, he gave them a fiery lecture on how they should stop worshipping “the goddess of getting-on” and rediscover old traditions of artisanship and social harmony.

Ah yes…can’t have anyone getting on can we….wanting to improve their quality of life…or as the BBC calls it the evil of  ‘consumerism’.

or how about this:

John Arthur Roebuck revived an old Tory idea – that class hierarchies could best be maintained by letting each class enjoy their own pleasures

Ah yes, the Tories are a class apart….out of touch with the workers.

Then there was Enoch Powell and Mary Whitehouse…and finally, the nail in the coffin…the final programme on …….drum roll….Maggie!

Can’t imagine what that will be like.

1.  You have to laugh….Mickey Clark on Wake Up To Money…surely he’s a London cabby dragged in off the street to fill the diversity quota.

The OECD has predicted British growth will outpace the US, Japan and the Euro giants.

Mickey Clark’s thought…‘My surprise is that the OECD thinks they wouldn’t…I mean the US, Japan and Europe, they’re all struggling…if we can’t beat them it’s time to pack up and go home!’

From a bloke, in an organisation, that has been telling us for 4 years that US economic policy is leading the way…we should do what they do…stimulate to accumulate…whilst our economy is being killed by Austerity.

He might be surprised…but it isn’t the surprise he says it is.

2. My own surprise was to hear the BBC define the Resolution Foundation as ‘left leaning’….both on the radio and in print…no surprise though that the Resolution Foundation is once again on the BBC…one of the fixtures there along with the IPPR and the New Economic Foundation.

Sarah Montague was chatting to Labour’s Rachel Reeves this morning about the Resolution Foundation’s latest claims about low wages….Reeves will be talking at the Foundation’s shindig later on….and conveniently it seems the Foundation is pushing that Miliband’s last great whiz…’predistribution’…remember that?…renamed the ‘Living Wage’…..nice of the BBC to bring it all together for us…and them.

The ‘Living Wage’….Something that is completely unworkable as proposed by Miliband, except in Labour’s dreams. We already have a ‘living wage’…it’s called a low wage topped up by tax allowances and credits and other benefits ‘redistributed’ from the richer end of society….it’s called Socialism….strange Labour want to throw it out and close down all those small businesses and throw the workers onto the scrap heap.

3. That aside they then got onto Labour’s little trouble with the unions…and Reeves said that the vast majority of donations came from individuals….not true…..the Unions provide by far the vast majority of money.

Sarah Montague said nothing….not bad for our most prestigious news programme…informing and educating us.

What else on the BBC’s Titter feed?

4. Oh yeah…the Never Fail Solution if you ever need a  stopgap example of bad BBC journalism …Victoria Derbyshire.

Talking about the police investigation into hacking to Sun journo Chris Pollard who suggested it was way over the top.

Derbyshire jumped in suggesting that such a large investigation reflects the people’s utter revulsion at the hacking of phones of celebrities and people in hospital and other such victims.

What example did she give of a ‘patient’ being hacked?  Gordon Brown…when his son’s medical condition was revealed by the Sun….though we know Brown was lying through his teeth about that…just part of his ‘war’ against Murdoch.

Why does the BBC push this lie?  Brown did nothing when he was Chancellor and PM, he took no action at all….not a thing….because he knew the truth.

5.  Next was Derbyshire again…talking about the economic recovery to a builder…..note that again and again on these phone-ins that they all say ‘confidence is the key’ to recovery…something that the BBC has been undermining for the past 4 years…..the other phrase callers have been using for the last couple of years is ‘Actually we’re doing quite well’…..but the BBC preferred not to dwell on that….preferring to ask ‘how on earth is employment still so high?…it’s a puzzle.’

The caller said that the resurgent housing market was boosting things.  Derbyshire shrieked in the way she does that we’re heading for a ‘BUBBLE’..and all the government schemes are doing is helping people getting into debt with mortgages they can’t afford.

Hmmm…Wasn’t it the BBC’s very own economic guru, Stephanie Flanders, who told us again and again and again that the government should build more houses…that is the solution to creating economic growth?

6.  Finally PMQs and John Pienaar who told us ‘We learnt nothing from this’.

I thought we learnt quite a lot…or it confirmed quite a lot.

Miliband is hopelessly political and floundering badly on Syria….lying too…he had all the things he demanded from Cameron….including waiting for the UN and a second vote before any military action was taken….so suggesting that he voted against ‘a rush to war’ is rubbish…not something Pienaar points out.

Cameron is a fool with an innate ability to put his foot in his mouth…with terrible political judgement. (still believe he would have won a majority in 2010 if he hadn’t reneged on the promise of an EU referendum….thereby revealing himself to be the usual untrustworthy politician that he is…and he’s learnt nothing…still looking to slip out of any commitment to a vote)

Ironically whilst Putin, strongly against military action in Syria, tells us that he may back it if the UN does, Cameron, who supports military action has now decided that Britian will never  back it, under any circumstances.

Cameron defiantly tells us that we must press our point in every forum…our point being the utter revulsion we have for the use of chemical weapons.  Assad will be quacking in his boots.

What’s he going to do to help the rebels?  He’s going to support their demands for a democratic Syria.  And?  Well….er….not sure how exactly.

What’s he going to do to support those countries inundated with Syrian refugees like Jordan and Lebanon?  Well….He’s spending a lot of money on embassies in those countries…and on diplomatic niceties.

7.  Pienaar tells us Cameron doesn’t want another vote because he would lose.

Is that correct?

He lost by 13 votes last time…..if all the Tories who didn’t turn up turn up for a  second vote, if Miliband backs a new and improved Motion backed by stronger evidence, if a few MPs change their minds, as many have already intimated, it is likely Cameron would win.

If news stories had to be conveyed to us in 140 characters or less do you thnk we would be any the less wiser than we are after a day of relentless BBC indepth analysis and reporting?

Back in November 2012 we had a visit from someone calling themselves ‘Soothsayer’ (allegedly posing as BBC man Raffi Berg)…apparently he is an Israeli subversive who has infiltrated the BBC to push the Zonist agenda…and we’ve been helping him out as Sue at the ‘pro-Israeli’ ‘Is the BBC biased’ site relates.

 And now we’ve been rumbled and so has Raffi:

According to Electronic Intifada, the emails were originally posted onto the Zionist website Biased BBC on 21 November 2012 by a user going by the name “soothsayer”. They were reposted on another pro-Israeli website, Is the BBC biased?, on 13 April this year.

Good to know that we were wrong about Purnell and Co…not Labour lackeys…..they are, like us,  ‘Zionist Pimps.’….not only that but ‘notorious’ to boot….

Berg is not the only Israel pimp working at the BBC. Others include the notorious Zionist James Purnell, who in February this year was put in charge of BBC policy and strategy, and the head of BBC News, James Harding.

Raffi Berg is relatively junior compared to Purnell and Harding, the audacity and blatantness with which he is trying to shape the BBC News website’s coverage of the Palestine-Israel conflict is a cause for grave concern and should be urgently investigated by an independent authority.

Yes indeed….Guess that’s just another case of BBC bias then that we’re happy to pass along.

Small world…remember Mike Berry from Cardiff University who just recently was telling us that the BBC is in fact ‘right wing’?

He gets an admiring  mention from this anti-Zionist rabble above:

Seven years ago the BBC’s governing body commissioned an independent report which concluded that BBC coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “does not consistently constitute a full and fair account of the conflict but rather, in important respects, presents an incomplete and in that sense misleading picture”. The reasons for this have long been the subject of serious academic studies, the best known of which is Greg Philo’s and Mike Berry’s More Bad News from Israel.

Might just be that academic Mike Berry is the cuckoo in the BBC nest and not old Raffi.

So that’s why Australia has so many sheep…they mine them!

 Jon Donnison hasn’t changed much, still bringing us his unique take on the news.

Whilst the BBC cheers on the doughty Hamas approved miners tunnelling their way to Egypt in the quest for non-Israeli approved  brands of corn flakes or whatever their fancy is,  Jon Donnison down under gives us the sense that he doesn’t really approve of the Aussie miners tunnelling for dirty old coal.

He asks:

Why are Australians worried about the economy?

He concludes it is down to coal mining one way or another.

However one economic burden he doesn’t consider is the massive, in fact world record, carbon taxes and emissions trading schemes imposed by government on business:

The 50 to 1 project (via Bishop Hill)

(You can turn the captions off)

Here also via Bishop Hill are two climate related stories of note:

The first is actually the BBC doing the job properly and debunking climate change hothead’s alarmist numbers (A transcript of the programme):

Source: BBC Radio 4: More or Less

Something on the loose at the English seaside is ‘Dangerously English’ says ex-BBC 3 man Sir Nicholas Kenyon 

What might that be?  A swarm of English football fans, James Bond, the EDL?

No..it’s the Proms….that well known recruiting festival for the BNP.

Last Night of the Proms were ‘dangerously English,’ says ex-BBC boss Sir Nicholas Kenyon

But the panic is over…it is now safe for ethnic minorities to venture out of doors once again…the beast has been tamed:

The former BBC Radio 3 controller welcomed the fact this year’s concert will feature talent from overseas.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House programme yesterday: ‘The Last Night of the Proms, from being something dangerously English, has now become something totally inclusive.

Next up the  dangerously Asian ‘Asian Network’ and the dangerously Black Black Music station  1Xtra.

Guess he was only obeying the Boss:

The culture minister, Margaret Hodge, is facing a chorus of criticism from across the political spectrum after attacking the Proms for not being multicultural enough.

Downing Street was forced into an immediate U-turn and denied that the Government, or Mrs Hodge, had attacked the Proms.

Gordon Brown’s spokesman praised the concerts as a “wonderful, democratic and quintessentially British institution”.

Typical arrogance of the BBC to attack a unique ‘institution’,  imposing their own small minded, condescending, pretentious view of what the world should look like upon everyone else…..wasn’t so long ago that they were telling us that mixed race people were better looking, more intelligent and more psychologically stable than those of  supposedly ‘pure’ stock….more genetically fitter.

The proof….mixed race Lewis Hamilton is a top Formula 1 driver….er…just like this guy:

(of course the research came from the BBC’s favourite university…Cardiff)

Unsure just when you become ‘pure’ or what level of ‘mixing’ is ‘mixed’….does a black great great grandfather make you ‘black’ or mixed race…or are you white because you look white?

Still nice to know that racial profiling is alive and kicking on the ‘inclusive’ BBC.

Just imagine the BBC saying the same thing about the ‘White race’.

Yeah..hard to imagine that.

Guest Who and George R have noticed a bit of BBC editing that completely alters a story.

In this report, on the main UK news page, about another BBC report, the BBC may give the reader the impression that sexual abuse of Sikh girls is carried out by those within that community…there is no mention of who the culprits might be…even the title is suggestive:

Is there a Sikh code of silence on sexual grooming?

This is the closest we get to an identity:

Inside Out has also discovered that groomers are actually exploiting the fact that Sikh families are less likely to report incidents of abuse.

The programme has spoken to one man who recently broke away from a grooming gang and is now campaigning for greater awareness of the problem.

He says there are groomers who specifically target Sikh girls because they feel they can get away with it.

They see Sikh girls as ‘easy targets’ because they know codes of honour mean the child will be too scared and ashamed to tell their parents about the abuse and “their parents would not even report it if they were to find out”.

Ironically at the end it says:

Some names have been changed to protect the identities of victims

It just forgets to mention that the identity of the guilty have been left off as well.

As an aside that is also interesting because it proves that there is a link between religious identity and the choice of victim.

However in the blurb for the actual programme that is reporting this there is a very definite culprit:

An Inside Out London special, uncovers the hidden scandal of sexual grooming of young Sikh girls by Muslim men.

Breaking their silence, they speak to Chris Rogers about their experiences at the hands of these predatory men and why justice is being denied to them by their own community and the police.

This follows on from the post about the identity of the arsonists at the Darul Uloom school…although presumably ‘white’, non-Muslim…as the head master said they were caught on CCTV…but we don’t know for certain as their identity has been kept under wraps for 3 months…..so we are left guessing and blaming the ‘usual suspects’

Here the BBC in one article is protecting the ‘Muslims’ whilst allowing the Sikh community to be tarred with suspicion because it is not made clear that the guilty are Muslims and not Sikhs.

When you start manipulating the news for your own political and social ends as the BBC so often does, there are always consequences…in this case Sikhs become victims twice over.

Praise due though for Inside Out for mentioning exactly who is doing what to whom.

Mark Mardell has had a sudden change of mind.

Obama’s decision to have a vote on Syria was a ‘canny, democratic move’ at one time quite recently.

Now…not so much:

If Congress doesn’t back him, it will be disastrous for the president.

His decision to call for a vote will look foolish and he would be left with an appalling choice.

Ignore the vote and enrage Congress and many Americans. Or don’t strike and live with John Kerry’s words that America will be weakened, petty dictators emboldened and history’s judgement harsh on America’s leaders.

So everything hangs on Obama winning the vote. But even if he does, the delay gives Assad more time to prepare for the blow.

The decision has left many commentators questioning his leadership and asking how Obama managed to box himself in.