Author Archives: Alan

There is only one question that needs to be asked in the debate about Welfare Benefits…and that is ‘What can we afford?‘.

When there is ‘no money left’  what can we afford?

That seems to have escaped the BBC who continue to question Coalition welfare reforms and the need for them on the basis that we have an endless supply of money.

The BBC et al ask only ‘What do they need?’  with no requirement as to answer how to pay for those ‘needs’.

That may seem easy for an organisation that doesn’t have to work for its funding but in the real world that’s a model that is the stuff of dreams….imagine being able to force your customers to pay for your goods even if they don’t use them…and in advance as well.

Some, even those on the Left, have come round to the idea that a bit of moderation and belt tightening might be in order.

George R points us in the direction of this piece by Dan Hodges:

‘Be under no illusion, when the great pillar of welfare finally comes thundering to the ground, every single one of us is going to be buried beneath it.’

Perhaps if the BBC took a wider perspective, a longer perspective, one that embraced both sides of the argument more equally rather than being the soapbox of choice for every welfare and vested interest group that wants to shout down the reforms, we might get not only a reasoned debate but a workable solution.

At the moment the BBC is serving only to buttress one side of the argument.

Who will suffer because of that?  The  children that the likes of Owen Jones and Jack Dromey MP proclaim they are protecting…it is they who, years down the road will be paying off the debts that were piled upon them by the careless generosity of those who support an ever growing, and ever more generous, benefits system.

You couldn’t make it up, but that doesn’t stop the BBC.

Blair Supporter ‏@blairsupporter 1 Apr  Can I watch again this #JonathanCreek episode? Someone may wish to advise a lawyer.

The BBC’s ability and propensity to rewrite history is frequently mentioned on these pages…it is one of its most powerful and effective means of  ‘control’.

If it cannot find any actual proof to support its narrative it can insinuate, or sow the seeds of doubt about something by suggestion.  A drip drip of ‘true lies’ designed to make the viewer question his own beliefs or to reinforce doubts he may have about something.

The run up to the Iraq War, the Iraq Dossier, David Kelly and the Hutton Inquiry still eat away at the soul of the BBC.

It was proved wrong but intends to ‘prove’ it was right and is prepared to play the long game, even inventing ‘evidence’ to back it up.

‘Jonathan Creek’ is back on our screens in a one off special:  ‘The Clue Of The Savant’s Thumb’.

Normally quite good….this one was a bit clunky going from the ridiculous to the very ridiculous,  missing out the Sublime altogether….and had Rik Mayall strangely outshining Alan Davies in  his own show.

If you haven’t watched it, and intend to, don’t read on.

Not going into details I’ll just say the tale revolved around a DVD…it turns out it was a DVD showing ‘Tony Blair’ and ‘Alistair Campbell’ chatting in private. (1 hr 20 mins 40 secs in)

Creek & Co look on ‘gobsmacked’ as the DVD plays….the reaction of  Creek’s sidekick….

‘I’m gobsmacked, can you imagine if this went public…this is what everybody’s been saying for the last 10 years….complete and absolute proof they have been lying through their teeth…it’s lethal.’

Creek says  ‘Yes…a smoking gun…or it would be if it were real.’

‘If it were real’……That was the little trick the writer uses as a disclaimer…but he knows he will have hit the target….people will have suddenly sat up and taken note…and all the old doubts will have resurfaced.

It  gets better…..Creek goes on to say:

‘How scary is it that people in very high places have got wind of this footage and taken it completely at face value.’

….and then gone on to murder anyone who had seen it.

Hmmm….so just who did kill Dr David Kelly?  Are the BBC making yet more sly allegations?

As Mayall’s character says…you can get away with a lot with a smooth tongue, a big smile, the right hand gestures…you really can get away with murder.

Jack ‏@JacksterD 1 Apr  So… Jonathan Creek… is implying that Gordon Brown and Tony Blair are having their enemies assassinated. What?

Yes…Wonder who the writer had in mind….smooth tongue and a big smile?

If the BBC keep on slipping in references to the Iraq War and climate change into their programmes there won’t be any room left for the actual storyline…..in this case it might have been a small mercy to have missed out on that.

Hopefully they’ll leave out the political messages in future and give us a proper bit of entertainment.

Seems like I’m not the only one who noticed the strange story line: 

Blair Supporter ‏@blairsupporter 1 Apr Alan Davies is getting his defense in early. #JonathanCreek Hmm. @alandavies1 @campbellclaret & @tonyblairoffice

Alan Davies ‏@alandavies1 1 Apr  @whycantibeBEEF Tony Blair & Alistair Campbell talking about invasion of Iraq, only it was a spoof that was mistakenly believed to be real..

Paul Sandars ‏@PaulSandars 1 Apr Very much the most surreal #jonathancreek ever. David Renwick really doesn’t like Tony Blair, does he?

Sam Hare ‏@SamHare84 1 Apr  None too subtle dig at tony blair though, let it go bbc for christ sake!

 or as someone on a forum said:

Twitter was outraged this morning as it woke up to the Daily Mail frontpage.

The BBC, and it seems the tedious Owen Jones, are of a similar mind laying into the Mail today as it linked Philpott’s scrounging to the death of his children.

A picture in the Telegraph via Guido with ‘idiot’ Jones….

@OwenJones84 The utter shameless, grotesque, vile mentality of a “newspaper” that uses the killing of 6 kids for political purposes and to inflame hatred

Not forgetting the opportunist Labour MP Jack Dromey, quite ready to use a coffin as a political soap box:  ‘Truly vile headline in tomorrow’s Daily Mail. How dare they bracket the unemployed, the sick and the disabled with a mass murderer!’

No ‘utter shameless, grotesque, vile mentality of a labour MP that uses the killing of 6 kids for political purposes’ from Jones on that one then?

The BBC covered the same ground this morning and seem to regard the Mail’s coverage as a major news story:

Sheila Fogarty went into it in some detail…or not as it turns out.  The Daily Mail is a prime target for the BBC, never a day goes by without a BBC presenter slagging it off…or an ‘artistic’ guest  or a Labour politician doing so.

The question, unanswered by Fogarty and Co, is was the Daily Mail right, did the deaths of the 6 children stem from his desire to’work the system’?

Some missing facts from the BBC rants against the Mail ….all the money from benefits went to the children’s mothers…but they paid it all into Philpott’s bank account.  He claimed nothing himself.

Philpott’s girlfriend decided to leave him and take her 5 kids with her…and Philpotts wanted a bigger council house….

Here is what the Mail says:

‘He was left irate after Miss Willis, 29, became disillusioned with his ‘domineering behaviour’ and summoned the courage to escape the unconventional family home with her five children early last year.

That decision to leave, taking with her more than £1,000 a month in benefit payments, was the ‘catalyst for everything that was to follow’.

Philpott calculated that a fire could also land him a new, bigger council house – something he had been demanding from the local authority ever since his notorious appearance on Jeremy Kyle in 2006.’

Reading that it is pretty clear that his actions were designed to get custody of the children in order to keep receiving their benefit payments, and to ‘force’ the council to re-house him in a bigger house.

In other words the Mail was right….the deaths were a result of Philpott’s greed, the motivation easy money from a system that he ‘milked’ relentlessly with a ‘production line’ of children.

The Daily Mail’s frontpage in no way reflects upon the people who are in real need of welfare and do not abuse the system……but Philpott’s actions were a direct result of  a system that richly rewards those who see a way of obtaining a lifestyle they could never afford by working honestly and have no shame at all about manipulating and perverting a system for their own profit and enrichment at the expense of those whoo truly need the money.

It’s a shame that the BBC et al are more interested in attacking the Daily Mail, and the government’s welfare reforms, than in challenging the morality and effectiveness of the welfare system themselves.

Unfortunately, all singing, all dancing he might be but all seeing he ain’t.

Tony Hall the new DG has declared that the BBC is not left of centre.

As the Daily Mail asks:

How can the public hope for him to address this acute problem if he won’t even acknowledge that it exists?

No clearer example than this to illustrate why the Today programme, and the BBC as a whole, fail so often to bring us the truth:

I’m a ducker and a diver: Truth about BBC ‘welfare victim’ who dared Iain Duncan Smith to live on £53 a week

 ‘I put a comment on saying David Cameron can stick his Big Society where the sun doesn’t shine, or words to that effect,’ he said. ‘As a result I was invited to go to Newcastle and be interviewed by John Humphrys.’

I wonder what exactly it was about his ‘evidence’ that attracted the eye of the BBC.

Perhaps there is an earnest economist somewhere left wondering why he was invited to audition for the part of Delboy in a remake of ‘Only Fools And Horses’ at the BBC.

Stephen Nolan, standing in for Victoria Derbyshire interviewed Edwina Currie…and it was a fair interview with Currie given a chance to make her points and Nolan didn’t get upset, Humphrys’ style, when challenged about his use of the ‘welfare Lobby’ type phrases…or ‘slogans’ as Currie put it.

Thought it was a far better interview and more informative than the adversarial interrogation we got from Humphrys with Ian Duncan Smith…having said that Currie was a much better communicator than IDS.

Perhaps Humphrys could learn something from Nolan’s style of interviewing….Nolan isn’t exactly a pushover himself.

Something for the diary…Nolan and Currie have both agreed to try and live on £53 for a week sometime soon…..all I can say is Currie should sleep with one eye open from the Wednesday on….Nolan must have a big appetite and already admits he doesn’t think he can live off that small amount….wouldn’t want to wake up and find a half starved Nolan chewing on your leg…having said that  Currie wasn’t too fussy about John Major doing something similar.

Who knows best, me or the media?

I have discovered in England that sometimes the media are more crazy in some ways than the Italian media.

Does any more need to be said?  Fascism wasn’t such a problem for the BBC when he was Swindon manager in 2012.

Will Dan Hodges and the Durham Miner’s Union be demanding a boycott of the BBC now?

Had to laugh at this though:

‘Players should know their place…It is not about being a dictator’

Stephen Nolan this morning on Derbyshire’s show suggested Di Canio was definitely a fascist with authoritarian tendencies…why?…because he said he would ban reporters from press conferences if they kept badgering him about Fascism.

Just like that well known fascist Alex ferguson when he refused to talk to the BBC….except  Fergie is a ‘natural born’ socialist from Govan….

Sir Alex Ferguson lifts seven-year ban on talking to the BBC.

The BBC thinks David Miliband quitting the Board of Sunderland football club is the third most important story in the world.

‘Ex-foreign secretary David Miliband has resigned from the board of Sunderland football club over new head coach Paolo Di Canio’s “past political statements”.’

Strange that they do not take a more nuanced look at this…Miliband who is quite happy to work with IRA members in Parliament, with Muslims whose religion entreats them to separate themselves from non-Muslims…or indeed Christians who oppose gay marriage.

What has Miliband himself said, on the BBC, in the past that might raise a few eyebrows?:

‘Terrorism….Yes, there are circumstances in which it is justifiable and yes there are circumstances in which it is effective.’

Miliband is also quite happy to serve with his fellow travellers on the Left, the Marxists and Trots et al.

His own father was a Marxist.

Miliband is from a Jewish background.

What did the Socialists say about what they called ‘The Jewish Question’?

On what grounds, then, do you Jews want emancipation? On account of your religion? It is the mortal enemy of the state religion.

The most rigid form of the opposition between the Jew and the Christian is the religious opposition. How is an opposition resolved? By making it impossible. How is religious opposition made impossible? By abolishing religion.

Bauer, therefore, demands that the Jew should renounce Judaism, and that mankind in general should renounce religion, in order to achieve civic emancipation.

When the political state as such is born violently out of civil society, when political liberation is the form in which men strive to achieve their liberation, the state can and must go as far as the abolition of religion, the destruction of religion.

The social emancipation of the Jew is the emancipation of society from Judaism.

Some quotes from Marx:

Below you will find some of Karl Marx’s references to Jews, quoted verbatim:

“It is the circumvention of law that makes the religious Jew a religious Jew.” (Die Deutsche Ideologie, MEGA V, 162)

“The Jews of Poland are the smeariest of all races.” (Neue Rheinische Zeitung, April 29, 1849)

He called Ferdinand Lassalle, “Judel Itzig-Jewish Nigger.” (Der Judische Nigger, MEKOR III, 82, July 30, 1862)

“Ramsgate is full of Jews and fleas.” (MEKOR IV, 490, August 25, 1879)

“Let us look at the real Jew of our time; not the Jew of the Sabbath, whom Bauer considers, but the Jew of everyday life.

“What is the Jew’s foundation in our world? Material necessity, private advantage.

“What is the object of the Jew’s worship in this world? Usury. What is his worldly god? Money.

“Very well then; emancipation from usury and money, that is, from practical, real Judaism, would constitute the emancipation of our time.” (“A World Without Jews,” p. 37)

“Money is the zealous one God of Israel, beside which no other God may stand.  This alien monster rules him and he worships it.

“The God of the Jews has become secularized and is now a worldly God. The bill of exchange is the Jew’s real God. His God is the illusory bill of exchange.” (“A World Without Jews,” p. 41)

 Such thinking in countries around the world forced the Jews to desire a country of their own….Israel.

Work that one out as many of those who denounce Di Canio, such as the Unions, also seek to boycott Israel.

Funny how Miliband has nothing to say about his comrades in Parliament who cleeve to the Socialist mantras when behind it all is a man who thinks like that.

Miliband’s posturing is accepted without question by the BBC…it is no more than a political charade for ‘the cameras’…..If he really had such principles then he couldn’t serve in either Parliament or with many of his ‘comrades’ in the Labour Party.

Many in the ranks of the BBC itself might also blush a bit as they piously denounce Di Canio…..remind us just how many innocent people have been murdered by the Socialists…and of course Fascism is a Socialist ideology itself.

Or not…look away quick….the torture was by Palestinians on Palestinians.

 ‘In the Nineties, we used to torture them badly. We beat them hard and we made them like a car that doesn’t function. But we were defending our home, the region and the rest of the world. I am happy it was justified.’

 Hooded, hanged and left in agony for hours on end: Palestinian security chief tells how he has tormented ‘suspects’ with MI6’s knowledge… and reveals how Britain helps pay for it with £33m foreign aid.

This extraordinary interview is the first admission by a former perpetrator of the widespread torture of Palestinians – not by Israel, but by the Palestinian Authority (PA)

Nothing on the BBC yet…but I’m sure it’ll be headline news as it was with Libyan prisoners or Guantanamo Bay.

Got to check those facts first….might just be Israeli misinformation.

Rowan Williams, ex Archbishop, recently walked along his local high street.  As he went he cast lavish quantities of £10 notes down upon the ground amongst the good people of the city.

He was astonished to see them throng about him in a frenzy picking up his largesse as fast as they could.

The good Rowan concluded that this was an obvious sign that the people of this town were living in desperate poverty…why else would they reduce themselves, humble themselves, by picking up money in the streets?

In the same way opening a food bank doling out free food is going to attract a lot of opportunists…why go to Tescos and pay hard cash when you can get it free from the mugs at the food bank?

Many naturally do need the service but I would confidently predict a large number do not.

That doesn’t stop the BBC using the rise of the Food Bank as a sign of economic and social collapse, government failure and unfairness.

In the broadcast mentioned below there was a particularly one sided view, from the BBC, of food banks, who uses them and the reasons they are needed.

As usual no context as to the dire economic situation the country is in….it is merely an attack on government policy combined with a demand for more money.  The questions are all rather pointed….‘What does RW think of the government’s policy of cutting back on welfare?’ 

This morning on R4’s ‘Sunday (6 mins in) we are informed that the Hairy One is now patron of the Cambridge Food Bank…serving the poverty stricken and those living in deprivation in the ghettoes of Cambridge.

We are told that the ever growing (‘an explosion of’ according to the BBC) number of food banks are necessary due to unemployment and welfare cuts…I didn’t need to tell you that though.

Demand is growing steadily..it’s a recent thing…a feature of the times (since 2010?).

The BBC tells us that the fact that a former Archbishop is back on the ‘frontline’ tells us how serious things are…what with austerity and worsening poverty.

It’s not just Government welfare cuts though…the problem is also the media (Rowan means the Daily Mail of course) equating someone on welfare with scroungers…..Well, I could name and shame (probably not shame) loads in my own neighbourhood living quite comfortably on the bludge with no intention of changing their ‘lifestyle’.

The answer…more money.  Go to the top of the class for guessing that one….‘which doesn’t square with government welfare cuts somehow.’

The BBC produces an ever growing, an explosion?, of programmes examining ‘poverty’ and welfare cuts or cuts to the NHS or to education…but there is absolutely no recognition that ‘there is no money left’.

I guess when you have a man like Rowan Williams, who believes you can feed 5000 people with just five loaves and two fish you can can see what guides this thinking…..no money?  Not a problem…God will provide, and if not there’s Plan B, a Labour government will.

This morning on the BBC we also had one on mid-wives and their protests….or demands…guess what..more money…..no  connection between Labour’s mass immigration, a leap in births and the need for more mid-wives?  Those 13000 immigrants Labour let in  were pretty productive…they’ve blossomed into millions….adding to the diversity and economic benefits to society of course.

It is all reported as if there is a pot of gold somewhere from which an endless supply of wealth could be brought forth if only we had a Labour government.

There’s the real world, then there’s the world as reported by the BBC.

Jam today, jam tomorrow.  Hurrah for Labour’s jam factory!