The BBC has produced a modernised version of anti-Semitism…you don’t have to be Jewish and rich…just be rich….. and they’ll come for you.

The Cavalry Ain’t Coming.

That’s right…the Cavalry ain’t coming despite what the BBC tells  you.

The BBC’s most fervent efforts go into building the mythology  of  the Socialist Cavalry riding to the rescue of the poor and downtrodden on the BBC’s favourite hobby horse…massive government subsidy…….more Gordon Brown? or should that be General Custer?

That hobby horse is housed in the Aegean Stables out of which the BBC shovel at us  a relentlessly unending supply of soiled socialist bilge.

The Rich are BAD people

Now we have an even more ambitious BBC project…..a veritable propaganda drive if you like…not just in Britain but in concert with 70 broadcasters from around the world…to be broadcast, of course, around the world….nothing like doing a job properly.

What’s the message?  The rich are getting richer and they’re doing it by stealing your money…they get richer and you get poorer…….it’s all so unfair.

Poorer?  They should mean of course ‘relatively’……because the facts aren’t what the BBC are telling us.

The BBC are lying to us.  No other way to say that.  They are lying in order to push a political agenda…a very simple one….that of attacking ‘The Rich‘.

Think not?  Then watch this programme in  particular…it is nothing more than a out and out attack, not just on the fact of people being rich, but on their very personality and character…..it is if you like a modern version of anti-Semitism…but transferred across to ALL Bankers and rich people not just Jews.

The Rich are detestable, cruel and nasty…the richer they get the meaner they get….they have lavish life styles, luxuriating in unimaginable wealth that is squandered in an orgy of self indulgent spending [wonder where all that ’spending’ ends up?].

The American Dream is over
The programme has two messages…as said the rich have become richer whilst everyone else’s income has stagnated if not fallen in the last 30 years.  The second thread is that  the American Dream is over….social mobility is over, if you’re born poor, you’re gonna stay poor.

That is also the message here in the UK.   (Thanks to Alex Feltham in the Comments who points us towards this which spells out what the reality is regarding social mobility )

Unfortunately for the BBC that might go down a storm in the well heeled Socialist salons of Hampstead but the facts on the ground say otherwise.

Economic figures both here and in the US show incomes have risen across the board in a remarkable fashion since the 70’s….yes the top 1% have risen faster…but that is relative…if you were earning in the 70’s and are still earning now you should feel by far better off now than then….if you knew nothing of the mega wealthy people you would probably be more than  content with your life.

A report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) points out that income inequality in America has not risen dramatically over the past 20 years—when the top 1% of earners are excluded. With them, the picture is quite different.
CBO finds that, between 1979 and 2007, income grew by:
275 percent for the top 1 percent of households,
65 percent for the next 19 percent,
Just under 40 percent for the next 60 percent, and
18 percent for the bottom 20 percent.

So far from stagnating even the lowest paid have incomes which rose by nearly 20% and the vast majority saw their income rise by 40%.

In the UK incomes have risen dramatically across the income spectrum…..since Thatcher took over incomes have risen for nearly everyone…..but look at the graphs, they tell an interesting tale…..income has been distributed far more widely across the income levels now…more people earn far more.

And is the American Dream over?
The BBC et al would love you to think it was…why?  Because if it is  then all you have to rely on is ‘Big Brother’, the State cavalry riding to  your rescue propping you up and taking responsibility for your life….They just love Big Government.

The trick the BBC use is to sell us the line that their version of the  American Dream means that EVERYONE can be President (or head of Apple or General Motors etc)….not just Can but Will be President at the same time if they only try a bit harder.  That’s right….all 300 million Americans can be President…at the same time.

If you can’t do that then the Dream has failed you.

That’s not the American Dream…..people are more realistic……only one person can be President at a time, only so many doctors, lawyers, CEO‘s or whoever are needed in any society and economy…..the American Dream is that you have the ‘Opportunity’ to try for that if you want to…..it doesn’t promise you will succeed.

Look at this video from a man named Chris Gardner…he is a black man in the US….his life was destroyed, he was homeless with a young child….he saved himself and is now one of those nasty rich people…..he came from the exact same environment as one other famous, and black, success story…Oprah Winfrey….he is now so famous Will Smith made a film of his struggle…‘The Pursuit of Happyness’

The BBC want to deny you those opportunities…they want you to believe that those opportunities don’t exist anymore…well they do.  You just have to get off your backside and make it happen…..and not sit around waiting for the next unemployment payment…..which was Labour’s option when they gave up trying to educate and find work for the poorest in our society preferring instead, to the great delight of the BBC, to import massive numbers of cheap, low wage foreign workers.

This BBC programme is nothing more than an ugly polemic against rich people…..it is the type of propaganda and  class war rhetoric that the Soviets and the Khmer Rouge would use to justify the Gulags and the Killing Fields….it is if you like the ‘red wedge’ in the door of a civilised democracy that is being smashed open to let in the thugs of  bloody Revolution that some at the BBC so carelessly, or not so carelessly, incite….
Why Poverty? – 4. Park Avenue – Money, Power and the American Dream
‘Gibney’s film is a polemical look at the socio-economic political landscape of contemporary USA.
“There’s always been a gap between the wealthiest in our society and everyone else, but in the last 30 years something changed: that gap became the Grand Canyon,”
What chances do those at the bottom of the ladder have for upward mobility? Can someone who starts life on Park Avenue in the South Bronx end up living on Park Avenue in Manhattan?

A BBC Storyville film, produced in partnership with the Open University, Park Avenue screens as part of Why Poverty? – when the BBC and the OU, in conjunction with more than 70 broadcasters around the world, hosts a debate about contemporary poverty.‘

Em…why hasn’t the BBC apologised to Israeli Government…after all the BBC is quick enough to condemn them when they feel the need?

For the sake of clarity we expect that the BBC gets the reporting right….and the photographs, images and words used do not misrepresent the situation in Gaza or Israel.

We don’t expect ‘lies’ from the BBC.  But we get them.  Not all misrepresentations can be so easily explained away as ‘mistakes’.

The consequences of such lies are serious.

Right now across Europe Jews are being driven not just from their homes but from their countries…Sweden, France, Holland, Germany and even in Britain Jews are under attack.

These attacks are incited, given ‘sanction’ and ‘authority’, by the lies spread by news organisations such as the BBC which deliberately demonise Israeli actions and presents Palestinians  as innocent victims suffering under a savage and illegal Israeli occupation.

BBC News kills jews?

I think more than an apology is required.

I’m certain Danahar would rapidly deny that any of the BBC’s output could endanger anyone, let alone Jews, around the world.  His colleague, the BBC’s Science Editor David Shukman, might say otherwise……he has an article in the BBC News website’s ‘Science and Environment’ section entitled “Inside the world’s most ‘impossible’ science project“….this is what he suggests…..

“Given the hostility felt towards Israel, for instance, would any Arabs or Iranians ever consent to being pictured in the same room as Israeli scientists? If we were seen talking to one, would others boycott us? And, worst of all, would our filming put anyone in danger back home? Not everyone in Iran or Israel or the Arab countries likes the idea of their people fraternising with the other side.”

So Shukman doesn’t want to film Arab or Iranian scientists working with Jews…because if the film is seen in Iran or in Arab countries those scientists might be in danger….very considerate of him…….unlikely the same reaction would occur in Israel.

It’s just a shame the BBC are not so concerned about the effect their coverage of Israeli actions will have to further incite the rapidly growing atmosphere of anti-Semitism around the world.

Leveson avoided the task of examining the culture, practices and ethics of the BBC as it was outside his remit….If Cameron had any sense he would have changed that remit….and should now set up another ‘Leveson’ to look at the publicly funded BBC in particular.

‘This Inquiry  has covered the “culture, practices and ethics of the press” which obviously includes newspapers whether printed or online: it does not include broadcasters (ultimately regulated by Ofcom). Thus, although the Director General of the BBC, then Mark Thompson, gave evidence, he did so only to provide a comparison between the approach adopted internally by the BBC Trust along with the oversight from Ofcom. In those circumstances, although there have been many calls during the Inquiry for me to expand the terms of reference to investigate other organisations (most recently the BBC in the wake of the allegations against Sir Jimmy Savile), it is simply outside the Terms of Reference within which I am working.’

The BBC are outraged by the report…a ‘damning report’….. and know who to blame:

‘For editors, publishers and – not least – newspaper proprietors, this is a damning report.’

Never mind the politicians who ‘bought’ favourable coverage by whatever sordid little backroom deals they arranged…never mind the police officers or others who sold sensitive information…….there’s only one main target for the BBC…the man at the head of News International.

Some interesting points from Leveson:

Report rejects wrongdoing by the government around the BSKyB bid, with “no credible evidence of bias”. Must learn lessons around quasi-judicial processes. “We were right to stand by him.” [Says Cameron]

No evidence of a “deal” between David Cameron and News International to trade policy favours for positive news coverage

So two major BBC news stories….one generated from the dark recesses of the inventive mind of  Labour’s Peter Mandelson and which was accepted as ‘true’ by the BBC, the other a story that the BBC itself played a part in concocting about BSkyB….both stories wrong and unfounded.

Impartiality in its DNA?  I don’t think so.

The funny thing about Leveson was that New Labour and its extraordinary, incestuous, closeness to the Murdochs and their media empire goes almost unmentioned…Gordon Brown managing to evade any serious questions at all during the inquiry….it is Cameron who gets rapped over the knuckles for his closeness to ‘Murdoch’…though in fact to Rebekah Brooks…who happens to be the wife of his old school friend Charlie Brooks.

It was the very same Labour Party which had Murdoch Journalist and now Labour’s communications spinner (Senior Advisor (Communications and Strategy)), Tom Baldwin, plant stories in the Times on behalf of the Labour government:

Beware of The Times’ Tom Baldwin

Tom Baldwin is back in London, writing political stories for The Times. Before a stint as a reporter for the same newspaper in America he became notorious for writing stories that bore Downing Street’s imprint. His close connections to Alastair Campbell are still evident in the number of stories he has helped write in recent weeks about Blair’s chances of becoming EU President.

This is what the BBC has to say about that…..
New Labour is also criticised for introducing a culture of ‘spin’ in Government

Dynamite.

Guido Fawkes is less enamoured by Leveson and his plans for Press regulation:
‘The Leveson Report suggests Ofcom could soon wield considerable power over the press. It is recommended that the new regulatory body will be ‘validated’ by Ofcom, the government is to consider allowing Ofcom to regulate newspapers that refuse to join or even becoming the regulatory body itself if the new system fails. So who is the man in charge of Ofcom?
Ed Richards is a former adviser Gordon Brown, who worked in a small office with just the former PM and his PA. He was also a senior policy adviser to Tony Blair. The Guardian describe him as having a background “rooted in New Labour”. Now he could well be the guardian of the guardians. Do we really want Gordon Brown’s henchman in charge of regulating the press?’

Facts prove……

Interesting fact of the day…The BBC’s Question Time is biased towards the Right.

Is there bias on BBC Question Time?

Phil Burton-Cartledge has crunched the numbers on the political persuasions of the guests on the BBC’s flagship politics programme….. just shy of four years worth of data. Please note I have excluded Question Time’s annual forays to Northern Ireland from the figures.

As of 22 November, 362 individuals have occupied 704 panel slots. For those interested in gender and political participation, only 98 guests have been women. These between them have occupied 235 slots.

Actually I’m not sure what he says he has proved….apart from being an enormous waste of his time…I always assume QT is in the main ‘balanced’…audience aside….so to crunch the numbers on this over a four year period is sheer folly.

The main conclusion seems to be that Nigel Farrage gets on far too many times and that Union Barons hardly at all….and that’s so unfair because Union Barons are the true representatives of millins of hard working people…aren’t they?

Seems just another New Statesman effort, however slight, to ‘defend’ the BBC from charges of being a Lefty bunker.

Here’s an interesting comment on the article from the writer’s own blog:

‘The issue with journalists going on Question Time and spouting off completely destroys the laughable notion that still gets trotted about hacks being “neutral” – all news and editorial judgments are inherently subjective.

But rather than bleating about this, and imaging that Lord Leveson is going to deliver a fairer media through some sort of state-backed regulation, the the left would do better to develop more TV friendly independent minded journalists who are able to articulate the very many popular left positions clearly.

Anyway, great piece and should be spread far and wide every Thursday the minute a right-winger opens their cake hole to bleat about the Marxists controlling the BBC.’

I should of course add a  correction to that…..when they say ‘all news and editorial judgements are inherently subjective’.…they don’t mean the nice BBC.  Clear?

Here’s the thing…why did the author, ‘Phil the sociologist’, put this piece together?

Phil said…(in reference to the comment about right wingers bleating about the Marxist BBC)

Re: your final comment, I wrote it specifically for those annoying Question Time moments 😉 

So essentially it was written as a political piece designed purely to attempt to spike right wing claims of BBC bias…..all it really does is confirm what we always knew about sociologists…they’re a complete waste of time and money…..they come up with ‘research’ that you can hear in any pub any night of the week….as he says in his banner….‘Sociology with a socialist spin’

The rather shy ‘Phil’ is Phil Burton-Cartledge....Ex-ex-blogger, Stoke Labour Party vice chair, constituency secretary & bag carrier, co-founder of Democratic Futures. ….Phil received his PhD from Keele University in 2010. His thesis concerned the life history of revolutionary socialist activists. Phil is interested in political sociology and the sociology of social movements, and in social theory more generally’

Apparently this is Phil on Twitter:

This is him (bottom) in real life along with co-founder Gavin Bailey: Gavin completed his PhD at Keele University in 2011 and his doctoral research looked at the community activities of radical Islamist and far right activists:

The photo of ‘Phil’ raises questions about the truthfulness of this Tweet of his:

Phil BC ‏@philbc3

@The_Iron_Lad People like me were actively fighting the Nazis on the streets. Right wingers like you were trying to cut deals with them

Obviously takes a good photo.

Oh yes….can’t have you miss this from the comments, which I’m sure is totally untrue and the mere ramblings of a disgruntled ex-employee…..

‘Lest we forget, the great neutral arbiter Dimblebot himself has form as a nasty, penny pinching businessman. He and his brother owned a series of newspapers in south London until the late 90s where reporters had to buy their own notebooks and were reputedly paid less than the minimum wage based on their long working hours. These journalists only received a substantial payrise and celebrated wildly when the Dimbleboys sold it to the US multinational Newsquest – itself a hated firm not known for their high pay!‘

The BBC is enthusiastic about exposing the supposed sins of corporations that minimise their tax obligations….all quite legally….but sooooo immoral!

We know that for some people the BBC is prepared to look the other way….one such person being Labour’s Margaret Hodge who has a near 10% share holding in a company that pays barely any tax at all in this country…..

Labour’s millionairess Margaret Hodge’s family business pays very little tax:
The Labour MP has been one of the fiercest critics of tax avoidance by companies such as Starbucks, Google and Amazon. However, she is likely to face questions over the limited tax paid by Stemcor, the steel trading company in which she owns shares and which was founded by her father and is run by her brother.Analysis of Stemcor’s latest accounts show that the business paid tax of just £163,000 on revenues of more than £2.1bn in 2011. However it is not known whether the company – which made profits of £65m – used similar controversial tax avoidance measures criticised in the past by Mrs Hodge. Stemcor’s tax bill to the exchequer equates to just 0.01pc of the revenues it booked through its UK-based business.

This from Guido:

Priti Patel Demands Hodge Calls Stemcor to PAC

Priti Patel has written a strongly worded letter to Margaret Hodge demanding that she calls Stemcor in front of the Public Accounts Committee for a grilling –  as Chair of the PAC she would have to stand aside when Stem or gave evidence to avoid a conflict of interest because of her position as a shareholder with millions tied up in Stemcor. Her family firm has a multi-billion pound turnover yet paid a mere £157,000 in tax.

…and engages in ‘Transfer pricing’  which is relevant to what follows.

The BBC are running what amounts to a campaign against such companies…part of which is this programme….which is a very one sided and cynical look at mining corporation Glencore…..and note the slightly sinister admission that the BBC has joined up with over 70 other broadcasters to ‘push’ what amounts to propaganda, around the world……the BBC accuse the company of using ‘transfer pricing’, especially, to avoid tax…..

Why Poverty? – 3. Stealing Africa

Christoffer Guldbrandsen investigates the dark heart of the tax system employed by multi-nationals and asks how much profit is fair.

A BBC Storyville film, produced in partnership with the Open University, Stealing Africa screens as part of Why Poverty? – when the BBC, in conjunction with more than 70 broadcasters around the world, hosts a debate about contemporary poverty. The global cross-media event sees the same eight films screened in 180 countries to explore why, in the 21st Century, a billion people still live in poverty.

After all that it might just be a little embarrassing for the BBC, which rakes in at least £1.5 billion from its own commercial activities, to be revealed as a corporation that hides behind that tired old phrase ‘for the purposes of journalism, art or literature‘ in order to stop people seeing how much tax it does, or doesn’t pay.

Remember this is the organisation that went after Student Loans company boss, Ed Lester who was found to be using a tax scheme that meant he didn’t pay tax at source…

‘Revelations by Newsnight that the chief executive of the Student Loans Company was avoiding paying tens of thousands of pounds in tax in an arrangement signed off by senior ministers has led to a dramatic rethink by the government’

However when the BBC was caught out for doing exactly the same thing it has insisted that it was not a tax dodging scheme…

‘The BBC is to review the way hundreds of TV and radio freelance presenters are paid, after suggestions it is aiding tax avoidance schemes.

A commons committee heard claims that one long-term presenter was urged to receive payment off the books “or face a substantial pay cut”.

The BBC insisted the arrangements are not in place to avoid paying tax.’

Here is a freedom of Information request that was made earlier this year asking about some of the tax liablities of the BBC in America…the BBC refuses to disclose this figure…..

The BBC reply:

Ken Tindell
Via email to – [FOI #114766 email]

23 May 2012

Dear Dr Tindall,

Freedom of Information request – RFI20120464 

Thank you for your request to the BBC of 25 April 2012, seeking the following information under
the Freedom of Information Act 2000:

1. The total amount of revenue generated from advertising on the BBC news web site (or a wider
collection of BBC web sites if no specifics for the BBC news web site are available). 

2. What proportion of non-UK traffic of the web site / sites in (1) are from the USA.

3. How much US corporation tax is paid by the BBC on the advertising revenue in (1).

The information you have requested is excluded from the Act because it is held for the purposes
of ‘journalism, art or literature.’  The BBC is therefore not obliged to provide this information to
you and will not be doing so on this occasion.  Part VI of Schedule 1 to FOIA provides that
information held by the BBC and the other public service broadcasters is only covered by the Act
if it is held for ‘purposes other than those of journalism, art or literature”.  The BBC is not
required to supply information held for the purposes of creating the BBC’s output or information
that supports and is closely associated with these creative activities.1

You may not be aware that one of the main policy drivers behind the limited application of the Act
to public service broadcasters was to protect freedom of expression and the rights of the media
under Article 10 European Convention on Human Rights (“ECHR”).  The BBC, as a media
organisation, is under a duty to impart information and ideas on all matters of public interest and
the importance of this function has been recognised by the European Court of Human Rights.

1 For more information about how the Act applies to the BBC please see the enclosure which follows this letter.
Please note that this guidance is not intended to be a comprehensive legal interpretation of how the Act applies to the
BBC.

Maintaining our editorial independence is a crucial factor in enabling the media to fulfil this function.

The BBC’s Jon Donnison has some explaining to do (Via BBC Watch):

BBC’s Jon Donnison summoned to Government Press Office hearing

‘The BBC’s Jon Donnison, together with the head of the BBC Jerusalem Bureau and head of the Foreign Press Association, Paul Danahar, has been summoned by the Government Press Office in Israel to a hearing this coming Wednesday (November 28^th) on the subject of Donnison’s Tweet of a picture of a child casualty from Syria as though it were from Gaza – as first publicised by BBC Watch on November 19^th 2012.

Then he might also want to explain the rest of his work….such as minimising Israeli casualties and the threat to them, and using the BBC to highlight the death of a Palestinian colleague’s son to elicit sympathy for the Palestinians.

Perhaps he should be even more worried than just about losing his press credentials:

BBC sacks two workers for misusing Twitter

The BBC has fired two members of staff for misusing social media sites, including Twitter, it has emerged.

‘A further two workers have been disciplined following inappropriate behaviour on sites like Twitter and Facebook, the broadcaster has disclosed under a Freedom of Information request.

Paul Mason tells us that there is a ‘parallel world of ideas out there where millions are denied a voice.’

‘As activists come to the defence of a blogger in China who made the mistake of making a joke about the Communist Party Congress, Newsnight’s Paul Mason talks to three Chinese writers about what it is like working in a climate of censorship and repression.’

An alternate view comes from Benedict Brogan in the Telegraph where he notes the BBC’s hankering for censorship of unwelcome voices and opinions:

‘Dig around on YouTube and you will find a spoof of the Hollywood weepie It’s a Wonderful Life made in 1995 by Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie for their BBC sketch show A Bit of Fry and Laurie. In It’s a Soaraway Life!, angel second class Clarence Cosy – Fry – shows Rupert Murdoch, played by Laurie, what Britain would have been like if he had never been born. He finds polite cabbies, ethnic minorities in pubs, no page 3 girls, and – to his horror – no satellite dishes dotting the façades of terrace houses. “Without your newspapers debasing people’s views of the world with every sentence they produce, people turned out to be interested in all kinds of other things,” Clarence tells him. “Newspapers haven’t taught people to sneer at others because they are Left-wing.” ‘

‘It has taken the Left years, but finally the press is at its mercy….[but maybe]the Left has overreached itself, and has been too naked in playing Leveson for political advantage.’

Ironically Mason uses China as an example when of course his  own organisation is a classic case of the suppression of ideas, values and beliefs that are troublesome to its own ideology….millions of Britains are denied a real voice by the BBC’s very narrow definition of what is acceptable……it is all the more ironic because of the BBC’s championing of ‘multi-culturalism’ and the ‘celebration of diversity’ that goes along with it…the only people who don’t get a say are the native Brits….unless you’re ‘approved’…or indeed those immigrants who ‘integrate’ and see that the things they came to this country to benefit from will be destroyed by the Left’s ‘open door’ immigration policy.

Maybe the BBC are waking up to this….it is 70 years since the Beveridge Report and the wholesale implementation of ‘Welfarism’….the BBC asks can it survive the ever increasing costs and ‘globalisation’?

You might think that yes it is the growing demands on the system that will destroy it…but what does ‘destroy’ mean…after all when the welfrae system was introduced it was not designed to cope with the massive demands we have now…such as imposed by a population, ever growing, but also living far longer…..what if the provision was just cut back to the original range of services and subsidy?  Is that destruction?

The BBC’s use of the word ‘globalisation’ is interesting.  What do they mean by that?  It seems, from the below, that they merely mean that competition from abroad lowers wages here…..‘wages at the bottom have been driven down by globalisation, requiring top ups from tax credits’.

In fact the real problem is the open door immigration policy….and one that is made very much worse by the EU which tells us to pay benefits to anyone who steps off a plane or train from Europe from day one.

Open door immigration, with anyone allowed to claim benefits, housing, access to free NHS service, use of the roads, demands on the police and overburdening schools is the biggest threat to the existence of the welfare system…..and the BBC refuses to recognise that…..once more denying the millions in this country who oppose such a policy their voice and say in the matter.

The BBC is examining the welfare system extensively on R4 today (27th) at 1000 am, The State of Welfare, but  if you look at this BBC magazine report which sets out to eulogise Welfare you might get an idea of the direction they will take:

‘Jose Harris, author of Beveridge: A Biography, says that even during the Hungry Thirties public suspicion of the scrounger existed.

But the war banished that with its sense of common purpose and social solidarity. High emergency taxes and rationing imposed a redistributive, egalitarian economic model. Above all there was work for everyone.

“There were no scroungers,” says Harris. “You were put to work in the Army, the pioneer corps or the factories.” ‘

Ironic that…‘put to work‘…imagine the BBC cries of ‘slavery’…

Look at this highly misleading part:

‘The country was deeply indebted at the end of World War II to the US, bread was rationed and life austere. But there was less of a sense of division between those who worked and those who claimed benefits. Nearly everyone – or rather, nearly every working-age man – had a job. Full employment lasted for the following two decades.’

Why was there full employment?  There was National Service.…and full employment for two decades?  Because that was when National service ended, the last conscript demobbing  in 1963….it was a vastly expensive business.

The whole article has a narrative aimed at defending those on welfare…they are not ‘scroungers’ or ‘lazy’….and immigrants are workaholic wonders to be cherished.

Here the BBC tries to have its cake and eat it….quoting the Sun’s Kelvin Mackenzie saying Brits are scroungers but immigrants are great…then it quotes someone from a poverty charity who says it is rubbish to suggest people choose a life on the dole, they are not scroungers…..so we have ‘immigrants are great’ and then a negation of that  ‘myth’ of the ‘lazy scrounger’.  Tick two BBC boxes….in fact a third one as well…the BBC here raises the question of immigration destroying the welfare system…but then uses Mackenzie to demolish it…..with him saying it is the lazy scrounger that is milking the system and forcing businesses to import immigrants who want to work.  They hope you won’t notice the failed logic of the following repudiation of that by the charity.  It is a very muddled piece that wants to present immigration as a boon, the welfare system as an underfunded agent of redistribution and social equality and welfare claimants as angelic victims.

‘Immigration – rare in Beveridge’s day – may have played a role in the change of attitudes towards benefit claimants. David Goodhart, director of think tank Demos, has posited that as society becomes ever more diverse, the sense of shared values needed to sustain a redistributive welfare system is weakened.

Beveridge’s idea that welfare should reward individuals and families who have paid in to the system is undermined by the practice of giving council housing and benefits to newly arrived immigrants, critics like former minister Margaret Hodge have argued.

Mackenzie offers a different spin on migration. Many indigenous British people could work if they wanted to but are content to stay on benefits, he and others argue, whereas eastern Europeans arrive with little but are soon working.

“I love these people. They can travel thousands of miles from Budapest, get here with no money, can’t speak English but they have ambition. And they find work.”

The idea that people choose a life on benefits is false, says Imran Hussain, head of policy at the Child Poverty Action Group.’

The State of Welfare is a three hour programme……listen if you dare…Polly Toynbee is naturally on the side of those wanting to deport the scroungers to a rocky, barren island far far away….might have got that wrong.

First quote from the programme from a claimant….regarding the reform of the welfare system….

‘It’s scary, very scary’……

‘and it could get scarier‘ adds Julian Worricker.

Hmmm…need you really listen to the three hours?

All sponsors of

Up The Anti: Reclaim the Future

‘Up the Anti is a one day conference to think about and discuss  how we lay claim to the future that we want and deserve.’

BBC’s Paul Mason was expected apparently to give a talk:

Simon Hardy ‏@Simon_Hardy1

@paulmasonnews are you still coming to speak on journalism in the 21st century this weekend, Paul?

5h Paul Mason ‏@paulmasonnews

@Simon_Hardy1 not clear

8:48 AM – 26 Nov 12 · Details

5h Simon Hardy ‏@Simon_Hardy1

@paulmasonnews the Up the Anti conference at Queen Mary’s university, http://uptheanti.org.uk

Mason has his own take on the Banks and who caused the financial crash:

Paul Mason ‏@paulmasonnews

Dear Mark Carney – here is a visual signifier of our regulatory culture here in the UK: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kampupot/3820563952/ … – welcome

It’s the posh boys fault then….nothing to do with this bloke…..

 “In war, truth is the first casualty.” Aeschylus

Via The Commentator:

BBC News Anchor Mishal Husain lambasts Jerusalem Post correspondent in pro-Hamas rant
by Media Hawk
“You could argue couldn’t you, that Hamas was also stopping worse happening all of this period, because although there was rockets being fired – they weren’t the.. the big rockets that have caused damage in recent days, they were mostly home-made contraptions.”
WAIT. WHAT?
By Mishal Husain’s logic, Hamas’s terrorist activity in firing rockets into Israel, they were ‘stopping worse happening’.
Watch this deplorable defence unfold as Husain interviews Gil Hoffmann, Chief Political Correspondent for the Jerusalem Post.
Husain argues, live on air, that the rockets being fired into Israel are irrelevant due to the fact that they have killed only ’20 people since 2005′. Even though the real figure is likely more than double that, Husain ignores the fact that these terrorist attacks are not specifically just designed to kill, but also to maim, destroy property, and generally bring insecurity and terror to the lives of the people of Israel.

Note than Husain is using the recent Economist casualty figures that Donnison used to mislead us in regard to casualty figures on either side….comparing Israeli casualties caused by rockets against Palestinian ones caused by Israeli military action….which misses out all those Israelis  killed by other means by Palestinians….over 1200 Israelis killed and 8000 injured in a decade….somewhat more than ’20’ that Husain peddles in order to mislead the viewer.

Three days ago a Palestinian was shot in an exclusion zone near the security fence between Gaza and Israel.

The BBC made a lot of noise about that ‘breach of the ceasefire’ as they put it…and it is still, three days later, on the website.

Gaza crisis: Palestinian ‘shot dead near border’

A Palestinian man has been shot dead by Israeli soldiers close to the Gaza border, Palestinian officials say.
It is the first reported killing since the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel came into force on Wednesday evening.

What isn’t on the site is this story which tells you why the Israelis might not be so keen for Palestinians to be anywhere near the fence…and the BBC know the event happened..as Jon Donnison has Tweeted it, interesting use of ‘targeted’ though:
Jon Donnison ?@JonDonnison
MT @AvitalLeibovich Today, a Pal man infiltrated from #Gaza, broke into a house & stabbed a woman there. Targeted by #IDF soldiers at scene

Here is a report from Israel National News

Soldiers killed a suspected Gaza terrorist early Monday after he broke into a Jewish home and stabbed a girl before fleeing.
The IDF discovered a hole in the nearby Gaza security fence, and footprints from the area matched the shoes of the intruder, who had escaped to the Moshav Sde Avraham’s greenhouses after he tried to kill the girl.
Soldiers caught up with him and tried to arrest him, and then shot and killed him when he tried to escape.
The wounded girl is in fair condition. She was stabbed in her family’s home in Moshav Sde Avraham, originally named Yesodot HaDarom.

Never mind the Jews, the BBC though are still keen for you to know how the Gazans have suffered:

Aleem Maqbool reports:

Egyptian mediators have begun separate talks with Hamas and Israel to work out details of a ceasefire agreed last week that ended eight days of fighting in the Gaza Strip.

But it has come at a heavy price for other Gazans. People are still dying of the injuries sustained during the war.