Author Archives: Alan

Lord Hall Hall complained to his dinner party set that the BBC’s ‘balanced’ coverage of the referendum had lost the referendum for Remain because it gave too much credibility to the Leave campaign.  Now anyone who has seriously consumed the BBC’s coverage of the referendum will know that their coverage was nothing if not biased heavily in favour of Remain.  Makes you wonder just what sort of coverage Lord Hall Hall would have liked.  Then again, wonder no more because after Nick Robinson coincidentally then came out and said the BBC needn’t bother with ‘balance’ any more when reporting on Brexit that’s precisely what happened….’balance’ went out the window and instead we get a torrent of pro-EU, pro-Remain propaganda that is so blatant that even the blindest, deafest, dumbest member of Ofcom should be able to discern it…don’t hold your breath as the inbred Ofcom keeps up its all too close relationship with its BBC family.

When Zac Goldsmith lost Richmond [a Remain stronghold] to a LibDem the BBC excitedly told us this was a sign that Brexit was over, the tide had turned and opinion was moving away from leaving the EU.  Curiously we have heard hardly a peep about Goldsmith winning the seat back at the recent election [in which, contrary to BBC intimation, May won more votes than the Tories did in 2015].  The BBC also told us that the election meant we must have a new direction on Brexit…the voters have spoken apparently and they want to Remain in the EU, or so the BBC told us, a ‘sign from the country’…never mind the election wasn’t decided on Brexit at all and that 80% or more voted for parties that say they suport leaving the EU now.  This was the BBC campaigning for the Remain side….

‘You are a minority government but you’re reading of the public mood is to push on with the same plans for Brexit that you always had…you know that the whole direction of Brexit is now up in the air…you know that!…you didn’t get the Brexit vote you wanted and you didn’t get a huge majority…this was a sign from the country that they were questioning it [your plans for Brexit].’

Never mind a Tory being elected back into a Remain stronghold.

Robinson told us that the BBC has no need to be impartial becaue there is only one side now as Brexit moves forward…

“The referendum is over. The duty we broadcasters had to ‘broadly balance’ the views of the two sides is at an end. Why? Because there are no longer two sides, two campaigns, two rival sets of spokespeople reading out those focus-grouped slogans.”

Quite clearly, and from the instant the result was known, that has not been true…it is quite apparent that there are two sides and that the Remain side have continued to make their arguments as if the referendum is ongoing…and the BBC has given them huge amounts of airtime to make their case.  The BBC has not only allowed them to make their case but has actually come down on their side even more openly as it also argues for a ‘soft Brexit’…the use of ‘Soft’ and ‘hard’ Brexit is in itself an indicator of bias as there are no such things…a ‘Soft’ Brexit is in fact no Brexit at all.

So Robinson is wrong, there are two sides, and the BBC has chosen to promote and defend the Remain side rather than report accurately, fairly and honestly what is going on.  When have you heard the BBC ever make a positive statement about Brexit?  Their coverage has been entirely negative peddling the Remain ‘apocalypse’ scenario despite it being proven wrong again and again.

Here’s a recent Panorama scare story about food prices…

“[Shoppers will face] higher prices, less choice and poorer quality. Brexit, almost in whatever version it is, will introduce barriers. That makes it less efficient which means all three of those benefits – prices, quality and choice – go backwards.”

Brexit was not about economics, it was about sovereignty, control and immigration.  The BBC ignores that and prefers instead to paint a picture of economic doom in a continuation of ‘Project Fear’…never mind that the ONA has released a report telling us that Osborne’s Treasury report that told us that there would be an immediate and dire impact should we vote to leave was wrong and based upon erroneous assumptions.

Hear about that on the BBC?   No, and yet when the Treasury ‘analysis’ came out during the referendum the BBC put it up in headlights….’proof’ that to leave the EU would be a disaster…they of course didn’t mention that the Treasury was at the beck and call of its master, Osborne.  The same BBC that reported with glee the Evening Standard frontpages attacking May…and yet again failing to mention that the new editor of the Evening Standard was someone who would love to see May deposed even if it meant the Tories being shoved out of Office as this meant Brexit would suffer a huge setback….Osborne again.

Funnily enough the Evening Standard had a frontpage suggesting Brexit would cause us cancer.…this is Osborne continuing a theme started by the BBC which has carefully plotted a campaign with the Remain side to attack May on the ECJ…the BBC organised an interview with arch Remainer James Chapman and ran a relentless stream of news stories and programmes based upon it that exaggerated problems, lied about membership of the EU being crucial to staying part of EURATOM and insisted we would need to remain in the ECJ if we wanted to be in EURATOM.

The BBC is working in concert with the Remain camp to stop Brexit.

There is an endless flow of Remain supporters being given a lot of airtime on the BBC and who are welcomed with open arms rather than with rigorous questions and challenges to their claims.  Last weekend we had Vince Cable on to tell us Brexit would never happen as the people realised how terrible it all would be…no challenge from anyone.  Naturally Ken Clarke and Chris Patten and Heseltine have been allowed to peddle their pro-EU misinformation but it doesn’t stop with the usual suspects as the old BBC trick of inviting on artists, writers and film-makers for an interview on their latest project but actually wanting to know their views on the latest issue the BBC is concerned with…at one time it was George Bush and the BBC knew they could reliably ask all these artistes for a negative comment and in the same way they can be relied upon for an anti-Brexit rant or a pro-EU puff as when they had Lord Brown[ex BP] on and he waxed lyrical about the wonders of diversity and Europe [which of course we will not be able to go to once Brexit happens].

Then there are those carefully crafted hatchet jobs, the little films made by people invited onto the BBC to give their opinion…as during the election when Newsnight’s Corbyn’s film was wide-eyed glorification and May’s a sly stab in the back from Matthew Parris.

Here’s the most recent…a film by Remain psycho [so it would seem from the film] Julian Glover who tells May to just lie back and think of Britain as the EU ‘f***s’ us…he tells us the EU will not compromise so we must…a bad deal is better than no deal…what a snivelling little coward……as one of the comments to the video says…’more BBC shite. The sooner we rise up and get rid of the TV licence tax, the better.’…

Probably one of the nastiest and utruthful films you will see, hopefully.

Our country looks deranged, stupid, diminished, flaky, bringing on self-harm, something no-one voted for, a lab rat experiment by the crazies on the rest of us.  No deal would mean busted, broken borders, bankrupt factories, no right for planes to fly, no right for trucks to move…we’d be a poorer, sadder, nastier place, an absurdity sniggered at by the world.  A bad deal may be the best we can get…so compromise and accept it.

Note the BBC is pushing the same line on PM as Is the BBC Biased? notes….

So no deal would be a sudden dramatic rupture. 

Would we recover? In time yes. Probably trade can’t grind to a halt forever. 

And there are those who think it’s worth it. Ukip put out a statement just today saying it’s time to call it quits and walk away. 

But many people in politics and especially in business think no deal would be a disaster for our economy and for our standing in the world. 

The BBC’s Brexit coverage has been atrocious, highly partisan and biased, it is so far from the truth, so far from responsible, measure, accurate journalism that it is beyond a joke.  Lord Hall Hall should be sacked as he is so clearly incapable of not using the BBC as his own personal messaging service pumping out pro-EU propaganda at a relentless rate in order not to ruin his digestion.

Sack him or jail him.  A good case for either as he corrupts the BBC and poisons the public mind.

A new open thread….list the BBC’s bias here.

As mentioned in a previous post the BBC is pretty much ignoring evidence, or rather the lack of it, and has decided Trump jr is guilty of collaborating with the Russian government to install Trump sr as their puppet in Washington.

Anthony Zurcher confirms this is the BBC’s conclusion as he passes judgement on Trump jr and sentences him and Trump sr to a future in which they have ‘only themselves to blame’.  Guilty!!!!

Analysis: A grim situation for Trump Jr

Anthony Zurcher, BBC North America reporter

Whether by plan or happenstance, Donald Trump Jr is stumbling into an increasingly dire situation.

The pattern has been set. The New York Times runs a story, Trump Jr issues his response, then the noose tightens.

The presidential son says he was conducting routine opposition research. Then the Times reports that he was told it was the Russian government itself that was coming to his father’s aid.

Now it appears the president’s own family, and his presidency itself, could be in peril. They have only themselves to blame.

Really?  Trump jr was told he was meeting with the Russian government?  Where exactly did Zurcher get that gem from?  Out of his own backside one suspects…ooh no…it was that other source of s**t  journalism, the NYT…

Zurcher doubles up on his ‘analysis’ and reports confidently that Trump jr is guilty…

Is this a smoking gun?

What is a gun? What is smoke? Is anything real anymore? The media could discover a metaphorical .357 Magnum on the floor, still warm to the touch, and it would probably be dismissed by many as just another bit of fake news.

For the first time there’s confirmation of a meeting between Mr Trump’s inner circle and someone with ties to the Russian government where campaign issues were discussed.

More than that, Trump Jr seems to have walked into the meeting with the impression that the Russian government wanted to help his father – and there’s email evidence that supports this.

I’m sorry what?  There’s email evidence to support this story?  OK…show me the email.  No…not got it?  Three blokes come to the NYT and spin them a tale about Trump jr and the NYT splashes it as headline news…the BBC then reports that Trump jr has been caught bang to rights collaborating with the Russkies…just a little inconveniently there is no actual evidence…but hey, the BBC is not one to let the facts get in the way of a good story trashing Trump.

Note Zurcher’s opening line…that this will all be dismissed as fake news…getting his defence in early…but perhaps there is good reason to dismiss it as fake news…because so far it is….and the BBC is quite happy to peddle it as fact….the BBC using the term ‘Russians’ to confuse the issue….’Russians’ could be any individual Russian…no law against meeting such people, but the BBC is using it slyly to suggest ‘Russian government’….when they say Trump jr met ‘Russians’ the BBC want you to believe, without them stating it plainly, it was a Russian government inspired meeting and Trump jr knew this…which he didn’t.

BBC…quality journalism you can trust.   Snigger.

Apparently the CRA(P), Cornish Republican Army (Provisional), is hunting down foreigners in Cornwall, sorry, Kernow [Why is the CRA(P) not the KRA(P)?] and is intent on burning them out of Cornwall…Cornwall for the Cornish….a suicide bomber is on stand-by should too many Johnny Foreigners make the summer pilgrimage to the Cornish beaches….the foreign office has issued advice to travellers…do not build sandcastles on the beach as this will be interpeted as a sign of English imperialism and colonisation….the Cornish will get angry and become radicalised.  Theresa May says the Army has been deployed to defend the beaches.

Will the BBC be supporting them as  they have the IRA and Islamic terrorists?  Remarkable how the cheerful beer swilling, cigarette smoking figure of Nigel Farage is the nearest thing to Hitler in the BBC’s eyes and yet people who actually commit mass murder on the basis of race or religion get the seal of approval from the BBC.

Corbyn and Co are out for the oppressed workers who have zero hours contracts…will  that include actors?  Should the BBC et al pay them all retainers and pensions and holiday pay or will actors continue to ‘rest’ between jobs?…perhaps they could work for Uber as they ‘rest’.

 

“We have to remember that our defense is not just a commitment of money, it is a commitment of will.”

 

Quite extraordinary how the BBC treats Trump and anything he says or does.  No  matter what he says, however sensible, measured or insightful his statements, Trump never gets the benefit of the doubt, he is immediately mocked, demonised or dismissed as ‘deranged’ as Justin Webb has, once again, been calling him.

We’ve seen the sensationalist headline the BBC produced for what seems an almost completely fabricated story about one of Trump’s sons and of course followed the BBC’s less than convincing reporting of Trump’s alleged Russian connections but the BBC loses no chance to slip the knife in…never mind that once again the BBC interpretation is at odds with the facts.

When Trump met Putin at G20 the Today show told us that Putin dominated Trump and that the handshake was a win for Putin…but that is complete tosh.  Putin supposedly held back from shaking hands and looked on disdainfully as Trump offered his…just not true…Putin looked down because he had to see where Trump’s hand was…and the handshake was immediate…no hesitation…the Guardian time-line photos of the shake were very, deliberately, misleading…

Not as of Putin was keen to shake Obama’s hand…did the BBC sneer at Obama or were they outraged on his behalf?

Even the BBC itself said Trump won the encounter…in fact he one both handshakes with Putin…so the Today show is peddling the usual crap…so much for the BBC’s flagship news programme providing us with the ‘gold standard’ in journalism….

Interesting how the BBC reports so seriously on the importance of a handshake when they excoriated the Mail for its jokey report on ‘Legs-it’.  BBC sexism…taking men more seriously than women?

Then we had Trump’s speech in Poland in which he said we must defend Western borders and Western values and asks if we have the will to do so…not something the BBC will get too excited about…and true to form their first response was, on the Today show, to scorn and mock Trump bringing on two people who were clearly not Trump fans and who had absolutely no idea what he was talking about…..one even denying there was such a thing as ‘The West’ and ‘Western values’…any wonder Trump asks if we have the ‘will’ to defend ourselves…clearly not in many quarters….. Melanie Phillips goes into the interview in depth...

In his magnificent speech in Poland, President Trump asked whether the west “still has the will to survive”.

If he’d listened to BBC Radio’s Today programme this morning (approx 0840), he might have lost his own.

The issue that seemed to have startled the BBC was the suggestion that there were now threats to western bonds of culture, faith and tradition. (The fact that some of us have been writing about this for years has of course totally passed the BBC by). Two guests were invited to discuss this question: Margaret MacMillan, professor of international history at Oxford university where she is also Warden of St Anthony’s college, and Lord Dannatt, former Chief of the General Staff.

The interviewer’s loaded question about Trump’s speech, “Is he in any sense right?” invited them to agree that no, there could be no sense in which he was. Both duly agreed. Three against Trump, then. But if anything illustrated precisely what he was talking about, this conversation could scarcely have been bettered.

Opined Professor MacMillan: “There are bonds that hold us together and there are often bonds of history, but the idea there is something called ‘the west’ seems to me very dubious indeed. There are many wests, there are many different ways of looking at who we are, and I’m worried by the whole tenor of his speech. The talk of the ‘will’, the family, traditional values, what does that all mean?….. if you talk about defending the power of the west and the dominance of the west that’s very different and I’m not sure that does make the world more stable… What worries me is that part of the enemy is seen as those who live among us… Islam, or Islamic fundamentalism, is [as presented by Trump] in some way a threat, and that means not just from outside but inside and that to me is really troubling.”

Lord Dannatt was equally perplexed. “What threat does he have in mind? From Russia? Islamic State? From climate change? Well he ruled that one out by pulling out of the Paris agreement. Or is it the nuclear threat from North Korea?” [if Dannatt had read the speech he’d have known exactly what Trump was warning against]

The millions who voted for Trump did so because of the promise he made them that he would defend America and the western values of life and liberty that it embodies. They understand very well that America and the west are not just being threatened from outside but are being undermined from within by the kind of people who are engaged in a fight to the death to destroy him – and by the kind of people who took part in that discussion on Today.

The BBC is up to its old tricks of splashing a big accusatory headline that states ‘as fact’ that something has happened when there is absolutely no proof that it did…but the target of the piece is ‘deplorable’ so facts just get in the way of justice don’t they?….

Email ‘linked Kremlin to Trump son meeting’ – New York Times

Trouble with that headline?  It’s just not true…there’s absolutely no evidence of a link between ‘Trump son’ and the Kremlin.  No evidence that the email makes any mention of any Kremlin connection, the man who contacted ‘Trump son’ didn’t know the source of his information and it is likely to have come through various ‘others’ before getting to him…all of which the New York Times [rabidly anti-Trump along with the Washington Post] eventually admits as does the BBC.

And where is the email?  The NYT tells us that it is reporting what three people who say they have seen the email have said…but no  email, not even a direct quote from the email.  Remember how Comey’s infamous memo about Trump suddenly disappeared…Comey himself having destroyed his own copies…why would he do that when it was clearly such an important, crucial, document for his claims?  Is this yet another NYT/WaPo fabrication built on whispers and lies from the dread ‘Deep State’?

Here’s the Times’ nonsense…

Donald Trump Jr. was informed in an email that the material was part of a Russian government effort to aid his father’s candidacy, according to three people with knowledge of the email.

So  it was all part of a Russian government conspiracy…or was it?  The NYT muddies the water…and why ‘three sources’?  Trying to make out it is credible?….and was it part of a Russian campaign or not part of a Russian campaign?….

Mr. Goldstone’s message, as described to The New York Times by the three people, indicates that the Russian government was the source of the potentially damaging information. It does not elaborate on the wider effort by Moscow to help the Trump campaign.

So…the Russian government was the source but no indication part of a Russian government campaign?  How can the email indicate the Russian government was the source when the NYT then admits….

It is unclear whether Mr. Goldstone had direct knowledge of the origin of the damaging material. One person who was briefed on the emails said it appeared that he was passing along information that had been passed through several others.

So the NYT doesn’t know if the email sender, Goldstone, knew Russia may have been the source…and yet they say earlier it definitely was indicated to be the source.

As with all other ‘sourced’ material the NYT and WaPo never provide links to the original material…they haven’t even quoted the email here.

Much like all these leaks the sources are dodgy with vested interests in spreading anti-Trump misinformation…good of the BBC to help out….as usual.

And just who are the NYT’s sources?  Looks like it was leaked by Comey’s pals in the intelligence services…

Two weeks after Donald J. Trump clinched the Republican presidential nomination last year, his eldest son arranged a meeting at Trump Tower in Manhattan with a Russian lawyer who has connections to the Kremlin, according to confidential government records described to The New York Times.

So not only are the intelligence services acting against the President but this shows that when Trump said they had been spying on him he was correct despite all the mockery and dismissive claims that he was paranoid and deluded….of course we know that Obama loosened the rules on who could see intelligence and what they could report….part of his campaign to undermine the Trump campaign by allowing intelligence information gathered for one purpose to be used by politicians for another, ie to attack Trump.

Curious how ‘Trump son’ is accused of collaborating with the Russians for having met a ‘Russian national’ who said they had information on Clinton…why would he not meet with them?  The BBC had no qualms about our dodgy MI6 officer meeting supposedly ex Russian intelligence officers to get information on Trump for the Clinton campaign.

Claims about a Russian blackmail tape were made in one of a series of reports written by a former British intelligence agent. As a member of MI6, he had been posted to the UK’s embassy in Moscow and now runs a consultancy giving advice on doing business in Russia. He spoke to a number of his old contacts in the FSB, the successor to the KGB, paying some of them for information.

How on earth can anyone take seriously information fed to them by Russian intelligence…lol.

Interesting….the Russian who met ‘Trump son’ employs the private investigation firm that cobbled together that dodgy dossier...hmmm…any chance that the meeting with ‘Trump son’ was set up precisely to try and associate ‘Trump son’ with the Russians and hence provide headlines that Trump was helped by the Russians? [Corallo is a spokeman for the President’s lawyer and Ms. Veselnitskaya is the Russian contact]

In an interview, Mr. Corallo explained that Ms. Veselnitskaya, in her anti-Magnitsky campaign, employs a private investigator whose firm, Fusion GPS, produced an intelligence dossier that contained unproven allegations against the president. In a statement, the firm said, “Fusion GPS learned about this meeting from news reports and had no prior knowledge of it. Any claim that Fusion GPS arranged or facilitated this meeting in any way is false.”

The BBC has been seen to frequently encourage the ‘Young’ to get out on the streets and riot, sorry, protest, the BBC seems to want to incite inter-generational war setting the Young against the Old….the ‘Baby Boomers’ having had it so good but now the next generations will be worse off than their parents…and this is so so, so wrong.  Not only that but the ‘Old’ have stolen the Young’s future having voted for Brexit…a narrative constantly championed by the BBC.  The BBC encourages the rage, the greed, the sense of entitlement that says because someone else had something ‘we’ deserve it as well…’we’ must have it….perhaps they should have the wartime conscription or the post-war rationing or the 1970’s.  The Baby Boomers may have had it good, or maybe not, but that period was a blip in history built on hype and hope and the labour of ‘Coolies’ as Orwell noted so long ago…the ‘normal’ is much more austere with the bulk of the population ‘just about managing’.

Dominic Lawson notes in the Mail that anguished cry that Corbyn heard and exploited by promising everything to everybody…but as Labour now admits,, they have no idea how to pay for it all….what do these needy-greedy youths think of Labour’s admission that the tuition fee refund wasn’t a manifesto pledge but mere pie-in-the-sky vote winning trickery?

Labour — ostensibly the workers’ party — polls significantly better among higher socio-economic groups than it does among those on lower incomes. 

To put this at its clearest: Jeremy Corbyn is a magnet for the young — but most especially those from well-to-do backgrounds. 

It’s not hard to see why Corbyn was able to win their hearts and their votes. It wasn’t because of his decades-long commitment to socialism. 

No, it was his pledge to abolish student fees — and, in particular, his suggestion that Labour would also find a way of writing off the accumulated debts of all those who had gone through tertiary education since fees were introduced.

It will be the best-off among former students who will be the principal beneficiaries of Corbyn’s most successful vote-winning offer.

‘People of my generation are tired of hearing that we cannot have the same benefits that baby boomers such as Bartholomew enjoyed. 

‘To name a few: an economy generating meaningful and secure work, the ability to purchase a house, the guarantee of a state pension, free university tuition, and so on. That’s the crux of why we voted for Corbyn: we want what you had.’

Far from the austere socialist that the young Corbyn had been, this is the anguished cry of the frustrated bourgeoisie.

As Lawson says these youthful Remain voters who despair at never being able to set foot in Europe again as the borders slam shut [©BBC] might also been surprised that their new found working class hero, who is of course actually a very middle class marxist terrorist sympathiser [as are so many in the BBC], to learn that he has never been a great fan of the EU as the video above shows.

You have to ask just what was Corbyn’s appeal to them once you start to seriously look at what he offers…nothing that would actually seem to be genuinely in what they think is their interests.  Have they thought things through?

Does the BBC et al give the ‘young’ too high expectations of life?  Are they led to believe everythng will be handed to them on a plate without working for it?  Some may well have that attitude if a recent CBI survey is anything to go by…

Bosses say graduates can’t cope with office life: Third of companies are concerned about young people’s attitude to work

With many graduates and school leavers lacking the mindset and skills required to thrive in the workplace, the CBI said teachers needed to better reflect the importance of ‘attitude and aptitude for work’.

There are also worries about the literacy and numeracy skills of young employees, with firms admitting they have had to run classes for recruits.

‘Personal attitudes, aptitude, readiness to learn, effective communication skills and a sufficient capacity to cope with numerical data are the key enablers. It is critically important that all young people are helped to develop as fully as possible in these areas.’

Naturally the teachers blame ‘cuts’ [despite the education budget being protected] not themselves for low standards…

Dr Mary Bousted, head of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said: ‘With savage cuts to further education funding since 2009… it is unsurprising that businesses are struggling to find enough skilled staff.’

The BBC would no doubt go along with that as they seem to be on a mission recently to blame ‘cuts’ for everything that goes wrong [naturally no context as to why ‘cuts’ may be necessary] as they blame the deaths at Grenfell on Tory cuts [echoing McDonnell] as well as for drugs and phones getting into prisons.

Lord Grade slams the BBC for anti-Semitism [h/t Craig at Is the BBC biased?], though of course he protests that is not what he is doing…although he is, as he accuses it of singling out Israel for negative reporting that is unqualified and without context….thus helping to create the anti-Semitic narrative that is looming so large over so much of Europe and the world…..including the Labour Party…

The BBC is still pumping exactly that out even now as Jeremy Bowen blames the West and Zionism for all the Middle East’s problems…and a few days ago the BBC organised Lord Chilcott to come out of obscurity to damn Blair…the BBC helping him along by misleading the audience as to what he was saying…maybe we’ll look at that in more detail later.  Any coincidence that Bowen and Chilcott come together?  What else does the BBC have in the pipeline along the same lines?

Guess it is time for one of these…..another open thread to slamdunk the BBC’s Bias…..