The BBC is rushing out the news that ‘sources in Brussels’ have contacted the BBC to reveal that they think Brexit will fail.
Why did they target Lord Hall Hall’s BBC to disseminate this ‘news’? And why does the BBC give any credence whatsoever to what is an obvious bit of ‘enemy’ propaganda?
Nothing to do with BBC bias but just of interest after the last post about the BBC’s hagiography of Saint Blair…the New Statesmen has its own go at running the rule over Cool Britannia and the Blair bewitched project…it’s from a music writer’s perspective, John Harris from the Guardian….Cool Britannia: where did it all go wrong?
This is the most telling bit…those rebellious young Turks just wanted their dad to love them really, to understand them…and give them pocket money no doubt…..
The end of 18 years of Conservative government was a truly euphoric moment. There did seem to be a shift from fusty, greying Tories to a new breed of politicians who at least had some idea about culture and how it worked.
So much for Drugs, Sex an’ Rock’n’Roll…they just wanted hand outs and understanding from the government.
They were much better off under Thatcher who cut the art grants and forced them to think, strive and create to survive…and the art world was immeasurably better for it….no need for a ‘breed of politicians who had some idea about culture and how it worked’.
Always amazed that people think Blair was ‘right-wing’….the BBC likes to peddle that message…
The voting public might have bought into New Labour’s blend of Thatcherite free market economics and social justice, but it never had very deep roots in the Labour Party itself.
It was the product of a tight-knit group headed by Blair, Gordon Brown, Peter Mandelson and media chief Alastair Campbell.
But he was if anything an archetypal socialist masquerading as an almost right-of centre social democrat. A man who indulged in a massive borrow and spend spree, who spent billions he didn’t have on infrastructure in order to buy votes, who deliberately deregulated the City and almost destroyed it, a man who threw open the borders in order to undermine national loyalty and identity, a man who set out to destroy the United Kingdom by introducng Devolution knowing full well that it would always be ratcheted up, and a man who was intent on selling out what remained to the EU along with the population as obedient citizens…an EU that is, if nothing else, more like the Soviet Union than a democratic, accountable, open and transparent entity. Blair no doubt felt it would be like going ‘home’. Blair was not in any way right-wing.
Which is probably why the BBC seems to like him giving him as it does a glowing obituary….yes I know, there’s a slight problem there, Blair’s still alive, you just can’t keep a good man down can you? The BBC has definitely got the rose tinted specs on here…
Tony Blair’s legacy 20 years on
It is 20 years to the day that Tony Blair won a landslide general election victory for Labour – how did he change the country and what is left of his legacy?
“A new dawn has broken, has it not?”
With these words, spoken to a cheering crowd of supporters as the sun rose over London’s South Bank, Tony Blair ushered in the first Labour government in 18 years.
This sounds familiar…
Blair sketched out, in vague but confident terms, his vision of a modern, united country fit for a new millennium. A country for the “many not the few”.
Ah yes…recycling…very good…no doubt the BBC will do a whole series of programmes and articles on Corbyn soundbites ala May’s ‘Strong and stable’…no?…thought not….
Blair was wonderfully inclusive and diverse…the working class, women and gay people…blimey….
“Traditional values in a modern setting”, as John Prescott, a man who straddled the new/old divide with more agility than he was often given credit for, would say with a knowing smirk.
They were a diverse bunch – with more women than had ever sat in a British cabinet before and the first openly gay cabinet minister, Chris Smith.
Blair had some wonderful policies, basic but sound, and yet…‘the new government did not lack ambition.’
On the day after their election victory, Gordon Brown surprised everyone by handing control of interest rates to the Bank of England – a move that would have far-reaching consequences for the economy.
Blair was also determined, like many a prime minister before and since, to fix some of the country’s longstanding social problems.
Failures are anodynely reported as nothing much to see here…despite the BBC blitzing the Tories for the gap between rich and poor…
The gap between rich and poor remained more or less the same during the Blair years, according to analysis by the Resolution Foundation, although there was a big increase in pay at the top end of the income scale.
Education…a brilliant success….
Education was Blair’s other top priority. He oversaw a big expansion in higher and further education, and poured money into early years learning, as well as pioneering academy schools.
As was his funding of health….outcomes in both improved the BBC approvingly reports….no sense of where the money came from or any mention of the massive debts from PFI now crushing public services….
His first term was characterised by caution on tax and public spending, thanks to Labour’s commitment to stick to tight Conservative spending limits for the first two years.
That changed after the party’s second landslide election victory in 2001, when billions began to pour into the health service and education, on the back of a booming economy. Outcomes improved as a result.
Oh, and immigration….another Blair success….nothing to see here…
Blair’s 2004 decision to open the door to East European migration was entirely in keeping with his values as an ardent pro-European, who had championed the eastward expansion of the EU and who believed globalisation and flexible labour markets were the answer to industrial decline.
What was so successful?
The plentiful supply of cheap labour arguably helped the UK economy to expand without facing the issue of spiralling wages – and this in turn held inflation and interest rates down, contributing to a decade-long boom in property prices, adding to the feelgood factor among middle income home owners, even if fewer people could afford to get on the property ladder in the first place.
Ah yes…so having your wages cut or even losing your job due to cheap imported labour and employers not bothering to invest in training, research and development and thus not improving productivity [that ‘puzzle’ that the BBC always blamed on the Tories] was a great little plan as well as really expensive housing.
Oh wait the BBC recognises there was some discontent…due to ‘the pace of change’..er… not the resultant low wages, no jobs and no houses, no school places and a crowded NHS then? No, just that amorphous pace of change….
It also sowed the seeds of discontent in Labour’s heartlands, as growing numbers felt left behind and marginalised by the pace of change in their communities, and a growing anti-EU feeling began to take hold.
And look at this…a complete whitewash from a BBC that has otherwise relentlessly hounded Blair over Iraq and blamed him for every subsequent disaster in the Middle East….
In 2003, Blair had drawn on every last ounce of his persuasive skill to make the case for joining the US-led invasion to MPs and the wider public.
He had become convinced of the value of military action in pursuit of humanitarian aims and the need to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the US, in the wake of 11 September, 2001.
‘Every last ounce of his persuasive skill’? WTF? Last time I heard the BBC was calling him a war criminal and a lying bastard who took us to war on a lie. And what’s this crap about ‘humanitarian aims and standing loyally shoulder to shoulder with an ally’? The BBC has never ever put that forward as a credible explanation for the Iraq War. The BBC must have taken something…they’re certainly sexing this dodgy dossier up no end.
Oh wait…a slight tinge of guilt about blowing smoke up our backsides…
The subsequent failure to find weapons of mass destruction appeared to confirm many people’s worst suspicions about him – that he relied too much on spin and was not to be trusted.
Just a bit o’ ‘spin’, no hint of the extremely serious accusations, so many from the BBC itself, that Blair lied and completely misled Parliament and the People?
And finally his legacy…yes a few problems over Iraq and the Corbynistas may boo him but he’s a good egg really with some really good ideas….like how Blair is responsible for keeping the NHS state run and free…and now he’s a bit of a saint…working for the good of the country….
Blair’s supporters claim that his vision of a self-consciously modern, multicultural, socially liberal country, has endured – and that David Cameron’s six years in government were shaped by it.
It is there in the Conservatives’ commitments on foreign aid and promotion of gay rights, they say, as well as Britain’s continued commitment to a health service free at the point of delivery, funded by taxation.
And, at 63, the man himself is still in the game.
He has ditched his business interests – that had generated so much negative publicity for him – to work full time on promoting moderate, centrist policy solutions, fighting battles that 20 years ago he must have hoped would have been won by now.
Curiously I don’t remember Thatcher ever getting such a glowing legacy report…did she get thanks for the economy that Blair inherited or for keeping the NHS free at the point of delivery ? [she and the Tories must get some credit as after 18 years in power they managed not to privatise it…and all without Blair’s help…amazing!]
Remarkable how sanguine the BBC is about the extraordinary bully-boy tactics of the EU as they come out with ever more draconian demands and aggressive and insulting language. Watching BBC interviews with EU apparatchiks the reporters so often nod along agreeably as the Eurocrats lay into May and Brexit and set out the EU’s very onerous terms, the reporters often seeming to side with the Eurocrats as the journo’s themselves start laying into May and ‘the British’, usually along the lines of ‘don’t you Eurocrats find it all too trying having to deal with delusional Brits trying to split you apart and making absurd demands?’.
This write up on the BBC website does however actually recognise the EU’s tactics are designed to disrupt the British negotiations and cause concern and doubt in the British Public’s mind, and no doubt try to influence the election towards a more EU friendly government or a Parliament with a ‘mandate’ to dump Brexit…
The EU set out tough terms for the Brexit negotiations at the weekend – and has followed up with a steady drumbeat of briefing suggesting that the UK is unprepared for the talks to come and harbouring delusions about the possible outcomes.
Officials in Brussels naturally have a vested interest in stressing that leaving the EU is difficult and dangerous…there’s no doubt the European briefings will be seen in the UK as provocative – and designed to stir up fears among British voters about what Brexit is ultimately going to mean.
It’s a shame that the BBC’s journalists on the ground interviewing the Eurocrats don’t start making the point to them that their position is so obviously tactical and intended to cause trouble in the UK, such as comments about Northern Ireland’s border and the EU essentially trying to annex both NI and Gibraltar taking them both out of the UK without any say for the UK government.
When the Eurocrats are so obviously interfering in British national politics such as the election the BBC should be making this quite clear and be challenging those Eurocrats on their behaviour….the BBC weren’t so shy about denouncing Russia for allegedly supporting Trump and yet when it comes to our own country the BBC seems to look away.
The Mail has noticed the bully-boy tactics and doesn’t look away…
DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Why these EU bully boys fear democracy
There was more than a hint of the bizarre about the meeting at which 27 EU leaders set out their negotiating position on Brexit.
After getting round the conference table in Brussels, they deliberated for just four minutes before issuing a set of absurdly draconian demands.
Then, like some 1970s meeting of the Chinese Communist party, they erupted into a protracted round of applause and self-congratulation, as if they had done something terribly clever.
In fact, what they presented was not so much a negotiating position as an ultimatum to Britain – pay a £50billion penalty, guarantee the rights of all EU citizens living in the UK, give Spain a veto on the future of Gibraltar and promise not to enforce border controls between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic.
These ludicrous blowhards should also remember that Britain imports billions of pounds a year more in goods and services from the EU than we export to them. So German car makers, French wine producers and Irish farmers have more to lose from a trade war than UK manufacturers.
Of course, there is another agenda. With Euroscepticism rampant across the continent, the EU high command wants to punish Britain for leaving as a warning to other member states not to follow suit. They are terrified that a blast of democracy could soon destroy their cosy little club.
The Mail is confident Mrs May will not be deflected by these cynical tactics but she needs the full support of the British people in the difficult negotiations to come.
Full support of the British people…and the Media…the British Media.
More on the EU’s bully-boy tactics…here’s Daniel Hannan from 2008….it all sounds very familiar…
EU treaty censored by Euro-federalists
Shall I tell you the most annoying thing about Eurocrats? It’s not their readiness to toss aside inconvenient referendum results, nor their intolerance of dissent. No, the truly maddening thing about them is the flagrancy with which they break their own rules.
This week, a small group of MEPs decided to protest against the ratification, without the promised referendums, of the Lisbon Treaty (née European Constitution). The method we decided on was procedural delay – the technique that worked so brilliantly for the Irish nationalist leader Charles Stewart Parnell.
MEPs do have two rights that not even the Speaker can infringe. We can demand that a vote be held electronically rather than by show of hands – a slightly slower procedure, but one that guarantees accuracy and allows everyone to see how individual MEPs vote. And, when the vote is over, we have the right to state, in not more than a minute, why we voted as we did.
At worst, we would have kept MEPs from their lunch for half an hour, and perhaps delayed the afternoon session – hardly Samson bringing down the temple. But even this was too much for the parliamentary authorities. With brazen disregard for their own rulebook, they disallowed our requests for explanations of how members voted and suspended the session.
Their action had no legal basis. The parliamentary rules state that “once the general debate has been concluded, any Member may give an oral explanation on the final vote for not longer than one minute”. Indeed, the Deputy Speaker in the chair at the time didn’t even pretend to be following due process. He simply announced that “this house is sovereign” and that a minority could not stand in the way of the majority.
The authorities are now threatening – almost unbelievably – to disallow requests for electronic votes, despite proved inaccuracies in the show-of-hands procedure, and despite the fact that no one will be able to find out how his representative voted.
The people they really resent are their own voters, who keep on mulishly voting “No”. But, of course, they can’t be openly contemptuous of their constituents. So they take out all their frustration on us, the handful of Euro-sceptics in the chamber.
Yes, keep on voting until you vote the way the EU wants and if all else fails remove the right to vote in a way that is transparent and accountable, and if that fails to stop the annoying democrats, then just don’t let them vote.
Gotta love the EU.
The answer of course isn’t really Brexit but the dismantling and extinction of the unelected and undemocratic, empire building and tyrannical EU itself….keep the co-operation between states, keep open a talking shop to agree on what and how to co-operate, but close the EU ‘government’ which takes ever-more powers to itself and imposes ever-more draconian laws and regulations upon sovereign nation states with the intent of crushing and destroying them….so let’s crush and destroy the EU ‘government’ instead….out with the arrogant Drunkard….sorry, Drunckers…no it’s Junckers isn’t it?…and in with democracy, genuine co-operation and freedom to act in your own interests when needed.
A bit of blatant anti-May politicking from the BBC as it targets her ‘strong and stable’ government…not once but twice…and no doubt many other times and place as well…it’s not a virtue to be strong and stable…the BBC trying to undermine a Tory election position?…
‘Strong and stable’ – Why politicians keep repeating themselves
As the general election approaches, MPs start to repeat themselves. Over and over again. In every interview. Why do they do it?
The final Prime Minister’s Questions before the general election had just finished when an exasperated Paul Flynn asked the Speaker whether a microchip had been planted into Tory MPs that makes them say the words “strong and stable” every 18 seconds.
The veteran Labour MP had a point – the Conservatives’ slogan had just been used 16 times, including a hat-trick of mentions inside a single question by backbencher Michael Fabricant.
Ah…a Labour MP has a point does he? Hmmm…good of the BBC to expand upon it for him in the middle of an election campaign.
The BBC is obsessed….it doesn’t like its own bias being stopwatched and detailed but the Tories saying ‘strong and stable’…well…a very important issue for the BBC to spend so much time upon…
“Strong and stable”
The Conservative slogan has been used:
- 25 times in the Commons in 10 days
- 16 times during PMQs on 26 April
- 12 times in one speech by Theresa May
And look…a strong leader is a bad leader the BBC tells us in a second bite of the crab apple.….the BBC asks a man who wrote a book, Archie Brown, author of The Myth of the Strong Leader, who is clearly not going to give you any other answer than ‘strong leadership’ is bad.
And of course it’s back to May’s ‘strong and stable’ as the reference point….
The soundbites are constantly repeated. “Strong leader”. “Strong and stable leadership”. “Strong and stable government”. But what do they mean?
At first glance the terms are not contentious. It is easy to get agreement that “what we need is a strong leader”, and few would argue that “what we need is a weak leader”.
Yet, there is a lot to be said against an over-mighty leader.
The BBC tried once before to paint May as an isolated authoritarian who talked to no one and was running a shambles of a government that didn’t know what it wanted to get from negotiations and had no plans in place for Brexit during the run up to the vote on Article 50…that was clearly nonsense as the government set out its comprehensive plans shortly after the BBC claims.
The article continues to tell us that Labour’s Attlee was not a strong leader but, LOL, led a strong and stable government…contrast that, the BBC says, with Thatcher who was a disaster….and the future?
Theresa May took personalisation of power a rhetorical step further in the House of Commons this week when she repeatedly said that “a vote for me and the Conservative candidate” in the 8 June election will lead to strong and stable leadership and a better Brexit outcome.
Strong leaders need not apply…because they will fail…
The greatly respected political scientist and TV election analyst Anthony King, who died in January, observed last year that the best-governed countries “owe their good government in large part to the fact that their political institutions and political culture obviate the need for strong leaders”.
He concluded: “A successful liberal democracy is liable to be one that is effectively “leader-proofed”, one in which… it is made difficult for a strong leader to acquire and wield power and in which the government does not rely on strong leaders for its long-term success”.
He was surely right.
There is a pop at Corbyn..or is it supposed to prop him up, telling us he is a ‘strong leader’ like May when the reality is that he is more weak and irresolute on so many issues…and this article completely forgets that his power comes not from his MPs but Labour members…and so he obviously does appeal to the electorate…those that like him anyway….and if he ever did get the keys to No10 I’m pretty sure many of those MPs would also see him in a new light all of a sudden….as the jobs are being handed out…they all love a winner…it also forgets that he isn’t a strong and stable leader…anything but…he fails to lead and muddles on through regardless…..
Ed Miliband, as Labour leader, persuaded the parliamentary Labour party to give up electing the shadow cabinet and accord him as leader of the opposition the power to appoint them…[once Corbyn] inherited those powers, he refused to return them to Labour MPs, even when they voted overwhelmingly last year to take them back.
Although Mr Corbyn would then have less power individually, a leadership chosen by the parliamentary party would be stronger in its political composition and, arguably, in its appeal to the electorate.
Tim Farron has claimed, to much incredularity[BBC aside…no reaction from Marr], that he is a ‘bit of a Eurosceptic’….because in 2008 he resigned from the LibDem frontbench when Clegg demanded they abstain from voting on a referendum on the EU Lisbon Treaty…the BBC puts it up in lights…
Tim Farron says ‘I’m a bit of a Eurosceptic’
…not sure why as the main thing of any import he said was that the LibDems would not form a coalition with any other party….[interesting that he mentions his new found Euroscepticism, why now?….could it be because the subject arose 5 days ago on someone’s Twitter feed….guess Tim himself forgot that he was a Eurosceptic and had to be reminded….]
He may have resigned but not because he opposed the Lisbon Treaty...he voted relentlessly for it...the only vote he opposed was an amendment that would give parliament a say on EU decisions…so much for his cheerleading for British democracy…..whilst of course voting yes to increase the EU Parliament’s power….
Trouble is Farron didn’t resign in order to oppose the EU but because he had promised his constituency that they could have a vote, he makes absolutely no mention of his own views on the EU here….
Note how hard-core Remainder Farron, much as he ‘respects’ the people’s vote on Brexit but ignores it, also respected Clegg’s leadership…and totally ignored it.
And just because you vote to have a referendum doesn’t show you are a Eurosceptic….Clegg at the time wanted an in/out referendum…and was a committed Europhile as his leaflets made out in 2008…the LibDems would campaign to remain in the EU….
And here is Farron indeed telling us that he wants another referendum…..in order that the British people can vote to stop Brexit…the LibDems are the vehicle to provide that ‘democracy’ to take place…much like Erdogan’s democracy bus…you get off it when you get to the destination you want…so keep voting until we agree to stay in the EU and then…no more referendums…cheers Tim…..
It wouldn’t actually be a vote on the terms of any deal but a rerun of the in/out referendum…reject the deal and we stay in the EU…no renegotiation of the deal to improve it….
According to an amendment tabled by Liberal Democrat MPs including Tim Farron, a vote should be held with the question on the ballot paper asking voters if they support the new proposed agreement with the EU, or if they want the UK to remain a member of the EU.
Farron keeps insisting that the 2016 referendum didn’t give May the authority to take us out of the Single Market and that the People voted for ‘a blank sheet of paper’...and yet that’s just not true…they voted to come out of the EU…that was the question on the ballot paper…do you want to stay in the EU or leave? They voted to leave…and the ‘EU’ means all the EU…Farron is busily picking the bits he likes and insisting that the ‘People’ didn’t vote to ‘leave’ those bits. Not only a remarkable ability to read peoples’ minds but also a remarkable ability to torture logic….by Farron’s logic the vote to leave was not a vote to leave at all…because people did not have a list, a list that would be extraordinarily long, that spelt out every law, regulation, treaty and rule that brought the EU to life and made it real….we, by his logic, must explicitly approve or not every single EU law, infrastructure and institution if we want to vote on the EU….we can cherry pick our membership of the EU according to Farron, though the EU disagrees…they say if you’re out you’re out. Farron also ignores the very inconvenient fact that it was made quite clear by both sides in the referendum that a vote to leave meant leaving the Single Market.
More Farron logic…a massive vote for May would not be democratic.
More Farron logic as he accuses Andrew Neil of guessing what voters want having confidently told us that he himself knows….
Farron is talking out of his backside and spinning us a right old tale….but then again, as Cameron points out, the LibDems are renowned for dirty campaigning…..[why is Farron wrong in the video below?…check the recent post on the lies and hypocrisy of politicians who called Zac Goldsmith a racist Islamophobe]….
“You can either wage Jihad by the tongue and by the mouth – that is ideological jihad – or by the hand and the sword. Those are the official categories of jihad…..And jihad by the hand and the sword can be done here in France [& the UK] with cars and knives.” BBC
This is a post just to remind ourselves, and to inform the next post, about what kind of person Sadiq Khan is and the lies, hypocrisy and appeasement of Muslim extremism, the playing of the race card, that someone, Yvette Cooper, who might very well be the next leader of the Labour Party, used to deal with those she opposed……and what all this means for Western civilisation, no less.
Sadiq Khan had close links to some extreme-minded people and once said that Muslims who work with the government to tackle Muslim terrorism were ‘Uncle Toms’. Yvette Cooper criticised Corbyn during her bid for the Labour leadership for his links to extremists saying it gave legitimacy to such people…she then proceeded to accuse Zac Goldsmith of racism when he said the same thing about Khan associating in public with extremists.
Here is Cooper in the Telegraph laying into Corbyn….
She is not prepared to stay silent, she says, while Mr Corbyn sends out an ambiguous message about Labour’s stance towards extremism.
Ms Cooper is particularly horrified at the stance he took in support of the hate preacher, Raed Salah. Britain tried to deport him for “virulent anti-Semitism” while Mr Corbyn described him as an “honoured citizen” who should be allowed to stay.
“I think we have to be very firm about the fact that those who are involved in terrorism, or extremism or anti-Semitic abuse, you shouldn’t be legitimising them, or inviting them to parliament, or those kinds of things. The Labour Party should not be associated with Salah in any way.”
All change though…..Here she is attacking Tory Zac Goldsmith for using a tactic he could very well have copied from her….
Zac Goldsmith’s dog-whistle is becoming a racist scream
Anyone who thought the nasty party was dead has been proved wrong by Zac Goldsmith’s desperate campaign for the London Mayoralty.
Rather than try to persuade Londoners with a positive vision, the Goldsmith campaign is increasingly resorting to disgraceful, divisive tactics as the polls show the Tories falling further behind.
What started as a subtle dog-whistle is becoming a full blown racist scream.
Michael Fallon has attacked Sadiq as a “Labour lackey” who supports extremists. And in the last few days we’ve seen Michael Gove, Theresa May, and Boris Johnson each try to link Sadiq in people’s minds with Islamist extremism in different and deeply dodgy ways.
It’s the campaigning equivalent of pointing and shouting ‘don’t vote for him, he’s a Muslim’ – a nasty approach straight from the Lynton Crosby playbook.
Plenty of sensible Tories have been appalled. Baroness Warsi tweeted: “If Sadiq Khan isn’t an acceptable enough Muslim 2 stand for London mayor, which Muslim is?”
Shazia Awan, a former Conservative Parliamentary candidate described the Tory campaign as “‘divisive’, ‘colonial’, ‘sectarian’ and the return of the ‘nasty party”.
Hang on though…..Goldsmith didn’t actually attack Khan for being ‘Muslim’, he attacked him for associating, again and again and again, with extremist Muslims….it was Khan himself who campaigned ‘as a Muslim’…and indeed tried to do so as the anti-extremist candidate…so Goldsmith was right to tackle the hypocrisy and lack of judgement of a man who said he was against extremism and yet who shared the same platform with extremists again and again…..and who called ‘moderate Muslims’ Uncle Toms……so, if anyone, who was the divisive, racist hate monger using ‘fear and innuendo’ to campaign?
Hey @ZacGoldsmith. There’s no need to keep pointing at me & shouting ‘he’s a Muslim’. I put it on my own leaflets. pic.twitter.com/EGeRXlPWAa
— Sadiq Khan (@SadiqKhan) April 11, 2016
And look….guess who else defends Khan….the BBC’s James O’Brien on his LBC radio show….O’Brien dismisses the criticism of Khan’s use of the phrase as a campaign tactic by the Right…..
And who else doesn’t get it as he tries a bit of moral grandstanding but is on slippery ground?
Trump did a wide-ranging interview with the Associated Press which discussed his first 100 days as President….it was quite clear, lucid and coherent, no doubt as to what he was saying…it all made sense though admittedly the 9/11 comment was always going to be a hostage to fortune. However there were several occasions when the interview has been marked ‘unintelligible’ where whatever Trump has said cannot be made out or put into words. The anti-Trump brigade has leapt upon this and almost totally ignored the actual content of the interview whilst raving against a President who is ‘unintelligible’…apparently….well ignore is the wrong word, they address what he says but not in any reasoned or sensible way…it’s merely the usual liberal Trump trauma on show as they blast absolutely anything he says as ‘bonkers’ or lies.
If you actually read the transcript you can see that where it marks something as ‘unintelligible’ it is actually more often than not where someone would naturally pause in a sentence and perhaps make a transitional noise….er’s and umms or where they are trying to think of a suitable word…as they think and move on to a different thought.
It’s not as if no President before has not been so ‘inflicted’ with this terrible problem…
Obama: I think Utah has a pretty good claim. They’re undefeated. And Florida and Oklahoma both are well … (unintelligible).
Obama: Right. Well, by the time that G-20 meeting takes place, we, I believe, will have presented our approach to financial regulation. I think some international coordination has to be done. But right now, we just have to take care … (unintelligible) .
Obama: Well … (unintelligible) … if you look — as you might imagine
Wasn’t it an absolute nightmare that the US had a President for 8 years who was ‘unintelligible’…why, why, why?
Trump’s reached his century and of course they all hate him for it. Why hasn’t he been assassinated yet?
The BBC has been filling the airwaves with a relentless barrage of anti-Trump sneering and mockery, what’s new?, on Friday we had Malcolm Rifkind deriding Trump and telling us how dangerous he is to the world whilst going on to boast about how wonderful Malcolm Rifkind is because he stopped the Americans interfering in the Balkans…yes what a hero Rifkind is, in his own head…even the Guardian agrees…or not…
Britain’s refusal to act in the former Yugoslavia left the Serbs free to butcher thousands of Bosnians. Brendan Simms dissects a catastrophe of British foreign policy in ‘Unfinest Hour’.Simms mints the phrase ‘conservative pessimism’ to describe the mentality of Hurd, Malcolm Rifkind and David Owen. They evaded Serb responsibility for the atrocities and vastly overestimated the difficulties of intervention. Exhausted by Ireland and haunted by Suez and Vietnam, Conservative politicians and the ‘experts’ in the press and think-tanks maintained that ethnic cleansing was an unpleasant fact of life.
Yep, mass murder, an unpleasant, but acceptable, fact of life…just as Rifkind seems to say today as he abuses Trump for ‘dangerous’ intervention in the world.
Then we had a parade of other worthies who hadn’t a good word to say about Trump and his first 100 days as President….never once acknowledging that he essentially had the whole Establishment lined up against him from the 95% of the Media, to the Democrats, even much of his own Party, to the intelligence and security services and of course the activist judges.
Justin Webb has been off the ranch to write his own summing up in the Mail [LOL…they just can’t keep out of the hated rag…no doubt hoping they can ‘poison’ the minds of the horribly white and Right Mail readers with their liberal worldview…it’s the Beeboids missionary work to civilise the savage natives]. Webb admits Trump hasn’t in fact done badly, a view you don’t hear on the BBC itself, but he can’t help the digs…
His madcap, jumpingjack-flash of a presidency is going from . . . well, not exactly strength to strength — that would be stretching reality — but it’s still going somewhere, and in some respects it is going rather well.
Of course, as with any president, the reality of trying to deliver on noisy campaign promises soon becomes apparent when you arrive in the Oval Office.
Webb also admits that America is in many respects ‘broken’….’carnage’…a phrase for which Trump was roundly abused and condemned…and yet he was right….
If you have been to America recently, you will have noticed that much of the place is — to use the word Trump himself used in his inaugural speech — ‘carnage’. It’s broken. rusted. Sad.
Webb admits Trump has a very good team around him…
The Trump team is now a steady and experienced group of former soldiers and businesspeople. Their eyes do not swivel.
Webb even admits bombing Assad might have been a ‘good thing’ for the world….
By blasting a Syrian army air base to rubble in response to a sarin gas attack allegedly carried out by President Assad’s regime, he has proved that — unlike Obama — he is prepared to act.
That will have served to make Assad, and his allies in Moscow, think twice. It should worry them, and that’s a good thing.
But then Webb slips into the BBC’s normal approach to Trump, a man whose personality, worldview and way of doing ‘business’ they just can’t compute and therefore dismiss as dangerous ‘madness’…
If there is a real Trump weak spot, 100 days into this rollercoaster ride, it is still the temperament of the man himself. There is something quite breathtakingly narcissistic about him. All Presidents are bit odd. To look in the mirror and see a President of the United States staring back is, well, not the sign of a normal mind.
James Gilligan, a professor of psychiatry, told a conference at Yale University: ‘I’ve worked with murderers and rapists. I can recognise dangerousness from a mile away. You don’t have to be an expert to know how dangerous this man is.’
Will Trump crash and burn — and if he does, will he take us all with him? Nothing about this presidency is stable. Nothing predictable. And there are 1,361 days to go, assuming he isn’t impeached and doesn’t resign in the meantime.
The BBC’s News Quiz mocked Ivanka Trump for being booed and jeered at a G20 women’s summit in Berlin as she defended her father’s attitude towards women, the same claim was made on Any Questions…..and on BBC News….
Ivanka Trump booed at women’s summit
Trouble is that’s completely untrue…there may have been a few groans but no booing or jeering as the BBC suggests….which is odd really as the BBC has put a video out on Youtube which tells the truth…..
So on the mainstream BBC news and on its ‘comedy’ shows there is a narrative that there was a loud, angry and indignant reaction to Ivanka’s comments when that is just not true….it was merely a few mutterings from the crowd.
BBC spreading fake news just because it’s Trump? Of course they are. Why change a habit so ingrained it’s absolutely natural to them.
From Bild….
There was no booing of Ivanka
At the “Women20 Summit”, there was in fact a moment during the panel discussion when the audience began murmuring. Panel moderator Miriam Meckel asked Ivanka whether she was speaking as the First Lady – in Melania Trump’s place – or as the new advisor to the President. Ivanka replied in a disarmingly honest way: “This role is quite new to me, it has been little under 100 days.” She said that she would be happy to bring what she learned here home with her and that she would discuss it with her father.
She also said: “I am very proud of my father. Long before he came into the presidency, he has been a tremendous champion of supporting families and enabling them to thrive.”
At this point, there was some unrest in the audience. There was no booing or heckling at all, however.
