Author Archives: Alan

You can get a very good idea of the BBC’s wilfully misleading playing to the gallery attitude and its hypocrisy from two recent speeches, one by Lord Hall Hall, and one by James Purnell.

Lord Hall Hall outlines the BBC’s ever-increasing power bid as it seeks to spread its influence into every media organisation across the country and in many outside as well, and illustrates how the BBC’s ‘diversity’ plan is in essence just a tick-box exercise lacking that thing that Hall Hall claims the BBC is all about…diversity of thought, opinion and intellect.

Today I want to talk a little about why this is so important right now, about what we at the BBC can do to help and how the whole of the industry must come together to support a project that is vital to all our futures.

There’s too big a gap between the education sector and the industry. And as an older generation retires, the struggle is to find a new generation with the skills to replace it.

But the truth is, broadcasting in particular remains a relationship-based, ‘who you know’ industry.

Too often, employers offer placements and internships through networks or contacts. Of course, this marginalises those who don’t have connections, especially those outside the big cities, and it favours the well-connected and well-off from the South East of England.

A sector that, instead of being a force for social mobility, is too often a source of social exclusion.

At the BBC, this is a problem we take very seriously.

First, because it’s part of our mission to represent, and be representative of, the whole of the country. 

And second, because we’re really serious about being the most creative organisation in the world.

We know we can’t achieve this unless we draw on the full creative potential of the whole of the country – and allow no barriers to get in the way.

Getting the very best at the BBC means making sure we draw on all of the talent the country has to offer.

Ours is already one of the most diverse workforces in the UK…For me, one of the real priorities is to get more women, and more people from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, into our most senior leadership positions.

And, let me say, this is not just about investing in top talent for the BBC – it’s for the whole industry. One of our first group of Assistant Commissioners, for instance, is now a comedy commissioner at Sky.

To truly address the problem, there has to be sector-wide leadership, and a collective response.

That’s where the role of the National College is so vital….

We want to open up the BBC to you – in every way we can.

I’m aware that a National College needs a national orbit. And as the only employer in our sector who’s everywhere across the UK – I want to throw open our doors.

Can we help you develop regional centres around the UK and widen access to training?

Can we host students at our base in Birmingham, for example? Or in Salford at MediaCity?

We want to put our expertise at your service.

Yep…putting the BBC’s expertise at other meida organisation’s service…and making sure a BBC ‘ethos’ is spread along with that ‘expertise’.

Purnell gives a fine example of the anti-Brexit hypocrisy as he argues for ever-increasing BBC dominance to ‘protect our culture’….

The future of broadcasting isn’t the only thing that will shape the future of our culture. But it matters.

We may not realise what an important thing we could be losing. That in a very English, informal, un-strategic way we lose control of our culture. No one wills it. Nor has it happened yet. But if we don’t act soon our culture could soon be mostly baked on the other side of the Atlantic.

The one thing we do know is that if we get it right, the future of our culture will be supported. Because we will have British institutions, telling British stories, so that we continue to be able to shape our way of life, our customs, ideas and beliefs.

That matters for our culture and OFCOM should have the power to intervene in on-demand environments, not just linear ones, as now to secure prominence for public service content.

Purrnell’s speech is in effect a massive land grab, a power grab that aims to keep the BBC on top, dominating the media landscape as he demands special treatment for the BBC as it is being outgunned by the [American] commercial sector…Purnell wants government intervention to ensure the BBC remains on top as it moves into the digital realm….note his moan about how the media has become less democratic…emm…as the giant BBC is elbowed out of the way by the consumers choosing to watch the massive ‘giant media oligarchs’ such as Amazon or Netflix or Google and Facebook…so more consumer choice is less democratic?  Seems the BBC is just a bit jealous that it has competition for its long held almost monopoly of the media scene…,.

In creating the BBC, Britain gave an example to the world of how the right application of new technology could democratise culture.

Britain managed to develop a model that had the best of all worlds.

A thriving market alongside ambitious public provision.

An openness to American imports made possible by our confidence in our own creative industries.

We never tried to keep Hollywood out, because we were confident that our stuff was good enough to compete – and it was.

That success was built on two foundations – investment and distribution. We funded wonderful work. And we made sure audiences could find it.

But today, we have some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that both of these are under threat. The good news is that there’s a way to rescue them.

The Economist reported last month that this is a golden age for couch potatoes.

Netflix’s revenues have tripled in five years. Its annual content budget is more than the BBC’s entire income.

There are 350,000 podcast strands available on iTunes. 13 million individual episodes. It would take around 50 lifetimes to listen to them all.

So, this is a Golden Age for consumers.

British talent benefits, as well. The BBC’s House of Cards got remade as Netflix’s first blockbuster drama, while the Night Manager and the Crown shared five awards at the Golden Globes.

But here is the rub. The Crown cost over £100 million. That could have funded BBC2 for three months. Sky and BT spend as much on the Premier League rights every year as BBC One and Channel 4 do on programmes.

As The Economist also said “entertainment has in some ways become less democratic, not more. Technology is making the rich richer, skewing people’s consumption of entertainment towards the biggest hits and the most powerful platforms. This world is dominated by an oligarchy of giants, including Facebook, Google, Amazon, Netflix and Disney.”

Every single one of them American.

If our media became dominated by a few American companies, however innovative and well-intentioned, how would that affect our culture, and its ability to evolve?

So, yes this is a golden age for British industry and talent. It is a golden age for consumers. But will it be a golden age for our culture?

the position is precarious.

If investment in British content continues to fall, our cultural success will be in jeopardy.

How do we avoid that? How do we get the best of all worlds again?

First, we need to grow. That will be mainly down to us, the industry. And it’s starting to happen….Thanks to tax credits, an extra £2 billion has gone into films and television programmes.

The BBC’s role is the same today as it was in 1922. It is to bring the best of everything, to everyone.

To do that, as Tony Hall said in January, we need to reinvent public service broadcasting, for a new generation.

To continue to deliver our public purpose, we need to stop this decline by investing.

And in education, we’ll explore new ways of reaching audiences too.

We’ve got many of the world’s best cultural institutions…..The BBC is their loudhailer.

We’re also going to be working with our partners inside and beyond the BBC to create thoughtful content aimed at this audience. And we’re going to see how the BBC can help people consuming that content make even more of it, by learning more about themselves and showing them onward education journeys….We call this scheme of work Ideas Service.

The one thing we do know is that if we get it right, the future of our culture will be supported. Because we will have British institutions, telling British stories, so that we continue to be able to shape our way of life, our customs, ideas and beliefs.

We all need to reinvent radio, to make sure the next generation grows up with a radio habit.

But there is one more urgent thing Parliament can do.

In the 2003 Communications Act, Parliament took a far-sighted decision. It insisted that the Public Service Broadcasters should be at the top of the programme guide on satellite, cable and DTT. That reform has worked well.

But as audiences move to on-demand services like iPlayer that provision risks becoming less effective. New TV set-top boxes and Smart TVs only have a limited number of slots on their front page. If those places are filled by the content from the platform owners or from Netflix, Amazon, Facebook, or Spotify , that leaves little room for the Public Service Broadcasters.

That matters for our culture and OFCOM should have the power to intervene in on-demand environments, not just linear ones, as now to secure prominence for public service content.

Economic disaster stalks the land once more as the Brexit effect takes hold at long, long last, sighs the BBC with relief…remember though last September when we said this about the BBC’s reluctance to report almost record high PMI figures…

Just a few weeks ago the BBC was trumpeting the then latest PMI figures that had dipped below 50 and in the BBC’s interpretation this definitely showed we were heading for recession due to Brexit.  This ‘news’ was constantly and loudly broadcast on the day the figures were released.

How different yesterday when the latest PMI figures [53.3] were released showing that ‘the month-on-month increase in the PMI level was the joint largest in the survey’s 25-year history.’

The figures were released at 09:30, the BBC didn’t report this until around 21:00 and the radio news was totally silent all day on this remarkable turn around in contrast to the very high profile the figures received last month.  Odd that the BBC was not chomping at the bit to get these latest ‘good news’ figures that give the lie to the BBC’s scaremongering about Brexit.

It seems we have had an effect and the BBC has taken note….they now leap at the chance to publish the latest PMI figures…

UK economy ‘loses momentum’ as services growth slows

Growth in the UK’s service sector eased to a five-month low in February, according to a closely watched survey.

The Markit/CIPS purchasing managers’ index (PMI) for services fell to 53.3, down from 54.5 in January. However, it remains above the 50 threshold that separates growth from contraction.

The economy has “lost momentum” after “impressive” growth [ignored by the BBC] at the end of 2016, said Chris Williamson of IHS Markit.

Markit said the sector had been stung by the steepest rise in costs for more than eight years as a result of the weak pound.

Wonder why the BBC are suddenly so keen to report these latest PMI figures and do so in such a dramatic fashion….the economy ‘losing momentum’ as a headline?

The BBC tells us [35 mins]…

One of the UK’s leading food fraud experts is warning that a trade deal with the US will result in imports of lower quality food that the British public doesn’t want. Professor Chris Elliott, founder of the Institute for Global Food Security at Queen’s University Belfast, says that a trade deal after Brexit will mean accepting imports of food that is currently not sold in the UK because of current EU regulations. He warns that such foods will be vulnerable to mislabelling and food fraud.

What the BBC doesn’t emphasises is just how closely tied to the EU he is and how anti-Brexit he is as he scaremongers about it….

• Prof Chris Elliott‏ @QUBFoodProf Feb 27
  

  Sir John Major states ‘Brexit will be a historic mistake’. Couldn’t put it better myself .

And he says…

I still hope that the EU referendum result is a figment of my imagination, but as each day passes the horrible reality of what may happen becomes more and more real. All around the country, people, businesses and universities are all trying to work out what the implications are to their own lives and the functioning of their organisations.

It is my belief and hope that inside or outside the EU we will maintain the same degree of rigour in checking our food is safe and free from fraud. But like so many other issues around Brexit, we are jumping blindfolded by a Union Jack handkerchief into a shark-infested ocean.

I suppose the EU regulations and control stopped a massive EU wide horse meat food fraud from happening?  Oh..no…It didn’t…funny how he fails to mention that on the programme…or anything about what he has been tweeting about so recently…illegal use of pesticides…the EU not stop that then?…

Eoghan Daly‏ @Eoghan_LDN Mar 1

• Prof Chris Elliott‏ @QUBFoodProf Mar 1

  PIckled beets turn up in Germany laced with illegal Rhodamine B industrail dye http://www.cleankids.de/2017/02/10/gesundheitsgefahr-rhodamin-b-in-sauer-eingelegte-rueben-von-tugra/63083 …

• Prof Chris Elliott‏ @QUBFoodProf Mar 1

  UK Police warn about illegal pesticide use. Link to organised crime in parts of EU.Not here? @iffnmanchester http://www.fifetoday.co.uk/news/police-warning-about-the-dangers-of-illegal-pesticides-1-4378088 …

 He attacks the US for chlorine washed chicken…of course we”ve heard that peddled by BBC correspondents before, the chlorine is in very low dilutions and you probably go swimminbg regularly in chlorine filled pools, swallowing much of it.  And yet you still live.  He mentions growth hormones but has to admit that they pose no health risk…unless they are used incorrectly, a qualification you could add to any food stuff or product…not just imports from America.

It seems he is solely concerned in reality with anti-Brexit propaganda and the BBC welcomes him on with open arms of course.

I wonder, did he raise such objections when the EU were negotiating the TTIP trade agreement with the US when others were raising exactly the same concerns?

Concerns have also been raised that TTIP could lead to the erosion of protection offered to European regional food specialities.

Chlorine chicken, hormone beef? European fears over American ‘Frankenfood’ imports

TTIP trade deal could see poorly regulated American food hit British tables

So whether we have Brexit or not we could have the same trade deal problems..if that is what they are.

So nothing to do with Brexit then?

And never mind…

Leading European food safety authorities have determined that several US practices in contention — such as sanitizing poultry in lightly chlorinated water — are safe.

So nothing to do with food safety then?…

French President François Hollande has openly backed the trade deal. But in an interview with The Washington Post, Matthias Fekl, France’s new secretary of state for foreign trade, said he could not envision any deal that opens the door to controversial US foods.

“This is about lifestyle, about way of life,” Fekl said. “Nothing will force us to expand entry into Europe of chlorinated chicken or hormone beef.”

 

It’s really about paranoia, anti-Americanism and anti-Brexit alarmism.

Sadiq Khan [The man who made being ‘Mooslim’ an election issue in the Mayoral election] claims the SNP are racist..

“In that respect there’s no difference between those who try to divide us on the basis of whether we’re English or Scottish, and those who try to divide us on the basis of our background, race or religion.

“Now of course I’m not saying that nationalists are somehow racist or bigoted – but now, more than ever – what we don’t need is more division and separation.”

The SNP’s whole independence campaign is in essence one based upon an anti-English narrative…it can hardly be one of political independence as they wish to tie themselves ever closer to the EU, thus it can only be an anti-English stance that drives them…a belief backed up so often by their rhetoric.  In contrast UKIP is purely about politics and sovereignty but that doesn’t stop the BBC defaming them as racists and Nazis…whilst totally ignoring the claim that the SNP is racist, in fact the BBC so often cheerleading for the independence movement…because of course that lessens the unity and power of Britain and allows the EU to pick off the smaller nation states like Scotland.

Now the BBC is interested…why?  Because a Muslim has piped up and a black, female feminist who backed Khan has fled Twitter in fear for her life because of the abuse she got.  As with Khan, who identifies strongly as Mooslim, she identifies as black, and proud to be British…and yet shouts about nationalism and the horrors of identity politics….She’s a student…“I’m studying to be a critical race theorist”.

Emma Barnett helpfully exposed [52 mins] what we always knew about the BBC and its view of ‘Nationalism’…she defined it thus…

By definition, historically, nationalism is always about there being an us and there being the ‘other’…an Untermenschen.

Yep, she really did equate nationalism with the very worst aspect of the Nazi ideology…..she wriggled as her interviewee, an SNP politician, told her that was outrageous…and he’s right of course….Barnett lied and said she wasn’t saying that about Scotland…but of course that’s precisely what she was saying.

Still, nice to have down in black and white what the BBC’s definition of nationalism is.

The mid-week open thread is all yours…..

Do you remember this, the outrage, the cries of anti-Muslim racism, the warnings that we are heading back to the 1930’s…surely you do?

Canada’s Syrian refugee plan limited to women, children and families

Unaccompanied men not included because of ongoing security concerns

The federal government’s much-anticipated Syrian refugee plan will limit those accepted into Canada to women, children and families only, CBC News has learned.

Sources tell CBC News that to deal with some ongoing concerns around security, unaccompanied men seeking asylum will not be part of the program.

I don’t remember it, never heard about it in fact….not a whimper of outraged liberal angst from the BBC…and yet Trump puts a temporary halt of immigration from 7 countries due to security concerns, countries targeted by Obama, and all hell breaks loose….the BBC constantly insinuating this is a ‘Muslim ban’ by always, always adding ‘Muslim majority countries’ to their reports when Islam had nothing to do with the choice.

Even anti-Trump liberals are starting to object to the Media’s portrayal of Trump…

Is there not something faintly ridiculous about the media’s sudden re-imagining of itself as the last bastion and redoubt of democracy in a time of advancing darkness? Absolutely.

Trump’s demonization of the media is a cynical political ploy. But this only raises the question of why this anti-media position should be politically advantageous? Why is journalism one of the least trusted professions among Americans, vying with Congress, prostitutes, and used car salesmen for the bottom of the rankings? Absolutely no self-reflection from the media has followed the election of Trump, only an orgy of self-righteousness and blame-shifting…the media often interprets his comments literally so that they seem untrue and fantastical, even when reading them in context shows that what Trump means is something much less outrageous, or at least different.

And here’s an article [from Jan. 2016] on the problems we’re going to have as, what is basically an ‘army’ from Muslim countries, has been allowed to enter Europe…

Europe’s Man Problem

Migrants to Europe skew heavily male—and that’s dangerous.

According to official counts, a disproportionate number of these migrants are young, unmarried, unaccompanied males. In fact, the sex ratios among migrants are so one-sided—we’re talking worse than those in China, in some cases—that they could radically change the gender balance in European countries in certain age cohorts.  Years of research has shown that male-dominated societies are less stable, because they are more susceptible to higher levels of violence, insurgence and mistreatment of women.  66.26 percent of adult migrants registered through Italy and Greece over the past year were male, according to the International Organization of Migration.According to Swedish government statistics, as of the end of November, 71 percent of all applicants for asylum to Sweden in 2015 were male. 

Fear of terrorism might not be the only reason to be leery of highly abnormal sex ratios among the young adult population. As my co-author Andrea Den Boer and I argued in our book, societies with extremely skewed sex ratios are more unstable even without jihadi ideologues in their midst. Numerous empirical studies have shown that sex ratios correlate significantly with violence and property crime—the higher the sex ratio, the worse the crime rate. Our research also found a link between sex ratios and the emergence of both violent criminal gangs and anti-government movements.

While the humanitarian needs of the refugees streaming into Europe must be foremost in our minds at this time, policymakers in Sweden and other countries should also think of the long-term consequences of an unprecedented alteration in the young adult sex ratios of their societies.

The comedian Rory Bremner was on 5 Live earlier last night being rigorously challenged with tough questioning about his ardently pro-Remain position on Brexit….no, sorry, can’t keep that up….he was given such a softball interview it was embarrassing, the presenter chortling along in happy agreement as Bremner offered us his patronising contempt for the Leave voters whom, he told us, were absolutely right that they’d been left behind but were absolutely wrong about the causes…such as the EU and immigration, they were misled, lied to….and of course, Trump and Farage deviously exploited their concerns…..as ‘Blair’ says in the video above…if it all goes wrong it’s the stupid people’s fault for voting for the conmen.

Trouble is they weren’t ‘left behind’,  they were cast deliberately and ruthlessly onto the scrapheap by politicians, Big Business and the likes of the BBC who didn’t just sit back and not challenge immigration policies and the rush towards ever-closer union but actively promoted it.  Labour knew full well the implications of what mass immigration of cheap labour would do to the job prospects of British workers but they went ahead anyway…mass immigration for Labour, as for the EU itself, is a political project intended to ‘ethnically cleanse’ nation states of citizens loyal to those nations and turn us all into good little EU citizens….with the additional aim for Labour of  ‘browning’ the hideously white UK.

Labour threw open Britain’s borders to mass immigration to help socially engineer a “truly multicultural” country, a former Government adviser has revealed.

The huge increases in migrants over the last decade were partly due to a politically motivated attempt by ministers to radically change the country and “rub the Right’s nose in diversity”, according to Andrew Neather, a former adviser to Tony Blair, Jack Straw and David Blunkett.

 

‘What’s the role of traditional journalism in a world where crying “fake news” has become a potent political tool and trust in the mainstream media has collapsed? Former editor of The Sunday Times Sir Harry Evans is in London for a discussion tonight organised by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism on how reporters can make a difference in a “post truth” world.’

Yet more abysmal ‘journalism’ from Nick Robinson [08:20]…perhaps he should consider his position…the longer he stays at the BBC the more useless and biased his reports become.

Trump has refused to bow down to the self-selected Media priesthood with their enormous sense of entitlement and belief that they not only hold government to account but are in fact the real government themselves deciding which policies are acceptable and which not.

The BBC just can’t get over Trump’s cheek and lack of respect for their genius…doesn’t he know they have many degrees in English between them and that their dads held high office within its sainted ranks…as do their brothers and sisters…the BBC is Media Royalty after all.   Surely they deserve some respect for their heritage?  No?

Robinson started off as he meant to go on and did so with no sense of self-awareness as he casually claimed Trump was bullying the Media…this from a man employed by the BBC which has spent the last two years shouting abuse at Trump and doing everything it could to stop him being elected.  Robinson also name checks the ‘post-truth era’ as if it were a real thing and not just a very convenient invention of the left-wing media intended to discredit Trump’s election and Brexit.   Note also the BBC’s sudden u-turn on fake news….from using the term itself as a political weapon against Trump they now denounce Trump for using it against them…. ‘crying “fake news” has become a potent political tool.’  LOL…quelle horreur.

Robinson wheeled in Sir Harry Evans to vent his spleen and he did so in full-on bilious mode.

Trump was a liar, a liar, a liar, a madman, a compulsive liar, a man with a personality defect…and he was a liar.

Who was it said this..was it Lord Hall? …Spot on though and describes exactly what the power of the BBC is to distort what people say and misrepresent them and their intentions….

‘What is important is not what the creator of an idea of genius may mean, but what this idea becomes in the mouth of whomever transmits it.’

Where does the BBC keep digging these people up?  Having said that it doesn’t really need to go out of house as its own journalists are quite ready to demonise Trump calling  him crazy, power mad, a dictator, not forgetting of course the endless times they call him a Fascist, racist, sexist, Islamophobe and link him deliberately to Hitler, Stalin and Mao….

Mr Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric and policy have led to comparisons, from some quarters, with the rise of the Nazi party in Germany.

Later changed to the apparently more acceptable...

The US president’s use of “enemies of the people” raises unavoidable echoes of some of history’s most murderous dictators.

Naturally Robinson doesn’t give any weight to the consideration that Trump may actually be right and that the Media is a bunch of lying charlattans who do more to damage democracy than any others bar the politicans themselves [ref.  Nichola Sturgeon].

Undoubtedly Trump will come to some accomodation eventually with the Press which would be a shame…and a shame that more politicians and people under the Media spotlight don’t fight back and hold the Media to account…just about the only thing I can applaud George Galloway for doing.

The BBC really is pushing the boat out for immigration today…which is remarkable as the BBC is renowned for not wanting to talk about immigration, for wanting to suppress debate, so much so that they habitually resort to the very sinister and Stalinist tactic of show-trialling anyone who dares to challenge the orthodoxy that immigration is good and that Islam represents no threat to Western civilisation, denouncing such heretics as the Far-Right, Fascists, Nazis and racists….so much for free, fair and impartial debate.

Of course when the BBC does talk about immigration the discussion is rigorously policed and controlled, held within well defined limits of acceptable ideas….step outside the BBC’s approved comfort zone and you’re toast and of course they control any interviews by selecting the interviewee, choosing one who they know will voice the acceptable ideas with an agreeable tone….such as in this interview on the Today show about Swedish immigration, the BBC trying to undermine Trump’s reference to its downsides.  A very short interview clearly only intended to rapidly rebut the concerns about what is happening in Sweden….we hear that yes there is immigrant crime but it is caused by the socio-economic conditions of immigrant families and it is completely untrue that police officers cannot record the ethnicity of criminals….strange then that police officers say they cannot or that it is frowned upon and discouraged by politicians who seek to hide the truth such as the real problem immigration poses…

This month, a seasoned investigator with the police department in Orebro, Peter Springare, caused a stir with a Facebook posting in which he discussed the case files on his desk.

“What I’ve been handling Monday-Friday this week: Rape, rape, serious rape, assault rape, black mail, black mail, assault in court, threats, attack against police, threats against police, drugs, serious drugs, attempted murder, rape again, black mail again and abuse,” Mr. Springare said. He went on to list the first names of the people he said were suspects, all but one of which were traditionally Middle Eastern.

Why such a short interview with someone who was obviously picked to toe the line?  Why no police officers or others who are concerned?  A very one-sided ‘debate’ from the BBC about a problem that is well known and of ever increasing concern.

Following Today we had ‘Start the Week’, subject: ‘Build That Wall’: Barriers and Crossings.  No guesses which were the main walls of contention…Trump and Israel.  Nothing good comes of them we learn.  They did go to Ireland to check out a ‘barrier’ there…the border with NI….not oddly enough the ‘Peace Walls’ which you’d think would be the first port of call and an obvious subject.

Then we had ‘Book of the Week’:  Border – Tales from the Edge of Europe.  Another dose of ‘aren’t borders bad and murderous’.

Then we had ‘Neither Here Nor There’….with a daily dose of unreality as a black immigrant gives us a very select view of immigration…the first programme…How the Israelis are so-badly treating Ethiopian refugees….’Ethiopian Jews remain the most disadvantaged group within the Jewish population. Many have been victims of racism and tensions have boiled over, resulting in clashes in with the police. ‘

The next episode is about the Guyanese immigrant community in the US…the author of these tracts is Guyanese himself….considering the vast diversity of immigrants to the US you might have thought he could choose a more representative group…Hispanics or Cubans…but no, he chooses his own group.

Next he heads off to Sweden to look at Bosnian Muslims…why them?  Probably because they are more European than the rest of the Muslim immigrants and therefore he hopes to persuade us that Sweden is not ‘under attack’.

Then off to Germany to discover just how essential all those Turkish guest workers were to the German economy….just the usual BBC narrative…which neglects all the downsides…such as Turkey views them as a Turkish enclave, a Trojan Horse within Germany and actively told Turks not to assimilate.

Finally it’s Britain’s turn and we get the blame for not integrating the Asians…and of course the compulsory mention of Brexit and the inevitable false association with ‘hate crimes’…

What measures did the British government take to promote integration? What compromises and sacrifices were Asian women themselves prepared to make? And what more could have been done on both sides to ease the multicultural tensions that have surfaced once again in Brexit-era Britain?

So five very targeted programmes all either of interest only to the author or peddling the usual BBC narratives on Israel, Brexit, the wonders of economic migrants and of course crushing the criticism of Sweden’s immigration policy.

Then we have The Underground Railroad…‘the new novel by Colson Whitehead, abridged for radio across 10 episodes. This brilliant and at times brutal novel about the history of slavery and racism in America won the US National Book Award for Fiction in 2016.’

Not a bad days work for the BBC eh?  I have no doubt that the other scheduled programmes on Radio 4, and throughout the BBC, also slipped in pro-immigration, anti-Trump, anti-Brexit, messages…but the dedicated programmes on immigration/race are a remarkable haul for just one day on just one station…is that what we pay the licence fee for, to be bombarded with propaganda that peddles a very, very one-sided view of immigration and is designed to counter what the BBC sees as the ignorant and prejudiced views of most of the population?

Heard some of Sunday yesterday just as Roy Hatterseley was brought in to plug his book about the persecution of Catholics in Britain…apparently Catholics survived by sticking rigorously to their faith.  In the usual BBC way this was undoubtedly meant to be a ‘lesson from history’ that parallels Muslim experience of ‘suffering’ in Britain today…good that the BBC should be advising them to be even more fundamentalist.  Amused that even here the BBC slotted in a comment about Brexit…Henry VIII’s Reformation was yet another historical parallel apparently…which you may take as good news…Britain soaring to ever greater heights as the Popish shackles were thrown off.

Then we moved onto the ‘securitisation of Islam’ in America….people only look at Muslims through the prism of security…go figure.  Apparently Trump has appointed people who have what were fringe ideas about Islam…such as it is incompatible with the West.  Hmmm…fringe or mainstream, the BBC and Obama aside?  We were told that Muslims feel under siege, both in the US and here in the UK, and that this has united them in a common cause.  Hmmm…no, what unites them is Islam and 9/11….which was Osama Bin Laden’s call to arms to Muslims across the world…as Lawrence of Arabia might have noted…

Such people demanded a war-cry and banner from outside to combine them, and a stranger to lead them, one whose supremacy should be based on an idea: illogical, undeniable, discriminant: which instinct might accept and reason find no rational basis to reject or approve.  This was the binding assumption of the Arab movement; it was this which gave it an effective, if imbecile unanimity.

Ed Stourton managed to bring Brexit into this….naturally Muslims were suffering even more now after the referendum vote just as Muslims are in the Trump era…aren’t they?

An extremely one-sided narrative about Muslims from someone, Dr Peter Mandaville, who is clearly not a fan of the truth.  So why does the BBC, so concerned about facts, truth and accuracy as it is now, give him a platform to peddle his schmutter totally unchallenged by Stourton?

Had the joy of watching some of the BBC’s ‘Doctors’ soap…even here the propaganda runs deep as a quote from the Bible was turned into an opportunity to promote the Koran as well….a character stating ‘I read the Bible, and the Koran, it makes me a better person’…or some such waffle along those lines.  I’m sure a working class likely lad would be reading both the Bible and the Koran…but only in the mind of a BBC scriptwriter.

All posts on this open thread must now include copious praise for the Prophet’s blueprint for conquest and colonisation in the interest of celebrating diversity…the open thread is all yours…..