Author Archives: David Vance

SMACKDOWN!

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There are moments when you listen to the BBC when the clouds suddenly part, the sun breaks through and the person being interviewed layeth a smackdown on the BBC interviewer. Such was the case this morning when RBS CEO Stephen Hester was interviewed here on Today by James Naughtie. What a cracking performance from Mr Hester. Naughtie pursued the usual dismal biased BBC narrative which seems to reduce to; 1/ The Banks were solely responsible for the financial crisis  2/ Bonus payments are wrong 3/Fairness should be the central nostrum for capitalism. Each time he tried to get Hester to agree, the RBS Chief effectively dismissed the proposition put forward. When Naughtie compared Hester to a Doctor, implying the latter did what he did without bonus payment, Hester compared Naughtie to a Nurse (!) and batted the point straight back. This was a seamless performance and even at the very end when Naughtie resorted to making a cheap point using Hester’s parents,  this too was dealt with. If you haven’t bought shares in RBS, you should. It’s a pity we are forced to buy into the BBC. Well done to Mr Hester.

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DON’T MESS WITH THE MISSIONARY MAN…

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Richard Black attracts a lot of attention in these pages. Biased BBC’s Alan notes…

“You have probably heard that the science is settled, that the debate is over….because the consensus is that AGW is real. However that may not be the case…it seems the consensus is only of importance when it ostensibly backs up your own case…or in this case, Richard Black’s case.

As the remorseless tide of public opinion and mounting evidence says the science is far from settled Black has decided that the consensus is irrelevant…what counts is the truth:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16906738

‘The numbers tell you precisely nothing of value….and may not matter very much.
A couple of years back, at one of the UNFCCC meetings in Bonn, I had a long chat with Viscount Monckton. As a scholar of Classics, he was able to detail with Classical derivation the reasons why consensus matters far less than simply being right. And he is surely correct; after all, in more recent times, Galileo, Darwin, Einstein and Hawking are among those whose work broke with the consensus, yet turned out to be correct. But if the presence of a consensus is irrelevant, so, logically, is its absence; which makes the continued use by sceptics’ groups of the “consensus is cracking” meme a bit mystifying.’

So you see when the consensus is no longer a consensus….it no longer matters what the numbers say.

So you see the BBC’s refusal to allow sceptics a fair hearing based on numbers of scientists who oppose them is, according to Black, wrong….what matters is what is right….so before it seems that if enough people claimed something was true the BBC science journalists would print the legend as fact!

Black is very definitely on the defensive now….he firstly reduced the amount of space for comments on his blog…presumably because that makes it so much harder to rebut his fallacious claims, and now he has retreated behind Twitter from where you have to track down his blog.

I guess he doesn’t really want to engage with the public because the public were having great fun shooting ‘fish in a barrel’…namely his journalism, so called.

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BBC SCOTLAND

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A B-BBC reader from north of the border has this cry of despair for  BBC Scotland;

“The BBC Scotland is an organization that is so biased to one religion & a minority community in Scotland that is has no fear of hiding this bias any longer. The vast majority of BBC Scotland’s employees are from the Roman Catholic community. There is nothing wrong with following any religion but when that community is only 16% of the country and has the running of the country then something is very wrong. Please see continued attacks on the Protestant community in Scotland (mainly the west of Scotland) as evidence of this bias. The BBC Scotland has now convinced a large portion of Scotland that sectarianism is a one way steet in this country. The message that the BBC send out is Catholic = good & Protestant = bad.

Rangers football club have pulled all communication with the BBC in Scotland for continued attacks on the club & it’s fans. The Rangers family have had enough of this organization which we are forced to pay for. All that is asked for is an even playing field on reporting. Example: Celtic manager (Neil Lennon) supposedly had bullets sent to his home address. The BBC reported this from outside Ibrox stadium (home of Rangers FC, why not outside Celtic park?) when in fact this had absolutely nothing to with Rangers football club. This is only one small example of subliminal reporting that the BBC Scotland has been involved in over a least a decade on the Protestant majority & Rangers football club in Scotland.”

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RADICAL, NOT EXTREME

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Abu Qatada, the Islamic extremist

“The BBC has told its journalists not to call Abu Qatada, the al-Qaeda preacher, an “extremist” in order to avoid making a “value judgment”, the corporation’s managers have ruled that he can only be described as “radical”. Journalists were also cautioned against using images suggesting the preacher is overweight. A judge ruled this week that the Muslim preacher, once described as “Osama bin Laden’s right-hand man in Europe”, should be released from a British jail, angering ministers and MPs. Adding to the row, Kenneth Clarke, the Justice Secretary, yesterday insisted that Qatada “has not committed any crime” and said his release has nothing to do with the European Court of Human Rights.

Meanwhile in the gravity based community a British court has called Qatada a “truly dangerous individual” and even his defence team has suggested he poses a “grave risk” to national security. Some might say that by pretending this Jihad preacher is NOT extreme the BBC is a “grave risk” to the Nation.

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A COMMERCIAL BREAK….

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Let’s be clear. This is a blog concerning itself with BBC bias. It is also a blog that is entirely self funding and which does not advertise or clutter the space. So, in a blatant instance of opportunism – I bring you news of the perfect Kindle or IPAD download – my little canter through the uplands and valleys of the appeasement process here in Northern Ireland! For a trifling £2.63, you can enjoy  the thrills and spills of what happens when terrorism is indulged and then rewarded – all in the name of peace. And now back to the main feature….
Unionism Decayed: 1997 - 2007

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STEPHANOMICS?

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Ed Balls’ andLabour’s whole line of attack on Coalition economic policy has been blown outof the water by the IFS ‘Green Budget’ report but strangely enough this is not considered ‘headlinenews’ for the BBC’s economic guru Stephanie Flanders. 


Biased BBC’s Alan notes;


“Balls claims that Osborne’s economic policies have cut growth and increasedborrowing because of that. The IFS report resoundingly shatters that delusion saying that Labour wouldhave caused borrowing to skyrocket by an extra £200bn in 7 years:

‘In a blow to shadow chancellor Ed Balls, the IFS undermined Labour’s argumentthat cutting ‘too far and too fast’ has driven up borrowing by choking offgrowth. The watchdog said that under the plan proposed by former Labour ChancellorAlistair Darling before the General Election, the deficit would be £76 billionin 2016-17 rather than the £24 billion currently forecast. In total, a Labour government that followed Mr Darling’s plan would haveborrowed around £200 billion more over the seven year period than planned bythe Coalition.’

But what does the BBC tell us in the shape of Stephanie Flander’s‘Steph’n’Nonsense’ blog? She fails to mention Labour’s extra £200bn borrowing at all though she does deignto tell us that perhaps the extra Coalition borrowing is not caused by theausterity policy….but this is merely ‘a small poke in the eye’ forBalls…not headline stuff!

‘Is Ed Balls right to blame the government for this poor performance? The IFSdoesn’t answer this directly. Labour would say that the extra tax rises and spending cuts introduced by thecoalition have been a waste of time – indeed, may even have hurt borrowing bytanking the recovery. There’s a complicated answer to that question in this report, but the bottomline is that the IFS does not really buy the Ed Balls version of reality. The think tank does not think the extra borrowing has been caused by the extraausterity, or not very much of it. Not a great headline, perhaps – but another small poke in the eye for Ed Ballsfrom the guild of independent economists.’

A major plank of Labour’s attack is torpedoed and Flander’s thinks this is notheadline news…in fact not news at all…as she doesn’t mention the £200 bn albatross. However credit where credit is due…she does reveal this!

‘Kevin Daly from Goldman Sachs noted recently, the official story that we havepermanently lost at least 7-8% of our national output in this crisis impliesthat the past few years have done more lasting damage to our economic potentialthan either World War II or the Great Depression.’

‘More lasting damage than WWII or the Great Depression’! And note the weasel phrase ‘past few years’…..the Coalition has been in powerfor nearly 2 years…is she suggesting that they are to blame?

She seems reluctant to state the unvarnished truth, namely that economic stabilityand potential has been destroyed by Gordon Brown and his team of Treasuryadvisers….that is Ed Balls and Ed Miliband….currently the two main playersin the Labour Party car crash now….and of course both ex boy friends of theBBC’s very own Stephanie Flanders.

This (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16829768)is the official BBC report on the Green Budget…and is intent on claiming theIFS supports Ball’s policies of more borrowing and ‘stimulus’…and of coursefails to mention all the above.

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ALL ABOUT PRIORITIES

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That most scrupulous and ethical organisations, the United Nations, has released statistics that claim 3,000 civilians were killed in Afghanistan last year. The BBC covered it this morning. 77% of deaths were caused by the Taliban, with the balance attributed to NATO forces. Guess which element of these statistics the BBC focused on? Let’s not talk about Taliban savagery towards fellow Muslims, shall we?

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LESS IS MORE!

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Here is another interesting piece of analysis from B-BBC contributor Alan with which it is hard to argue!
“It is a fact that government cuts are forcing local authorities to close libraries. We know this because the BBC tells us so. It is just one of the remorseless attacks on the poor and vulnerable in society that this government’s savage cuts inflict upon us….leading inevitably to social breakdown, lack of opportunity, lack of social mobility, all combining to produce a level of frustration and fury amongst the disposessed that their only outlet for political dialogue is rioting and looting….a political statement of despair and rage at being abandoned on the scrapheap of life as bankers loot the country and pay themselves massive bonuses.
However looking at the annual accounts of a council such as Brent in London, which is closing libraries, a curious picture arises.

Here we have the budget requirements for the years 2004-2011:
http://www.brent.gov.uk/councilfinance.nsf/Pages/LBB-8

2004/05 £347,415,000
2005/06 £367,234,000
2006/07 £235,513,000
2007/08 £255,972,000
2009/10 £261,836,000
2010/11 £265,469,000

I am no accountant nor an expert in local government finance but it would seem to me that in 2006, under Labour, Brent ‘s budget dropped enormously….but there was no talk of library closures then.And it looks that since then its budget has been growing again….could it be that the library closures are politically motivated….puts a new perspective on the comrades in City Hall…..prepared to sacrifice the citizens for political advantage. The question is….if libraries were kept open throughout the years of depression and recession in decades previous how is it that they cannot be kept open now…just what has the council been spending its money on? Why hasn’t the BBC asked that obvious question?

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NIESR

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The National Institute for Economic and Social Research. It sounds important and credible and the BBC always seems to think so and happily reports its findings without any ‘warnings’ about being a ‘pressure group’ or ‘leftwing’.


B-BBC contributor Alan details…

“The NIESR tell us that there is no link between unemployment and mass immigration, it is now telling us that the government should adopt Labour’s ‘Plan B’ to stimulate growth based on its computer modelling and the deep ruminations of its chief. Who is the chief of the NIESR? Jonathan Portes. Who is he, or rather who was he? He was Gordon Brown’s chief economist in the cabinet during Labour’s years of destruction….and presumably one of the architects of that ‘creative destruction’. No wonder he doesn’t want you to link losing your job to Labour’s open door immigration policy. No wonder he thinks splurging on debt and spending is the answer….because that was his policy pre-credit crunch….a dog always returns to its vomit they say. It is rather bad timing for him that facts on the ground apparently point to us not being in his claimed recession: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16869870

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