Author Archives: DB

"stretching the available facts"

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Matt Prescott, the well-connected eco-activist behind such ventures as the BBC’s failed Planet Relief project (see Bishop Hill here and here for details on Prescott’s connections with various BBC luminaries and for links to articles he has written for the BBC), has donned his recycled tinfoil hat to offer these observations on Climategate in the comments at the Guardian website:

Without doubt, whoever orchestrated this combined computer hacking and smear campaign was extremely sophisticated and would make a world-class PR spin doctor look amateur.
It is hard to believe that the average hacker has the PR skills required to pull of something so devastating, in terms of timing and content, single-handedly.
A large pool of people and organisations, much larger than just the UEA, will almost certainly have had to be hacked in order to provide the most juicy morsels and divert attention in particular directions.
Surely, it would have taken a long time and thus substantial resources to read thousands of emails and to pick out the key conversational threads, scientists and issues?
Again this feels like a very large project which would have need to be funded by individuals or organisations with extremely deep pockets and the ability to maintain absolute secrecy.
Given the size, wealth and skills found within the intelligence community the idea that the CIA, NSA or some other shadowy organisation has been up to something naughty, which would suit their national interest, is not a bad guess, but it should probably have been labelled as a guess, if this is all it was.

After all that, he concludes without any sense of irony:

If there is one lesson from “climate gate” it is that scientists need to be crystal clear about when they are discussing a view backed up by hard, empirical evidence and when they are speculating or stretching the available facts.

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"But I stole this for you,"says the plunderer

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Further to Natalie’s excellent fisk of Dr Runciman, here’s King Banaian at Hot Air:

Responding to the election of Scott Brown, the BBC carries a column by David Runciman, a British academic political scientist of high birth (how else to describe someone whose Wikipedia entry notes his viscountcy?) that cannot understand why town halls are filled with people repulsed by Democrats health care reform… My friend Marty Andrade tweeted this link with the comment “But I stole this for you,” says the plunderer. “Why do you not take it? Why do you not vote for me?”

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Recommended

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As an antidote to the BBC’s take on American affairs I can recommend the first Ricochet podcast with Rob Long, Peter Robinson and Mark Steyn. On the evidence of this opening broadcast, in which they’re joined by former Dubya Justice Dept lawyer John Yoo, it will be a weekly must-listen.

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SOTU on Today

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For Mark Mardell there was only one word to describe Obama’s SOTU speech, and boy did he use it on the Today programme: “striking phrases… striking phrase… striking passage… the words were striking” (that last one appears on his blog, too). His colleague Paul Adams preferred a different cliché, telling the Today audience it was Obama’s “most important speech to date”. Of course it was Paul – they always are. Later in the programme Jim Naughtie discussed the speech with two commentators, both from pro-Obama publications – Newsweek’s Stryker McGuire (check out the response to the speech from the magazine’s Obama-worshipping Senior Editor) and the Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland (or “Johnny” as Naughtie called him – nice and cosy).

Note to Today editor – other viewpoints are available, please check internet for details.

Update. Craig made similar observations before I did.

State Of The Update 2: It’s always about him, just like every other “most important speech” he’s given.

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Harrabin’s Black and White World

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The indefatigable Richard North has a dismissive take on the BBC’s latest article about Pachauri and Glaciergate. His point that the Beeb’s bias comes as much from what it leaves out could also apply to the most recent of Roger Harrabin’s Notes.

For the second “note” running (see previous one here) Harrabin has expressed his anguished concern over recent developments in America. He says that Scott Brown’s election “certainly puts the nail in the coffin of Democrat hopes for a full climate bill this year” but once again fails to point out that some Democrat politicians oppose such legislation too. He states that the “fossil fuel industry is poised with banknotes at the ready” to take advantage of the recent Supreme Court ruling on political advertising, but neglects, as ever, to mention the huge sums of money swirling around the warmist lobby, much of it provided courtesy of Western taxpayers. And there’s certainly no mention of the money that flows into Pachauri-linked enterprises, some of it thanks directly to the false claims about Himalayan glaciers. Harrabin takes at face value the spin that the inclusion of this material in the IPCC report was just an unfortunate “inexplicable blunder”; heaven forbid that a BBC environment correspondent would dare to suggest that there could be a link between dodgy climate research and financial gain by leading warmists.

As with the BBC line that Obama’s woes are down to Fox News, Harrabin apportions similar blame for the problems facing the warmist cause:

Part of the answer lies with the media – particularly right-wing newspapers…

Mr Cameron has re-branded his party as “vote-blue-get-green”, but many of his back-benchers rank climate change as a very low priority. A couple of his Cabinet members are likely to be outright climate sceptics, and more may be driven that way if right wing newspapers continue chasing stories about the IPCC’s failings.

[Note to Harrabin – check BBC style re “right-wing newspapers” or “right wing newspapers”]

That last line seems to imply a lack of interest on Harrabin’s part in “chasing stories about the IPCC’s failings” – ie they’re the realm of the right-wing press. It’s worth remembering that some of the Conservative-supporting newspapers have often been slow to run stories critical of the AGW orthodoxy.

For Harrabin it’s all about good versus evil, with the scientists (incorruptible truth-seekers, noble of intent), the Democrats, and the NGOs on one side and the evil fossil fuel lobby, the Republicans, and the right-wing media on the other. It’s biased, simplistic and wrong, but it’s the sort of world-view that helps people like Harrabin get through the day.

Update. Andrew Neil goes where Harrabin fears to tread.

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Newsnight @30

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David Hughes in the Telegraph:

Few organisations do self-congratulation better than the BBC and this week the Corporation is pulling out the stops for its current affairs flagship Newsnight…

…the programme today has a drawback for political junkies and that is its general view of the world. If you took all the trendy liberalism that makes up the BBC and bubbled it over the Bunsen burner until you were left with the purest residue, the irreducible core of metropolitan Left-wingery — well, that’s Newsnight.

It regards Right-wing politicians as some alien species, necessary (just) to the political process but viewed with either curiosity or contempt, depending on their demeanour. I’m sure this is not deliberate, that people aren’t consciously trying to present politics from a Left-wing standpoint.It happens because that’s the programme’s mindset.

I’m not so sure that the bias is always subconscious, but I do like the phrase “irreducible core of metropolitan Left-wingery”.

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John Lloyd on BBC Obama Bias

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In an article published this week, John Lloyd – not exactly a voice of the right – argues that Obama supporters can’t place the blame for The One’s unpopularity simply on right-wing media outlets. It’s worth reading in full, but I can’t resist sharing this section:

…the swooning of much of the American and nearly all of the foreign media over Obama as he emerged as the most powerful candidate was bound to stimulate a reaction. Then, and even now – see the tributes to Obama in the past two weeks, including an extraordinary hagiography on his route to power on BBC2 on Saturday 16 January – the conflation between joy expressed at the first black US president and a sober analysis of his governance still goes on. It was a point I made at a self-congratulatory breakfast organised by the BBC on their Obama coverage a year ago – to widespread disapproval.

Excellent. Oh, to have been at that BBC back-slapping Obama love-in when Lloyd killed the morning buzz.

(Kirsty Wark should read Lloyd’s article. She was pushing the “blame Fox News” meme on her utterly dreadful new Review Show last night. Five self-important members of the chatterati talking over each other for an hour in a taxi waiting room. And only one token non-leftie – David Brent look-alike Ross Douthat, a middle-ground anti-Tea Party liberal conservative. There’s BBC balance for you.

Samizdata’s Brian Micklethwait wasn’t impressed either.)

Update. A couple more critical assessments of The Review Show from bloggers JC Thomson and Mantex. The reviewer for The Arts Desk at least wished the programme well but even she admitted it had been “a slightly shaky start” and noted that the panel “was perhaps a little too skewed towards liberals”. When arts luvvies are complaining about liberal bias you know there’s a problem.

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