Author Archives: Robin Horbury

Oz PM Kevin Rudd has been ousted, largely because his popularity had plummeted because he was pursuing insane greenie policies. The centrepiece was a ludicrously high tax on the mining industry, despite the fact that minerals extraction is the current main reason for Australia’s prosperity. He can be seen as one of the first major politicians to have been ousted by his greenie arrogance and lunacy. Every element of his eco-wackery was increasingly unpopular with the electorate. For the BBC, though, the reason for his demise is simple; he bottled out on introducing new CO2 emissions targets. And the mining tax? Well, according to the BBC report, it is only a “super tax on the super rich” (code in BBC terms for being a highly desirable, necessary measure); not a breath of a mention that Australian voters were desperately concerned that Mr Rudd was the architect of a whole suite of legislation the sole purpose of which was to lower living standards in the name of eco-worship.

I note that we have had a contribution from Dr David Gregory, who works for the BBC in Birmingham, and who is both a science graduate and reports on the environment. B-BBC readers might also be interested to know that he comes from that same self-smug lefty mindset that treats anyone who dissents from BBC orthodoxy with complete disdain – and responds to anyone who disagrees with that orthdoxy with sarcastic ad hominem attacks and menacing claims that the science proves his stance. Familiar? The background is that Melanie Phillips noted in her blog that David Bellamy (he who has been barred from the BBC since it became plain that he disagreed with their line on global warming) had marshalled evidence to show why warmist claims were wrong in at least some of their detail. None of what he said was based on personality. This is how the esteemed Dr Gregory responded:

…I’m a BBC Environment Correspondent and I have a PhD in Physics. But of course as Ms Phillips points out, qualifications mean nothing in the face of her certainty on this issue. I’ve had a brief correspondence with Ms Phillips before about her interesting approach to climate change science. I look forward to continuing that on her blog. Perhaps it’s worth repeating. I am not told what to report by the BBC and I am not forbidden from reporting certain things. I simply report the science. That’s my job. That’s what I do. What Ms Phillips posts here is illuminating. I mean what is her actual argument? It seems to be based around appeals to “common sense” and what Stephen Colbert calls “truthiness”. Not the truth as such but rather simple facts that are based on a deep seated feeling about what is right. Following your gut feeling rather than your head. I think at worst this is intellectually lazy (after all, what is common sense but the label we give our own prejudice?) but it’s certainly not science. Which is after all, all we have to explain the world around us.

Relax chaps. We can all tell that science reporting is in safe, unbiased, hands at the BBC.

John Humphrys writes for the Daily Mail about the EU and claims – with breathtaking arrogance that oozes from every condescending sentence – that the corporation might have been guilty of not recognising eurosceptics enough. Pardon? Which parallel BBC universe does he live in? He and his cohorts have ignored and poured scorn on euroscepticism for years; they have also made bias by omission (i.e not properly reporting EU affairs so that the public is unaware of what is actually going on)into a fine art.

First, though, in his mock mea culpa, he wheels out the oldest canard in the BBC armoury; that the reporting of the EU by the corporation over the years must have been pretty much balanced because coverage has come under fire from europhiles too. The Wilson report into the BBC’s coverage of the EU (published after an inquiry in 2005, but subsequently totally ignored by smug news executives) comprehensively demolished that line.

Second, he claims disingenuously that it was Margaret Thatcher who signed the Single European Act in 1986, thereby paving the way for “ever closer union”. His point here is clearly ludicrously contrived to suggest that everyone, including Mrs Thatcher, supported the expansion of the EU; thus the BBC was right in giving weight in its coverage towards that process.

What he fails to mention, of course, is the bull elephant in the room; that Margaret Thatcher almost immediately regretted that signing, and it gave birth in subsequent years to the powerful growth of the current eurosceptic movement (in the country at large as well as among the Westminster elite) which the BBC has disgracefully under-reported and ignored (again as pointed out by the Wilson report), while characterising those who dislike the process of integration, as right-wing nutters. Humphrys himself, with his sidekick, the execrable James Naughtie, have been among the ringleaders of those at the BBC who systematically deride and denigrate anyone who dares to express the idea that Britain should leave the EU.

Third, he claims in his preposterous analysis that eurosceptics might finally be proved right by the pressures on the euro triggered by the recent financial problems in Greece. But why on earth has he only woken up to this now? When the euro was launched, almost a decade ago, Today devoted an entire programme to a virtually unqualified eulogy supporting its importance. In the intervening years, the programme has massively under-reported, ignored or ridiculed those who have warned that the vile currency is a Trojan Horse; another wedge designed principally to further more integration and to isolate those who oppose it.

When it comes to the EU, John Humphrys and every man jack of them at the BBC know only how to misrepresent and to grossly insult those who oppose the jackbooted fascists of Brussels; those sinister forces who today, as I write, are engaged in calling for further “economic government” (i.e. more powers). Surprise, surprise, there’s no mention on the BBC website of this latest blatant power grab. Mr Humphrys’ article only serves to underline the corporation’s euro-fanaticism.

Don’t ya just love ’em – the greenies? BBC global warmist alarmist Mark Kinver details here the truly terrifying row between “environmentalists” and the European Commission over biofuels. On the one side, the EU is doing what it does best – creating new layers of lunatic bureaucracy to “certify” that forests cut down for biofuel are not doing ecological harm. They proudly declare that their new laws are the “most stringent” (i.e. most repressive) in the world. Over in the other corner, those “environmentalists” (to the BBC, the most saintly group of people on earth) are yelping that – despite years of pressure to force biofuel production – they now think that cutting down trees by the million to do so is not a good idea. Mr Kinver, of course, reports it all without any attempt at balance. Centre stage in his mincing words are Sebastien Risso of Greenpeace, and – how utterly shameful that this should be the case – the Conservative MEP spokesman, who apparently applauds and supports the EU measures.

Not one squeak, of course, from Mr Kinver about the twin elephants in the room: It was the greenies who caused this idiotic quest for biofuels when we don’t need them, and are now reaping the whirlwind; and that the EU’s role in ploughing on relentless to wreak ecological havoc is beyond parody, but entirely true to form. We are ruled by eurocrats (supported by the Cleggerons)who make Stalin look amateur.

Has anyone being following the terrifying messages being delivered with chilling fanaticism in this year’s annual BBC propaganda-fest, the Reith lectures? Lord Rees of Ludlow regards humankind as a disease or a “fever”. Man-made global warming is an indisputable fact that must be tackled before and above everything else. He talks menacingly about over-population and unsustainability (so did Hitler). He postulates a new cadre of scientists (who think similarly to himself, of course) to control political decisions. He demands that CO2 consumption be rationed throughout the world at much lower levels than that in the west (thereby condemning millions to fuel poverty). He wants Britain to focus away from traditional manufacturing (i.e. that which provides what people actually want) towards green energy (ie on what they don’t want, that doesn’t work, isn’t necessary, and is viable only with massive subsidy).

In short, this is the groupthink and the creed of the BBC; it’s through these talks you can see the true mindset and agenda.