Author Archives: Robin Horbury

LOVING TYRANNY…

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A baised BBC reader reflects on the BBC’s love for tyranny…. 

Tiger Vs Dragon

10 May 2010 20:00–20:30

BBC Radio 4 (FM only)

The Power of the Poor

 In this provocative series of programmes, Mukul Devichandtravels across frontiers, from the controversial new ports China is building inthe Indian Ocean to the poor interior villages of these continent-sizedcountries. He examines whether China’s authoritarianism may in fact be doingmuch more for the poor than India’s sometimes bloody democracy.

 or this:

 “Sometimes you look at countries like China and youthink, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to be an autocracy in times like these?'” MattFrei, Americana, September 20, 2009

 or even this:

 “..the final answer, frankly, is the vigorous use ofstate power to coerce and repress. It may be my Presbyterian background, but Ifirmly believe that repression can be a great, civilising instrument for good.Stamp hard on certain ‘natural’ beliefs for long enough and you can almost killthem off.”

Andrew Marr, The Guardian, Feb. 1999

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Black is white (again)

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Richard Black discusses the alleged “review” of the IPCC that is underway today as if it were genuinely independent. As usual, in his writing, the views of sceptics are only marginally mentioned; and there is no reference to the mountains of work on dozens of websites which show that many of the IPCC’s predictions are dangerous. fantastically expensive hogwash.

Meanwhile, separately from the BBC, sources tell me that the forces of the legal establishment remain intent on crushing those who dare to challenge the climate change orthodoxy; latest in the firing line are Richard North (of EU Referendum) and Christoper Booker (along with the Sunday Telegraph) who are being forced into the High Court to defend various claims about his worship Rajendra Pachauri, the always correct and above reproach IPCC chief. Pachauri’s lawyers are Carter Ruck, of course.

Just rememeber, the BBC was peddling the Himalayan glacier melt as if it were gospel truth until the blogsphere subjected the IPCC claims to proper scrutiny. And, surprise, surprise, Richard Black himself was foremost among those pushing this particular scare.

I repeat, of course, for his BBC lawyer’s benefit, that Richard is above reproach in his expenses claims for attending conferences.

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Richard Black – an apology

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I have had a communication from Richard Black of the BBC (and his lawyer) that in the interests of fairness and debate, I must share with you. Indeed, he is threatening to sue me if I do not. He asserts that a piece I wrote about him on this blog, suggesting that he makes money from chairing climate change conferences, is wrong. He writes:

You draw these various strands together by saying that I and the BBC are “in bed” with “shadowy forces” that “pull the strings of the climate debate”.

I will make three things clear to you:
– I was not paid to facilitate at this meeting
– I do not “make a tidy income” from chairing conferences – I usually do so for free
– journalists are asked to chair conferences precisely because we can be objective, impartial referees

I am asking you to display on your page, prominently, a correction to your assertion that I was paid to chair part of this symposium, and acknowledgment that climate change was not its main focus.

In accordance with his wishes, I have printed his remarks prominently and made it a central part of the blog. I am happy to publicise his response to my story and make sure that Biased BBC readers are aware of it. And I accept his assertion unreservedly that he was not paid to chair this conference, and that, on this occasion, climate change was not the main focus.

At least now we know that Richard is above reproach; it’s perhaps a shame that other BBC presenters are not so candid in the terms of their acceptance of speaker roles, and that they freely advertise their services on the web at 10K a pop.

Update (in response to posts): For the record, Richard’s letters threatening legal action came in two stages; one from himself (from which the extract is lifted), the second, three weeks later in much more formal language, from Nick Alway in the BBC’s own legal department. The missive bears the imprint “investors in people” in the bottom right hand corner.

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TURN OUT THE LIGHTS…

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God help us all. The “left-leaning” (BBCspeak for ardent lefty, Europhile, climate change fanatic) Chris Huhne is taking up the environment and climate change brief. Expect this intolerant, self-opinionated noneity to be omnipresent on BBC programmes from now on; and expect an instant stepping up of the volume of climate change moonshine. Oh, and prepare for massive power cuts – because that’s where we are heading.

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FARCICAL…

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The EU’s “rescue” of the Greek economy has become a naked attempt by the Brussels machine to extend the powers of our EU government so that it will regulate all 27 economies on an unprecedented scale. The UK – still represented by the Brownite squatters – is powerless to prevent this happening, and is saddled with a bill that is estimated will cost the UK taxpayer £43bn. Meanwhile, the BBC report on the fiasco as if it were about events in a different country. Following on from my post yesterday, Dave’s policy towards Europe is shown up to be the obscene shambles that it is; he shunned a pre-election deal with UKIP – calling them “fuitcakes and loonies” – and lost at least 20 seats as a result; and now he’s cobbling together a coalition with the mosty Europhile party of them all, the Cleggmaniacs. To the BBC, this is an issue that does not even register; they long since took the Brussels shilling.

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AIRBRUSHING…

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Throughout the election, the BBC regarded UKIP as the party it despised but had to mention now and again; when it did so, Paxman and his cronies treated them with sneering disdain, as if their libertarian policies were akin to Nazism, and in line with David Cameron’s description of UKIP members as “fruitcakes”. I accept that during the campaign, the party compounded the problem by sometimes appearing to be not fully in command of its own message. But let’s get things in proportion. UKIP, on a shoestring budget, attracted almost 1m votes last Thursday (up 50% on 2005), and, according to the latest analysis, probably cost the Conservatives upwards of 25 seats, thus depriving them of their overall majority.

The reason is that the boy Dave took a cynical gamble that he woud win by not “banging on about Europe” (and rejecting a referendum on Lisbon)and by instead winning Liberal Democrat votes through centrist and loony greenie policies. His bid failed, and his strategy effectively disenfranchised and alienated all those who are true eurosceptics; mostly natural Tory supporters who saw through his pathetic porky that powers can be repatriated and the Brussels monster stopped in hits tracks without holding a referendum.

Meanwhile, at the BBC, there’s absolutely no attempt to analyse this aspect of the election – it’s as if UKIP now don’t exist and were never relevant as a force; that 1m votes count for nothing. The Greens, of course – who commanded less than a third of UKIP’s total vote and lagged way behind even the BNP – have attracted acres of fawning coverage because the odiously self-righteous Caroline Lucas won a solitary seat. To the boys and girls at the BBC, she is already a saint in the Bob Geldof league, and her cause is one they will champion with renewed fervour. Prepare for her loony,extremist, voice – that advocates condemning millions to fuel poverty and forcing us back to the stone age – to be featured on every BBC outlet until it makes you sick.

The terrifying thing is that Cameron agrees with almost everything she says. Aided and abetted by his best chum, Steve Hilton, and that eco-freak in chief, Zac Goldsmith. Look at his and Dave’s policies and weep.

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ON THIN ICE (AGAIN)

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Election or no election, the BBC continues to spew out with wearisome predictability tendentious nonsense about global warming. This time, it’s another melting glacier alert. This one ticks all the boxes for a BBC scare story because the mountain in question is in Africa, and of course, a central axiom of the BBC’s belief system is that Africans urgently need more money to fight the endless injustices heaped upon them by the filthy, capitalist West. The glacier is on Mount Margherita (Africa’s third highest peak), in the Rwenzori mountains on the border between Zaire and Uganda. The area in question is virtually inaccessible because of continuing warfare, but hey-ho, the local Africans know with certainty it must be global warming to blame and are keen to tell the world it is, so it must be true.

Completely absent from the BBC story is any mention of that the combined area of all glaciers in Africa, including those on Kilimanjaro, is less than 11km, and that it has been repeatedly pointed out that the causes of melt are both cyclical and to do with other man-made factors such as deforestation. Nor does the BBC care that not a smidgeon of detailed research appears to have carried out at Mount Margherita; papers that do exist acknowledge their lack of accurate information. A crack appears, the local authorities say it’s global warming and that’s all that it takes for our eco-freak friends at the corporation to spread at full volume yet another baseless scare story.

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ECO NONSENSE

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All the cretinous party leaders and their supporters (except UKIP) in our so-called general election are wedded to eco-mania. There hasn’t been a single meaningful debate about the topic, despite the fact that all the main parties are advocating energy measures that will lead to fuel poverty on a savage scale. This underlines the increasing divide between the political classes and the rest of us, who must endure the consequences of their inane, insane vacuity. Meanwhile, the BBC ploughs relentlessly on with its eco-warmongering, publishing this report that – in chilling Orwellian terms – suggests that taking exercise in the open air is linked with the “green” agenda. What’s so terrifying about the framing of stories like this is the hijacking and politicisation of every aspect of our lives and language by greenie fanatics at the corporation. And meanwhile, Richard Black continues to churn out his own brand of eco-facism: in this piece about another hijacked and done-to-death word, “biodversity”, he advocates that the only answer is for us to go back to the stone age. And exercise a massive cull of human beings – there’s too darn many of us. The type of logic exercised by Black and his cronies leads to nonsense like this story, from What’s Up with That? – a so-called educational display at a US aquarium featuring a cow in a gas mask to prevent methane emissions.

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BLUDGEONED….

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One of the ways that BBC bias operates is that those who presenters do not like are bludgeoned virtually to death when they appear on programmes. UKIP ex-leader Nigel Farage is well able to look after himself, but this morning Evan Davis went flat out on Today to rubbish UKIP’s claims of being able to make £50 billion savings in public spending. On my count there were 16 interruptions in an exchange lasting no more than three minutes or so. Mr Farage ploughed on gamely, but the incredulity and scorn in Mr Davis’s voice was palpable; his main aim was to block Mr Farage from outlining his proposals in any detail. Of course, to Mr Davis and his cronies, the idea of not spending money on the EU and getting rid of qangos is almost a bigger crime than saying you don’t support gay rights.

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THE REVOLTING MS FOX

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Fiona Fox, Ray Snoddy’s interviewee on Newswatch, who is clearly a pivotal figure in setting the parameters of BBC science coverage generally and climate change in particular, has precisely the credentials the BBC looks for in its “experts” (an area of responsibility, incidentally, that Sue Inglish manages). Her degree was in meejah studies at the Polytechnic of Central London (just down the road from Broadcasting House in Portland Place). Then she cut her teeth in the Revolutionary Communist Party; moved on to the press office of that quintissential qango, the EOC, and then joined CAFOD, a Roman Catholic Charity that has sold its soul to climate change fanaticism. From there she took up her present role as a science “expert” and now works cosily with Ceri Thomas, the editor of Today. This is all beyond parody. (h/tip Barry Wood)

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