Category Archives: BBC bias

Funny old world.  Muslims insist they are doing Jihad and joining the Islamic State in the name of Allah to further his religion and the BBC insists they are not.  They are, the BBC insists, deluded, ignorantly perverting the religion of peace and doing things Muhammed would never have countenanced…despite the ISIS blitz across the Middle East being exactly what Muhammed did…conquering and colonisation, chopping off heads, taking sex slaves, knocking down temples and destroying ‘idols’.  It is the 7th century brought to technicolour modern life.

However, someone makes a highly dubious claim that the Vikings were a little bit Muslim and the BBC is there embracing this new ‘fact’ and spreading the glad tidings across the world.  Muslims aren’t Muslim enough for the BBC but Vikings can be declared ‘Muslim’ on the evidence of a small piece of embroidery on a piece of cloth.

Some might think the BBC was doing the embroidery, of history that is.

A Swedish ‘academic’ has announced that she has discovered the word ‘Allah’ woven into Viking textiles…the BBC report this as absolute truth…

Why did Vikings have ‘Allah’ embroidered into funeral clothes?

The question should of course rather be ‘Did the Vikings embroider ‘Allah’ into their clothing?’ but that’s not a narrative the BBC wants….it wants us all to think Islam was widely accepted as a good religion by everyone throughout history and thus we should accept that  ourselves never mind all the evidence that this just isn’t true and that Islam is far from the religion of peace that the BBC would have us believe.

The BBC farms out the job of reporting this to a Muslim….Tharik Hussain is a London-based freelance journalist, travel writer and broadcaster who specialises in Muslim heritage.   So what we get from the already Islamophillic BBC is a Muslim, whose job is to promote Islamic heritage and interests, to report impartially upon a controversial subject.  Naturally what we get is a complete acceptance of the story and the spin that perhaps some Vikings were Muslim….more evidence…a silver ring with an Islamic inscription upon it….no thoughts that this could have been a gift, traded, pillaged or brought North by a slave….it’s a definite sign the Vikings were a little bit Muslim.

The ‘academic’ is in fact a contemporary artists who says “a cliché is something that we are supposed to see in a certain way. When you get close to it, it can have a new meaning – it is that twist I am interested in.”   So she is interested in twisting our perceptions….creating new meanings.  She certainly did that with her ‘Islamic’ inscription…it has to be rotated and have extra script added to it to make it into ‘Allah’…as even the BBC admits…

Enlarging the patterns and looking at the reflection in a mirror revealed the word ‘Allah’ (God) in Arabic

‘Enlarging the patterns’ is disingenuous….she actually added parts to it not merely ‘enlarged’ it which gives the idea that it was merely magnified.

What is magnified though is the conclusion….from a scrap of ‘evidence’ we are expected to believe that maybe some Vikings were Muslim and Islam had a significant presence in Europe…this is pure pro-Muslim propaganda not news…literally smoke and mirrors.  If the BBC had asked a few questions they might have found a different narrative instead of BBC ‘Truthiness’….

“Vikings had rich contact with the Arab world. This textile? No,” she began, noting that the textile “has no Arabic at all but the story has gone viral” thanks to news outlets like the Times and BBC.

“There is something very troubling here about the relationship between news media and experts, who should have been consulted for verification,” she continued. “It should go without saying that a single scholar’s un-peer-reviewed claim does not truth make.”

“Here’s the deal with Viking ‘Allah’ textile, as I have been able to piece it together over past few days. As an Islamic art historian & archaeologist, I was immediately suspicious about style of Arabic epigraphy. It’s really so simple that I spent five days thinking, it couldn’t be that Larsson would make so fundamental and obvious a mistake,” said Mulder.

Mulder explained that the most obvious issue with Larsson’s methodology was that the Viking textile is dated to the 10^th century, while the style of epigraphy in Larsson’s drawing comes from the 15^th century.

“It’s a style called square Kufic, and it’s common in Iran, Central Asia on architecture after 15^th century,” she said, providing an example of the style.

She added that the earliest example of the style dates to 11^th to early 12^th century Muslim architecture—all dating to at least 100 years after the Viking textile found in Birka. She also noted that Larsson’s drawing of the word “Allah” in Kufic script wasn’t even common until the 15^th century.

In other words, Larsson and her team’s findings are the result of pareidolia—they saw Arabic patterns where there weren’t any.

Mulder’s debunking of Larsson extended to the rest of the textile, as well. She pointed out that Larsson’s claims are based on supposition, and not proof.

The professor also stated that the only reason the story went viral was because of contemporary politics.

That the Vikings had contact with the Middle East and the Far East has never been in dispute. Mulder said that the “Allah” textile exhibits what Stephen Colbert referred to as “truthiness” despite being unanchored from reality, because it helped to reinforce a specific narrative.

“But ‘truthiness’ cannot be enough for news media, especially in this age of accusations of #FakeNews,” said the professor, who urged journalists to “pick up the phone” and call experts before publishing their stories.

The Independent has corrected its original story…

Viking textile did not feature word ‘Allah’, expert says

Medieval Islamic art and archaeology professor Stephennie Mulder disputes the findings, saying the inscription has ‘no Arabic at all’

The BBC has yet to do so, the original story going un-updated.  But then why wouldn’t ‘Allah’ appear in Viking clothing…his name appears everywhere else, Jesus and Abraham were Muslim don’t you know…….which must prove something about Islam if only the BBC could think of it……

Proof ISIS is Muslim…Allah gave them the sign to dress infidel disbelievers in orange jump suits and to behead them…..

And Christianity is toast….

Another domino fallen and yet it just wasn’t supposed to happen, the surge to the Right was a blip that ended as people came to their senses and voted for Macron and Merkel.  The Czech voters proved the BBC wrong…as did the Austrians.

After the Austrian result the BBC played down the fact that a right-winger had been elected and indeed tried to compare him to Trudeau and Macron… trendy, young pro-EU politicians that the BBC clearly want you to think Kurz is like so that they can continue their narrative of an über liberal fight back.

Their report on the winner of the Czech election, Andrej Babis, similarly plays down his politics stating that he is merely anti-establishment and eurosceptic….

Mr Babis, 63, is the country’s second-richest man and campaigned on an anti-establishment and Eurosceptic platform.

They namecheck the SPD as the nasty anti-Islam, anti-immigrant party….

The BBC’s correspondent in Prague, Rob Cameron, said the SPD’s strong performance was particularly noteworthy, as the far-right party wants to ban Islam in the Czech Republic.

Curious they forget that Babis is of a similar mind……from Breitbart….

Czech Election Favourite on Mass Migration: ‘We Have to Fight for What Our Ancestors Built Here’

“The biggest added value of the European Union is the national identity of each country.

“We have to fight for what our ancestors built here. If there will be more Muslims than Belgians in Brussels, that’s their problem. I don’t want that here. They won’t be telling us who should live here.”

The Czech President backs such thinking…

Czech President: ‘It’s Impossible to Integrate Muslims into Western Europe’

Who can blame them for doubting that Muslim integration is possible as they look around at countries that have allowed mass migration of Muslims.

The BBC recently gave a lot of airtime to the recent survey that said certain ethnic groups were not succeeding as much as other groups……the blame was placed squarely on a racist Britain blocking the progress and ambitions of these groups…however that’s not the problem.  The problem is mass immigration of low skilled, uneducated migrants, especially those from countries that have utterly different cultural, religious and social values who flock together in ghettos that mean they have absolutely no chance of integrating even if they had wished to and thus no chance of improving their lot in life.

I always thought Burger King was the home of the Whopper but it seems increasingly that it is the BBC’s most prestigious current affairs programme…the Today show.  Lie after lie after lie and it’s from Remain propagandists who are oddly enough nearly always given the prime 08:10 spot.  The BBC is entirely corrupt and seems to get away with it.

The BBC’s Nick Robinson, who we know is completely unbalanced about Brexit, has been treating us to a series of podcasts called ‘Political Thinking’.….though looking at the blurb the thinking is pretty much from people with ideas the BBC agrees with…..Gus O’Donnell, Ruth Davidson [opposed to Brexit], the head of Corbyn’s ‘Brownshirts’….Momentum, Ed Miliband, George Osborne [opposed to Brexit]. Jacqui Smith, Owen Jones and Maurice Glasman, Paul Mason and Remainer William Hague.

On the Today show today we had the O’Donnell podcast hyped with the alarmist thought from him that what is happening in Catalonia is going to happen here…ie banks and businesses, according to him, fleeing an ‘independent’ Catalonia.  Hmmm…as I understand it that is not true….the banks and businesses merely moved their head offices out of Catalonia…mostly a legal exercise.  To compare Catalonia to Brexit is utterly ridiculous and sensationalist…..Catalonia conducted an illegal referendum and looks like it will declare itself independent regardless of the law with no planning, no discussion, no negotiations and no infrastructure to support that as a sovereign nation….and they will ‘crash’ out of the EU without the long term process of withdrawal that Britain will go through for an orderly and legal pull-out….and there is a chance that actual violence will break out to enforce independence.  No wonder banks and businesses look to secure their legal status but that is a situation that just will not happen in the British case even if there is a ‘no deal’…because that would still be legal and planned for.

The threat of being cut off from Spain is prompting companies in Catalonia to move their head offices to other parts of the country.

O’Donnell also came up with the lie that David Davis had promised us that we would get the exact same benefits of the Single Market once we left the EU as we have as members….except he didn’t promise that...it was of course merely an aim……an idea worth considering…that he hoped to persuade May to attempt……

What we have come up with—I hope to persuade her that this is a very worthwhile aim—is the idea of a comprehensive free trade agreement and a comprehensive customs agreement that will deliver the exact same benefits as we have, but also enable my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Trade to go and form trade deals with the rest of the world, which is the real upside of leaving the European Union.

And why wouldn’t you aim for that?  You’d be daft not to.

Two big whoppers and the BBC serves them up to us with relish…the reality is we are force fed this Remainist tripe by the BBC in a long term campaign designed to scare us into dumping Brexit or making a betrayal by the politicians more ‘acceptable’ as people, for so long told Brexit is a catastrophe and a disaster, roll over in apathetic acceptance.

Perhaps it is the BBC that we should dump.

One might also note that Davis said in the same Common’s appearance….

I am afraid that I view “hard Brexit” and “soft Brexit” as terms of propaganda.

Which is why the BBC uses the terms so profusely.

• Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)

  Hard Brexit means saying that one is going to leave the European Union and actually doing it. Soft Brexit means saying that one is going to leave the European Union and remaining in all but name. Which course do the Government intend to follow?

• Mr Davis

  In his younger days, my right hon. Friend was an expert in Soviet propaganda. I am afraid that I view “hard Brexit” and “soft Brexit” as terms of propaganda.

You couldn’t make it up.  Who does the BBC have as a guest presenter on the Today show today?

CNN’s chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour was a guest presenter on the Today programme this morning.

So the Trump hating BBC brings on a journalist from the Trump hating CNN to interview an Obama wonk about Trump…

Jake Sullivan, former director of policy planning for Obama says we are in a new cold war with Russia on the cyber-front.

Naturally Trump didn’t get much praise, none at all in fact.  First of course we must understand that Russia definitely ‘bought’ Trump the election, then we must understand that Trump’s foreign policy is delusional and dangerous undoing all the good work Obama did…from his bunker…on the golf course.  The Obama that allowed Iran to keep on developing nuclear weapons whilst pretending they weren’t, the Obama who put in place the conditions for ISIS to flourish, for Assad to stay in power and for the Russians to rebuild their strength making the US follow on hopelessly in their wake as they defined the geopolitical narrative, the Obama who failed utterly on North Korea.

Just a little one-sided and biased, prejudiced, bigoted and wrong bit of fake news from the BBC.

The Today show once again gave the prime-time slot to a Remainer, New Labour’s very own Little Finger, Peter Mandelson.  He came on and told the most blatant of lies, lies that have been exposed again and again…even on the BBC itself…and yet Justin Webb allowed him to make these totally false claims building a case for Parliament to take over the final decision on Brexit….the People were just too stupid and ignorant to make the decision for themselves the first time.  Odd that the BBC’s flagship current affairs programme and one of its top journos couldn’t see through Mandelson’s smoke and mirrors.

Lord Baelish is manipulative, untrustworthy, backstabbing, greedy, and possibly delusional.

 

Lord Mandelson on the other hand…..?

Mandelson told us that people were only now learning the harsh truth, ‘new facts that nobody could have known’, about what Brexit really meant and that one, the voters did not understand that we would have to pay a ‘divorce bill’ and two, that they did not understand we would have to leave the Single Market…..which is curious as Mandelson himself before the referendum told us that we would have to leave the Single Market…

Peter Mandelson, the former EU trade commissioner and ex-business secretary, said Schäuble’s comments “finally knocks on the head the leave campaign’s claim that we can leave the EU and still enjoy the benefits of the single market”.

And as for paying more money……it was always known we would pay a ‘divorce bill’ and that if we wanted preferential access to the Single Market we would have to pay……

Major intervention from Germany: UK would have to accept free movement and pay in to EU to continue to access trade https://t.co/jIAPPXM6hT

— George Osborne (@George_Osborne) June 10, 2016

‘Call me Peter’……coincidence?

And as the weekend beckons, and the BBC dreams of future days of a Cornyn Marxist Government, here’s a NEW OPEN thread on which to detail the bias! Let’s be hearing from you then!!!

You may have heard the BBC making sensationalist and alarmist claims that NHS performance had ‘crashed’.

No, no it hasn’t.  It’s nothing more than a statistical distortion.

Performance for treating patients in A&E have fallen below target…thus the BBC states the NHS has ‘crashed’.  Funny sort of crash when in fact the NHS is treating more patients than ever.  The problem is that there are more patients than ever and so the NHS, without expanding enormously, whilst struggling heroically to treat as many as possible, will fall below the percentage target figure whilst actually treating more patients.

The BBC making ‘facts’ show anything it wants them to show…as long as it’s bad for the Tories.

The BBC is always consistent….it doesn’t matter if it says one thing one day and the complete opposite the next or a combination of the two the day after, the narrative is the same, the message the same, the intent the same….to attack May and to attack Brexit.

During the election May wanted to run with Brexit as her main vote winner but this never happened…it was the economy, health, Corbyn ‘s vote buying student tuition fees porkies and of course security and terrorism that dominated the news.  The BBC however after the election declared that Brexit was history, or should be, the voters had spoken and had convincingly shown themselves to be against Brexit when patently that was not the case….remember for instance LibDem Sarah Olney in ‘Remain’ Richmond?  No, exactly…she’s gone.

It was the domestic agenda that dominated the election.

Curiously the BBC then flipped and decided that May was trying to stop us talking about Brexit and was going for the domestic agenda….incredible when the outcome of Brexit was vital for our economy!!!  This at a time when May was always in the news talking about Brexit.

Now we frequently hear that the domestic agenda is being ‘derailed by Brexit’ and that non-Brexit issues are being sidelined or forgotten as the government concentrates on Brexit.  This is of course a criticism from the BBC…never mind that we are constantly reminded by them that Brexit is the most important and significant event to happen to this country in many decades and that the whole future and prosperity of our economy rests upon a successful outcome…so you might think it worthwhile putting a little time and effort into getting it right.  On the other hand we are told the government has put no time into planning for Brexit and hasn’t a clue what it wants and is failing miserably at the negotiations.

The BBC picks and chooses the narrative it wants to give to us depending upon what it wants us to think…and regardless of the facts on the ground the news will always be twisted and distorted to make out that May is weak and has no control, we are failing in the negotiations and that Brexit will fail spectacularly and beggar us all or it will be sidelined by events and we will remain in the EU as the most sensible, reasonable and natural course of action.

It’s not news but propaganda.

Normally the BBC is the very compliant mouthpiece for the EU, whatever anyone from the EU says is reported with reverence and respect….the statements given weight, credibility and authority by the BBC and treated as if the only possible and reasonable way of looking at things.  Statements from the British government on the other hand are treated with contempt and disbelief.

This changed, at least for a while, on Tuesday when the Today programme[08:10] actually recognised and admitted for the first time that it was the EU that was being awkward, being intransigent and intent on delaying negotiations.  You may also note that the BBC now grudgingly admits that a deal is essentially done on how to treat EU citizens in Britain [and of course Brits abroad] the only hold up being the EU’s demand for more money…so once again it’s the EU blocking that deal when  we are told it is vital that t is done as soon as possible…and previously we were told it was the UK government that was the guilty party in slowing things up….the BBC reporting the EU’s ‘opinion’ as fact.  Why is the money linked to this aspect of the negotiations?  No reason, just blackmail by the EU.

Does one programme signify a change in outlook overall from the BBC or will it revert to type?  After all it has spent the last year talking down the British negotiating team and their efforts…so why change?

We hear that the Brexiteers described by the BBC as ‘Ultras’...which is a term normally reserved for hard-core, violent activists, and indeed we were told that ‘some might say Brexit is an extreme right-wing policy’.  The BBC also happy to call Leave voters racists, bigots, uneducated and poor.

Brexit is always too difficult and complicated for any government to accomplish, May is weak and about to be unseated at any moment, the government is weak and dysfunctional, Brexit will damage science, ground aircraft, give us all cancer, poison us with chlorinated chickens, allow in terrorists and criminals en masse, Britain is failing to meet expectations and demands of the EU [Britain’s fault of course], there is a lack of trust in the British negotiators, it is up to Britain to make the gesture, Britain has to show it understands how serious this is [lol], populism is stalking Europe #duetoBrexit and it is only the EU that has kept the peace, May is toast the government ‘knackered’, Britain’s negotiations with the EU are ‘laughable’, no progress, May is not delivering, Brexit just creates uncertainty [thus stop it], Brexit is not going well….and of course the ever present question…‘have you changed you mind about Brexit?’.…‘you’ being Leave voters of course….the BBC keeping up the idea that a second referendum can and should happen.

All tosh of course and so often the EU’s own narrative parroted by the BBC collaborators trying to undermine and discredit Brexit.

The reality is that it is the EU that is intransigent and intent on making the negotiations as difficult and long drawn out as possible in the hope that either we will just abandon Brexit or that should we actually leave we get the worse possible deal that acts as a warning to others who might be thinking along the same lines.  Curious that the BBC doesn’t make parallels between Brexit and Catalonia….would that raise the possibility that there are many other regions or states that would similarly like to go independent?….this would destroy the EU grand project…which would be a good thing as it might lead to what the EU should be…a loose co-operative of like-minded nation states that act together on certain issues but are not otherwise linked, either politically, financially nor culturally and no freedom of movement.    The EU Commission and Parliament should be abolished and an infrastructure for mutual negotiations put in their place without the idea of an overarching European government or state being imposed.

The EU State raises more problems than it solves, and indeed creates the very problems that it seeks to solve, such as radical nationalism or financial instability, whereas sovereign states acting together in mutual interest in a loose federation would be far more flexible and agreeable to all…except to the EU panjandrums who, unelected, rule over us now.

But that’s a view that you don’t hear on the BBC…we never get to hear what a future ruled by the EU superstate would be like…never mind that that is a significant issue for those who voted for Brexit.

The BBC, Knights of the Long Knives.  Very adept at political and character assassination or they try to be.  Their heavy handed attacks on Trump and Farage failed miserably despite massive resources thrown at them, Tommy Robinson succumbed to the intense scrutiny and extremely hostile BBC reporting about him and quit the EDL but has since seen the light and bounced back.  Andrea Leadsom might be added to the list as she was beaten up badly over her statement about having children.   May was savaged during the election and Corbyn given a free ride….undoubtedly costing the Tories many votes.  Not forgetting Jacob Rees-Mogg, the DUP, Bush, Sarah Palin and of course Thatcher.  Any theme to those chosen?  All right-wing.  But what about Boris?  Like Trump and Farage he has been subjected to massive amounts of highly negative, if not malign, comment from the BBC and yet he still keeps on rolling.  Just why does the BBC target Boris in particular?

Boris is enormously popular with much of the Public.  This is a problem for the good liberal folk at the BBC who want to stay in the EU and definitely don’t want Boris as PM should he throw his hat into the ring as and when.  So two major issues for the BBC, a very popular politician who supports Brexit and who may lead the Tory Party to another stomping election victory….the BBC not wanting either of those things to happen they see Boris as a huge threat to their hegemony and liberal elitist club.

Consider how the BBC reports Hammond and Rudd.  Hammond has consistently tried to hijack the Brexit process in order to ensure we get the softest of Brexits, in other words no Brexit at all in effect.  He has made statements that go against government policy claiming we need to have the longest transition period possible which he knows would morph gradually into a permanent state of pseudo-non-membership of the EU, he lobbies for a Brexit that is about jobs and the economy, in other words stay in the Single Market, Customs Union and thus keep freedom of movement and rule by the ECJ…ie…stay in the EU, when he knows that the referendum was not won on the jobs and economy platform…it was about sovereignty and immigration, and he has refused to provide money to fund the necessary infrastructure to prepare for a ‘no deal’…or indeed for a Britain which wants to protect its own borders as it leaves the EU.  Then here is Amber Rudd who has campaigned vociferously for a soft Brexit and who just days ago said that a ‘no deal’ was ‘unthinkable’.

So both Hammond and Rudd, two very senior cabinet members, have come out in the Press against a key negotiating lever with the EU and May’s official policy…‘no deal is better than a bad deal’…if you aren’t prepared for a ‘no deal’ you are essentially then at the EU’s mercy with little leverage to make them compromise.

Hammond and Rudd have thrown a huge spanner in the works and yet hardly a peep out of the BBC, no shocked headlines, no claims that they have stabbed May in the back, no claims they are undermining May, no claims they are manoeuvring for the leadership, no legions of commentators wheeled in to heap abuse upon them for their shameless politicking.  Hammond and Rudd of course want to stay in the EU so why would the BBC criticise them?

How different is the BBC approach to Boris.

Boris as Foreign Secretary has a legitimate interest in Brexit negotiations and as the lead Brexit cheerleader we were told by the Remainders that he must now bear responsibility for the outcome of Brexit.  Odd then that when he speaks out, takes that responsibility, he gets  shouted down and loudly abused for having the temerity to do so….and the BBC is the chief cheerleader attacking him.

BBCers constantly asked why he hadn’t been sacked (and of course keep asking when May is going), we hear he’s disingenuous, a clever idiot, an egotist, lazy, self-centred and not fit or competent for Office, that he’s a populist with simple solutions but no positive vision for the Country or Party, a divisive, disloyal figure making life impossible for May, odd, difficult, eccentric, an international joke, self-indulgent and only thinking about himself when important world events are happening, an irresponsible revolutionary who is out of control [and should be sacked], that he’s undermining May, stabbing her in the back, he’s not interested in Brexit [a piece of misinformation that he said he only went with Brexit to annoy Cameron was given a lot of credence in passing by the BBC] and is only really positioning himself for the leadership…hmmm…as most Tory MP’s are Remainders how would that work?  Kuenssberg spent most of her time filing reports that he was intent on the leadership and Brexit was the means to that end…she later admitted that this ‘fact’ was based upon ‘vicious rumours at Westminster’…in other words poison dripped from his enemies….Kuenssberg’s reports seemed to be more about discrediting Boris in the eyes of possible Leave voters than in the truth.

I did think that the BBC had turned a corner way back earlier in the month when Nick Robinson said he was examining what Phillip Hammond [08:10] had been up to and why everyone was up in arms about him.  Would we get the dirt, would Hammond be called a backstabber who was trying to thwart Brexit?   Er no…what we got was a pro-EU Labour MP and someone, although a ‘Leaver’, who was actually employed by Hammond.  Nothing to see here then…Hammond doing a good job under enormous pressure.

Robinson’s introduction was interesting…..he sneeringly referenced the Mail as the ‘chief cheerleader for Brexit’ and their frontpage that shouted ‘Daggers Drawn….PM slaps treacherous chancellor down!’.  Now as just about every other media outlet was giving a similar impression of Hammond’s actions you have to wonder how the BBC could avoid mentioning it or coming to a similar conclusion about Hammond’s betrayal…but they did.  They ignored Hammond’s ‘treachery’ for a long time and finally when they did notice they wheeled in two yes men to blow smoke up our backsides.

Why did Robinson raise the subject?  Not of course because he was in the slightest bit interested in actually holding Hammond to account but first because of course the right-leaning Mail is pretty influential and therefore needs to be discredited and its story attacking a pro-EU Chancellor pooh-poohed and second because the Mail in the same edition had drawn attention to the fact that Robinson had been wrong about Romanian and Bulgarian migration…

The ‘experts’ who rushed to judgement and got it wrong

‘Well, well, well. So much for those predictions of a flood of immigrants coming form Romania and Bulgaria once the door to the UK was opened’  Nick Robinson, BBC political editor May 2014

And the Mail gloated….naturally Robinson made no mention of his own appearance in the paper nor of the reason for it…..

STEPHEN GLOVER: How the Mail got it right on Romanian and Bulgarian migration and the BBC got it so wrong – and deceived Britain

We all know how, in 2004, the Labour government opened the door to immigration from Poland and seven other Eastern European states, while other countries such as Germany and France imposed restrictions. 

The Blair government forecast a relatively small annual influx — of between 5,000 and 13,000. Within five years, nearly a million had arrived.

Following that gigantic miscalculation, one might have expected a little more caution would be shown at the beginning of 2014 when immigration restrictions from Romania and Bulgaria were lifted by the Coalition government. 

The Mail warned that history would repeat itself. So did a small number of other organisations such as Migration Watch, a think-tank run by a respected former British ambassador.

This did not prevent many — most notably the BBC — from predicting that anxieties over the number of migrants would turn out to be misplaced. 

In fact, they were utterly justified. Yesterday, the Office for National Statistics estimated there are 413,000 Romanians and Bulgarians living in the United Kingdom, equivalent to the population of Bristol.

How misguided the BBC has been. In January 2014, it carried an uncritical interview with the then Romanian ambassador in London, Dr Ion Jinga.

He said the number of citizens coming from his country to the UK would be ‘fewer than in recent years’. It wasn’t.

But the Beeb was adamant that those expressing concern about a new wave of migration were guilty of scare tactics. 

Even before the gates were opened, BBC2’s Newsnight carried a report in April 2013 which suggested that only 1 per cent of Romanians and 4 per cent of Bulgarians were ‘actively considering work in the UK’.

Where are all the Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants, asked an item on the BBC’s website at the end of January 2014. It claimed ‘some parts of the UK have reported very few arrivals so far’.

This echoed a visit to Luton airport on January 1, 2014, by the publicity-seeking Labour MP Keith Vaz, which was celebrated by the BBC. 

In May 2014, after official figures suggested (wrongly) that very few Romanians and Bulgarians were coming here, the then BBC political editor, Nick Robinson, scoffed: ‘So much for those predictions of a flood of immigrants coming from Romania and Bulgaria once the door to the UK was opened’.

As late as December 2014, Mark Easton — the supposedly authoritative BBC home editor, who over the years has been relaxed about EU immigration — told Radio 4 listeners there were ‘probably 100,000’ Romanians and Bulgarians working in Britain. It took John Humphrys to point out that there were already 189,000.

In short, the all-powerful BBC has been spectacularly wrong. If more than 400,000 people from two countries come to live here in the space of a few years, that surely amounts to some sort of ‘flood’. 

We stand at a crossroads over Brexit, with reactionary forces in the government, led by Chancellor Philip Hammond, intent on ensuring that as little as possible changes.

But for the good of this country — its workers, its public services, its businesses, not to mention social cohesion — we have an opportunity to end wildly uncontrolled immigration, whether the BBC and the Establishment like it or not.

So pro-Brexit Boris gets attacked by the BBC, the pro-Brexit Daily Mail gets attacked by the BBC with the added motivation that the Mail had shown the BBC up to be, at best, incompetent, at worst, wilfully misleading, when reporting on issues like immigration.  The BBC has a long way to go.  Maybe it should just be closed down as it is completely out of control, unaccountable and beyond redemption.