Here’s a great post over on The Shy Society….make sure you read it in full.

“The BBC is routinely accused of bias from the left and the right – therefore it must actually be pretty centrist,” is the line you often hear.

This is a lazy argument and one which we will return to shortly. But let’s just say for a minute that the statement was true and the BBC did represent the middle-ground and the status quo, would that suddenly legitimise their performance? Surely as a public broadcaster they should represent the public? And if the last 18 months has taught us anything it’s that Britain is deeply divided politically – more and more people have moved to either the left or right of politics and reject what they see as the establishment looking after self-interests.

That aside, the argument that the BBC is indeed centrist simply doesn’t stack up when you listen to insider accounts or examine the evidence. Around seven years ago popular newsreader Peter Sissons lifted the lid on his 20 years at the Beeb by saying that its very DNA was “firmly of the left”. He went on to explain that by far the most widely read newspapers were the failing Guardian and Independent and that producers would routinely refer to them for the line to take on running stories.

“I am in no doubt that the majority of BBC staff vote for political parties of the Left,” he explained. “But it’s impossible to do anything but guess at the numbers whose beliefs are on the Right or Centre-Right. This is because the one thing guaranteed to damage your career prospects at the BBC is letting it be known that you are at odds with the prevailing and deep-rooted BBC attitude towards life, the universe and everything.”

Click to read the full article here!

Here you go, a brand new Open Thread to see us off into the weekend. Please detail the egregious bias here!

That the strangle-hold which the middle-class liberal elite have over our culture and society — without having anything close to hegemony — will be tightened still further, and their [right-wingers] views marginalised or even criminalised. And the excuse given will be they are trying to stop us being blown up, or stabbed to death on London Bridge. That’s my worry too — that in order to placate the sensitivities of the adherents of a recently imported culture, the beliefs of indigenous people will be proscribed. When there is not the remotest comparison between them.

Rod Liddle today in the Spectator

The problem with the BBC is that many people who should know better think there is no problem with the BBC…and then there are those, like Tory MPs, who don’t have the courage to put it to the sword even as it does everything it can to destroy them and their party.

Here’s an almost completely delusional take on the BBC from Stephen Daisley in the Spectator as he recognises failing grandeur but can’t bring himself to send the BBC to the vet thinking the old guard dog is still the faithful and fit watchdog rather than the corpulent, bloated, greedy, self-interested and slightly rabid mutt that it has become:

In defence of the BBC: a force for unity in a divided Britain

The BBC is our other national religion and like the NHS it inspires a devotional intensity that can be a little creepy.

By any sensible assessment, the Beeb invites a lukewarm response. What it does well, it does better than any broadcaster in the world. Its news and current affairs output is eclectic, comprehensive and informative.

Its news and current affairs programmes are untrustworthy, partisan and shaped to promote the liberal intelligentsia’s world view not facts or news.

At moments of national triumph or catastrophe, it is the reassuring voice of British resolve and self-deprecating celebration.

A voice of national resolve?  The BBC that would sell us out to the EU rather see an independent and energised Britain breaking free of its EU shackles, the BBC that when bombs go off promotes the bomber’s message, the BBC that always talks Britain down.

And yes, it annoys. In BBCland, immigration is Congolese restaurants and cheap nannies, not bulging classrooms and community tensions. The LGBT debate is no debate at all; anyone who dissents is a bigot and a Jesus freak. Refugees are all genuine and everyone who lives outside London is probably racist. Islam is a religion of peace and Brexiteers incipient domestic terrorists. Its voice may no longer toll in crisp RP tones but it is still predominantly middle class, graduate, and southern. It is the voice of a monolith that demands money with menaces from the poor and non-conforming. It is gratingly aloof, unresponsive to its coerced customers, and hostile to all criticism except the theatrical and self-justifying auto-flagellation in which it occasionally engages.

All very serious charges that anyone with a degree of common sense and some backbone would realise made the BBC more ‘an enemy of the people’ than their friend and protector.

But when you consider the merit of maintaining a public service broadcaster in 2017 you appreciate that not only is the BBC still worthwhile, it is more necessary than ever. Crucially, it’s a force for unity in a Britain divided by identity and fractured by devolution. A national news broadcast confirms our shared concerns and priorities….It is a silent rejoinder to the Prime Minister’s philosophy, a platform where we can be citizens of the world and citizens of somewhere at the same time.

A crucial force for unity?  LOL.  The BBC that sets the rich against the poor, the BBC that sets young against old, the BBC that works to smash the United Kingdom due to  the Left’s hate of ‘Britain’ and what they see as its dangerous power and influence in the world and of course by dividing Britain it leaves it open for the EU to move in and to rule over us, the BBC that works hard to foster the hate and division between Remainers and Leavers, a BBC that encourages open borders and mass immigration having no concern for the destruction of society that would entail and the ‘tribal’ ghettos of the different communities that arise and end in violent conflict.  Yep, working for unity…that’s the BBC alright.

The rise of fake news and the ascendancy of Trump and Corbyn make the BBC all the more needed. Liberal societies can endure many trials but not the absence of universal facts. Without a commonly-agreed set of facts and a referee to uphold them Trump winning the popular vote and Corbyn advancing peace in Ulster become alternative truths — plausible, perhaps preferable.

The BBC is fake news.  This site can ony possibly list a minute proportion of the highly political and partisan material that comes out of the BBC….there is a vast torrent of ‘fake news’ flowing forth from the BBC everyday all day.  And for the BBC to appoint itself as the ‘referee’ of what can be termed ‘fake news’ or not is beyond parody….like the Catholic Church in charge of child abuse investigations.

Daisley ends with this:

In the end, the BBC is neither straightforwardly Left nor Right. It is a taxpayer-funded national educator staffed by the London intelligentsia — a social democrat’s reverie. It is also a conservative institution, entrenching tradition, maintaining continuity and lending reverential pomp to the monarchy, the church, and Parliament. Our times are afflicted at once by popular cynicism and idealism run amok. The BBC, itself an alloy of the two, is a bulwark against both.

Hmmm…the BBC a conservative institution?…..the BBC that is anti-Royalty, anti-Christianity and anti-democracy [in that it wants a one party state…run by Labour]…and anti ‘popular cynicism’?  Would that ‘popular cynicism’ be a vote against the EU?  Not cynicism but an informed, reasoned and appropriate response to being railroaded by the liberal intelligentsia into remaining under the tyranny of the undemocratic EU…and as for a bulwark against ‘idealism’…this is the BBC that supports Corbyn and his violent Marxist running mates as they seek to impose their crazed economic, social and political dogmas upon us…their lies, hypocrisy and violence going unchecked by the BBC.

The BBC is a force for disunity, for violent inter-communal conflict, for political chicanery unchecked, for destruction of nation states and national identity, for what will be the end of an organised and stable State…the end of the NHS, the end of free schooling, the end of peace and trust as communities divide, the end of the welfare state system as the whole world tries to ‘sign on’ when the BBC continues to invite them to our increasingly overcrowded shores.

The BBC is in denial about the consequences of its policies [the consequences that are playing out before us as we watch as Merkel’s ‘humane and compassionate’ policy on migration destroys Germany and with it the whole of Europe]

Shame some commentators on the BBC also seem in denial even as they admit the huge problems.  Daisley thinks that because the SNP’s Tartan Brownshirts, the Muslim Jihadists and the Corbyn street thugs, all attack the BBC the BBC must be ‘impartial’ and be reporting accurately on these groups…this shows a complete lack of undertsanding, one of the fact that the BBC actually supports these groups but that these groups don’t care…their intent is to make absolutely sure you are too afraid to say anything negative or critical of them and they will use any means to enforce that.  Hitler, who better to ask, tells us the truth about these ‘mad-dog exercises’ of intimidation and bullying…

Before two years had passed, the theory as well as the technical methods of Social Democracy were clear to me.
I understood the infamous spiritual terror which this movement exerts, particularly on the bourgeoisie, which is neither morally nor mentally equal to such attacks; at a given sign it unleashes a veritable barrage of lies and slanders against whatever adversary seems most dangerous, until the nerves of the attacked persons break down and, just to have peace again, they sacrifice the hated individual.
However, the fools obtain no peace.
The game begins again and is repeated over and over until fear of the mad dog results in suggestive paralysis.

And as Douglas Murray says in the Spectator:

‘European values’ won’t last long without national borders

In an email to Bloomberg, Soros says that his foundation is trying to ‘uphold European values’ while Orban is trying to ‘undermine those values’.  Making it clearer, Soros writes of Orban:

‘His plan treats the protection of national borders as the objective and the refugees as an obstacle.  Our plan treats the protection of refugees as the objective and national borders as the obstacle.’ 

Putting aside Soros’s depiction of the hundreds of thousands of people coming into Europe as ‘refugees’ rather than – more accurately in most cases – ‘economic migrants’, perhaps in the next round the Hungarian Prime Minister can point out to Mr Soros that without national borders those ‘European values’ he seems so keen on will be blown away like so much sand.

Gotta love this…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYqMUDHZf6Y

So we know that the BBC pays women less than men…..what do they pay transgender employees?  Tricky one huh?

Gotta love old Lord Hall Hall, so full of horses**t.  His plea to the government not to publish the pay rates was based on his thought that if women found out they were paid less than the men the BBC would have to cough up more…therefore don’t reveal this discrimination, brush it under the carpet, and things can continue as they are.  So not at all bothered about the pay gap really.

So much for transparency, accountability, diversity, equality and fairness.  Why should anyone listen to the BBC’s sanctimonious lecturing again…if they ever did?

Lord Hall Hall always claimed that the BBC was vital for the health of the commercial sector, feeding into it talent and creativity, taking risks the commercial companies might not take….just what risks would they be then?  Sons of Anarchy, Breaking Bad, Fargo, Twin Peaks, Game of Thrones???  Or Sky which took a massive risk to set itself up.  The commercial sector is way out in front at producing high quality, innovative programming that wins huge audiences…the BBC is not innovative in any major way, it is mainstream and follows on behind all too often.  David Attenborough is great but the BBC has been doing that for decades…now just with more technical wizardry as the kit improves…it’s still the same old same old.

Look at their employment policy.  Who do they get for their football commentators…Lineker…hardly a big risk, a hugely famous footballer, as long as he can string two words together he can hardly fail in his given task…not too intellectually stretching to chat about football is it?  Politics might be beyond him but choppsing about kicking a pig’s bladder around…he’s top of his game. LOL.

What does the BBC do that no other media organisation can do that is so innovative and ground breaking?…

“The public associates the BBC with great drama,” says Lord Hall, in an interview with the Telegraph. “It’s something that’s in the lifeblood of the BBC. It’s just crucial to us as a creative and cultural organization. I made this a priority when I came back to the BBC, because I believe in the BBC being in drama.”

Oh yes, great drama…well yes the viewers do love a good drama….but hardly the stuff of magical, pioneering, revolutionary, experimental stuff that we are told only the BBC could produce.  It’s mainstream, safe as houses, stock-in-trade BBC fair that they have pumped out for donkey’s years.  It does not in anyway justify the enforced licence fee nor the gross overpayment of its staff.

If the BBC were really a risk taker and a national treasure that was the nurturing ‘mothership’ for the British creative industries that Lord Hall Hall claims then they would hunt out new and capable talent that they can develop and then send on to the commercial sector…and in the meantime not have to pay extraordinary wages for people doing very little [let’s be honest]…nothing incredible or vastly difficult anyway…just why does a DJ or someone who does the odd interview get such huge sums…it’s crazy.  Jeremy Vine on over £700,000!!  The wage packets are eye-wateringly bonkers for the work they do…not as if someone off the street couldn’t do it as well for far, far less.  Remember what’s her name, the author, PD James?, who came onto the Today show and blitzed it as she interviewed Mark Thompson?

The BBC would in fact be all the better for a policy that meant it didn’t keep on the old and the bold, the dinosaurs who don’t change and bring nothing new to the game, who get entrenched in their jobs and opinions.  Send them out into the scary commercial world and bring in the fresh talent with new ideas, new faces, new voices.  One advantage of this is that bias, prejudice and partisan attitudes aren’t  likely to develop as much as group think wouldn’t get a chance to take hold as the group is always changing and with so many new people it will be hard to keep up the indoctrination that institutionalises their thinking and also makes them believe they are untouchable with a licence to hold court over their fellow man just by virtue of the fact they have a BBC ID card in their pocket.

Then there’s Lord Hall Hall’s claim that he has to pay such vast sums because of commercial pressures…the private companies would otherwise poach BBC staff.  Really?  Aren’t BBC staff in fact paid more than the commercial sector in many cases?….[maybe Phillip Hammond could give us a quote]  Only a public corporation like the BBC with guaranteed income can afford such largesse and know they can pay the wages…and just remember who is paying for this…the licence fee payer…you know those people the BBC hunts down and puts in court because they haven’t paid up the ransom money…..even if they don’t actually watch the BBC.  Jeremy Vine & Co must be proud to take home all that money essentially stolen with menaces from people vastly, vastly less well paid and who go to jail if they fail to pay up…poverty stricken or not.

Here’s ITV’s Tom Bradby in 2011:

ITV political editor Tom Bradby has questioned the reported salary of around £600,000 being paid to BBC presenter Andrew Marr, arguing that “no-one in ITV News is paid anything like this”.

In a message on Twitter, Bradby wrote: “I like [Marr] a lot, think he words (sic) hard and is very smart, but £600,000? Seems a lot.

“No-one in ITV News is paid anything like this, so where is the market for all these BBC figures being paid such vast sums? I mean, who else will employ them at that level?”

Bradby decided to comment on Marr’s pay packet after noticing a gradual erosion of parity between the BBC and ITV news teams over the last decade.

He wrote: “During the first 10 years I worked for [ITV News producer] ITN, there used to be a much greater sense of parity between the BBC and us. But over the last 10, that has gradually disappeared. It’s really something when a commercial broadcaster struggles to compete against one funded by millions of people on very modest wages.”

Bradby claimed that the BBC has become an “internal market”, in which stars compared salaries to each other rather than the external market.

He also estimated that Sky’s political editor Adam Boulton only earns around £400,000 a year, despite being “by far and away the biggest name on Sky News”.

Out with the old dinosaurs and in with the new, fresh faced, innovative, go-getting talent…and if they head off for pastures new…great…that’s exactly as it should be and then the BBC can go out and get some more of that untapped potential that’s out there looking for the break.

On the day the BBC reveals that 100 of its employees earn more than the PM, here is a new OPEN thread. To me, the scandal is not the red herring of ‘pay gap” but rather one of the annual extortion of £3.5bn from anyone who owns a TV. A stalinist construction in 2017. Thoughts?

The BBC reveals…

Dozens of residents of Grenfell Tower suffered electricity power surges so strong their appliances malfunctioned, overheated and emitted smoke a few years before the fire, it has emerged.

Documents seen by the BBC reveal how 25 residents claimed compensation from the council following the surges in 2013.

Some say electricity problems persisted into the months before June’s fire.

Police say the blaze, in which at least 80 are thought to have died, started in a fridge freezer on the fourth floor.

One fire expert told the BBC the electricity spikes could have been an issue which led to the fire starting in the first place.

Neither the council nor the tenant management organisation which looks after the tower have commented.

Just shows how bad BBC journalism is and its failure to research stories properly….this ‘news’ has been on the GAG’s website for years…..the BBC clearly has not read through the site…if it had it would know that the GAG is a hardcore, left-wing group of activists and not an official residents’ body…….hence possibly why the council were reluctant to deal with it and its often sensationalist and highly politicised statements…..

NO JUSTICE FOR GRENFELL TOWER POWER SURGE VICTIMS

Posted on August 13, 2013

Grenfell Tower residents were today informed that the Council’s and TMO’s insurers ‘Zurich’ will not be compensating them for damage to electricl appliances suffered by many in the recent power surge debacle. ‘Zurich’ found that the TMO had not been negligent in regard to this incident. They therefore declined to provide compensation in response to residents insurance claims.

As if it wasn’t bad enough that our landlords would subject residents to the frightening experience of having electrical appliances blow up and catch fire in their homes – to then refuse to compensate the victims for their losses is just beyond the pale.

GRENFELL TOWER – FROM BAD TO WORSE

Posted on May 29, 2013

An end may finally be in sight to the mysterious and distressing power surges that have bedevilled Grenfell Tower residents throughout the past month. However, decisive action was only taken yesterday after highly distressed residents descended en masse on the estate office to demand action. They had woken to find smoke issuing from various electrical appliances in their homes, including the light fixtures, and descended in panic to the estate office to demand help and assistance.  Emergency electricians who attended later in the day were finally, it seems, able to identify the source of the problem. An emergency temporary electrical by-pass supply has been provided and the necessary follow–up works will be carried out in the near future.

It is very clear at this stage that the electrical supply to Grenfell Tower has been in a very dangerous condition for several weeks. It is equally clear that the authorities had been repeatedly warned of this  but had failed to react with sufficient urgency and had failed to take adequate remedial measures.

As evidence of this we present the extract below from an email sent on 13th May by Shah Ahmed,  Chair of the Grenfell Tower Leaseholders Association, to Robert Black at TMO and various RBKC councillors and TMO officers:

“Continuous Power Surges in Grenfell Tower

There have been two weeks of power surges in the building, most notably in the early hours of the morning and throughout the evening and night time. Electronic apparatus are seriously affected by these surges. Computers are turned on and off, lights continually flicker becoming very dim and extremely bright in the space of a few seconds.

On 11th May 2013 at 9:05pm we had numerous power surges in the space of a minute, and in that process my computer and monitor literally exploded with smoke seeping out from the back and the smell of burnt electronics filled our entire computer. My monitor also fused at the same time. When I called the TMO out of hours service the standard textbook response was given to us that I was the first one to report such a problem and I was made to feel like a fool reporting such an issue, which resulted in years of data being lost forever.

Please note if the power surges continue at Grenfell Tower, it would be very dangerous and costly because it is interfering with electric and electronic items in the household, including the telephone line, television, fridge, washing machine, computer etc”.

From Ian Katz….such truth…

Few species can match the brutality of a teenage child appraising its parent.

I was reminded of this the morning after last month’s election as I passed my 18-year-old daughter on the stairs. “I’m never going to believe another word you say about politics,” she announced matter-of-factly. “Because you’ve been wrong about EVERYTHING.”

It was hard to argue….there’s a tendency to tune out evidence that doesn’t fit the prevailing narrative. 

Last night a BBC spokesman said: “The Proms is not a political platform and all artists are booked on the basis of their musical excellence.”

From The Sun:

proms hijacked

BBC accused of turning the Proms into a platform for anti-Brexit fanatics

BBC bosses are under fire after the Proms classical music festival was hijacked by anti-Brexit stunts twice in one weekend.

Renowned conductor Daniel Barenboim ranted against the UK leaving the EU and had a German orchestra play Elgar’s Land of Hope of Glory in protest at the Royal Albert Hall on Sunday.

It came just 48 hours after pianist Igor Levit performed the official EU anthem unexpectedly on Friday night during an encore.

The BBC defended the impromptu performance of Beethoven’s Ode To Joy as an “artistic choice”.

But the brazen interventions sparked uproar from Tory MPs, who slammed the BBC for giving a platform to “Euro-fanatics.”

They were left incensed by a long speech from the conductor’s podium at London’s world famous music venue on Sunday night and broadcast on TV and radio.

Classical music supremo Daniel Barenboim, 74, hit out at “isolationist tendencies and nationalism in its very narrow sense is something that is very dangerous”.

And he hinted that Brits voted to leave the EU because of a lack knowledge, saying “the main problem of today is that there is not enough education.”

And in an interview also broadcast by the BBC before the live show, he claimed English composing hero Edward Elgar “makes the best case against Brexit because this is European music.”

Romford MP Andrew Rosindell said: “For the BBC to allow this shows their actively letting Euro-fanatics voice their views, whilst ignoring the democratic majority.

He added: “The BBC must be neutral, if its not that is wrong and can’t continue, its harming Britain.”

‘The Labour Party set up an independent inquiry to examine the issue soon after coming to power in 1997. Sir Michael was a member of that inquiry team’.

And in 2015 Sir Michael Marmot was still there advising Labour on their new ’10 year plan’….

Though Labour’s new approach to public health reflects changing times, our historic mission remains the same: to break the link between health and wealth and tackle health inequalities, so that no-­‐one’s health is disadvantaged by where they live or what they earn. To be successful, our new agenda will need to be supported by the ‘health in all policies’ approach, as advocated by Professor Sir Michael Marmot.

The BBC has two causes for all the world’s ills…..’Austerity’ or ‘Brexit’.

Today we learn that an apparent fall in life expectancy ‘since 2010’ [hmmm…why does the BBC always choose that date as the baseline?] may be linked to Tory austerity policies...’miserly public spending’…no really!!!   Yep….I can hardly find the strength to type this as my assets are being squeezed by Theresa May.

Rising rates of life expectancy are grinding to a halt in England after more than 100 years of continuous progress, says a leading health expert.

University College London expert Sir Michael Marmot said he was “deeply concerned” by the situation, calling it “historically highly unusual”.

He said it was “entirely possible” austerity was to blame and said the issue needed looking at urgently.

Er…back in 2004 he told us…

“More money does not buy better health,” says Sir Michael

Hmmm…so ‘austerity’ kills……this is the good Sir Michael’s own figures today…

This is the Office for National Statistics’…spot the difference…..

Curiously in 2015 Marmot told us that the poorest were thriving by comparison to the middle class…

Anyone thinking that Sir Michael may be a Labour stooge?