BBC desperate to push heroic blacks battling against the odds narrative…if it was the same narrative as the BBC uses for Brexit they might as well give up now…..

The Nigerian bobsleigh team racing towards history

Fighting freezing winds, bone-breaking speed and up to five g-force, the Nigerian women’s bobsleigh team are training hard in western Canada.

So someone from a land of tropical sun and overbearing heat wants to compete in a winter sport….holy smoke….

Jamaica were there first a long, long time ago….

Funny old world…does anyone at the BBC have a clue?

They make the iPlayer inaccessible for anyone without a licence and yet chuck stuff on YouTube for free…

The question has to be asked…what is the point of the iPlayer when the BBC could have a channel on YouTube and what was the point of spending £100 million on a digital archive, that never materialised, when they could have made their material for journo’s to reference privately available on YouTube…or you could ask why when YouTube was originally set up for about £1 million the BBC couldn’t set up its own film library for a staggering £100 million?

It must be great to have the national broadcaster on your side, championing your cause and throwing doubt on your opponent’s arguments, sowing confusion about their aims, generating a vision of apocalyptic doom and gloom upon your opponent’s cause.  Yep, the EU must be overjoyed to have the BBC on its side.

The BBC is having a field day telling May & Co what they can and cannot have in the negotiations….who needs the EU wasting its time when the BBC is there to lay out the terms itself?

Andrew Neil casts doubt upon it all and declares…‘That’s just not possible, Prime Minister, is it?’

Laura Kuenssberg suggests May is fooling herself…

Is she fooling herself? Or does Theresa May have reserves of political magic as yet unseen?

Not only is May a fool but Brexit will wreck the economy and unleash the ‘demons’ in the Tory Party…meaning of course some sort of latent Fascist streak…..

All this, knowing that one false move could wreak havoc on the economy or unleash demons inside her own party.

Oh, not only foolish but pigheaded and wrong…Brexit is not the right course for the country….

Just as determination can go a long way to achieving any goal, politicians can be resolute and also wrong.

There are no guarantees that the prime minister’s aims are the right ones for the country. Still less certainty that they can be achieved.

Funny thing when Boris complained about the EU saying it would punish Britain for leaving the BBC jumped on him…..Brexit: Boris Johnson warns against ‘punishment beatings’…oh and the BBC’s political editor, James Landale, ridicules Boris [despite Boris being right]….Brexit memo to Boris Johnson: Don’t mention the War

Of course it was Landale who 25 years ago made up a rhyme about the Euro-sceptic Boris which may give us a clue as to what colours Landale’s reporting now…

“Boris told such dreadful lies It made one gasp and stretch one’s eyes”

Lansdale finished with this piece of advice…

Maybe Mr Johnson might remember the last line of the Fawlty Towers episode when a ranting Basil is being led away by the nurses and one of the stunned German guests asks: “However did they win?”

Well I guess we won the war because not only did we have God on our side but also the British Broadcasting Corporation which backed the British war effort rather than siding with the enemy.

So Boris is chastised and mocked but now the EU is saying we are blackmailing them the BBC once again jumps, not on the EU, but on the Brexit team…. John Humphrys on the Today Show telling David Davies that it was ‘inconceivable’ that Britain could get what it wants in negotiations…nice to have the BBC doing the EU’s dirty work pre-empting negotiations and claiming our own demands are ridiculous and unachievable.  Then Humphrys moved onto the nonsense claim that the government was blackmailing the EU quoting this from May from her speech….

In security terms a failure to reach agreement would mean our cooperation in the fight against crime and terrorism would be weakened.

Humphrys says…

‘and that has been interpreted as…..’give us what we want or else…’…It did rather sound like blackmail didn’t it?’

What he doesn’t bother to quote is the rest of her sentence….

In this kind of scenario, both the United Kingdom and the European Union would of course cope with the change, but it is not the outcome that either side should seek. We must therefore work hard to avoid that outcome.

She is not blackmailing anyone just stating the bleeding obvious…no agreement then other ways of cooperating on security must be worked out.

Humphrys also fails to note the huge amount of times May assured us that security and co-operation is a top priority…in her speech and in the letter itself…..

‘It is a plan for a new deep and special partnership between Britain and the European Union. A partnership of values. A partnership of interests. A partnership based on cooperation in areas such as security and economic affairs.

We will play our part to ensure that Europe is able to project its values and defend itself from security threats.

With Europe’s security more fragile today than at any time since the end of the Cold War, weakening our cooperation and failing to stand up for European values would be a costly mistake.

In an increasingly unstable world, we must continue to forge the closest possible security co-operation to keep our people safe. We face the same global threats from terrorism and extremism. That message was only reinforced by the abhorrent attack on Westminster Bridge and this Place last week.

‘So there should be no reason why we should not agree a new deep and special partnership between the UK and the EU that works for us all.

‘We seek continued cooperation with our European partners in important areas such as crime, terrorism and foreign affairs.

In the letter….

We want to make sure that Europe remains strong and prosperous and is capable of projecting its values, leading in the world, and defending itself from security threats.

In security terms a failure to reach agreement would mean our cooperation in the fight against crime and terrorism would be weakened. In this kind of scenario, both the United Kingdom and the European Union would of course cope with the change, but it is not the outcome that either side should seek. We must therefore work hard to avoid that outcome.

We should work towards securing a comprehensive agreement. We want to agree a deep and special partnership between the UK and the EU, taking in both economic and security cooperation.

We want to play our part to ensure that Europe remains strong and prosperous and able to lead in the world, projecting its values and defending itself from security threats.

Europe’s security is more fragile today than at any time since the end of the Cold War. Weakening our cooperation for the prosperity and protection of our citizens would be a costly mistake.

Together, I know we are capable of reaching an agreement about the UK’s rights and obligations as a departing member state, while establishing a deep and special partnership that contributes towards the prosperity, security and global power of our continent.

Talk about cherry-picking a single phrase and attributing a completely false interpretation to it that coincidentally suits your own purpose….casting doubt upon Brexit.  Good old BBC.

The Great Escape is on, watch the BBC goons, the Tristrams, try to stop Tom, Dick and Harry in the bid for freedom….and if you see it report it here on the new open thread…..

Just listening to Jon Pienaar giving us his EU analysis…apparently the extravagant promises made by the Brexit campaign are now facing the harsh light of reality…er…what ‘promises’ never mind ‘extravagant’ ones?  No one promised anything other than to leave the EU in the belief that we could then control our borders and politics…the intent was to control our own borders and who we let into the country.

Pienaar says immigration will actually go up and industry and universities will still be allowed to bring in people #DespiteBrexit….er…no one ever thought there would be a total stop on all immigration….so just one more strawman from Pienaar.

This is pure bunkum from Pienaar, a narrative shaped to paint a picture of Leave voters being betrayed and a ‘realisation’ that Brexit was nothing but a hopelessly unrealistic dream doomed to failure….much the same message that fanatic pro-EU Clegg delivered on Newsnight last night as he was given the keys to the BBC camera cupboard and free rein to produce whatever piece of propaganda he felt the urge to make.

The BBC made a secret film, never seen before but we can reveal it here now…Hitler was allowed to make a film about his concentration camps asking the Jewish inmates why they were so frantic to leave…after all weren’t the camps just like Butlins?  Why leave?

In fact the BBC has quite extraordinarily allowed the fanatical pro-EU Nick Clegg, married to the fanatical pro-EU Mrs Clegg [always welcome on the BBC], to make a film questioning the votes of people who want to exit the EU….[H/T  GuestWho]..

Bias?  Inappropriate?  Corrupt?  Not  half…Clegg’s a poisonous little herbert…he tells us he has a sense of foreboding…..Brexit will fail and lead to dissatisfied voters flocking to the far-right parties who will seize upon that rage and offer instead a divisive and angry vision for the future…..

Almost instantly we had the first porky…..Clegg tells us the EU has invested a whopping £1.8 billion pounds in regeneration of Wales since 2014….er…a huge lie…..that is money that came from the UK to start with and has been returned only after huge amounts have been skimmed off as the EU pays itself enormous wages and hands out expenses like confetti….still the ungrateful and ignorant Welsh voted out…bastards.

Then onto immigration…it’s all the fault of ignorant, misinformed older, prejudiced voters who aren’t used to foreigners.   Clegg tells us the youngsters all love the EU and admire what it does for them….so where did the Guardian find this one?….

“What’s the EU ever done for us?” Zak Kelly, 21, asks me this standing next to a brand new complex of buildings and facilities that wouldn’t look out of place in Canary Wharf. It’s not Canary Wharf, though, it’s Ebbw Vale, a former steel town of 18,000 people in the heart of the Welsh valleys, where 62% of the population – the highest proportion in Wales – voted Leave.

To go there – along a new dual carriageway – and stand next to the town’s new sixth form and training college, a glass and steel architectural showpiece next to its new leisure centre, a few hundred yards away from a new train station, is to stare into the abyss of the UK’s failed Remain campaign.

Even Kelly, who has just finished a training session on a brand new football pitch, backtracks slightly after asking that question. “Well, I know … they built all this,” he says, and motions his head at the impressive facilities that are all around us. “But we put in more money than we get out, don’t we?”… “we get out £7m a year from the EU and we put in £19m”. Anyway, he says, “it was time for a change”.

And of course we have the usual dig that it is voters harking back to some non-existent golden age that will never return….they just don’t live in the real world.

Talk about bias.  Gold plated, copper bottomed, iron clad bias there.  BBC should be hauled over the coals for that.

Always interesting what you turn up when idly roaming the web…..The NUJ was concerned about ‘social media‘ in February 2016….and seems quite put out that politicians now have an outlet to allow them to make their own voice heard without the media filtering them…

We can’t ignore social media, whether we like it or not. For good or ill it is shaping our industry in many ways. Whether it is a lurch towards clickbait journalism with reporters forced to have audience targets at the forefront of their minds rather than newsgathering, or whether it is the ease in which politicians and celebrities can be reached for comment via twitter, it is a force we have to work with.

Oh and this might explain a lot…..James Landale…

James Landale (born 1969) is a BBC journalist who is the current Diplomatic Editor at BBC News.

Denis McShane, shilling for the EU, reveals….

The anti-EU Brussels correspondent was invented by Boris Johnson when the Daily Telegraph’s correspondent there 25 years ago. His fellow Old Etonian Brussels journalist at the time was James Landale who wrote a little ditty:

“Boris told such dreadful lies It made one gasp and stretch one’s eyes”

Nothings changed all these years later as Landale and his BBC colleagues still peddle the same old tripe about Boris and the EU.

Still, confirms Boris was anti-EU even 25 years ago….so one in the eye for Kuenssberg who reported ‘vicious Westminster rumours’ as fact that Boris only joined Leave as a launch pad for his leadership ambitions…he was, she assured us, in fact pro-EU.  No he wasn’t.

McShane also puts the lie to the BBC’s claim that we are now living in a post-truth era, presumably pre 2016 we were in a golden age of accurate, honest and truthful journalism?

Again though this is of course from a pro-EU stance as told by McShane…

In 1990 another legendary Sun headline “Up Yours Delors!” can be taken as the starting moment of non-stop propaganda against European integration.

According to Roy Greenslade, former Fleet Street editor, now our principal commentator on the press, “For years Britain’s rightwing press has done everything in  its formidable power to demean the European Union and  all its works. Drip by drip by drip, the newspapers have heaped abuse on the EU, blaming every domestic ill on its policies and actions while giving it no credit whatsoever for its benefits. “The coverage of the issue has been marked by a mixture of misinformation and disinformation, replete with inaccuracy, innuendo and insincerity.”

Naturally the pro-EU media are entirely blameless and have conducted their reporting over the decades with integrity and honesty.

McShane whinges about the overwhelming power of the anti-EU papers…

In 2015 the combined circulation of the Eurosceptic press, dailies and Sundays, was 10,239,526. Assuming the Mirror, Guardian, Independent and I to be pro-European their circulation is 2,656,735 so in circulation terms the Europhobe press outnumber the pro-EU press 4-1. Circulation isn’t readership of course, still less on-line readership. Here the Daily Mail with 16 million on-line readers based on monthly aggregates far outweighs anyone else especially those papers behind paywalls.

But McShane fails to note the revelation in the same publication that it is the pro-EU BBC in all its guises which absolutely dominates the news and doesn’t just do ‘drip drip drip’…it bangs, beats and bashes the drum loudly, rolls out the red carpet and a fanfare of trumpets for the blessed EU and excoriates those who oppose the orthdoxy…….

Print newspapers are now the least popular medium people use to keep abreast of news and current affairs, according to research by the communications watchdog Ofcom. The regulator’s annual news consumption study for 2015 found that 31 per cent of the population read a printed newspaper to keep informed down from 41 per cent in the previous year. The decline means that print newspapers are now the least popular medium for checking news, behind television (67 per cent), the internet (41 per cent) and radio (32  per cent).

The top news source in terms of reach was BBC1, which 48 per cent of those surveyed saying they used it to check news, down from 53 per cent in 2014. ITv ranks second, with 27 per cent saying they use it as a news source. The BBC website remains the third mostused news source (23 per cent) with the BBC News Channel in fourth place at 14 per cent. Facebook is the joint fifth most popular source of news in terms of reach, with Sky News, at 12 per cent. The most-used radio stations are BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 2, while the most-read newspapers are the Sun and Daily Mail.

 

Hate Brexit, think it is a car crash on the road to disaster?… then call ze Germans on the emergency stop number…. nein, nein, nein…The Fourth [Reich] emergency service…according to Herr Heseltine.

 

The BBC up to its old tricks again, still fighting the EU referendum trying to sow discontent and division.

Campbell, or Mr Impartiality as he knowingly called himself, is having another of those ‘debates’ that ask ‘Have we done the right thing?’….you know, did we get it all wrong voting for Brexit.

Just asking the question is ensuring that the pot is kept stirred never mind the actual framing of the question in that negative tone.

Does the BBC ask similar questions after every election?  Nearly a year on from the referendum and the BBC is still trying to suggest the country is divided and angry…and yet surely it is the same after any election. More so in fact with voters divided several ways not just between two factions as in the referendum.  Why does the BBC keep framing this as a deeply divided and angry nation?  Why does the BBC keep re-fighting the referendum?

What we keep hearing, and did this morning, from the Remainders, is that Leave voters didn’t know what they were voting for….Campbell said nothing, in fact it was he who fed the question to the Remainder….why did he not challenge that claim which is patently false…everyone knew what they were voting for…to leave the EU…it was on the ballot paper…leave or stay.  Why does the BBC want to push that narrative of voters taking a leap in the dark?  Because they want to delegitimise the vote and suggest voters were misled or misinformed and voted without knowing the consequences…thus we need another vote….or at the very least May must keep us in the Single Market…and thus be forced to keep the borders wide open and in effect still be in the EU…end of Brexit.

You could equally say voters didn’t know what they would have voted for if they had voted Remain…it wouldn’t have been remain in the EU as it is now but a future EU that you would have had no  idea of what it would morph into….such as a superstate that ripped open your borders, took complete control  of your taxes, made all your laws and granted you regional status…and EU citizenry.

At least Leave voters knew what they were definitely getting out of and could make a good guess at that future EU empire building…so no, they didn’t vote out of ignorance…they escaped.

Shame the BBC seeks to encourage that so-called division instead of pulling the country together and making a far more positive case for Brexit than the continual outpouring of doom and gloom that they serve up to us now.

The BBC version of the Great Escape from Michael Heseltine’s Germans…

The Brexit version…

From the BBC in January...above photo incuded….

Theresa May is to appear in a spread in glossy fashion magazine US Vogue, Downing Street has confirmed.

The prime minister – who is known for her love of fashion, especially eye-catching shoes – posed for the renowned portrait photographer Annie Leibovitz.

“The long-planned shoot for US Vogue will come out in April,” a No 10 spokesman said.

Baroness Thatcher, who died in 2013, was known for her smart, unfussy style including power suits, pussy-bow blouses and an ever-present handbag. [er…amongst other things?]

Oh..here’s the Corbyn supporting Daily Mirror…

If clothes could talk: What Theresa May and the other party leaders’ conference outfits said about them

When you are making your big keynote speech to your party (and the nation), it makes sense to think carefully about what you wear. So we’ve looked at the leaders’ outfits – and what we think they revealed about them.

Rightly or wrongly, the simple fact is that everyone in the public eye is judged on their appearance.

And no, before the sexism row starts AGAIN , it’s not just the women. A wise man once said that ‘clothes make the man’ and they are just as much in the firing line when it comes to their sartorial choices as women.

No denouncements and claims of back to the ’70’s over that from Corbyn?

Hypocrisy…what’s would that be then?

You must remember this from the BBC…….

Politicians have to think before they dress because of the role of television in communication with the voter.

10 sartorial moments that tell us a lot about politics

Does a politician’s appearance influence what voters think of them? Here are 10 moments that suggest that dress is important.

It’s the Easter holiday and Prime Minister David Cameron has been taking his break in Lanzarote. But attention has turned again to his leisurewear. This week Quentin Letts in the Daily Mail said the PM’s loafers gave him “beige-ja-vu” and concluded: “The best thing that can perhaps be said about them is that at least Mr Cameron wore them without socks.”

But why does it matter? Does a politician’s appearance influence what voters think of them? Here are 10 moments in fashion history that politicians might like to take note of before picking out their latest outfit….Politicians have to think before they dress because of the role of television in communication with the voter. 

The Times’ diarist Michael Horsnell described Foot as being “dressed as if he had just returned from walking his dog on Hampstead Heath, in green donkey jacket, sneakers and Paisley tie”. The then Labour MP for Derby South, Walter Johnson, was reported to have called on the Parliamentary Labour Party to reprimand Foot for looking like “an-out of-work navvy” and showing “gross discourtesy to the servicemen he was supposed to be honouring”.

Michael Foot’s cautionary tale of how a single sartorial misstep could become a lightning rod for a more general deluge of mockery was not heeded by former Conservative leader William Hague. Shortly after taking the helm of the party in 1997, William Hague was skewered in the media after wearing a personalised baseball cap on a visit to a theme park.

Under Peter Mandelson’s tutelage, it was sharp suits only for Neil Kinnock – and then for Blair and his “babes,” as the press dubbed the influx of female Labour MPs in 1997, to their annoyance.

At Labour’s party conference in 2000, Tony Blair warmed to his keynote speech a little too readily and his shirt became visibly drenched in sweat. The Evening Standard was on hand to advise that he had “broken the golden rule of never wearing a blue shirt in a hot room”, while the Guardian reported the address was “more perspiration than inspiration”.

Kirsty Walker, former political correspondent for the Daily Mail and associate director of iNHouse PR, says fashion can have a bearing on politicians’ standing. “The way that politicians present themselves and the choices they make in their own lives can say a lot about their personalities – especially when political images are so carefully cultivated,” she argues.

Dr Mair from the London College of Fashion argues that, not only does presentation influence what voters think of politicians, but it can influence politicians’ own behaviour.

“What we wear makes a difference to our own cognition,” Dr Mair says. “Wearing a formal suit might actually make someone behave differently; speak more formally.”

From the German DW…..

DW: How important are a politician’s clothes?

Laura Dunn: Dress and selection of clothes are a part of politics, and a particularly important factor in the presentation of image. They help us form an opinion of the person that’s wearing them and they often become part of the character that we associate with the wearer. We all remember Margaret Thatcher for her bow blouses and structured handbags, much like we associate leopard print shoes and chunky necklaces with Theresa May.  Politicians who have high profile roles are ambassadors for the country that they represent, and their choice of clothes is an important part of promoting their country. 

From the FT……

No small talk, more shoes

 

 

 

 

 

 

May learnt more than a decade ago that an artfully timed style statement can speak louder than words. Ever since she had the audacity to wear a pair of leopard-print kitten heels from Russell & Bromley to berate her “nasty party” at the Tory conference in 2002, she’s mastered the art of feminine projection. The shoes in question guaranteed her a platform on every front page in the land — and well beyond it. And she’s been scooping her rivals with a statement accessory or a “controversial” look ever since. Style statements, as women instinctively understand (and men don’t need to because they rarely need to try and get a word in edgeways), ensure unwavering attention. Most people won’t remember the finer details of George Osborne’s last budget speech in March, but they do recall the spectacle of May’s plunging cleavage on the front row of the Commons. It was an excellent act of sartorial sabotage — and she didn’t say a word.

In this new age of female leadership we should expect May’s strategic wardrobe choices to dominate much of the political conversation that follows. For some, this will be a sad state of the media age we live in. Others still won’t get it. But, watch carefully, and you’ll see how her clothes tell another story, filling in the edges of her personality and revealing more about her character than many of her prewritten speeches. Rather than mask her femininity, like Hillary Clinton or Angela Merkel in their strangely asexual pantsuits and block colours, May is a graduate of the same school as Thatcher when it comes to political power dressing. She dresses to look like a woman. She confounds expectation, and works her feminine style to political advantage.

And even the Guardian is at it…telling us how important it is to dress the part….

O’Reilly last week took the unprecedented step of suing the corporation for age and sex discrimination. She says ageism at the BBC is “endemic”. “We have almost come to accept it as the norm, that if you are a woman you have to be a size 8 and have unlined skin. I hoped to be judged on my work as a journalist and broadcaster, not on the way I look.

Of course, this isn’t the first time the BBC has been accused of ageism. In 2007, there was a row when the corporation dropped newsreader Moira Stuart, who was in her late 50s; that same year, the broadcaster Anna Ford asked, “How many presenters do you know on television who are over the age of 60? They’re catered for on Radio 4, but they are not catered for on screen.”

 

Got to laugh…no time lost by the Left attacking the Mail as it focuses on the issue of the day…whose legs are better…May’s or Sturgeon’s?    Nothing new there though…if it weren’t for the Mail what would left-wing ‘journalists’ do all day…another pop  at the Mail’s frontpage recently…All 27 things wrong with today’s Daily Mail front cover…complete rubbish and bizarrely attacking the Mail for covering a story that the Left are peddling themselves...’Google…the terrorists’ friend’….except that day when the Mail intervened…Google became…

Google – the greatest source of information in the history of human civilisation – is not a friend to terrorists; it is a friend to teachers, doctors, students, journalists, and teenage girls who aren’t quite sure how to put a tampon in for the first time

However in the same New Statesman issue we have an attack on Google for their failure to tackle extremism….telling us...’what needs to happen is a realisation that what happens when the rockets come down is very much the department of the world’s communication companies.’….

‘…committee chair Yvette Cooper has found a staggering amount of hate speech being circulated freely on the largest and most profitable social media platform. Seperately, an ongoing investigation by the Times has uncovered how advertising revenue from Google and YouTube makes its way straight into the coffers of extremist groups, ranging from Islamist extremists to white supremacists and anti-Semites.

Corbyn has the time to tweet today [presumably when not reading his BBC briefing on its latest research for PMQs]…

…and the BBC runs the story prominently on the frontpage…

Daily Mail urges ‘legs-it’ critics to ‘get a life’

First it’s fairly clear they both dressed to impress, it’s power dressing and body language used to project a message about them…so fair game to comment on that.

Second male politicians get it in the neck all the time…

BORIS Johnson attempted an early-morning run today, but raised some eyebrows after donning bizarre Hawaiian shorts, a polo neck and a red and black striped beanie hat.

The BBC was very interested in Trump’s hands…

The BBC is obsessed with Trump’s hands..

A history of Donald Trump, his ‘tiny’ fingers – and gold Sharpies

Donald Trump has some stand-out physical features. He’s also got gold pens, apparently. More on that shortly.

First there’s that mane of curiously-coloured hair.

The expressive mouth that seems to have a life of its own.

But please, take a second to consider his hands.

The blondish bombshell has defended the size of his digits after a particularly strange bit of name calling.

US election 2016: What is the big deal about Trump’s hands?

We have all heard endless jokes about his hair and tan, but what is the big deal now about Donald Trump’s hands?

This is said to be a sore point for the billionaire, and it was revived this week by rival Republican candidate Marco Rubio, who mocked his adversary’s “small hands”.

And the Mirror was obsessed with dresses…..

Good Morning Britain fashion: Susanna Reid’s lady in red vs true blue Charlotte Hawkins – vote now

But when Reid hid her legs behind a desk the viewers complained…

Susanna Reid gave the launch of Good Morning Britain a leg up when she answered the prayers of viewers who complained that the stars of the show were hidden behind a desk.

After the ITV programme began at 6am, numerous people began moaning that Susanna and her co-hosts were spending too much time half-obscured by the huge table.

But she put all that right when she emerged from the desk, revealing her shapely legs that have helped her win an army of male fans.

Don’t remember Corbyn back in 2014 complaining about that, but then he was a nobody then, hmmm…what’s changed?