A counter to the BBC’s endless pro-EU campaign propaganda……can we have a good free trade deal and no swarms of immigrants?

Cameron insists no-one will be keen to engage with an independent Britain and arrange trade deals with us, name-checking Canada as an example of why that is not a good idea, which is odd really as he himself was pretty keen for the EU to do a deal with Canada in 2012 as such a deal would bring enormous benefits to the UK and the EU…

Cameron urges EU to strike free trade deal with Canada. TORONTO STAR

27  Jan 2012 Toronto Star, page A4

OTTAWA— British Prime Minister David Cameron is urging his fellow European leaders to move quickly to sign a free-trade deal with Canada.

He said opening up export markets for the European Union’s 27 member countries is a key part of an urgently needed effort to strengthen the continent’s economies.

“Let’s get EU free trade agreements with India, Canada and Singapore finalized by the end of the year,” he said in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

If these trade liberalization deals were in place, it could generate an additional $118 billion in economic activity in EU countries, Cameron said.

Government welcomes historic EU-Canada free trade agreement

Landmark trade deal between the EU and Canada will benefit the UK economy and businesses by over £1.3 billion a year.

The overall expected benefit to the EU is £7.9 billion and £5.6 billion for Canada each year. Canada will also gain greater access to a single market of 500 million people. The boost to Canada’s economy is C$12 billion and the equivalent to 80,000 jobs.

Hang on…free trade that’s very beneficial to the EU and Canada, amongst others?…and yet no freedom of movement of labour?  How can that be the BBC asks?  Was it the BBC asking or me?  Just me.

Would the EU lock the UK, the 5th largest economy in the world and an important trade partner with the EU, out of its markets?  Hardly seems likely when it is committed to open markets and free trade……import tariffs very low or zero…..

The EU benefits from being one of the most open economies in the world and remains committed to free trade.

• The average applied tariff for goods imported into the EU is very low. More than 70% of imports enter the EU at zero or reduced tariffs.

• The EU’s services markets are highly open and we have arguably the most open investment regime in the world.

• The EU has not reacted to the crisis by closing markets. However some the EU’s trading partners have not been so restrained as the EU has highlighted in the Trade and Investment Barriers Report and the report on protectionism.

• In fact the EU has retained its capacity to conclude and implement trade agreements. The recent Free Trade Agreements with South Korea and with Singapore are examples of this and the EU has an ambitious agenda of trade agreements in the pipeline.

And to re-emphasise that….. the EU is only 10% of world demand….there is a whole wide world of opportunity out there…..and the EU is very keen to make deals with non-EU trade partners……

Over the next ten to 15 years, 90% of world demand will be generated outside Europe. That is why it is a key priority for the EU to tap into this growth potential by opening up market opportunities for European businesses abroad. One way of ensuring this is through negotiating agreements with our key partners.

Remember why Cameron lost the 2010 election majority?…because he’s a slippery, untrustworthy supporter of the European Union who used every excuse under the sun to slip his ‘cast-iron guarantee’ for a referendum….

David Cameron U-turn denies Britain EU referendum

BRITONS have been robbed of the chance to vote on a power grab by Brussels despite promises of a referendum.

In the wake of the Lisbon Treaty fiasco, David Cameron vowed Britain would never again give away powers to Brussels without first holding a referendum.

In a spectacular U-turn, however, Mr Cameron has now backed plans to sneak changes into the Lisbon Treaty without triggering referendums across Europe.

It is a significant victory for German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was last night dining with the Camerons at ­Chequers, the Prime Minister’s country retreat in Buckinghamshire.

I imagine all Cameron’s twisting and turning on the referendum will leave the way open for a judicial review and a legal challenge as he undemocratically suppresses the Leave campaign and misuses the resources of government to campaign for what should be a lobby group interest and not a government one….the referendum is after all supposed to be a vote of the people not the bureaucracy.

And one last look at the sell-out Cameron’s untrustworthy judgement and nature…especially in light of his recent decision to make all schools academies…this is a bit ironic…from DV on ‘A Tangled Web’ in 2007

THE CON-SERVATIVE CAMERON…

Well now, hasn’t “Call Me [Dodgy] Dave” Cameron gotten himself into a real mess following his ever-so-clever idea to abandon English Grammar Schools in order to win plaudits for the left? Faced with a continuing revolt among MPs and grassroots Tories, David Willetts, the education spokesman, has announced that in some specific areas, new grammars could be built after all.  Two weeks ago Mr Willetts and Mr Cameron said selection by ability did not work and that no more grammar schools would be built under a Tory government.

Listen, I couldn’t be more pleased than to see Cameron swing on this. His betrayal of our Grammar’s is symptomatic of his more general betrayal of Conservative values. This man is a Vichy Conservative, and he has been destroying the Party that he leads. As if you needed any further evidence of Cameron’s true values, just consider the fact that he has appointed former editor of the “News of the World”, Andy Coulson, as their head of communications and planning. The “News of the World” is a scumbag rag. The fit with Cameron is perfect.

 

Natalie Rowe ‏@RealNatalieRowe 5 Nov 2015

The BBC used its own resources to attack and undermine its commercial Press rivals by claiming they knew about Whittingdale and suppressed the story in order to have some leverage over him in regard to Press regulation.

Logically that makes no sense….if they had published they would have reinforced the case against themselves in the fervid period just after Leveson and  although Whittingdale would have had to resign at the time his replacement would have been even harsher.  Rather than blackmail it was a straightforward calculation that to publish actually damaged their own case.

But the BBC has pressed on with the line that this was a blackmail scenario…and yet, as they try to attack the minister in charge of the BBC Charter review, you have to ask what did the BBC itself know?  It is inconceivable that they did not know in light of the widely known revelations on the internet and in the book by Natalie Rowe that spelt out in no uncertain terms that Whittingdale was damaged goods.

In June 2015 she published some of the photos and detailed the allegations….about a Tory minister and his drug addict, hooker girlfriend……

• Natalie Rowe ‏@RealNatalieRowe 15 Jun 2015

  Probably not the best Pic of #Whittingdale and his drug addict hooker, but I’m saving the best(and there’s a lot)

  
   

•  

  Natalie Rowe ‏@RealNatalieRowe 15 Jun 2015

  John Whittingdale TORY MINISTER & his Hooker, who he uses TAX PAYERS MONEY TO PAY HER RENT ON HIS EXPENSE ACCOUNT

  

  316 retweets 98 likes

The BBC knew about the scandal right from the start of 2014 and in the middle of 2015, nearly a year ago, there is perfect proof that the story was out there in all its glorious detail…and yet the BBC failed to report it and now hypocritically attacks the Press for doing the same.

The BBC couldn’t publish though it would have loved to do so as it would have been hypocritical in light of Leveson and the BBC’s support for that, and it would have looked a very obvious attack on someone with so much influence over the BBC’s future.  They had to wait until some other news source broke the story…and conveniently it was done so by Byline, conveniently with Peter Jukes, very much of the BBC, organising Byline’s workload…..but as it was a backwater publication it took the appearance of a press release on Hacked Off’s website reporting the story, referencing Byline, to give the BBC the real sanction to publish the story itself.   Note how Hacked Off avoided mentioning the lurid details of the allegations…was this principle or tactical?…..not wanting to appear like a sensationalist scandal mag and yet wanting to get the story out there to hit Whittingdale and the government were it hurts.   Not saying of course that Byline and Jukes, Hacked Off and the BBC, along with the BBC’s man, Hislop, were in any way in league with each other.

The BBC’s overboard reaction to this story was clearly a politically motivated, opportune attack on the man who has their future in his hands, and on the Press, which the BBC so looks down on and wishes to rein in so that it, the BBC, rules the media world and thus much of the real world, in effect.

Should there be an inquiry into the BBC’s reporting on this story so obviously is it targeted at getting a minsiter to resign and an attack on the free Press?

And why does the BBC not also target its old friend the Guardian?  It after all knew of the story themselves…and didn’t want to sign up to the new regulator…

Diane von Furstenberg: “I started my business to pay my own bills and sleep with whoever I wanted”

In fact, she’s the epitome of what you might call “a strong woman”. Von Furstenberg is dismissive of that term though. “I never met a woman who wasn’t strong” she declared, “but I think men and religion can make them hide it. It’s telling that when tragedy strikes it’s always the women who take over.”

Diane von Furstenberg started her business so that she didn’t have to rely on a man for a living and didn’t have to marry for security…she could do so, in the West, for love, even if the man was poor as a church, or mosque, mouse.

So women in the progressive West are pretty free to do as they like should circumstances permit…whereas in other cultures women maybe strong except when oppressed by men and religion.  And oppressed by other women….such as Anita Anand whose take on the world is naive and childlike and full of wishful thinking and wilful blindness.  Anand thinks religion plays no part in women’s oppression.

The BBC’s Anita Anand, in this 2002 article, is pretty unconcerned about the Burkha in Afghanistan and elsewhere because, you see, when the Taliban fell the women of Afghanistan didn’t all rush into the streets ripping off their veils, ipso facto, they are happy being clad in what amounts to a body bag…in reality they are in effect dead to the world, locked into that symbol of oppression.

The Taliban had been forced into the mountains. They had been bombed into the ground. They weren’t running the show anymore. And yet – and yet… women still didn’t take to the streets on mass and get rid of the veil. Sure some did. But not the majority. They still chose to wear the veil.

While the West was clapping itself on the back with such enthusiasm they lost sight of one point. The war against the Taliban can only make sense if we take into account the real truth. Their crime, as far as I am concerned, was not their belief in Islam – as my fellow speakers will tell you, women too voluntarily have that belief. The Taliban’s crime was that they didn’t give women a choice!

The Hindu Anand sticks up for Islam and the Taliban, not so bad it seems, as long as they give women a choice….well they do have a choice…being stoned or lashed.  Hurray for the good guys of the Taliban, so progressive.

She says she loves the West and yet criticises it as if it were the evil twin of the Taliban, the equal to its oppression of women.  She does that BBC trick of relativising everything and reducing the argument down to the point of sublime ridiculousness with single extreme points being used to represent whole swathes of culture, history and society…here she tries to suggest that all that suffrage is being presented as if it was purely to enable Jennifer Lopez et al to bare their breasts in public…

Let’s not indulge the idea that 1,000 years of women’s progress was achieved so Jennifer Lopez could display her breasts.

I don’t think any people do reduce the argument for women’s rights down to the right to go topless.  Somehow I think the argument is more rounded and grown up than that.

She reduces the criticism of Islam down to it being an argument solely about women’s rights, and even then she dismisses that as nothing to do with Islam.  In other words the Taliban aren’t so bad, they’re guided by Islam but it isn’t Islam that makes women wear the veil and  the Burkha …so the Taliban aren’t so bad really when compared to the West….the West that still oppresses women, secretly….

And OK – so we in the west have freedoms of choice and expression. Does that make the west a female-friendly place. Don’t kid yourselves for a second.

Ask yourself…if you were a woman where would you rather live…Afghanistan or any Islamic state, or the UK?

Anand then digs out some quotes from the Bible to show how despotic and misogynist Christians are….

We live in a nominally Christian country – and so (as George Dubya is so keen to remind us) do the Americans. Christianity believes that pretty much everything awful is the fault of Eve and her apple.

St Paul in the New Testament says: “ A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I don’t permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man; she must be silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam wasn’t the one deceived. It was the woman was deceived and became a sinner, but women will be saved through childbearing.”

The reformer Martin Luther was even more blunt. Speaking of women and childbirth he said: “If they become tired or even die, that doesn’t matter. Let them die in childbirth, that’s why they are there”.

Words like this wouldn’t have been unheard of from the mouths of the Taleban a few months ago, would they? Perhaps the world of Kandahar and that of Big Brother really aren’t as different as we think.

So Mullah Omar [RIP] and Justin Welby…one and the same really, brothers under the skin, under the cassock?

A nonsense as Anand knows, the Christian Church has had its teeth pulled long ago and has been reduced to a ceremonial, ritualistic role that is more worthy godfather to the country than turbulent priest raving about hairshirts and damnation…those wannabe turbulent priests, such as Giles Fraser, have had to turn to Marxism to get their kicks these days, the Church has lost its bite…thankfully.  And that’s the point, Islam has not been neuteured so that it fits in with a tolerant, progressive, Western society.  It is still the ancient, barbaric, bigoted and intolerant ideology that stormed out of the desert 1400 years ago to imprison and colonise so much of the world at the point of a sword.

Which brings us to the latest of Anand’s anti-Western diatribes…for this she has linked up with the ‘Gone native’ William Dalrymple, who seems to have a preference for the Islamist to the Westerner.  This if anything is even more childish and infantile than the 2002 article…its language and use of simplistic and exaggerated representations of British actions as brutal or immoral are the stuff of naive teen essays thinking that sensationalism makes up for lack of argument….

Viewpoint: Koh-i-Noor – a gift at the point of a bayonet

The Koh-i-Noor was taken by the British, by force, from a frightened little boy, his son.

Therefore the diamond came to Britain thanks to dubious legality and very clear immorality.

Those untrustworthy, scheming, bullying British…

Despite signing treaties of friendship with Ranjit Singh, after his death the British began garrisoning troops around the border.

These were deemed acts of naked aggression by the Sikhs and provoked war. Having surreptitiously cut deals with leading members of his court, the British managed to persuade them to betray their King and weaken his army, leading to defeat in the first Anglo-Sikh War.

Inveigling their way into the Lahore Durbar in this way, they separated Duleep Singh from his mother, the Regent, dragging her screaming to a tower and contrived a second Anglo-Sikh war. What was left was a thoroughly weakened realm.

Alone and terrified, this small child was surrounded by grown British men, and told to sign away his future.

Alone and terrified?  Really?  In fact he was well served by his advisors as you’d expect any regent to be.  Anand paints a picture that is designed purely to attack the British, she makes no mention of the previous history of the diamond which would bring into the open the fact that it has changed hands, at the point of a bayonet, many times in its history and the ‘owner’ from whom the British took it was in fact only the owner due to it being forceably removed from a previous ‘owner’.

A previous BBC article makes this plain…

The Koh-i-Noor, meaning “Mountain of Light” in Persian, is the most famous diamond in the Crown Jewels. It has been the subject of conquest and intrigue for centuries, passing through the hands of Mughal princes, Iranian warriors, Afghan rulers and Punjabi Maharajas.

I guess Anand thought that might undermine the argument a bit too much…..winning it in battle is a perfectly normal and expected part of war….Nelson’s sailors were rewarded handsomely with money from the sale of captured ships.

Anand says….

Had the diamond truly been a gift, the Delhi Gazette, a British newspaper, would hardly have printed in May 1848: “This famous diamond (the largest and most precious in the world) forfeited by the treachery of the sovereign at Lahore, and now under the security of British bayonets at the fortress of Goindghur, it is hoped ere long, as one of the splendid trophies of our military valour, be brought to England in attention of the glory of our arms in India”.

But the diamond was not a gift and was never presented as such…it was taken in war as compensation for having to fight the war….as the man who arranged the transfer,  the Marquess of Dalhousie, explained…

The motive was simply this: that it was more for the honour of the Queen that the Koh-i-noor should be surrendered directly from the hand of the conquered prince into the hands of the sovereign who was his conqueror, than it should be presented to her as a gift—which is always a favour—by any joint-stock company among her subjects.

Anand finishes with this barb…..

I don’t know about you, but I don’t know of many “gifts” that are handed over at the point of a bayonet.

Can we have America back then from those violent, scheming Yankee rebels who took it from us at the point of a bayonet?…or how about Pakistan?  Can India have ‘Pakistan’ back as it was basically stolen at the point of a bayonet by the Muslims?

I note the article was originally titled…

Koh-i-Noor – a gift at the point of a bayonet

It was updated, and had some dates corrected, with this title…

Viewpoint: Koh-i-Noor – a gift at the point of a bayonet

Any thought that such an obviously one-sided article that painted the British in such a bad light without making reference to context and the broad sweep of history was eventually deigned slightly unworkable as ‘news’ and was reduced to a mere ‘viewpoint’ on consideration of its lack of merit as a factual piece?

Anand, despite professing her love of Britain, seems to have a few problems with the West…how soon she forgets the reason she is here in Britain….that her parents were driven out of what became Pakistan by the Muslim ethnic cleansing of the Hindus and Sikhs on Partition….the only reference to this was this uninformative comment which hardly gives evidence to the horrors that went on as nearly a million people were murdered and millions more driven from their homes and land in order to create a Muslim state…

 My parents were Hindus from India but before partition they came from the Muslim dominated North West Frontier Province

…and yet the BBC et al demonise Israel and demand its removal from the map and from its place in the world.  Why not then similarly Pakistan?  Anti-‘Zionism’?  Hardly.

Let’s keep the diamond and send Anand to the land of her fathers instead as she seems so enamoured with the culture of the Taliban….it must be terrifying for her to lie awake at night thinking that Justin Welby is planning to launch a religious war of conquest, a crusade, across Britain, teaming up with those extremists of the Catholic Church, expecting to hear the Inquisiton knocking at her door at any moment to test her faith in the one true God and to teach her to be a good Christian woman, quiet, submissive and obedient.

Cameron attacked Labour for supporting Sadiq Khan as their candidate to be the London Mayor….the Labour that ‘sympathises with terrorists’.

In his statement he said…..

“If we are going to condemn not just violent extremism but also the extremism that seeks to justify violence in any way, it is very important that we do not back these people and that we do not appear on platforms with them,” the Prime Minister said.

He told us that we must understand the problem of Islamic extremism within the Muslim community or we will take the wrong path to deal with it.

Well you could start with the MCB….the failure to understand their views and how those views are so very widespread within the Muslim community means that for years we have been failing to grasp the real problem behind ‘radicalisation’….it’s not poverty, marginalisation, discrimination or a war on Islam and Muslims…..it starts with an ideology that very clearly creates a very stark them and us divide within society.  The refusal by politicians and the media to admit that means it is left to fester…..and leaves us with a very uncertain future.

You may have noticed that the BBC has been doing some catching up on the subject of the Ahmadis after having refused to broadcast the fact that the murder of  Asad Shah in Glasgow was the result of mainstream Muslim hatred of Ahmadis.  However, you may also have noticed, that the BBC ascribes the hatred to the usual ‘small group of extremists who don’t represent Islam’ line.

Victoria Derbyshire took a look at the subject last week.  And yes, it’s just a small group of extremists to blame.  No mention of the views of the extremist, sorry, ‘conservative’, MCB which is by far and away the most representative Muslim organisation in the UK today…oh hang on, here’s the one mention we do get…a screen shot of the MCB’s mantra of peace and love scrolling by on a computer …the MCB ‘condemns violence or hatred towards any group’.…..that’s alright then…..

Others might disagree…from the Independent:

The Muslim Council of Britain has officially decided I’m not Islamic enough – but I never did anything wrong

Why should this even matter to an outsider? The MCB has for long been a credible organisation, representing several mosques and Islamic groups, and done a lot of valuable work on behalf of Muslim communities across the UK. But their recent statement has wider, and potentially dangerous, implications for us all.

When Muslims start playing God in this way, religious prejudice, bigotry and hate will inevitably rise – including here in Britain.

Why did the BBC put that screen shot front and centre in its programme and yet not mention the MCB’s real beliefs on the subject at all?  Not hard to find…here’s their latest pronouncement after the killing of Asad Shah…

Why does the BBC ignore the fact that this mainstream, powerful and influential Muslim group, lays the groundwork for the widespread Muslim beliefs about the Ahmadis that lead to such attacks, or indeed that such views are ddefinitely not the preserve of a small, unrepresentative, extremist segment of Muslims?

The BBC, as always ducking, the truth, scared of the real answer and what it means for Europe.

Always interesting those little comments that slip out and which reveal so much.

Peter Allen was discussing Northern Ireland and Stormont.  We heard how things may not be perfect now and people may not be happy with Stormont’s government but they forget how bad it was before…Allen piped up….‘A bit like Europe then’…..Yeah that’s right Peter, the EU, so unappreciated…it may not be perfect but let’s not forget that without it, that unelected, undemocratic EU regime that uses every trick in the book to force ‘ever-closer union’, submission and compliance to its demands, the Fascist dictators would be back in power.  The EU, we’re lucky to have it, you’re so right Peter…..better the devil you know.  Vote remain…tied to the Titanic.

We also had Cameron on PMQ’s attacking Labour for supporting Sadiq Khan who has very dubious beliefs and common purpose with some very dubious people.  Martha Kearney on World at One told us that the allegations against Khan were ‘disputed allegations’ which seems an odd turn of phrase clearly designed to throw doubt on allegations that are in fact very well founded.  She also told us that Labour MPs shouted ‘racist’ at Cameron…..now that is pretty well impossible to discern from the audio, I  heard one female voice shout it but only by listening very closely a couple of times, and it raises the question why the BBC would mention something so hard to hear….clearly just want to throw mud hoping it will stick [The Telegraph then picked up the story…but probably from the BBC…which shows how the BBC effects the whole media narrative and sets the hounds running]…no ‘disputed’ allegation of racism here though…..if you oppose Islamic extremism you’re a racist…..Labour playing the race card to close down democratic debate and ignoring the Islamism of its own Mayoral candidate and it’s Cameron that the BBC chooses to undermine.

Nicholas Witchell, still the BBC’s royal correspondent, had a sly dig at Prince Charles when discussing his own interview with Prince William.  Talking about his workload and how he decides what to give priority to, William said he was giving more time to his family.  Witchell decided this was the result of some deep, psychological trauma William had suffered …..ie he had been somehow neglected and he witnessed how his father had treated his mother…ie Diana and all that.  This was pure Witchell speculation and invention…nothing to do with Charles having called Witchell ‘That awful man’ once and William having snubbed him last year?….The man the royals love to HATE: So what HAS the BBC’s Nicholas Witchell done to upset them so much? 

No wonder Giles Fraser loves immigration so much….his flock doth increaseth so much….and as they probably don’t speak English too well it doesn’t matter that Giles speaks utter bilge most of the time….

When you get this, I will be deep inside Frau Merkel’s Islamistan! Detail the bias here please, you know it makes sense!

The BBC would have known about Natalie Rowe’s claims about Whittingdale since 2014 when they started to come out into the public sphere, and mid 2015 they were published in her book.

Did Rowe contact the BBC immediately herself in early 2014?  It looks like she had a falling out with the BBC, Panorama, around then over their harassment of her for an exclusive story about something.

Rowe seems to have forgiven them by the middle of 2015 and is making direct accusations about Whittingdale…and the BBC is not reporting them…….why not?   Make of this what you will…..the BBC ‘holding back’, the BBC not reporting….not reporting what exactly?……#Whittingdale……in the public interest, crucial for the BBC [future?]…

Did the BBC know about Whittingdale at least by October 2015?  And if so…why not report it?…..How can they attack the Press for a ‘cover-up’ conspiracy if they themselves have done exactly the same?……

Natalie Rowe ‏@RealNatalieRowe 26 Oct 2015  @BienSoeur @Glenn_P_Rice After you find out what #BBC held back on reporting, NO ONE should ever pay a licence fee. #WHITTINGDALE

Natalie Rowe ‏@RealNatalieRowe 26 Oct 2015  @BienSoeur @Glenn_P_Rice Wait till I let you in on what #BBC haven’t reported and believe me, it’s of great Public interest,for them crucial

Natalie Rowe ‏@RealNatalieRowe 22 Jul 2015   @JWhittingdale What a disgrace you are! You have a love of Prostitutes & drugs so leave the #BBC alone and concentrate on what you know BEST

Natalie Rowe ‏@RealNatalieRowe 5 Nov 2015  @JWhittingdale @BBC > Can’t bare the stench of corruption

 Natalie Rowe ‏@RealNatalieRowe 19 Dec 2015  Soon folks this Email from-Editor of @Independent namely #Amol will become more clear. #BBC #Whittingdale #Coverup

In reply to BBC Politics  Natalie Rowe ‏@RealNatalieRowe 21 Dec 2015  @BBCPolitics @BBCNews Shame the #BBC hands are tied, when it comes to outing corrupt Tory Politicians. #newsnight. Jog on !

Natalie Rowe ‏@RealNatalieRowe Jan 17 2016  @PrettyHatMech @hannahmge @bbcnickrobinson @BBC @janemartinson No worries, #Whittingdale Exclusive very soon. This week will be interesting

[Jane Martinson is from the Guardian]

Here are the 2014 Tweets regarding the BBC’s Alistair jackson who was trying to arrange some sort of exclusive deal….

Natalie Rowe ‏@RealNatalieRowe 2014   @KazzJenkins No need to complain,I’ll just post the email on Twitter , that will show the Contempt of #BBC , it’s show them at their worst

Natalie Rowe ‏@RealNatalieRowe 15 Apr 2014  @JackoJourno Unfollow me you Parasite , don’t leave anymore messages on my phone , I’m not a dumb DOM , I wouldn’t give you an exclusive

Natalie Rowe ‏@RealNatalieRowe  @JackoJourno stop texting me privately do it on Twitter for everyone to see, have the guts, screw you ,Panorama and BBC, should be ashamed

Memory lane….let’s take a trip….

Labour’s Hugh Gaitskell in October 1962, predicted the truth five decades ago….

‘Of course, the Tories have been indulging in their usual double-talk. When they go to Brussels they show the greatest enthusiasm for political union.

‘When they speak in the House of Commons they are most anxious to aver that there is no commitment whatever to any political union.’

What the Tories two-faced?  You are kidding pal!…..Remember this…..

Reform EU or Britain quits – George Osborne lays down ultimatum

George Osborne will today deliver a stark warning to Britain’s European partners that the UK will leave the EU unless it embarks on whole-scale economic and political reform.

“The biggest economic risk facing Europe doesn’t come from those who want reform and renegotiation – it comes from a failure to reform and renegotiate.

“It is the status quo which condemns the people of Europe to an ongoing economic crisis and continuing decline.”

“There is a simple choice for Europe: reform or decline. Our determination is clear: to deliver the reform, and then let the people decide.”

British PM Cameron lays out terms, warns Britain could still leave EU

Britain would “think again” over its EU membership if no deal is reached.

Just last November Cameron said we could have to consider leaving the EU…..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfpeiH0uDF8

Oh and remember this from his Bloomberg speech…..rings hollow today…….

Proponents of both sides of the argument will need to avoid exaggerating their claims.

However, now, it’s a looming, blooming, apocalypse if we leave the EU…

UK economy ‘could be 6% smaller’ after EU exit, warns Treasury

Britain’s national income could be 6% smaller by 2030 if the UK leaves the European Union, a major report by the Treasury will say.

The 200-page report says the size of the cut in gross domestic product would be the equivalent of about £4,300 a year for every household.

Trade barriers will be higher – hitting exports – and investment will be lower both within the UK and from abroad after an EU exit, the report argues.

 

George Osborne: UK would be ‘permanently poorer’ outside EU

The UK would be “permanently poorer” outside the European Union, Chancellor George Osborne has warned ahead of the in-out vote on membership on 23 June.

So how times change eh?  One minute it’s a reasonable and appropriate action to take to leave the EU if it remained unreformed, the next it is the end of the world if we do….and of course it is unreformed.

But then abrupt changes of tack and opinion are not unusual for Osborne….and nor is incompetence at economic forecasting and management…remember the omnishambles in 2012?  Of course that was just one of many to come….2016 just the latest.  But also remember the frenetic BBC analysis, the forensic way the BBC poured over every little detail so as to better embarass Osborne….as I say how times change when it comes to Osborne’s doomladen prophecy about leaving the EU, the BBC doesn’t seem too keen to ask too many difficult questions.

But let’s first consider Osborne’s opinion on how the economy is running.

In November last year things were looking up and he and Cameron were promising us the world…Here they are seeming very pleased with themselves in 2015…

But hang on, just three months later after giving us his barnstorming prediction of economic boom the forecast was suddenly turned upside down and we were heading for recession…

George Osborne warns of further spending cuts in Budget

Chancellor George Osborne has warned he may have to make fresh cuts to public spending in next month’s Budget.

Mr Osborne told the BBC global economic turmoil and slower growth meant “we may need to undertake further reductions”…as figures showed the UK economy was smaller than expected.

Labour’s John McDonnell said it was “a total humiliation” for Mr Osborne and that the British people would end up paying for Mr Osborne’s own failures.

He accused the chancellor of having “sneaked off to China to admit what Labour have been saying for months – that his recovery is built on sand”.

“Far from paying our way, Osborne’s short-term economics means Britain is deeper and deeper in hock to the rest of the world,” he said. “He is threatening the British people with paying an even higher price for his own failures.”

And what of the 2016 budget…surely George got it right this time?  Er no…..

It’s official: this is George Osborne’s worst Budget since the ‘omnishambles’ of 2012

This is another ‘omnishambles’ on an epic scale for Osborne, and he may drag the government down with him

George seems to have a little bit of trouble forecasting the economics even three months ahead…never mind forecasting the political reaction to his stunts.  How can he be forecasting the prospects for our economy up until 2030, predicting an economy in ruins without the EU to prop us up?

What does the BBC think?

Have they gone in all guns blazing, tearing his figures apart and examinig them in the minutest detail as per norm with a Tory budget?  Not really.

Things didn’t start well with this rather upbeat and positive spin on Osborne’s claims from Kamal Ahmed:

UK economy ‘could be 6% smaller’ after EU exit, warns Treasury

Nick Robinson levelled things out a bit on the Today programme (08:10) with an interview with Osborne that asked the right questions but didn’t get bogged down in the figures too much.

We also had Brillo on Sunday, slightly off thread but about the EU, tackling Tristram Hunt, asking the questions that you very rarely hear on the BBC about what the risks might be of staying in the EU such as increased immigration, economic risk of being dragged down with the EU and a forced marriage as the EU grinds inevitably towards ever-closer union taking us with it.   Hunt blustered and gave us bland, sweeping answers that answered nothing really.

Back to the economic apocalypse of a Brexit and we have the BBC’s ‘Reality Check’…..which seemed merely to be playing at impartiality and in reality was just putting a positive spin on the figures.

It tells us that Osborne may be exaggerating slightly but he’s in the right ballpark…the trend is still a negative one if we leave.

The BBC tells us that it has examined the economic models used to make the predictions and…

If you are still reading, the thing to take away from this morning’s events is this: ignore the headline figures – the Treasury thinks that leaving the EU would be bad for the UK economy, reducing its output by a considerable amount.

Ah…so we’re still doomed even of you ignore the models….er….aren’t the Treasury figures based on the models so how can we ignore them, how can we judge the truth of the treasury figures without knowing if they were generated using a credible model?

What if you really want to get to grips with the models, do they stand up to scrutiny?….

If what you care about is economic modelling, then this is a perfectly respectable piece of modelling, following broadly similar methodology to the one from the Centre for Economic Performance,

So the models are trific?  Guido thinks not….

Lobby journalists and MPs have reacted with bewilderment at the Treasury’s use of a number of complex mathematical equations to underpin their argument for Brexit. This much vaunted analysis was based on a “gravity model”, a device used to model “trade flows between two countries as a function of economic variables such as GDP, geographic..and cultural variables”.

Well, the Treasury’s gravity model has been discounted numerous times for its use in predicting the impact that large scale economic changes will have on the economy. 

Regardless, let’s get things in perspective as the BBC guides us through the maths…

One useful thing from this Treasury report is that it helps put into context the significance of the UK’s contribution to the EU Budget. The Treasury says that the 6% of GDP in 2030 would cut tax receipts by £36bn, dwarfing the contributions to the EU. Indeed, the Treasury has reached the £36bn figure after subtracting the UK’s £7bn a year average net contribution.

See what I mean… the BBC just oozes pro-Osborne fudgery, it looks like analysis but always edges towards the pro-EU side….’We’ve examined the figures…yes, maybe slightly off, but the general thrust is correct…we’re doomed, doomed I tell you, if we Brexit!’

Or to put it in BBCSpeak:

Reality Check verdict: The precise figure is questionable and probably not particularly helpful. If you want to be influenced by economic modelling, the useful thing to take away is that the Treasury thinks leaving the EU would be bad for the economy, by an amount that would dwarf the savings from not having to contribute to the EU Budget.

So you might think leaving will mean more money but in fact…we’re doomed.

As I have said the BBC isn’t tearing Osborne a new one over his figures as they normally do, and even seem to be giving a bit of subdued cheerleading.  Robinson did a decent interview though and he will be giving Gove a going over on Tuesday at some time…no doubt 08:10.  Kuenssberg gives a mainly pro-Osborne analysis here being fairly dismissive of the Brexit camp.

Osborne is essentially getting away with murder here…the BBC not really holding him to account despite the rain of scorn being poured down on him and his figures from other quarters…and not much of a look back at Osborne and Cameron’s hypocrisy and failures on leaving the EU and the budgets.

Why do we get nothing like this from the BBC?  Here is Nelson Fraser in the Spectator giving Osborne a going over [It will be interesting to see if Nelson gets an interview on the BBC about this…they usually drag him when he has something critical to say  about Osborne’s handiwork]…