Here you go – a much overdue Open Thread. Detail the bias here!

Not a good day for the BBC.  Or, in other words, just another day for the BBC.

On the Today programme as someone from the RUSI,  Dr Karin von Hippel, came on to discuss Brussels and who said that ISIS’ success in recruiting lay in it’s image of ‘invincibility’…the BBC presenter asked if it wasn’t really the unfairness of the West’s attacks on IS targets that radicalised Muslims…The RUSI spokeswomen said  ‘I’m not sure I’d say that.’….the presenter’s ‘OK’ in response said so much in its tone of disappointment.  So, BBC, explain why attacking the Islamic State sponsors of terror can be seen as ‘unfair’ by your everyday Muslim?  Think such an attitude from Muslims might go a long way to explaining the real problem.

Frank Gardner blames the Belgium government for not being nice to Muslims for the fact that one terrorist was able to hide in Molenbeek…it showed, apparently, that the people were disaffected and alienated and so do not want to talk to the police.  Or…or it could show that they support the terrorists or at least their ideology if not the violence.

After the arrest of Abdeslam in Molenbeek there were reports of local youths attacking ­Belgian security forces. This was not simply because the police were in ‘their’ area, but because the authorities had taken away someone that some of them admired.

Then we had Nicky Campbell asking how we can stop radicalisation and the attacks.  Surely he should show more respect for the dead?  How dare he raise such a question as the blood is still being cleaned up from the attack sites?  How is it OK for Campbell to ask such questions about stemming the flow of Jihadi recruits but not for anyone from UKIP to do so?  Schengen is clearly a problem that enables terrorists to themselves move freely around Europe and to ship weapons around as well…the result of which we see repeatedly….and which the BBC prefers to blame on ‘unemployment’.

Adrian Chiles yesterday attacked UKIP for mentioning Schengen as a security risk...“This horrific act of terrorism shows that Schengen free movement and lax border controls are a threat to our security.”    I do not see any mention of the EU referendum despite Chiles himself continuously linking that statement to it.  Also odd he does not mention this…

Other parliamentarians took a different view to Ukip. Conservative MEP Timothy Kirkhope said he was in the European Parliament at the time of the explosion.

“[This attack] highlights need for pan European co-operation on counter terrorism,” he tweeted.

So it’s OK for a pro-EU Tory to promote closer EU co-operation without being accused of disrespecting the dead?

In fact Europe thinks the lack of border control is a problem…just not Schengen….’The European Union will tighten checks at external borders of the passport-free Schengen area, including for its own citizens who enjoy free movement within the bloc, to boost security after the attacks in Paris by armed militants.’  

Chiles today had a UKIP spokeperson on his show along with other politicians and he again raised the subject and he demanded she ‘disassociate herself from Nigel Farage’s comments’.…despite the fact that it wasn’t Farage who made the comment…and never mind that Farage had already made the link between terrorism and Schengen long ago…‘In December last year Nigel Farage, Ukip’s leader, said that the “idealised Schengen area” had led to “the free movement of Kalashnikovs” around Europe’.. ..perhaps if people had listened then 34 people might still be alive.

Chiles later returned to the subject and again tried to attack the UKIP spokesperson by saying ‘they’re still pouring disinfectant on the blood in Brussels…just give it a bit of tme’.  Once again though the BBC man ignores the other side using Brussels to promote EU co-operation as the Labour and Libdem people weighed in attacking UKIP but then saying that it is ‘safer to stand together, we must not fracture Europe.’…Chiles himself ridiculously came up with the comparison that Europe gives us not only free movement of people but of information and intelligence…suggesting therefore it is safer to stay in Europe….so not only does he side with the pro-EU camp he also uses the Brussles attack to do so.  Hypocrits?  Whilst the blood is still being cleaned up?  Anyway he clearly hadn’t been following the news as the free flow of intelligence, the lack of, was being pinged as one of the major problems.

Here’s a BBC report attacking Farage and his comments…note what’s missing.  Apparently it is OK for Lord Hill, European Commissioner for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union to say no real problem with Europe….though he admits ‘”I think there are questions obviously about Schengen, how it’s operating. It needs to operate better.” ‘  So Farage is right.

The BBC reports ‘Former Conservative minister Peter Bottomley – who called at Prime Minister’s Questions for people to unite with “hope not hate” – has tabled a Commons motion saying Mr Farage’s comments “should be challenged within and outside his party”.’

Odd they miss this from former PM, Lord Howard…..EU fails to keep us safe, says Michael Howard: Tory peer says Schengen is like ‘hanging a sign welcoming terrorists to Europe’ 

The BBC reports ‘Rob Wainright, a former director of Europol, said police co-operation across the EU had improved considerably over the past decade, with the European Arrest Warrant speeding up extradition procedures and the UK having access to the Schengen Information System – a network containing details of hundreds of thousands of wanted criminals and missing people.’ 

Odd no mention of this from Rob Wainwright: Isis: Up to 5,000 jihadists could be in Europe after returning from terror training camps abroad. 

Wainwright says ‘“Europe is currently facing its biggest terror threat in more than a decade,” he told Germany’s Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung newspaper’….and yet the BBC and pro-EU politicians want to hide that fact and silence those who want to secure the borders.  The BBC would rather we all die in terror attacks than admit any fault with the EU structures and the EU itself.

The BBC….anti-UKIP, pro-EU, pro-hiding difficult truths.  Just another day on the BBC.

The world upside down, Piers Morgan turns right and Jeremy Clarkson comes out as a flabby liberal (although if you’d read his books you’d know that already).

The politicians are flooding the airwaves, talking a good fight with grandiose, puffed up, self-serving bombast about their urgent mission to end the scourge of terrorism [by sitting on their arses] and then also tell us we must unite, all cultures, religions and races, we must allow Muslims to be more Muslim so that they feel happy and ‘integrated’ [by being ever more separate!?]…in other words doing exactly what the ‘radicals’ want…Islamising Europe.

One man refuses to play nice and peddle those lies…Donald Trump…and Piers Morgan thinks he may be right…

When it comes to terror, isn’t it time we started listening seriously to Trump?

How many more?

That’s all I could think this morning as news broke of yet another ISIS terror attack, this time in Brussels.

How many more innocent men, women and children are going to be blown to pieces by these murderous bastards?

How many more airports, train stations, sports stadiums, restaurants or concert halls will be obliterated in a hail of suicide bombs and bullets?

How many more world leaders will wring their hands on national television afterwards and spout pointless platitudes about the ‘poor brave victims’ and ‘heroic emergency services’?

How many taunting, gleeful claims of responsibility will the despicable perpetrators of these evil crimes be able to issue?

I’m sick of this, aren’t you?

Sick of feeling sick about such endless, senseless barbarism.

And the worst thing about it is that I see no end.

The inherent problem which causes it, chaotic war-torn instability in the Middle East, is getting worse, not better; just as the financial and military resource of the enemy is growing greater, not reducing.

Yet just as the world is crying out for strong decisive leadership, there is none.

America has a demob happy President Obama eeking out his last few months in office. A man whose infamous ‘leading from behind’ philosophy to foreign policy has been partly responsible for the war in Syria raging uncontrollably for five years – allowing fundamentalism to ferment.

Obama has zero interest in doing anything tangible to really deal with ISIS. This is now parked in the tray marked ‘next president’s problem.’

Europe, meanwhile, is splintering at the seams, ravaged by an unprecedented migration crisis that nobody seems to have a clue how to handle.

German chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to let a million migrants into its country is already seen to be an utter disaster.

France, reeling from two horrendous attacks in Paris, is understandably highly fearful of yet more terror coming its way.

Belgium officials effectively conceded today that they have no real way to protect themselves against the ISIS threat. A fact surely born out by the fact that today’s onslaught in Brussels happened right when the city most expected it, following the capture of Paris attacks suspect Saleh Abdeslam three days ago.

Britain, surely a target anytime soon, is on red alert but its warring politicians are too distracted by the upcoming EU referendum in June to pay anything more than lame lip service to terrorism.

So nobody seems to be doing anything concrete to stop ISIS, or even suggesting a new way to do so given the spectacular lack of success to date.

Well almost nobody.

By coincidence, I had an interview scheduled today with the world’s most controversial man, Donald Trump, for my UK show, Good Morning Britain.

It was set up a couple of weeks ago, but the timing was eerily prescient.

Here is one man who definitely has a plan to deal with ISIS terrorism. Several plans in fact.

The problem is that people don’t like them. Well, a lot of people don’t anyway.

Trump, current front-runner for the Republican nomination, wants to hit ISIS ‘so hard they never recover’.

(As he told me: ‘You’ve got to take them out and you’ve got to take them out harshly and you’ve got to take them out fast.’)

He also wants a short-term ban on Muslims entering the U.S. until, as he puts it, ‘we figure out what the hell is going on?’

And he wants to torture suspects like Abdeslam with techniques like water-boarding to try and extract information about future attacks.

Oh, and he wants to build a giant wall to stop illegal immigrants pouring over the Mexican border into America. 

George Clooney hit out at Trump yesterday, as he endorsed Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton for the presidency, saying: ‘If you listen to the loudest voices out there today, you’d think we’re a country that hates Mexicans, hates Muslims, and thinks that committing war crimes is the best way to make America great again.’

I spoke to Trump for 40 minutes. He was, as you’d expect, bombastic, defiant and self-congratulatory. Why wouldn’t he be? He’s ripped up every political rulebook to take this presidential race by storm, a scenario that is hardly going to deflate the ego of New York’s most cock-sure billionaire tycoon.

But he also spoke in more detail about his plans to combat ISIS and I found myself nodding more than I expected.

Trump told me countries must tighten their borders in light of these terror attacks, especially to anyone related to an ISIS fighter in Syria.

Is he so wrong?

He told me he wants law-abiding Muslims to root out the extremists in their midst, expressing his bafflement and anger that someone like Abdeslam was able to hide for so long in the very part of Brussels he had previously lived.

Is he so wrong?

He told me America must make it far harder for illegal immigrants to enter the U.S. and thinks European countries should follow suit.

Is he so wrong?

He told me he believes there are now areas of many major European cities which have become poisonous breeding grounds for radicalized Islamic terror.

Is he so wrong? 

I didn’t feel I was talking to a lunatic, as many seem to view Trump.

I saw a guy, a non-politician unfettered by PC language restraints, who is genuinely furious at the devastation which ISIS is wreaking, and seriously concerned for the security of his fellow Americans and indeed, the citizens of Europe.

(Remember, Trump’s from New York and felt the horror of 9/11 very personally and very deeply like all New Yorkers.)

His plans for tackling this extraordinarily dangerous threat to the world have been widely condemned as ‘bigoted’ and ‘racist’.

But although I publicly criticised him for the Muslim short-term ban suggestion, I’ve known Trump for ten years and I don’t believe he’s a racist.

I think he’s someone who has spent his life responding to metaphorical punches on his nose by punching even harder back. 

And right now, he firmly believes that ISIS will murder countless more Americans and Europeans if somebody somewhere doesn’t stand up and punch them hard in the face.

Someone prepared to stop spewing politically-correct niceties after these attacks, hoping nobody gets offended, and actually DO something.

Let’s be honest with ourselves, right now ISIS is winning this war and will continuing committing utter carnage on our streets on an ever graver and more barbaric scale until they are stopped.

I don’t have the answers to how to do that.

But I don’t hear any good ideas coming from any world leaders at the moment either, and it’s their highly paid jobs to work it out.

Instead, I see a global paralysis driven by fear, confusion and woeful lack of leadership.

And it will only get worse.

Hate Donald Trump all you like, but at least he seems to recognise the magnitude of the threat and at least he has firm proposals for how to try to defeat it.

They may not win him the Politically Correct Pontificator of the Year award. But how many more scenes like this morning’s appalling images from Brussels are we going to tolerate before we try a non-PC option to beat these disgusting excuses for human beings?

At the end of our interview, I asked Donald Trump to send a message to the large majority of non-violent, decent Muslims who are as disgusted by these attacks as the rest of us.

‘I have great respect for Muslims,’ he said, ‘I have many friends that are Muslims. I’m just saying that there is something with a radicalized portion that is very, very bad and very dangerous. I would say this, to the Muslims, when they see trouble, they have to report it, they’re not reporting it, they’re absolutely not reporting it and that’s a big problem.’

Is he so wrong? 

The BBC et al have been pumping out the narrative that the Belgium bombers were poor, uneducated and marginalised….one BBC journo this morning said ‘It’s not an excuse but…it helps explain.’

One Eurocrat came on to ‘explain’ how it was all the fault of Muslim single mothers who struggle to make ends meet….cue outrage from the left?  Not a peep, the BBC journo didn’t raise an eyebrow so to speak.  Imagine if Farage or Trump had said such a thing.

However, as in the UK, things are not as the BBC protrays them.  Most UK radicals are well educated,  in employment and have had as fulfilling lives as any other ordinary person and yet the BBC portrays them as marginalised and abandoned.  It seems we are being sold the same lies Muslims in Belgium as the Mail illustrates.

The brother of one of the bombers is an electronics graduate and has represented Belgium, and won medals for, at Taekwondo.

The brother of Belgium’s public enemy number one is a medal-winning athlete who has proudly represented his country – and is ashamed of his terrorist brother, MailOnline can reveal.

Najim Laachraoui – the ‘man in white’ filmed walking through Brussel’s Zaventem Airport with suicide bombers Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui – is the younger brother Mourad Laachraoui, who represents Belgium in Taekwondo. 

Mourad has distanced himself from his terrorist younger brother Najim, and the family, who are of Moroccan descent, are deeply ashamed of his fanatical opinions and murderous activities. 

Mr Laachraoui added the family were ‘ashamed’ of Najim and feared his terrorist activities could harm Mourad’s athletic career. 

Mourad, 29, won a silver medal in the 54kg category at the world championship held in South Korea last year. This is the third medal the electronics’ graduate has won for Belgium, adding to previous bronze medals. 

The jet-setter has posted pictures of his travels to Dubai and Israel and his sporting achievements on social media.

He seems equally proud of his family, writing about a film night with his older brother and spending time with his young cousin.

Why is the BBC once again making excuses for terrorists?  Thirty four people were killed and hundreds injured and yet the BBC’s main concern is for the bombers, making up excuses to show how their actions are the fault of the Belgium government and western society…no blame on the bombers themselves.

Even if you were unemployed and ‘frustrated’ why is it then OK to go out on a mass murder spree?  Please explain BBC.

Please send someone, Tim Wilcox perhaps, to explain it all to the families of the dead….it’s OK, don’t mourn them, they died because a young Belgium Muslim didn’t have a job and it’s really, if you think about it, your dead family member’s fault……..so……

Muslim terrorists strike again and for the BBC what is the real concern?  The victims….not the ones killed and injured, not their relatives, but those who bombed Belgium, those who provided the narrative that encouraged and incited those bombers.

Nicky Campbell was straight off the mark with talk of  a ‘disaffected’ community in Molenbeek and then we had the EU politicians who came onto the programme to tell us how wonderfully multi-ethnic, multi-cultural Brussels is and how everyone gets on so well…it is important of course not to point fingers of blame at any one community, ethnicity, religion or race…note no mention of Islam in the many comments.

Then we had Afzal Ashraf from the RUSI on the Adrian Chiles show who told us that it would all be OK in the end as ISIS would eventually fizzle out just as Communism and Fascism did…no mention  it took a world war to get rid of Hitler, and Communism was faced down by a massive NATO military force and nucear weapons. ISIS will just fade away as potential recruits realise that they will not succeed.  Well it’s been 1400 years so far and counting.

ISIS, he tells us, is not about ideology, it’s all about land, territory, but then again he told us Communism was all about ideology…tell that to the Hungarians etc etc.  The Iron Curtain was not just a metaphor.

Ashraf did say one thing of note….the only way to defeat ISIS is for the world to unite against them and commit land forces….who’d have thought?

Then he did the usual thing and told us ISIS was absolutely not the way of Allah and that there is no basis in history religion for their actions…except of course the example, he might have mentioned, of the Prophet himself.  Apparently ISIS is a ‘very modern phenomenon’ with no ideology other than to capture territory….to do what with?  Who knows…maybe set up an ‘Islamic State’?

We then heard that UKIP had linked the attacks in Brussels and the freedom of movement of the terrorists coming as they did from Syria to the Schengen agreement and the lack of border controls. The BBC played a clip of Cameron saying this is not the time to be talking of such things…before he then went on to say he was locking down all the airports and sea ports and transport networks…so presumably open borders isn’t such a good idea unless you are grandstanding and playing politics by denying you are playing politics.

Adrian Chiles then came on to say he was wondering which would be the first party to exploit the attack and mention the EU referendum….not that I heard UKIP mention the referendum just Schengen….no criticism of Cameron’s playing up for the cameras and public perception.

On Newsnight we had Evan Davis say this wasn’t the time for asking what went wrong…he then proceeded to ask precisely that question as he mentioned a ‘pretty catastrophic failure of intelligence’, that we must protect soft targets and start profiling passengers.

Of course the real problem is those ‘disaffected’ Muslim youths with no jobs, no education and no prospects…it’s all the Belgium government’s fault.

Muslims in Molenbeek are the victims twice over, a school teacher is missing and they are subject to police checks, searches and racism…..however the reason so many get radicalised is because the were no controls on the recruiters in previous years…presumably no police checks, searches and ‘racism’.  If only the government had acted….all those unemployed, disaffected, marginalised and frustrated youths would be usefully employed and valuable members of society….or maybe, if mass immigration from North Africa hadn’t been allowed we wouldn’t have so many people who are not suitable for the job market and who profess an ideology so radically different to everything European.

Anyway, radicalisation..it’s all our fault in the West and there is no other rhyme or reason to it, it’s all a mystery as to why only Muslims are so radicalised….and they are the real victims here…as with 7/7 and all the rest.

Good old BBC, pro the terrorist, anti UKIP.

These results prompted the campaign group 38 Degrees to warn the government to leave the BBC alone.

Lorna Greenwood, the campaign manager at the organisation, which launched a petition signed by 400,000 people calling on the BBC to be protected, said: “There is huge public support for a properly funded and fully independent BBC.

“It’s been rumoured that the government has declared ‘war on the BBC’. But this huge show of public opinion proves that they need to back down. The government now needs to listen to the views of the public and protect the BBC from further cuts and government interference in news reporting.”

Which came first, the public response or 38 Degree’s claim that this response shows….?  The fact is 38 Degrees manufactured the response.

The below may show how those responses to the government’s request for public involvement in the Charter review may have been ‘massaged’ by campaign groups in order to get the pro-BBC repsonse required.

As far as I can see this is actually a petition from 38 Degrees itself [See ‘our people’] which judging by this page on its site is very pro the BBC and anti-Murdoch…..this is what they are sending out in emails to members referencing this…,…..the obviously far from independent 38 Degrees says….

Keep the BBC independent

This is the biggest threat to the BBC so far. John Whittingdale, the minister who’s deciding our BBC’s future, just announced he wants the Westminster government to choose the people who run the BBC. [1] It means our most trusted news source could become controlled by Westminster.

Whittingdale sneaked out his devastating plan at the weekend, to a newspaper that’s behind a paywall. [1] He knows that another scandal might put a stop to his plans to undermine the BBC for good. [2] So he’ll be hoping that 38 Degrees members aren’t paying attention.

We’ve got to act fast. If enough us sign an emergency petition in the next 48 hours demanding the BBC stays independent, 38 Degrees members will deliver it to him in person before Sunday. And exposing his plans in public will shine a light on his real agenda to dismantle our BBC.

Please can you add your name to the emergency petition now?

The way decisions are made in the BBC is under review. [3] But John Whittingdale’s using this as an opportunity to push his anti-BBC agenda and put his people in charge. They would have the power to decide news coverage and which BBC programmes are made. [4] It could mean the end of the BBC as we know it.

Whittingdale’s feeling the pressure right now after a series of damaging revelations on his plans for the BBC – including being caught lying about reading responses to the public consultation. [5] If we turn up the heat now, Whittingdale will have no option but to back down.

If thousands of us sign this emergency petition, then deliver it to him in just a few days, we could make Whittingdale realise that he’s fighting a losing battle and leave our BBC alone. This week could become the turning point in our people-powered campaign to protect the BBC.

Can you sign the emergency petition now? It’ll take less than 2 minutes:

Thanks for being involved,

Lorna, Bex, Laura and the rest of the 38 Degrees team

NOTES:
[1] The Sunday Times: BBC will be ruled by No10 appointees: (this article is behind a paywall, which means you need to sign up in order to read it. But you can read a version of this story from the Guardian below)
http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/Arts/article1677767.ece?CMP=OTH-gnws-standard-2016_03_13
The Guardian: Government will choose most members of BBC board, says Whittingdale:
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/mar/13/government-choose-bbc-board-john-whittingdale
[2] Here’s a few examples recently where John Whittingdale has been feeling the heat over his plans to rip the heart out of our BBC:
BBC News: BBC Charter renewal ‘may be delayed’:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-35725452
The Telegraph: Radio Times threatens John Whittingdale with judicial review over BBC consultation:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/bbc/12193836/Radio-Times-threatens-John-Whittingdale-with-judicial-review-over-BBC-consultation.html
The Guardian: BBC News most trusted source for more than half of people in the UK:
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/mar/10/bbc-news-most-trusted-source-for-more-than-half-of-people-in-the-uk
[3] BBC News: BBC Green Paper: Key points:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-33556009
[4] The Guardian: Government will choose most members of BBC board, says Whittingdale:
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/mar/13/government-choose-bbc-board-john-whittingdale
[5] The Telegraph: Radio Times threatens John Whittingdale with judicial review over BBC consultation:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/bbc/12193836/Radio-Times-threatens-John-Whittingdale-with-judicial-review-over-BBC-consultation.html

The Young Conservative, Nick Robinson, is proof positive that joining an organisation such as the BBC eventually means you will be absorbed into the orthodoxy and conform to the majority view, the BBC news-speak….Nick is now an Old Communist at heart as he suggests on the Today programme yesterday how sad it is that Cuba opens its doors to the malign influences of the Great Satan where ‘there may be a danger that it will spread Western inequalities in a nation that is already poor.’

So let’s see…opening up the society and economy of Cuba might make you, a Cuban, slightly richer but someone else may make more money than you, therefore you are in fact poorer.

Yep, keep ’em all poor and equal in their poverty.  Anyone with two cows…. shoot them!

Well then, a new week starts and time for a new Open Thread. Did you watch IDS on the Marr Show yesterday? What did you think of his treatment? I notice the BBC has been giving the CBI’s latest doom and gloom report on the consequences of the UK leaving the EU loads of exposure this morning. The floor is yours..

Obama to visit Cuba.

The Ladies in White are a Cuban dissident group formed in 2013 by the wives of political prisoners.

Odd isn’t it?  Odd how Cuba’s political prisoners were for so long forgotten by the BBC as it instead attacked America over Guantanamo Bay….a prison camp based on Cuba.  How must the Cuban political prisoners feel to have for so long been ignored in favour of Islamist terrorists despite being just over the fence in effect?

The BBC also ignored the millions who were killed in the Congo in faviour of attacking Israel.  Why?

45,000 a month were dying in the Congo, half of them children, 5.4 million since the war started.  And yet Israel’s self-defence actions were the BBC’s main concern as it continued to fight off the Muslim attacks that have tried to wipe it off the face of the earth for nearly 70 years.

The BBC, not really bringing you the news, just bringing you what it wants you to hear.

 

‘The richest fifth of the population are worse off now in terms of disposable income than they were before the 2007 financial crash, but the poorest fifth have typically become better off, according to official figures.’

“The economic downturn “had a negative impact on the incomes of all but the poorest fifth of the population”  ONS

 

Remember this from last year?  How times change…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGCp82eDlZg

A plan for working people, one purpose, one policy, one nation.  Hurrah says IDS.

What hasn’t changed is the BBC narrative about austerity, tax cuts ‘for the rich’ and welfare cuts punishing the poor and that of austerity being a political decision not one based upon economic necessity….the BBC believing that we should borrow to spend and stimulate….Labour’s very own narrative….as the Telegraph amusingly suggests….Sketch: Labour should have chosen Iain Duncan Smith as leader, not Jeremy Corbyn

In fact here’s little Owen Jones, and Yvette Cooper, spinning that very line in 2012….note the subject, disability…note who defends the government and says he is proud of what the government is doing…

IDS has, as you may have noticed, resigned from his government post, and then gone nuclear much to Labour’s and the BBC’s delight.  They, no doubt, cannot believe their luck that the former Work and Pensions Secretary should be parroting their narrative.  Is it stupidity, foolishness, immense bitterness or a conscience driven self-immolation taking the Tory Party down with him?

Looking at the evidence it would seem to be a combination of all those things…he must know that all the points he states are Labour’s favourite attack lines and that the BBC would leap instantly upon them as indeed they have.

What do we have?   The government is increasing unfairness and inequality, that it is not a one nation government, that austerity is a political decision and not a necessity, that reducing the deficit is important but the burden should be shared out more evenly, that the rich are not being made to pay to reduce the deficit.

Andrew Marr got the first interview.

Sue at is the BBC biased? says I thought Iain Duncan Smith was treated fairly.  Personally I don’t. Marr didn’t really have to say anything just let IDS dig an ever deeper hole for the Tory Party.  However Marr thought he could speed up the burial process..his first question being to ask IDS if he thought the disability cuts were immoral.  This of course immediately indicates the Labour supporting Marr’s thinking….nowhere does IDS suggest the the disability reforms are immoral and yet throughout the interview Marr continues to frame the question in that way until IDS has to deny his position is based upon morality, however you would define that.

Did IDS really think the disability cuts were unfair?  No, he supported them all the way…..read his letter and he merely says that he objected to the presentation of the cuts alongside the tax cuts for the better off….this made it hard to justify the disability cuts….but he still thought the cuts should go ahead….it was all a matter of perception.

IDS dodges about eluding the blame for any of the welfare policies it would seem despite, as Marr points out, having defended them and not objected to them at all vociferously.

IDS tells us that the welfare cap was ‘arbitrary’…well no, it’s not.  There is a budget and that limits spending…the question then is how much of that budget does each department get…that decision is based upon a whole range of factors and can in no way be described as arbitrary, the money pot is not bottomless and cannot possibly meet all the needs or wants of all the people, therefore a cap has to be set at some point.  IDS talks as if there is a limitless pot of money.  All spending caps on such terms are ‘arbitrary’….who gets what is a judgement not a science.

IDS says that we must get rid of the deficit but the money must come from others and not just from working age benefit cuts….and finishes on the claim that the government is in danger of dividing the nation becasue of their policy of only using the benefit cuts to fund deficit reduction.

But how true is that?  Marr wasn’t keen on questioning the claims so intent was he on claiming that ‘what’s happening now is immoral’ and that the government must change its austerity policy.  How can he suggest the government’s policy is ‘immoral’ when they have raised the lowest paid’s disposable income, got millions more into work and made the rich pay far more than they were paying before?

We’ve seen IDS cheering madly the introduction of the living wage for the poorest in society, we’ve seen the lowest paid being taken out of income tax and we’ve seen millions of jobs created taking those reliant on benefits off those benefits and into the workforce along with higher tax credits and job seeker’s allowance. But what of the rich?  They get away with it don’t they?

Did you ever see the BBC splashing the headlines with this in February?

Richest fifth in the UK worse off since financial crash, official figures reveal

The richest fifth of the population are worse off now in terms of disposable income than they were before the 2007 financial crash, but the poorest fifth have typically become better off, according to official figures which could spark controversy among anti-austerity campaigners.

The data from the Office for National Statistics, published on Tuesday, also reveals a generational split, with the average disposable income of retired households now higher than in 2007-08 – in stark contrast to millions of working households, who are typically around £900 a year worse off.

According to the ONS, in 2014-15 the typical household paid £7,700 in direct taxes, which includes income tax and council tax. After these are taken into account, the average income enjoyed by the richest 20% of households is around five and a half times that of the poorest 20% – £67,000 and £12,300 a year respectively.

However, the department said the economic downturn “had a negative impact on the incomes of all but the poorest fifth of the population”. It said the least well-off 20% of households were the only group whose average disposable income did not fall between 2007-08 and 2012-13. In 2014-15 the typical income of this group was £700 (5.8%) above its 2007-08 level.

By contrast, the average disposable income of the richest fifth of households fell the most following the downturn: by 3.2% between 2007-08 and 2014-15. It remains £2,000 below its previous peak.

The ONS said the increase for the poorest fifth was mainly due to an increase in average levels of pay for this group, along with higher benefit payments such as tax credits and jobseeker’s allowance.

How can IDS get that so wrong?  The ONS says that “The economic downturn “had a negative impact on the incomes of all but the poorest fifth of the population”  So the poorest in fact have been given a pay rise not a cut.

Even the BBC, in 2009, wanted to present the rich as paying their fair wack…a cynic might suggest they wanted to present Labour as a Party that made the rich pay…..but the Tories have made the rich pay even more and raised the disposable income of the poorest….and yet that’s ‘immoral’?…….

The people with the top 1 per cent of incomes pay very nearly a quarter of all the income tax, as the chart shows. So option d – the highest available – gets points. The other options are at best half the true amount.

We can also see from the chart that people with the top 10% of incomes pay more than half the income tax.

The Office for National Statistics’ annual publication about the effect of taxes and benefits (see internet links, above right) suggests that most people actually pay a similar share of their income in taxes when all taxes are taken into account, even up to the top 10 per cent as a whole.

It also says this….

Data suggest that people receive services from the state greater in value than the tax they pay up to about 70 per cent of the way up the income scale.

Here is the IFS, best beloved of the BBC, which asks, in 2010 just before the election..

Do the poorest really pay the most in tax?

The Liberal Democrats have, once again, claimed that the poor pay more of their income in tax than the rich, and that this gap has got larger under Labour.

The poorest fifth of households were clearly net beneficiaries from the tax and benefit system, to the tune of £2,151 a year, on average. At the other end of the scale, the richest fifth of households received £1,666 a year in income from the state, and so they are net contributors to the Government’s coffers, to the tune of £24,259 a year, on average.

These figures show what one would expect: the tax and benefit system as a whole takes money from the rich, and gives it to the poor.

In other words the poorest didn’t pay the most tax even as a proportion of their income…and you know what, that’s still the situation.

IDS seems to be as stupid as Osborne thinks he is, and the BBC is jumping for joy pumping out headlines like this…

Duncan Smith warns government risks ‘dividing’ society

Iain Duncan Smith has warned that the government risks dividing society, in his first interview since resigning as work and pensions secretary.

He attacked the “desperate search for savings” focused on benefit payments to people who “don’t vote for us”.

As I’ve said, it is curious that Marr never once challenged IDS’s claims and indeed went further trying to use them to portray the government as immoral.  IDS has utterly betrayed the Tory Party and handed massive ammunition to its enemies in the Labour Party and at the BBC who are not at all eager to question anything he has said, happy to go along with the nonsense…..and the BBC were enthusiastically dodging the EU question on Saturday in relation to this but have since been forced to raise the matter as it is seen as central to the resignation by so many one way or another.

Finally here is IDS vigorously defending benefit sanctions as Labour claims people die due to them….