The Labour Party may be totally ineffective against the Conservatives but it still has assets and none greater than the Junior Doctors in the NHS. The BBC has gleefully been pushing their narrative that the “evil” Jeremy Hunt is slashing their wages and making things dangerous to patients. As you will know, the reverse is true. Junior Doctors are in the top 10% of earners in the UL, they have been offered a double digit base salary increase so long as they accept a reduction in the dangerous and vast overtime hours they work. Their union, the BMA, rejects this and so a strike now looms.

I am sure you will have seen this story also…

“The actors that play the doctors in Holby City have offered their full support in the row over new contracts for medics.   Several big names from the BBC hospital drama have already spoken out in support of action including Rosie Marcel, who has played the surgeon Jac Naylor since 2005.”

It was Von Clausewitz who observed that “War is a mere continuation of politics by other means”  My contention that the NHS is Labour by other means and the BBC knows exactly what it is doing. The NHS is vast bloated monolith and far too many within it are Labour partisans. They are quite happy to emotionally blackmail us with the withdrawal of their services and the BBC is happy to assist.

You MIGHT have thought that when a senior Labour figure who aspires to be Chancellor of the Exchequer signs up to an agenda calling for MI5 to be disbanded and the Police disarmed, it might merit some serious time on the main BBC news. Forget it. John McDonnell has been caught again – in quite spectacular fashion and yet apart from the Daily Politics, the main BBC news deems this is not really a story. Quite REMARKABLE.

Ok – the weekend beckons and time for a new one of these Open Threads for you to complete. I wrote something very similar one week ago and then watched the horrific events unfold in Paris. One week on, the BBC have reverted to the hateful but predictable mantra that Islam is the victim and that we can only defeat it by ..doing nothing. Anyway, the floor is yours….

Man dies in male prison.

Sad to hear, suicide always is, but the BBC chooses this headline for another reason.

A transgender woman who told her friends she would kill herself if she was sent to a male prison has been found dead in jail. Vicky Thompson, 21, was being held at Armley, Leeds, where she was pronounced dead on Friday. Friends of Thompson, who was born male but had identified as female since her mid-teens, said she had asked to be sent to a female prison.

Well for starters,  he could “identify” as a Martian if he wanted, but he was biologically a male. The BBC is to the fore in suggesting that just because someone “identifies” as something then they ARE it! I recall taking part in a BBC discussion about the ludicrous claims from Rachel Dolezal that she “identified” as being Black, when  she was white. I felt great hostility for pointing out the simple truth that it doesn’t matter she she thinks, it only matters what she IS. Same in this case. The prison authorities are not to blame.

I think many readers of this site may agree with me that the BBC Question Time that was broadcast a few days AFTER 9/11 was perhaps one of the most shameful examples ever of BBC bias. As what remained of the bodies were still lying in the ruins of the Twin Towers, the howls of anger AGAINST America from the BBC “selected” audience virtually reduced that US ambassador to Britain, who was on the panel, to tears.

Well, I watched Question Time last night, and was disgusted with the Panel and the vile audience. Given that it was once more from Londonistan, Islamic State were assured an easy ride and so it proved. There seemed to be a consensus that Assad, NOT Islamic State, was the pressing problem. So insisted a lady wearing a muslim veil in the audience. Mehdi Hasan’s dissembling was met with roaring applause, and Anna Soubry was anaemic at best. There was no voice that strongly called Islamic State for the murdering Islamic killers they are. There were NUMEROUS voices telling us that Muslims suffer the most after these events. Incredible stuff from the BBC.

The ONLY thing that cheered was up was the first one and half minutes of THIS WEEK and Andrew Neil’s bravura performance. Had he said it on Question Time, I am sure it would have been met with…silence.

Antarctic ice is increasing, which, as with the ‘pause’, is a bit of a problem for the BBC’s climate alarmists. Their solution to the ‘pause’ was to ignore the fact that no one has explained what has caused the pause and instead have chosen to claim that it is definitely caused by the ocean suddenly absorbing more heat at a faster rate than it has ever done before….why it should suddenly do this is left unexplained….as is the 30 plus other reasons given by the ‘consensus’ scientists for the pause.  The ‘ocean heat sink’ theory is one that of course fits neatly into Harrabin’s own private narrative about climate change.

In a similar vein the BBC pretty much ignores the ice growth in the Antarctic, or claims it is, naturally, due to climate change, global warming.

Not only does the BBC ignore the ice growth it in fact, somewhat dishonestly, claims that the Antarctic is in fact disappearing fast and will contribute to a large rise in sea levels.

This article by the BBC’s Jonathan Amos is a master class is deception and misdirection…..Big Antarctic ice melt scenarios ‘not plausible’

We are told that ‘Scientists say the contribution of a melting Antarctica to sea-level rise this century will be significant and challenging, but that some nightmare scenarios are just not realistic.’

What?!!  The BBC playing down climate change!  Clever tactic of course, it makes the BBC look more credible and the following narrative they peddle more believable….a narrative which is the same old same old just more carefully shaped to sound less alarmist whilst still trying desperately to alarm the reader.

Amos slots in a lot of phrases intended to lend an air of authority and credibility to his tale…..

‘The latest work, which appears in the journal Nature, was led by Catherine Ritz from the Université Grenoble Alpes, France, and Tamsin Edwards, from the Open University, UK.

It incorporates a lot of real-world physics – knowledge about the shape of the continent’s bedrock and how the ice moves over it.

It is also strongly anchored by the satellite observations that are tracking changes on the continent today.

“With our model we have done some 3,000 simulations,” explained Dr Edwards

Yes, 3,000 simulations….all with the same inputs, the same computer programmes and the same mindset….rubbish in, rubbish out.

Liked this….downplaying the possible sea-level rise at the beginning of the piece…’The most likely outcome is an input of about 10cm to global waters by 2100.  But the prospect of a 30cm-or-more contribution – claimed by some previous research – has just a one-in-20 chance.’….only to claim this was a likely scenario at the end….‘”Using the very best satellite measurements as a benchmark, Ritz and colleagues show that there is an outside chance that Antarctica could contribute 30cm to sea levels over the next century – substantially more than was anticipated at the time of the last IPCC report. “So although extreme ice losses are an unlikely prospect, there is no reason to be complacent about the impacts of climate change on our lifestyles,” he told BBC News.’

That ‘outside chance’ is given a lot of prominence by Amos for some reason…..Harrabin has taught him well.

Just more dodgy climate ‘science’ from the BBC.

Beyond satire…

“Lenny Henry talks to black British film director Isaac Julien about his work as an out-gay film-maker who has from the beginning of his career confronted issues of discrimination, police brutality, and homophobia within the African Caribbean community”

Yup. That bad.

Time for a new one of these and this is where you detail that abominable bias,

Roger Harrabin has spun a few comments by professor Richard Tol into a huge confection of pro-climate change pap to sugarcoat the usual bitter pill that Harrabin tries to ram down our throats on climate.

Harrabin starts with this rather dramatic headline…Society ‘to be hit by climate change’ 

What he is less inclined to emphasise is that what Tol is talking about are the economic effects of climate change and that they are relatively minor… Harrabin dodges Tol’s main conclusion that those effects will be far less serious than climate alarmists like to predict and that climate change is not the most pressing danger for the world…..’Statements that climate change is the biggest (environmental) problem of humankind are unfounded: We can readily think of bigger problems.’

Here is Tol’s latest conclusion which is not reflected at all by Harrabin’s sexed up headline…

‘Climate change will probably have a limited impact on the economy and human welfare in the 21st century.’

This is the ‘dramatic’ effect of climate change up to 2.5 degrees…

‘A global warming of 2.5ºC would make the average person feels as if she had lost 1.3% of her income. (1.3% is the average of the 11 estimates at 2.5ºC.)’

1.3% of your income?  You wouldn’t even notice….especially as by the time 2.5 degrees is reached your income will have increased by far more than 1.3%

Conclusion

In sum, breaking the 2ºC target is not a disaster. The most serious impacts are symptoms of poverty rather than climate change. Other impacts are unlikely to have a substantial effect on human welfare.

Interesting that Harrabin likes to use the word ‘Contrarian’ to describe climate sceptics…a word which suggests irrational, stubborn disbelief rather than a critique based upon genuine reason and science….Harrabin once again is trying to discredit and insult the sceptics.

Harrabin’s article, based upon his ‘Changing Climate’ programme is as dodgy, if not more so than that programme.

He sets up sceptic, Matt Ridley, up for a fall and places him in opposition to Tol…..now that is highly dishonest because Ridley bases his comments on the science of Tol…something Harrabin doesn’t mention in this article (but admits in this interview with Tol on a site run by Harrabin’s old mate and climate activist, Dr Joe Smith, from the propagandist CMEP which he and Harrabin used to manipulate the BBC’s climate programming via their infamous seminars……RH ‘I think he references you in order to make that conclusion.‘)

Here is Harrabin’s spin…

‘Human societies will soon start to experience adverse effects from manmade climate change, a prominent economist has warned. Prof Richard Tol predicts the downsides of warming will outweigh the advantages with a global warming of 1.1C – which has nearly been reached already. Prof Tol is regarded by many campaigners as a climate “sceptic”.  He has previously highlighted the positive effects of CO2 in fertilising crops and forests.  His work is widely cited by climate contrarians.’

Note how he tries to portray Tol as in the ‘contrarian’ camp….he does this in order to suggest that Tol has ‘seen the light’ and come into the climate change fold…when in fact he has always been a believer.

Then we get to what Ridley says…

‘Matt Ridley, the influential Conservative science writer, said he believed the world would probably benefit from a temperature rise of up to 2C.

“I think we probably will see 1.5 degrees of warming. The point is most people think 2C is when it turns catastrophic. That’s not right. The literature is very clear; 2C is when we start to get harm. Up until then we get benefit,” he said.’

Harrabin doesn’t tell us that Ridley is quoting Tol…curiously however he then tells us that Ridley is quoting another scientist and goes on to rubbish Ridley…

‘On fertilisation Matt Ridley refers to unpublished work by Professor Ranga Myneni from Boston University.

But he told BBC News Lord Ridley had accurately quoted his research on the impacts of current CO2 levels, but was unduly complacent about future warming.

“I am worried about how this work is being interpreted, by Lord Ridley.’

Ridley ‘interpreted’ that work like this…he also quoted another scientist to back him up, not mentioned by Harrabin…

‘As Dr Ranga Myneni of Boston University has documented, using three decades of satellite data, 31 per cent of the global vegetated area of the planet has become greener and just 3 per cent has become less green. This translates into a 14 per cent increase in productivity of ecosystems and has been observed in all vegetation types.

Dr Randall Donohue and colleagues of the CSIRO Land and Water department in Australia also analysed satellite data and found greening to be clearly attributable in part to the carbon dioxide fertilisation effect.’

Why does Harrabin not tell the reader that Ridley is quoting Tol?  Highly dishonest of Harrabin.

But what did Tol himself say originally?…

In 2009 he said this…

‘In short, even though total economic effects of 1–2°C warming may be positive, incremental impacts beyond that level are likely to be negative.’

Then in may this year, 2015, he said this….

‘Since 2009, however, more estimates of the economic impact of climate change have been published. These new results do affect the fitted trend, but not in the way suggested by Mr Ward. The new trend shows positive impacts for warming up to about two degrees global warming, just like the old trend did. The new trend, however, shows markedly less negative impacts for more profound warming than did the old trend. In other words, in the last five years, we have become less pessimistic about the impacts of climate change.’

Pretty clear…up to 2 degrees we still get benefits economically from climate change..the benefits reduce after 1.1 degrees but are still positive.

This is what Ridley said in 2013...the basis for Harrabin’s contempt…

‘There are many likely effects of climate change: positive and negative, economic and ecological, humanitarian and financial. And if you aggregate them all, the overall effect is positive today — and likely to stay positive until around 2080. That was the conclusion of Professor Richard Tol of Sussex University after he reviewed 14 different studies of the effects of future climate trends.

To be precise, Prof Tol calculated that climate change would be beneficial up to 2.2˚C of warming from 2009 (when he wrote his paper).

Now Prof Tol has a new paper, published as a chapter in a new book, called How Much have Global Problems Cost the World?, which is edited by Bjorn Lomborg, director of the Copenhagen Consensus Centre, and was reviewed by a group of leading economists. In this paper he casts his gaze backwards to the last century. He concludes that climate change did indeed raise human and planetary welfare during the 20th century.’

Just how certain is Tol about the negative aspects of climate change?….‘The uncertainty is rather large, however. Taking the confidence interval at face value, the impact of climate change does not significantly deviate from zero until 3.5°C warming…At 3.0ºC of warming, impacts are negative and deteriorating, and its uncertainty is widening. It is likely that the world will warm beyond 3.0ºC. Yet, beyond that point, there are few estimates only. Instead, there is extrapolation and speculation.’

Let’s just see that again….’the impact of climate change does not significantly deviate from zero until 3.5°C warming‘….no significantly negative effects until we get to 3.5 degrees?

Here is Tol recently defending his 2 degrees conclusion….