You’d have to be a completely heartless bastard to laugh.

The BBC has spent the last 5 years chastising the Coalition for its welfare reforms and in the run up to the election loudly demanded to know the details of the proposed £12 billion in savings from the welfare budget…and now we know, at least one bit….the BBC is going to pay a huge chunk of it itself!

Chancellor Osborne to hit BBC to fund welfare cuts – Sunday Times

Chancellor George Osborne plans to launch a 650 million pound raid on the BBC to help cover the country’s benefits bill, forcing the corporation to meet the cost of free television licences for the over-75s, the Sunday Times said.

It quoted senior government sources as saying a deal is close that will force the BBC to take on the cost of the 4.5 million licences — worth 145.50 pounds each — from the Department for Work and Pensions.

The move, it said, is part of a package of 12 billion pounds of welfare cuts, widely expected to be unveiled in a budget bill on Wednesday.

In return, the paper said, the BBC will be allowed to make up some of the lost revenue by charging for use of its iPlayer and other online catch-up services to try to stem the loss of licence fee revenue caused by people turning to the Internet and abandoning their televisions.

That will return at least 150 million pounds to BBC coffers, the paper added, but the 650 million pounds benefits bill represents the loss of around a fifth of the corporation’s annual 3.7 billion pounds licence fee income.

The details, including the timing of the change, are still under negotiation but it is likely to be phased in after 2017, when the number of over-75s claiming a free licence will have risen further, the paper said.

This was also proposed back in 2010 and presumably shelved under pressure from the LibDems or because, despite the amusement I greet it with, it is a bizarre concept….the BBC is after all supposed to be raising money from the licence fee not handing it out….it is the government that has decided that pensioners should get a free licence and not the BBC…I’m sure the BBC would be more than happy to lock up non-paying pensioners as well as the poverty stricken single mothers that it normally targets.

Does seem a bit daft….but apparently the BBC empire is getting too big…

Mr Osborne also said that the BBC’s website may be scaled back because it has become too “imperial”.

He said that the scale of the BBC’s online offering means that it is coming “the national newspaper as well as the national broadcaster”.

He said: “You wouldn’t want the BBC to completely crowd out national newspapers. And if you look at the BBC website, it’s a good product but it is becoming a bit more imperial in its ambitions.

After the attack in Tunisia I looked at Donnison’s Twitter feed to see his reaction…nothing.  I gave him the benefit of the doubt and thought he must be sleeping off his socialising with the Muslim victims of rampant Australian Islamophobia and would start the same sort of tweeting we are used to when he is constantly telling us of his sympathies for Hamas and the victims of Israeli ‘terrorism and war crimes’.

But no, he has all but ignored the murders in Tunisia…this being his sole tweet…or retweet, he couldn’t even be bothered to write his own…..

It is noticeable that he has succumbed to government pressure and is calling Islamic State ‘Daesh’…never mind that Daesh means Islamic State…..and of course it is in relation to his old mates in Hamas…

Jon Donnison ‏@jondonnisonbbc Jun 30

Daesh threatens to topple Hamas in #Gaza. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/30/islamic-state-threatens-hamas-gaza-strip … Hamas & Israel will find common cause and not allow that to happen.

The Guardian report he links to actually calls them ‘Islamic State’…

Islamic State threatens to topple Hamas in Gaza Strip in video statement

Why did he change it?

John Humphrys was in the Sunday Times last week giving us a great example of how the BBC thinks….the Greek tragedy?  It’s the fault of the Bankers, Big Business and Government…investment bankers and politicians on the make who green lighted Greece’s entry into the Euro…anything to do with the Greek people themselves?   No. No. No. says Humphrys as he ‘slays the big fat Greek myth’.

Oh, hang on, what’s this he goes on to tell us…a woman who refuses to get married as she will lose the pension she has inherited from her father…pensions that provided a very comfortable old age….the electorate who were bribed by the political parties…and, yes, they took what was offered no questions asked….the price of that acquiescence?  Appalling corruption on just about every level.  Don’t want to pay taxes…slip the tax man a few Drachma.

And of course they all signed up eagerly to join the Euro…it wasn’t forced on them…as one Greek said ‘There is big blame’ on the Greek people for voting the way they did……and even now they demand to stay in…

Despite the budget cuts, euro membership is hugely popular in Greece, with polls suggesting that nearly two-thirds of the population are in favour of the move.

Humphrys started his piece by saying that Greeks would have no truck with debt before they joined the EU….this all changed with the advent of the Euro and ‘all hell broke loose’.…which is a subject I’m sure for another discussion about that other BBC bias…Europe.

So it was Greece entering the Euro that crashed its economy and led to massive debts?  They already had massive debts…

Blame It On Profligate Spending 

This could only lead to an inescapable conclusion as noted by the CFR (Council on Foreign Relations):

“Even if Greece had remained outside the euro zone, its dependence on euro borrowing would only have increased. A falling drachma would merely have brought the current crisis to a head earlier by accelerating the rise in Greece’s debt-to-GDP ratio (think Iceland)….the problem is excessive foreign borrowing, a problem with which Greece has struggled since the early 19th century.”

 

Well certainly the Euro hasn’t helped but the truth is it didn’t cause Greece’s problems merely compounded them…and made it more difficult to escape them….

The problem for Greece, and other countries in the eurozone, is that a single interest rate and exchange rate do not allow easy adjustment to external crises, and leave domestic devaluation through cuts in wages and prices as the only other option. The lack of institutional support for weaker members from the centre when the euro was created placed the entire burden at times of need on individual Euro governments. That came at huge cost to their economies.

Greece was broke before she entered…..Greece should never have entered the Euro as its economy was in no shape to hold its own and meet the stringent requirements of the Euro zone…as the BBC tells us…

How ‘magic’ made Greek debt disappear before it joined the euro

Greece is at the heart of the ongoing eurozone crisis, but is past sleight of hand by Greek statisticians to blame for the country’s current financial meltdown?

“We used to call him the magician, because he could make everything disappear.

“He made inflation disappear. And then he made the deficit disappear,” recalls Greek economist Miranda Xafa.

Greece fulfilled the Maastricht criteria and was admitted to the eurozone on January 1, 2001 – but by 2004 the deception was becoming transparent.

The difference between the published deficit and the real one was huge.

“[The gap] was about 7% of GDP,” Mr Doukas says.

“The budget said the deficit was 1.5%. The real shortfall was 8.3%.”

Certainly the politicians and bankers who signed off entry into the Euro can take much of the blame but to try and say Greeks themselves are completely innocent is false……Much of that debt was to pay for the massive public sector employment, there were more employees on the rail service than customers, and extremely generous pensions allowed Greeks to retire at 50 and live well, whilst a failure to collect taxes meant that paying for all this largesse was clearly going to be a problem…eventually…..but entering the Euro meant that Greece had sudden access to cheap money and could borrow even more…..an irony perhaps that the EU, part of the problem with cheap money and yet an economic policy straitjacket on Greece, should now be so hard on Greece.

Greece was always heading for a fall but joining the EU speeded that up and whilst forcing some reality upon the Greeks actually stopped them from doing the one thing that would have helped the most….currency devaluation.

The Greek people signed up to all of this and the structure of the Greek economy with its welfare dependency on government spending paid for by borrowing…and they of course signed up to the Euro and still want to be in the club.

Humphrys, who has a house in Greece and is a frequent visitor, with a son who lives and works there, is clearly twisting the facts to suit his own personal agenda…be nice to the Greek people in their moment of tragedy.  A sentiment that pervades the BBC’s own reporting on many subjects not least Islam with the BBC’s stubborn refusal to make any link to the violence around the world and the religion of Islam in cas eit upsest a few people.

News being manipulated to hide uncomfortable truths.  It always turns out bad in the end.

The BBC is being very economical with the truth….the government’s, em that’ll be Ed Miliband’s, renewable energy policies are driving coal mines out of existence….but you’d hardly know that if you relied upon the BBC to tell you what is going on.

Hatfield Colliery is to close and the Prospect Union tells us that…

Government forces closure of Hatfield Colliery

30 Jun 2015

Prospect has blamed shortsighted government policy for the decision by employee-owned Hatfield Colliery, near Doncaster in South Yorkshire to stop producing coal with immediate effect.

Despite agreeing staff reductions with the three unions and being on the verge of starting its last coalface, the colliery was unable to agree contracts for selling its coal.The colliery will close 14 months earlier than scheduled, with the loss of 420 high-skilled jobs and further job losses in the supply chain.

Prospect union represents 19 management team members at the colliery, which has been run by an employee-owned trust since 2013.

Prospect negotiator Mike Macdonald said: “Hatfield has been unable to sell its coal because of the government’s refusal to sponsor coal contracts with generators and the doubling of the UK’s carbon tax.

“Despite the continued demand for coal in electricity generation, Hatfield will start to close this week and the UK will have to rely on coal imports.

“Unlike other European countries that have a managed transition plan for closing their mines, the UK has decided to accelerate closures so all large deep mines will shut this year.

Reuters reports that and the link to the carbon tax…

Britain’s Hatfield Colliery will stop producing coal with immediate effect after being unable to sell its coal following the sharp rise in the UK’s carbon tax, Prospect union said on Tuesday.

In April, Britain’s carbon tax, which charges power producers for each tonne of carbon dioxide (CO2) they emit, almost doubled to 18.08 pounds per tonne to encourage utilities to switch fuels, as coal-fired power generation produces almost double the amount of CO2 as gas-fired plants.

The BBC’s interpretation of the closure…

Hatfield Colliery, near Doncaster, South Yorkshire, was due to shut in the summer of 2016 but the move has been brought forward unexpectedly.

Micheal O’Sullivan, spokesman for the colliery, said: “We can’t find a market for the coal, so there is no point in producing it.”

The report says that O’Sullivan said…

External factors such as low coal prices, a switch to renewable energy and large coal stocks have made a set of “almost unprecedented circumstances”, he added.

‘A switch to renewables’ gives the impression that it is the building of wind turbines and other renewables that is out competing coal and resulting in the closure when that isn’t true…the real cause is the artificially imposed carbon tax that makes coal uncompetitive whilst the renewables get subisidised to the max.

What the BBC doesn’t tell us is that the reason they can’t find a market for the coal, despite there actually still being a market for it as the Union tells us, is that British coal mines are being priced out of the market by the green taxes…..introduced by Miliband, which makes the next BBC report even more disengenuous with its continued failure to mention the role the carbon tax plays in the closure….

Hatfield Colliery early closure ‘wrong’, says Ed Miliband

Miliband’s ‘carbon free’ economy is turning out to be job free for many people….shame the BBC can’t seem to make the link for some reason.

Same old BBC….still providing cover for its old marxist buddy Miliband and hiding the truth about the costs of green energy.

And curiously nothing on this story in the Telegraph from the BBC yet….

Green energy subsidies spiral out of control

George Osborne to abolish coalition’s green tax target as customers face paying £1.5billion more through their bills to subsidise wind farms, solar panels and biomass plants.

The cost of subsidising new wind farms is spiralling out of control, government sources have privately warned.

Officials admitted that so-called “green” energy schemes will require a staggering £9 billion a year in subsidies – paid for by customers – by 2020. This is £1.5 billion more than the maximum limit the coalition had originally planned.

The mounting costs will mean every household in the country is forced to pay an estimated £170 a year by the end of the decade to support the renewable electricity schemes that were promoted by the coalition.

I imagine Harrabin and Co will be burning the midnight oil trying to rewrite that…oh wait…that’s why the story’s not out yet…got to wait till daylight…no oil burning thankyou!!

‘The fear that religious terror brings, the lies it makes people tell and concessions it forces them to make are as familiar here as on the subcontinent.’  Nick Cohen

Mishal Husain was in Bangladesh this week….she was curious as to why there is a rise in fanaticism in Bangladesh as liberal/atheist bloggers get murdered for their ‘blasphemous’ sins.  Could it be the Bangladeshis’ foreign policy, their invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, their ‘carving up of the Middle East’, their support for evil dictators?  Or is it just some people with an ideology that they want to impose upon all others and do so at the point of a gun inspired as they are by an ancient, dusty and dangerous old book?

Remind me also where the Mannan family say that the West’s foreign policy is to blame for their escape to freedom and nirvanna?  They in fact declare their hatred of Western society as the reason for their migration…

We release this statement to confirm that, indeed we are in the Islamic State. A land that is free from the corruption and oppression of man made law and is governed by the shariah, the perfect and just laws of Allah subhanAllah wa Ta’la.

 Yes, all 12 of us and why should this number be shocking, when there are thousands and thousands of Muslims from all corners of the world that are crossing over land and sea everyday to come to the Islamic State? That are willingly leaving the so called freedom and democracy that was forced down our throat in the attempt to brainwash Muslims to forget about their powerful and glorious past and now present.

 Or is it shocking that those attempts have clearly failed? That regardless of being born and bred in the west, the epitome of democracy, our Islam was not washed away? And despite the totalitarian rules that are in place, Muslims are still awaking to their obligations? 

The BBC have the strange and foolish title for their report on this…Missing UK family ‘safer than ever with Islamic State’.

Why use a title that gives even a chance of an ‘edge’ to the Islamists in the propaganda war?

And note that the BBC doesn’t quote all the disparaging remarks about the West….just a few words that give a passsing idea of what they might be thinking….can’t have you knowing that they hate the West and it has nothing to do with foreign policy and all to do with our society, culture and democracy…

The statement, passed to the BBC by a Briton fighting with IS, said the family had arrived in a land that was “free from corruption and oppression” and had not been “commanded” to join by a single person but by the “Khalifah of the Muslims”.

Oh hang on…the BBC does quote in full a ‘friend’ who says that it’s all definitely rubbish anyway…

Nazrull Ali, a school friend of 19-year-old Mohammed Toufique Hussain, who is said to be among the 12, said he did not believe the statement.

“That doesn’t seem right to be honest. I don’t think they would say stuff like that,” he said.

“I don’t know but I heard they [IS] could make you say whatever they want, obviously if someone puts a gun to your head what would you say?” he said.

“He would have said bye to all of us properly and I’m telling you, he did not know that he was going to Syria. I know it wasn’t him, I think he’s got tricked into it. It wasn’t his idea, definitely.”

Remind me also why the BBC fought so hard to get Moazzam Begg released from Guantanamo and now fawns over him even as he balatantly supports Al Qaeda?

Arguably the most credible voices against IS have been Islamic clerics traditionally associated with Al-Qaeda. These include Jordanian scholars Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi and Abu Qatada.

The only ones who can successfully challenge the IS narrative, however, are the only ones the government will not engage with.

Remind me why the BBC still has on members of MPACUK as credible commentators on how to respond to radicalisation when they themselves are well known as extremists who support Jihad?

‘The fear that religious terror brings, the lies it makes people tell and concessions it forces them to make are as familiar here as on the subcontinent.’  Nick Cohen

“Compare the bravery of Bangladeshi intellectuals with the attitude of the bulk of the western intelligentsia. Whole books could be written on why it failed to argue against the fascism of our age – indeed I’ve written a couple myself – but the decisive reason is a fear that dare not speak its name. They are frightened of accusations of racism, frightened of breaking with the consensus, frightened most of all of violence. They dare not admit they are afraid. So they struggle to produce justifications to excuse their dereliction of duty. They turn militant religion into a rational reaction to poverty or western foreign policy. They maintain there is a moral equivalence between militant religion and militant atheism.”

Gotta laugh….the BBC is now insisting that Islam, the infamously peaceful religion, is in fact the religion of terrorists and has recruited historian Tom Holland, he of the C4 film about the origins of Islam ‘The Untold Story’, to tell us that although Cameron was acting ‘for the best and most principled reasons’ [Really?  Is appeasement due to fear of a bomb attack the best reason to suppress the truth?]   ‘it is indisputable that the Islamic state believes it is inspired by Islam’….and does indeed follow the example of the Muslim prophet Muhammed.

The BBC has got itself in a right pickle, as have the politicians as they blatantly try not only to manipulate a ‘free press’ but also attempt to hide the uncomfortable truth about Islamic terrorism.

The Politicians keep referencing World War II but the BBC always called the Germans ‘the Germans’ and not those ‘nasty, murdering bastards’….though they are quite happy labelling the Tories as the ‘nasty party’.

However the BBC also called the Germans ‘the enemy’.  So are these politicians suggesting that the BBC calls the Islamic State ‘the enemy’…and if so also all those who subscribe to its religious ideology…..or is it just the violence the politicians don’t like…..or is it that ideology…you know the ‘evil ideology’ that Cameron keeps mentioning?  The ‘evil ideology’ that Tom Holland tells us is indisputably Islamic?

So are ‘conservative’ Muslims in the UK with the same ideology, but not the violent inclinations, also the ‘enemy’?

By trying to ring fence Islam they have in fact done the opposite and drawn attention to the similarity between those ‘conservative’ Muslim ideals and those held by the Islamic State.

Seems the politicians and the BBC have both got themselves in that pickle….that’s what happens when you try to twist and manipulate the news for your own political and ideological beliefs.

The BBC has always sought to suppress any link between Islam and Islamically inspired violence but is now doing a rapid u-turn to save its embarrassment….Muslims cast rapidly aside to save Tony Hall’s bacon.

It seems the BBC’s main concern is the BBC and not the truth….it’s explanation of why it is sticking with the name ‘Islamic State’ is unusual in that it says it does not want to be unfair to the Islamic State by appearing to support its enemies.  Which, as the UK is amongst its enemies, you might think a bit strange.

During WWII as said, the BBC declared the Germans ‘the enemy’ and so should make a similar call with the Islamic State what ever the likes of Baroness Warsi, Yasmin Qureshi and the various legions of  ‘angry, marginalised, disenfranchised Muslims’ say.

It would be the correct ‘compromise’…both accurate and fitting for the political and social context….’Islamic State’ is the group’s name, it is the enemy and if some people complain of that description then they too must come under suspicion….they would after all have been interned during WWII…..let’s see if the politicians are so brave when it comes to making that decision in their ‘full spectrum response’!

Well, the weekend approaches and so time for a new one of these to see us off into the wild blue yonder! Detail the bias here please.

The politicians have been pressuring the BBC to use any name other than ‘Islamic State’ to describe the Islamic State in yet more appeasement of the Muslim pressure groups who wish to suppress all news and information that might shed light on why Muslims wish to join the Islamic State.

Here’s Cameron & Co’s equation….

If you use the term ‘Islamic State’ this will anger Muslims, these angry Muslims will be radicalised, and once radicalised they will join the Islamic State in order to defend the honour of the Muslim Community besieged as it is by the Kufaar….but it’s nothing to do with Islam.

This of course is similar to that other equation that means that Cameron & Co won’t put boots on the ground to fight the Islamic State….

If we put boots on the ground Muslims will get angry because we, the Kufaar, are killing Muslims…the angry Muslims will become radicalised and go on a Holy War to defend Muslims…by killing as many Muslims as possible and then claiming it is all the West’s fault….but it’s nothing to do with Islam….oh and when it suits, they will demand we put boots on the ground to defend Muslims and then become ‘radicalised’ when we don’t…ala Syria.

The BBC will then ask how it is that young British Muslims, disenfranchised, marginalised and demonised, become radicalised?  What they never ask is why it is only Muslims?

The BBC has of course staunchly defended itself from the Politicians’ pressure and has declared that it is only fair that it calls the Islamic State by its name…..‘giving “the impression of support” for the group’s opponents and “would not preserve the BBC’s impartiality”. ‘

Curiously the BBC is more than happy to redact the words ‘Muslim’ and ‘Islamic’ when reporting terrorist offences or crimes by Muslims….all too often limiting their report to the names of the arrested.

The BBC is of course not so keen to call a terrorist a terrorist…unless he is an Israeli ‘terrorist’ or ‘war criminal’…then it’s quite fair to apply such labels.

The BBC’s new Europe editor raised a small storm of protest back in January…

New Europe editor Katya Adler has been criticised over her EU connections

The BBC is facing a bias row over its new Europe editor, Katya Adler, who is replacing the veteran Gavin Hewitt but has yet to start the job because she is on maternity leave.

Eurosceptic Tory MPs are exercised by an entry in her LinkedIn work profile stating that from 1996 “to the present day” she has been “chairing debates, moderating and public speaking – hosting public, corporate and private events including for the EU Commission, the European Space Agency, CERN, London’s Frontline Club and the Austrian government during its EU Presidency”.

Tory MP Andrew Bridgen tells People: “This apparent cosy relationship between the BBC’s new Europe editor and the European Commission is a big cause for concern and calls into question the BBC’s impartiality on the issue of Europe.”

Adler is still available for bookings if you’re interested….next Tory Party conference perhaps?

Regardless of bias she certainly has a unique view of the world.

Yesterday on the Today programme (08:20) she was giving us a Russell Brand lite view of that political world….there is a clash between the old political order and the ‘People’…..

On the one hand, you have the traditional powers that be – bankers, big business and traditional political parties, imposing their will from above.

And on the other are grassroots movements, populist and people-driven, saying a loud NO to the status quo.

So what’s new?  Has she never heard of Communists, Marxists, Tony Benn and Arthur Scargill?  Funny how the parties she mentions and gives credence to are all left wing…..how different the BBC’s attitude towards right wing movements such as UK or the Tea party in the US….no ‘warnings from history’ about hard left socialists from the BBC….After all it is the socialists like Hitler, Stalin and Mao who killed millions upon millions of their own citizens…not sure Nigel Farage is in the same league (though some American on 5Live yesterday tried to suggest he was the starting point for the conveyor belt whose end product is the Nazis.)

On the Today programme Adler says that ‘the people feel it emotionally across the Continent….’  and she then makes a remarkable claim….’ this marries in with what is happening in the UK as well where we have high unemployment, a sluggish economy and a deteriorating quality of life for the majority’.

Hang on though…in her web write up she must have had second thoughts and edited out that bit about the UK being like Greece…..because it’s codswallop….

Acute EU dissatisfaction is a syndrome now affecting and infecting the whole continent.

High unemployment, sluggish growth, if any, a deteriorating quality of life for the majority, while the super-affluent minority continues to profit – the call for change, for a new Europe, is widespread.

Pardon me but that ‘Acute EU dissatisfaction syndrome’ in the UK is to do with sovereignty and mass immigration….trying to categorize the anti-EU protests in the UK as about the economy is to miss the pont completely.

She went on to say on ‘Today’ that ‘Pretty much everyone across Europe is calling for change’.  We’re all ‘Occupy’ now!

Who needs Russell Brand, now that he’s totally discredited, when you have the BBC’s Katya Adler cheerleading ‘Occupy’?

Adler was back on the Today programme the next day with another gem.(08:58ish)…apparently we have to remember that for all the talk of EU survival this is about people’s lives and jobs!.

Well yes….and that is precisely what the BBC has ignored for many years as it reported favourably on the grand political project without the slightest regard for what people thought or what the actual effect of the lofty EU project was having on them., their lives and their jobs.

And on the subject of Farage I was amused to see this….the trouble with Farage is that he is all too often right about Europe’s problems…and it makes the EU bureaucrats terribly annoyed…yep must be terribly annoying to have to deal with such inconveniences as credible complaints…..sounds familiar…..

Nigel Farage is ‘right too often’ about European Union failings

Nigel Farage is “right too often” about the failings of the European Union, the vice president of the commission has said.

Frans Timmermans, the second most powerful man in Brussels, said he is “terribly annoyed” by how frequently the leader of the UK Independence Party appeared to correctly diagnose the bloc’s failings – particularly its handling of the migration crisis – even when he strongly disagrees with his proposed solutions.

“What I really like about the man is his incredible sense of humour,” he said. “The problem is, I don’t get annoyed when he talks rubbish.

“I get terribly annoyed when he’s right. And on some issues he is right too often. If he criticises the EU for not having a migration policy that is effective he is right. He is absolutely, completely wrong with his solutions. But to start criticising the EU for not dealing in the right way with the migration crisis is right.