Category Archives: BBC bias

I see the BBC leads its new bulletin the day before the General Election with an anti-UKIP story. It’s been quite remarkable to see how the State Broadcaster has done everything possible to marginalise the Party that won the European poll just last year. Anyway, here’s an Open Thread for you.

So, Labour’s Lucy Powell states live on radio that Labour’s 2015 general election pledges are carved in stone, but nonetheless breakable! Awkward? Fear not…

The good old BBC runs with her “denial” of that which she plainly said! It seems those “world class journalists” are prepared to give her a pass EVEN though she wasn’t misquoted in any way!

A glimpse of the future……Ed Miliband issues his new set of pledges that he promises to implement in government

Ed Miliband on the Today programme yesterday told us that ‘Trust is a huge issue’…so much so he set out his promises to the nation literally carved in stone…and has constantly attacked David Cameron as someone who can’t be trusted to fulfill his election pledges.

Such a massive emphasis on his determination to carry out his own promises must surely mean any deviation from that would be headline news….trust in politicians apparently being the big, raging question on everyone’s lips if you believe the BBC.

How then when in a BBC interview Miliband’s chief political strategist tells us this….

‘I don’t think anyone is suggesting that the fact that he’s carved them in stone means he’s absolutely not going to break them or anything like that’

…..does the BBC essentially ignore that ‘bombshell’ comment when they spent days wittering in about Cameron’s ‘brainfade’ and yesterday filled the airwaves with the mutterings of a loose-lipped LibDem who told us the shattering news that Cameron may think he won’t get a full majority?

You have to look fairly hard to find the story about this on the website…not on the frontpage, not on the UK page, but it is tucked away on the Election page…..what is on the frontpage is this…a story from 1892 no less….

How a gingerbread biscuit took out the prime minister

Nick Robinson fails to mention the comment in this piece in which he says ‘So, what is obsessing politicians of all parties behind-the-scenes is the debate about what a legitimate government would look like. ‘…...you might think a man who wants to be PM who makes promises, and promises to keep those promises, might not seem legitimate should he take office with votes he received on the basis of those promises…so why does Robinson not raise the issue?…..after all he has Tweeted cynically on the comments…

This cheered me up. @LucyMPowell on Edstone – fact promises “carved into stone” doesn’t mean “absolutely not going to break them”. Really?!!

— Nick Robinson (@bbcnickrobinson) May 5, 2015

As polling day approaches, it strikes me that the BBC has dropped any pretence of balance. It wants Miliband into 10 Downing Street and the propaganda machine is pumping out as much Pro Ed material as possible. It has sought to blame down the #Milistone farce from yesterday – even though The Guardian itself expressed disbelief in the limestone folly – and instead has led the news today with the Clegg attack line that Cameron told him in a private conversation that he did not belief that the Conservatives can win a majority. Meanwhile, Miliband keeps pretending that he CAN win a majority and Andrew Neill apart, the BBC complies with the fantasy. Until Friday.

Great to see Nick Robinson starting the final week of the election with such a balanced headline.

Meet the Edstones from the town of Edrock.

Fair do’s to Humphrys, he tried his best to challenge Miliband on Labour borrowing….Miliband absolutely refused to admit that Labour borrowed too much, despite, as Humphrys stated, that Miliband must be ‘the last person standing who believes that to be the case’…..except of course Robert Peston who backs Miliband.   Miliband also tried to pass the buck for the lack of regulation of the banks…admitting such a lack led to the Banks running rampant but not linking it to Labour.

Miliband’s refusal to admit any blame is in direct conflict with his pronouncement that ‘trust is a huge issue’….the Question Time audience made that quite clear and the major trust issue was on the economy and Labour’s record….which Miliband refuses to admit….bizarre…..he can’t think on his feet and has a long list of pat answers to any question that he reels off regardless of the actual content of the question.

Whilst Miliband thinks ‘Trust is a huge issue’, one that merits his policies being literally set in stone, Robert Peston thinks not…or at least not if you’re a Tory as he explains in this blatant anti-Tory tract…..Should Tories put the chancellor in straitjacket?.    As always with Peston’s reports the article concentrates almosty completely on the Tories with a very small comment on Labour.

Humphrys did a good job this morning…I’m sure Twitter will be ablaze with claims of the ‘Right Wing BBC’.

A fresh open thread for a new week…..the election draws near….will the restraints come off at the BBC?

Of those two images the BBC knows which is the ‘extremist’ one…..Naughtie has just described the exhibition as an ‘anti-Islamic event’….actually Jim it’s about freedom of speech…the right to say something without being killed.

Today told us that two people who shot at and hit a security guard at an exhibition of Muhammed images were killed by police officers…the BBC’s response….it was a ‘provocative’ exhibition run by an anti-Muslim hate group (so labelled by an organisation that tracks extremists in America the BBC tells us),  the American Freedom Defense Initiative, which ran anti-Muslim adverts and was attended by the ‘Far Right’ politician Geert Wilders.

Not sure that Wilders is ‘Far Right’ just because he opposes mass immigration and the Islamisation of Europe.

Jihad Watch predicted the response….

The freedom of speech is under violent attack. It now remains to be seen whether American authorities will defend it, or will blame the victims and the targets and kowtow yet again to violent intimidation.

We’re told the motivation isn’t known…however others aren’t so coy….

And of course the BBC are quick to blame ‘anti-Muslim’ sentiment as the ‘provocation’ that led to this shooting.

Who is that group that ‘tracks extremists in America’? The Southern Poverty Law Center….that’ll be the group that have been removed from an FBI list of ‘advisors’ because it itself spreads hate.…

‘In the fall of 2012, Floyd Lee Corkins, armed with a loaded semi-automatic pistol and 100 rounds of ammunition, entered FRC headquarters not far from FBI headquarters in downtown Washington, D.C. Corkins shot the front desk security guard and tried to gain entrance to the upper floors where he intended to kill FRC employees…. Corkins said he got the idea of killing FRC employees from reading the SPLC hate list and made use of a map of the FRC office found on the SPLC website.’

Perhaps the BBC should be more circumspect in who it uses to back up its own pro-Muslim prejudices….

‘A 2013 article in Foreign Policy concluded that SPLC exaggerates the hate crimes threat, saying SPLC is not an “objective purveyor of data,” instead calling them “anti-hate activists” and suggesting that their reports need to be “weighed more carefully by news outlets that cover their pronouncements.”’

The SPLC’s definition of an extremist is interesting….

‘The SPLC defines hate groups as those that “… have beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics.” The SPLC states: “Hate group activities can include criminal acts, marches, rallies, speeches, meetings, leafleting or publishing” but that “Listing here does not imply a group advocates or engages in violence or other criminal activity”‘

Surely that should include many religions…..in their actual form not as defined by their defenders.  The SPLC is itself a ‘Far Left’ campaign group that uses its influence to distort American politics….

‘A critical analysis published recently by Professor George Yancey of North Texas University concluded that SPLC targets only those groups its leaders disagree with politically while leaving liberal groups who use extreme language alone.’

The BBC of course ignores all  that but then it has always had an odd way of looking at life…..if a Muslim doesn’t have a job, or has a job he feels is below him, or is prevented from ‘living’ his religion to its full extent and therefore feels ‘oppressed’, he is excused by the BBC for mass murder…..express a view that an ideology might be regressive, backward and deeply unpleasant, to channel Mishal Husain, and the BBC vilifies you as a racist and a fascist……say all Jewish settlers are Nazis and should be killed and the BBC will laugh it off and continue to employ the person who said that…argue against Islamic terrorism and once again you are are spreading ‘hate’…..as these adverts obviously are……

Sky has trumped the BBC and Peston is peeved….

Some idle amusement on the bank holiday for you….

Good idea of the week….

Is this the real idea…..Red Ed rebuilds the Berlin Wall?…

Perhaps he should try Hadrians wall.

Better idea of the week….. what the SNP are announcing they intend to set in stone once in government on both sides of the border….The Miliband surrender….