From the Telegraph:

BBC accused of left-wing ambush on David Cameron over hostile Radio 1 interview

H/T Guido…

The BBC has given a lifetime ahievement award to a man who expressed the desire to execute Salman Rushdie.….. endorsed by Sharia law…but only in an Islamic State Yusuf Islam assured us….though I’m sure the BBC thinks it has nothing to do with Islam.

This year’s Lifetime Achievement awards will be given to legendary musician Yusuf / Cat Stevens and Grammy Award-winning artist Loudon Wainwright III.

 

From Nick Cohen:

But here is what Islam said to Geoffrey Robertson QC in 1989. (Video here.)

Robertson: You don’t think that this man deserves to die?
Y. Islam: Who, Salman Rushdie?
Robertson: Yes.
Y. Islam: Yes, yes.
Robertson: And do you have a duty to be his executioner?
Y. Islam: Uh, no, not necessarily, unless we were in an Islamic state and I was ordered by a judge or by the authority to carry out such an act – perhaps, yes.
[Some minutes later, Robertson on the subject of a protest where an effigy of the author is to be burned]
Robertson: Would you be part of that protest, Yusuf Islam, would you go to a demonstration where you knew that an effigy was going to be burned?
Y. Islam: I would have hoped that it’d be the real thing.

Just had this from my marvellous Observer colleague Andrew Anthony: “He told me in 1997, eight years after saying on TV that Rushdie should be lynched, that he was in favour of stoning women to death for adultery. He also reconfirmed his position on Rushdie. He set up the Islamia school in Brent, which is currently undergoing council-backed expansion. Its mission statement three years ago explicitly stated that its aim was to bring about the submission of the individual, the community and the world at large to Islam. For this aim it now receives state funding. Its an incubator of the most bonkers religious extremism and segregation, and is particularly strong on the public erasure of women. Why do people go to such lengths to ignore these aspects of Yusuf Islam’s character and philosophy?

If the BBC’s continuing endorsement of a Muslim fundamentalist with views that are evidently quite extreme, in  British society, is quite scary this (H/T Sue at Is the BBC biased?) should create a great deal more concern as it looks as if the BBC’s much vaunted independence has been compromised by Muslim activists seeking to change how the BBC reports Muslim issues:

Aaqil Ahmed, the BBC head of religion and ethics, said: “Religious literacy is far too important just to be left in the hands of people who are not subject specialists. I think you need both.”

Replying to criticism that BBC cuts and the pressures of the 24-hour news cycle had stripped out specialists, he said: “There are a lot of conversations with BBC News. There is a different leadership in BBC News, understanding exactly the world is different.”

He said editors, including director of news and current affairs James Harding, had attended a recent meeting with Muslim academics covering “the rise of religiosity in young Muslim children, the Trojan horse schools, which are not one-offs, they are a glimpse of the future.

“We have to find out the right way of telling that particular story. That notion has landed.”

‘A glimpse of the future’?  What did Ahmed mean by that exactly?  Is he saying that Muslims are becoming more devout, fanatical, in their religious observation and will be demanding British Society adapts to them…or else?

I think he is saying precisely that….but he is also looking to have the BBC report such issues, such as the Trojan Horse scandal, in a Muslim friendly manner rather than present them as the threat to a democratic, secular, tolerant and peaceful society under one law that is the British way.

All of which is a bit laughable as the BBC already does its utmost to pretend there are no such issues with the Religion of Peace and happily sweeps them under the carpet more often than not…or if forced to report them looks to downplay any issues and deny a connection to Islam…the Trojan Horse scandal being a case in point, the BBC claiming it was all a hoax, that there were no issues, that it was a result of islamophobia and racism…the BBC that refused to publish information that indicated that the lead Muslim advocacy group, the MCB, was at the heart of the scandal.  Why would the BBC do that?

Even John Birt noticed the BBC’s failure to address the issues….

BBC’s current affairs programmes ‘failing to address radical Islam and other tough topics’

The BBC is failing to address the “awesomely difficult questions” facing Britain, including the economy and the threat of radical Islam, according to the corporation’s former chief.

John Birt, director-general of the BBC from 1992-2000, said its current affairs analysis was falling short.

“What it’s not sufficiently doing is addressing the very big, awesomely difficult questions our country and our world are facing at the moment,” he said.

There is a war going on, a war of words and ideologies.  Activist Muslims have launched a media assault on our society with the intent to intimidate the Media into censoring themselves on Islamic issues, forcing them to whitewash any crimes or behaviour that can be associated with Islamic teachings in order to silence criticism of Islam and deceive non-Muslims about the serious concerns that the rise of a fundamentalist religiosity, one that is highly intolerant of other religions and which incites high levels of violence in many adherents, in the West raise.

It looks like the BBC has been groomed and recruited.

I think we should know who were these ‘Muslim academics’ that lobbied the BBC and what exactly was said and agreed.  How can it be that private interest groups can shape how the BBC reports the news in their favour?

How soon Rochdale is forgotten.

This morning the BBC filled the airwaves with tall tales about Tory Grant Shapps and Wikipedia edits.

The BBC told us that the administrator who had made the claims about Shapps had said that he ‘couldn’t be sure who had edited the account’….so the question is did the BBC know the identity of that administrator and if so why did they not report it?  Was the story about Shapps just too good to put a stop to?

The Telegraph reports that the administrator at Wikipedia was in fact a LibDem activist…

Wikipedia administrator who accused Grant Shapps of editing pages of Tory rivals is Liberal Democrat activist

Richard Symonds admitted today that he had been “chastised” by other administrators at Wikipedia for not checking with more people before banning a user who he claims is Mr Shapps, or someone working for him.

Mr Symonds also admitted that he had briefed The Guardian newspaper, which broke the alleged story yesterday.

 

No mention of the identity of this administrator in the Guardian story, nor of his inability to actually provide any evidence that linked Shapps to the edits….so where did the BBC get their quote from about his lack of evidence? Did they contact him personally?

After spending the day slinging mud at Shapps, and he was also interrogated on Newsnight last night so important is this story,  the BBC hasn’t bothered to update the story with the rather significant fact that it looks like a bit of LibDem skulduggery at work.

Funny how much time the BBC spends on a story when it seems to suit their bias, as with the ‘Jihadi Bride’s father, and then can suddenly lose all interest when the truth comes out and contradicts their quality journalism…and never a sign of an apology or a rowback from them….they’ve already managed to imprint people’s minds with the BBC version and they know that may well stick however much ‘truth’ comes out later. All very Goebbels-like.

I’m sure Nick Clegg will be rewritng his jokes now…

Asked about the claims, Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg said he was “prepared to believe” that Mr Shapps had not altered his Wikipedia entry but joked: “It just could have been someone else – Michael Green, for instance.”

 

 

I happened to watch Newsnight on BBC2 last night. It’s been a while and with good reason. The entire programme was one long extenuated assault on the Conservative Party. We had geo-political analysts such as “White Dee” (from Benefits Street) there to explain why Welfare reform is an evil. It is clear that the BBC has decided it must be EVERYTHING possible to help get Ed into Downing Street and with around two weeks to go, it is throwing ALL it can to ensure Cameron is “locked out” of Downing Street for the next five years as the Left run amok with their glove puppet Miliband installed as glorious leader.

Guest post by Robin

“As an aside to the Hopkins and other immigration threads .

Calamities happen in the world , and movement of people’s is one of the consequences .

It could be a huge global catastrophe, or so localised it happens just  to you .
Now imagine your neighbours house burns down , so you offer his family succour for a period .
You think this is a temporary accommodation, until insurance or whatever sorts it out .
But your new intake gets permanent , and divides your house into separate quarters , or even — takes over your ( the )house and you have to move into the garage .
An implausible situation , but not on a global scale for many people in the world in times past , as Romans would testify  Where are the Romans today ?
The Britons had the same , but they are still with us , as they kept a toe hold in Cornwall , Brittany and God’s own country ; Wales . Much as a Welshman reveres the place , it cannot be disputed that they were forced to be there .
This was because the low lying areas where the Angles, Saxons and Jutes were living were being flooded and waves of invasions (or migratory) pressures from the East meant there was no land to settle in mainland Europe, so they invaded Britain .
This wasn’t welcomed . The Romano British didn’t say” Oh you’ve come to take over , no problem we’ll just move westward until your satisfied with the land grab you got .” There was resistance .
And thus it’s been throughout history , and the latest long running saga is with the Palestinians , who feel they have been replaced by Jews. A people who migrated for worse reasons than sea levels encroaching upon land .
The main point is what the Gramscis and BBC omit , that the mass movement of humanity from one part of the globe to another – apart from the USA for a limited period – is not a peaceful event .”

OK folks, time for a new one of these so over to you. THIS is where you detail the bias.

Good start to day on R4…BBC journo’s all asking what should the ‘new governement’, the ‘next government’ and the ‘new Prime Minister’ do to resolve current issues…all rather suggestive that Cameron and Tories are going to be out. Why not just say ‘What do you want the government to do?’

We also hear that rural life is in meltdown with communities rapidly collapsing with all services such as shops, pubs, post offices and bus services being closed.  Might have been relevant to suggest that the country isn’t a museum with pretty little shops and so on being there to make the place look idyllic….perhaps if people used those shops, pubs and post offices they wouldn’t close…..and have to say plenty of such rural services available where I live.

Then they got onto Rural Payments to farmers….slipped in was the comment that farmers desperately ‘need the EU subsidies’.

Hmmm…EU subsidies?  Do they mean the money the EU sends us back from the billions we send them but not before the EU bureaucrats rake off huge salaries with lavish expenses that they pay themselves before generously handing some of it back to us…with the demand that we thank the EUists profusely for their largesse?

The BBC’s biggest story of the day seems to be the Guardian smear that Grant Shapps may have altered his Wikipedia entry….shock and horror!

The BBC’s Norman ‘utterly terrifying’ Smith was delighted with this tale saying ‘This story brought a big smile to my face’.….telling us that Shapps thought it was a Labour Party smear which Smith dismissed with a joke denying it could possibly be a Labour smear operation…..they’re too computer illiterate and lack a sense of humour….leaving it up in the air as to who did alter the entry…suggesting Shapps perhaps?  Even if true…so what?

The Guardian’s evidence?…

The site’s administrators, selected Wikipedia volunteers who patrol the site, told the Guardian that they “believe that the account Contribsx is a sockpuppet of Grant Shapps’ previous accounts on Wikipedia … and based on the evidence the account is either run by Shapps directly or being run by someone else – an assistant or a PR agency – but under his clear direction.”

Oh hang on….anyone can edit it and the administrators can in fact almost be anyone….who is the admin who claims Shapps is guilty and what’s the evidence?…the Guardian fails to enlighten us….the BBC is admitting that that particular admin. ‘can’t be sure of who edited the account‘…..so a non-story about a non-story based on the word of one man who admits he is speculating. Big news!

R4 ignores the Mail story about Unite controlling half of Labour’s candidates…but then again why would we expect the BBC to cover that when they ignored the story when it arose before and even Labour sites attacked Unite and Miliband?  That’ll be the Unite Union that wants to impose Ralph Miliband’s Marxist utopia upon us.  Might be important…especially as Unite Leader, Len McCluskey, says Democracy is over-rated and he wants to use ‘direct action’ to force his views upon society.  Something that might be of interest to anyone thinking of voting for Unite funded Miliband.

Just heard that America is guilty of creating ISIS…never mind it existed in Afghan under a different name long before the BBC’s Peter Taylor claims it was created and the idea to create an Islamic State was always the dream.  The BBC happily ignores the reality that ‘ISIS’ was smashed by the US in Iraq and resurrected by Assad who released them from prisons and attacked their rivals whilst protecting them for his own purposes….not a mention of that key Syrian angle in this write up by Taylor.

The BBC is relentless in trying to blame the West or the US for what is happening in the Middle East…never mind that it was the Arab Spring that set off events in Syria and created the circumstances that allowed ISIS to rise again.

Even Jeremy Bowen admits that the self-immolation of the Tunisian fruit seller was the spark that began the uprisings across the Middle East…Syria would not be self-destructing if that hadn’t happened and ISIS wouldn’t have had the opportunity to rise again…nothing to do with Iraq.

It’s an odd thing isn’t it?  Muslims flock to the infidel and despised West to take advantage of the benefits provided by that infidel and despised Western society, including the ability to practise their religion more freely than when back in their ‘Islamic’ homelands, and yet the West is not allowed to go to Muslim lands to depose secular dictators hated by those same Muslims and to bring religious and political freedom to the oppressed people of those lands as well as to oust regimes like the Taliban…. the sort of Jihadi ‘Muslims’ that ‘real’ Muslims, sat comfortably in their Western homes, tell us aren’t real Muslims…and yet the West is somehow guilty of a crime against Muslims… which drives those ‘Real Muslims’ to be radicalised and to join up with those ‘Non-Islamic’ Jihadi Muslims to fight the Infidel and despised Western oppressor.

Go figure.

The BBC believes it unquestionably.

What brought that little rant on?  This from Craig at Is the BBC biased (yes it is) in which he tells of a complaint he made to the BBC about their lack of coverage of the fact that the father of a ‘Jihadi runaway’ was himself an extremist when they had previously given an enormous amount of airtime to him and his ilk to complain that it was all the Police’s fault or MI5’s fault that his daughter had gone off to join ISIS.

The BBC’s response was to say this…

BBC News is aware of the video material said to show Mr Hussen at a rally in 2012 and we have looked into the matter ourselves.

We didn’t consider it merited a report on its own, but it was included in a TV piece due to run on the evening of Friday, March 27th. Unfortunately, because of other news priorities, including the court verdict in the Amanda Knox/Meredith Kercher case, it didn’t make it to air.

I’m sorry, what was that?  ‘We didn’t consider it merited a report on its own’!

Are they kidding? Having flooded the news with sob stories about his daughter and her friends the BBC couldn’t find time for what is an important part of that story, the missing piece of the jigsaw that answers the question that the BBC constantly asks…Just what drives our young British Muslism to become radicalised?

Turns out its the way they’ve been brought up.  Suddenly though the BBC has lost interest in the answer.

Strange that.

The BBC does reassure us that….

However, it is something that we do intend to return to in the future.

Craig is doubtful…

When the BBC Complaints guy writes, “However, it is something that we do intend to return to in the future”, I afraid I don’t have any confidence in that pledge whatsoever. They clearly have absolutely no plans to update this story. The censorship will continue.

However I have every faith that the BBC will indeed return to the subject….the father will of course be the victim of Western oppression in his homeland that forced him, ironically, to flee to the West where he again suffered discrimination, disenfranchisement, alienation and Islamophobia, not to mention the trauma of watching his homeland being freed from the savage grip of a secular tyrant on the BBC each night…no wonder he became radicalised and turned to extreme measures when the much vaunted Western Democracy failed him.

LibDem Peer, Lord Palumbo, thinks that politicians are making promises that they can’t possibly fulfill and it’s bad for democracy…but who’s to blame?

Wild election promises, funded with Monopoly money – is it any wonder nobody trusts politicians?

I don’t entirely blame politicians for behaving in this way. Our short-term cyclical political process seems designed to generate this auction of electoral bribery and reality avoidance. Honesty doesn’t win seats, promises do. The problem comes later, when politicians have to live up to their commitments while keeping the country’s economy afloat.

This is, however, one of the reasons we hit the financial crisis in 2008 and why deficit reduction has been so difficult during the last parliament. The needs of our democracy run against those of sound economic management. The skills needed by a media-savvy politician are the opposite to those needed to run a large and complex organisation. The by-product? As Viv Nicholson might have said: debt, debt, debt.

I take the somewhat controversial view that democracy would be enhanced if there was a little less electioneering and a little more truth telling. More experts, fewer communicators.

[Democracy] only works if voters make an informed choice, balancing individual needs and national interest, and if politicians are able to operate in an environment by which difficult choices and honesty are not prohibitively costly to their existence.

The choice for voters at this election is a critical one. The wrong decisions afterwards could bankrupt this country or leave us even more vulnerable to global economic turmoil.

We will pay a very heavy price if short-term political needs are placed before the national interest. And democracy will be undermined in the process.

Of course he is right as I’m certain we all recognise, politicians often refuse to admit there are difficult decisions, difficult choices, to be made, they refuse to admit mistakes and make rash promises, say for example to keep funding the NHS regardless of cost, because to suggest anything else is ‘death by Media’ and, they believe, electoral suicide.

Palumbo blames the politicians and only touches on the real culprits, the Media, which drives the agenda and makes politicians afraid to say anything that may later be held against them.

How often have we heard on the BBC that politics is failing, that voters have lost their trust in politicians (such as it was) and that democracy is on the rocks?

If that were so how much blame could be apportioned to the likes of the BBC which rather than merely seeking the truth to inform voters and their judgements also seeks to cast its own moral judgement upon the politicians and their policies or seems just out to trash any policy regardless of merit?

Here is a classic example of BBC mendaciousness…it can’t have been an honest mistake…how could a professional journalist make such a mistake?  H/T George R:

“HOW THE BBC STITCHED UP CAMERON WITH A FAKE QUOTE ABOUT FOX-HUNTING”

Why is it that politicians refuse to contemplate reducing any funding to the NHS when it clearly has got out of hand?  If the BBC were responsible it would allow the case to be made for such reductions but instead of that reasoned debate it goes into attack mode and as with welfare reforms sets out to paint any such change as an appallling, callous and wicked attack on the poorest and most vulnerable in society even if the policy might in fact be beneficial for them.  The rants about food banks are another example…often cited as proof that poverty stalks the UK when the reality is that most of the recipients are those who are having to wait for their benefits to be paid for one reason or another…in other words not ‘poverty’ but a bureacracy that has failed. Britain is not starving.

There is a distinct lack of honest debate that would allow politicians to freely admit money is short and savings have to be made. How often do you hear the BBC criticise ‘austerity’ without reference to the causes…that being the worst recession in 100 years?  It’s as if it was instead a cruel and heartless experiment that the Tories imposed, not out of necessity, but because they wanted to….that of course being a narrative that Labour likes to run with…the Tory (coalition) austerity measures are purely a nasty small government, everybody fend for themselves, Right wing ideology and nothing to do with fixing the economy….a narrative that the BBC’s failure to highlight Labour’s blame for the recession allows to gain credence and keeps up the notion of the ‘Nasty Tories’.

If Democracy is failing its because the Media is failing…and one of the biggest players, and the biggest culprit, is the BBC.