‘Personally I don’t know if I trust Ed Miliband one bit. This is a guy who ran for Labour leader against his own brother, and didn’t even tell him that he was doing it. If he can stab a member of his family in the back like that, what can he actually do for our country, if (when) Labour get back into power?’  A Labour voter.

The BBC has been spending a great deal of time trying to persuade us that Miliband isn’t the geeky nerd who will sell  his soul to be in power and who is definitely not the love-child of Labour washouts Neil Kinnock and Michael Foot.

Today they investigated the issues surrounding the great outpouring of outraged sanctimonious left-wing warbling about this…

Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said Mr Miliband had “stabbed his own brother in the back” to lead Labour and was now “willing to stab the UK in the back” by doing a deal on Trident with the SNP “to become PM”.

Wasn’t so long ago that the Labour Party itself was trying to stab Miliband in the back…

The Tories must be rubbing their hands with glee. They are facing an existential threat and about to lose their second by-election in a row and suddenly we distract the media with our favourite party game, “stab the leader in the back”.

The BBC of course forget that Miliband has long based his election campaign almost fully on the basis that Cameron is a ‘poshboy’ who is ‘out of touch’ with the needs of ordinary people….

British opposition leader Ed Miliband will cast himself as a humble man of the people on Tuesday in a bid to underscore Prime Minister David Cameron’s image as a privileged ‘posh boy’ whose government is out of touch with voters.

Miliband only recently called Cameron a ‘coward‘….

Labour brands Cameron a coward for refusing head-to-head TV debate

But it is ‘personalising politics’ to say Miliband ‘stabbed his brother in the back‘….calling Cameron a poshboy and a coward isn’t then?

Labour are trying to spin Fallon’s comments by saying the backstabbing is unimportant…Ed’s character is unimportant…but even Ed, in a Guardian puff piece , admits that knifing David was going to cause trouble, and did….

“I knew it was a big decision at the time, but it was an even bigger decision. It had bigger ramifications for my family, and for my relationship with David, than I had anticipated.”

If Miliband is prepared to sacrifice his brother and tear the family apart in order to get into power what else will he be prepared to sacrifice in that ‘lust for power’?  Fallon is right to question Miliband’s motivations.

The whole of the Guardian’s piece is about building up Miliband’s character and presenting him as fit for office…it’s even titled with that in mind…

‘Ed Miliband: don’t mistake my decency for weakness’

So Miliband’s character and personality and the judgments he makes are relevant as to whether he could be Prime Minister…and we know that Nicola Sturgeon thinks he wouldn’t be PM material.

Labour’s stab-proof spinning tells us that ‘personalising’ politics in this way brings the profession of politics into disrepute…or so says Margaret Hodge…lol….Oh yes….Margaret Hodge …

A senior Tory has accused Margaret Hodge, the Labour chair of the public accounts committee, of bringing parliament into disrepute by being “abusive and bullying” towards senior HSBC executives when they appeared before her panel.

“You maligned her reputation and suitability for her current role at the BBC and called on her to resign or be sacked. This is inexcusable. You were rude, abusive and bullying in a manner which brings your committee and the proceedings of the house into disrepute,” he told her.

So what would Margaret make of a leftwing news organisation that promotes this very personal video....

The rap cuts David Cameron’s party conference speeches to Eminem’s 2002 track Lose Yourself.

Cameron can be heard rhyming “I’m hardcore and I know the score” with “I am disgusted by the poor” followed by “I’ve made sure we’re ready for class war.”

David Cameron v Eminem Conservative conference rap: ‘I am disgusted by the poor’

The Labour Party has been relentless in carrying out a class war against Cameron suggesting he is unfit to govern as he is an ‘Eton Toff’, out of touch with the lives most people live and therefore unable to shape policies that are relevant to their lives….the Labour Party are always ready to use Cameron’s membership of the Bullingdon Club as a stick to beat him with...

The image of the Tory leader, which shows him in about 1986 dressed in the uniform of the elite Bullingdon Club, has appeared in several newspapers.

It is thought Labour was planning to use the picture on an election poster.

….and does membership of such a club tell us anything useful about Cameron?  Peter Hitchens thought so….

‘I think it tells us something about David Cameron that he doesn’t much want us to know’

Perhaps there is something about Ed Miliband that he doesn’t want us to know that stabbing his brother in the back might reveal.

But, apparently, such personal attacks are now taboo….The Labour Party are furious that Fallon could accuse Miliband of backstabbing and Miliband says that Cameron “sends out his minions like Michael Fallon to engage in desperate smears.” 

The BBC has been filling the airwaves with tributes to cricketer and commentator  Richie Benaud and telling us he was so popular and good at his job because of his personality and character…..but now apparently Miliband, who would have his finger on the nuclear trigger, who would be running the NHS and schools, who would be off chatting to world leaders, shouldn’t have his character and personality asssessed for suitablity for the biggest job in the UK?

Even Labour supporters didn’t think that before the electioneering began…..

A Labour voter said..in 2010….

The big news this week – at least for me – was the result of the new Labour Party leader, which was announced yesterday. I was backing, and voted for, David Miliband, but it was his brother Ed who won and is now the leader of the Labour Party.

Personally I don’t know if I trust Ed Miliband one bit. This is a guy who ran for Labour leader against his own brother, and didn’t even tell him that he was doing it. If he can stab a member of his family in the back like that, what can he actually do for our country, if (when) Labour get back into power?

We’ll see how he does, but it doesn’t seem likely right now that I will be renewing my Labour membership next year.

 

Three weeks ago on BBC3 Ed Miliband was asked ‘Do you regret stabbing your brother in the back?’ by a young audience member…

Guess it’s not what you say but who says it that makes it taboo.

Here you go, on time and all ready to go. Over to you! This is where you can detail the bias.

Peston’s latest is an out and out party political ‘broadcast’ for Labour, even going so far as to try and compare Miliband to Thatcher…somebody at the BBC really should start reading Peston’s stuff before they let it go to press.

Miliband as Thatcher not Foot?

Yes…Miliband and Thatcher…soul mates….

Peston shows himself to be more the wide-eyed stagedoor johnny than a hard-nosed journalist with a handle on reality.  Here he tells us that the wealthy are being shut out of the tent…it’s a new world, a new politics…all thanks to Miliband…

….the last nail in the coffin of a political approach – not quite an ideology – which had at its core the idea that it was better to get the wealthy and powerful in the tent, rather than doing what they typically do if they are outside the tent.

Really?  Never happen.  The wealthy and big business will always have huge influence in politics….even Lenin admitted that capitalism was absolutely necessary for Communism…only once Communism was well established would capitalism be rethought…but of course that was never going to happen just as Peston’s ‘Milibandism’ is never going to happen.

This next part illustrates how Peston is not interested in critiquing Miliband’s policy but in praising him personally…

I spoke to a New Labour veteran. This is what he said to me about the non-dom cull: it would “alienate some people whose goodwill is a good investment for us, send the wrong signal about the UK and [is] a rather useless piece of posturing (as the last Labour government concluded for 13 years)”.

Symbolic break

In other words, it is a powerful and important symbolic break with the Blair era.

When a Labour ‘veteran’ criticises the policy Peston ignores the criticism as to whether it is a workable policy or not and instead glorifies Miliband using trigger words ‘powerful’, ‘important’ and ‘symbolic’…all chosen to make Miliband and his policy look like something of substance rather than the squalid ‘posturing’ that we now know it really is that will not in fact end non-dom status, and, rather than raising money we know Labour actually thinks it will lose the UK money.

Nice bit of dramatising from Peston..

[For] Miliband, that calculation has had to be re-done, as living standards were savagely squeezed in the years after that profound economic shock, and the welfare state has been rolled back.

So living standards were ‘savagely’ squeezed?  Was the welfare state really ‘rolled back’ or just trimmed to make it more cost effective and to encourage people into work…as it did?  Peston is peddling the Labour narrative as if it is the only interpretation, or indeed the truth, never mind the interpretation.

He goes on…

Miliband would also say that the stagnating gap between the incomes of rich and poor and the widening wealth gap have shown that collaborating with the wealthy has not delivered adequate fruits to the poorest.

Like that word ‘collaborating’…another dog whistle. And how true is that when most people’s lives have improved enormously…the fact that some get mega rich due to globalisation resulting in an increasing ‘gap’ between the man in the street’s pay and that mega rich person’s income doesn’t mean the man in the street is getting poorer.

Then Peston really goes to town…Red Ed’s not red at all, he’s doing his best to make the world a wonderful place for the poor and deprived….

Now the conventional view from the centre of politics of what he’s doing is that he is a throwback to Labour’s left-wing past, a Michael Foot in a sharp tailored suit.

But that doesn’t feel right to me. He isn’t resorting to the traditional left-wing solutions of nationalisation, significantly increased state spending, incestuous deals with trade unions or penal increases in tax rates.

What he is attempting to do – perhaps naively, perhaps clumsily – is encourage competition, give more power to consumers, nudge up the minimum wage and take on vested interests.

 

‘Naive’ and ‘clumsy’…again words meant to engender some sympathy for Miliband, an innocent doing his best while the nasty world rails at him.  And not nationalising stuff?  How about the railways…or price freezes on private companies?  No incestuous deals with the unions?  He’s Labour leader only because of such a ‘deal’…and as for taxes.…to cut the deficit Labour has said 50% will come from tax rises.  Peston is blowing smoke up our derrieres.

He then reinforces this image with the claim that the ‘Establishment’ is out to get Miliband, he’s an outsider like Thatcher battling the vested interests….curious that the ‘hated’ Thatcher is always the one they turn to when they want a bit of credibility to rub off onto them….Thatcher would have scorned Miliband, his policies and his shallow political posturing.

Peston finishes off with this…

So what is striking, as the election looms, is the sheer scale of Miliband’s repositioning of Labour, both in respect of fundamental policy and the communication of policy.

Miliband hasn’t repositioned Labour he’s just ‘posturing’ and headline grabbing, he isn’t ending non-dom status merely tweaking it, he isn’t an outsider…he read PPE like all the rest of them at Oxford and he was safely ensconced well within the Establishment for all of Labour’s term in office…and apparently was spending much of the time wrapped in the arms of the BBC’s Stephanie Flanders…whilst in office….as Guido reveals…

Who was Ed’s secret girlfriend in 2005?

“I first met Ed when I went to a friend’s house for dinner,” Justine Miliband tells the Mirror today:

“I was interested in him, I thought he was good looking and clever and seemed to be unattached. But we just went down a conversational cul-de-sac. Apparently we had nothing in common. He wanted to talk about economics – one of my least favourite subjects. None of our conversations went anywhere. Then I found out he was secretly going out with the woman who had invited us for dinner. I was furious.”

But who was Ed’s secret lover at the time? According to John Rentoul it was Stephanie Flanders…

Flanders has admitted to dating both Ed Balls and Ed Miliband, though friends had always claimed it was in the nineties. Curious…

“Could the secrecy have been because he was a Treasury special adviser Stephanie Flanders was BBC economics journalist”, muses Rentoul on Twitter today. Questions to which the answer is oooooh.

Miliband blamed the banks and ‘someone’ in his speech today for the lack of regulation and oversight on the banking world but it seems to have been forgotten, conveniently buried by Labour’s non-dom shambles…

We are still paying – you are still paying – the British people are still paying – for what happened because of the global financial crisis.

We were told that the wealth flowed from these institutions, and while it appeared that in bonuses, practices and cultures, there were a different set of rules, that was to our benefit.

And if only the regulation came off, the wealth would magically flow.

For a time, it did.

And then we saw the financial crash.

What the banks called over-regulation turned out to be the dam protecting us from a tide of disaster.

The dam was weakened and it burst.

With all that followed.

 

So just who de-regulated the banks and allowed them to run riot? Who pulled the finger from the dam and let the tidal wave of debt in to overwhelm us?

Here’s Gordon Brown in his Mansion House speech in 2007:

Over the ten years that I have had the privilege of addressing you as Chancellor, I have been able year by year to record how the City of London has risen by your efforts, ingenuity and creativity to become a new world leader….So I congratulate you Lord Mayor and the City of London on these remarkable achievements, an era that history will record as the beginning of a new golden age for the City of London.

Your international success is critical to that of Britain’s overall and considering together the things that we must do to maintain our competitiveness….enhancing a risk based regulatory approach.

 

A year earlier in 2006 he made quite clear that he believed light touch, risk based regulatory system was the way ahead….a policy headed up by one Ed Balls…..

London has enjoyed one of its most successful years ever, for which I congratulate all of you here on your leadership skills and entrepreneurship.

Financial services are now 7 per cent of our economy. Financial and business services as much as 10 per cent. A larger share of our economy than they are in any other major economy, contributing £19 billion of net exports to our balance of payments, a success all the more remarkable because while New York and Tokyo rely for business on their large domestic base, London’s international ranking is founded on a large and expanding global market.

I believe that London, like New York, is already the capital marketplace of the world.

And I do not believe this has happened by accident.

The message London’s success sends out to the whole British economy is that we will succeed if like London we think globally. Move forward if we are not closed but open to competition and to new ideas. Progress if we invest in and nurture the skills of the future, advance with light touch regulation, a competitive tax environment and flexibility.

Mr Lord Mayor, we will not forget that the first and foremost duty of government is to maintain and indeed to strengthen the monetary and fiscal stability that has enabled us, successively, to grow and remain free of recession.

Ed Balls, our new City Minister, will work with you to develop publish and then promote a long term strategy for the development of London’s financial services and promoting our unique advantages and assets. We will set a clear ambition to make Britain the location of choice for headquarters and services, including R&D, for even more of the world’s leading companies.

In 2003, just at the time of a previous Mansion House speech, the Worldcom accounting scandal broke. And I will be honest with you, many who advised me including not a few newspapers, favoured a regulatory crackdown.

I believe that we were right not to go down that road which in the United States led to Sarbannes-Oxley, and we were right to build upon our light touch system through the leadership of Sir Callum McCarthy – fair, proportionate, predictable and increasingly risk based.

Perhaps the BBC will catch up on that important narrative and tell us who really is to blame for the economic crash we have suffered and the subsequent austerity that had to be imposed rather than allowing Miliband to make a completely false pitch to the electorate that denies Labour’s part in the worst recession in one hundred years.

Who said this in 2010?…

I welcome this debate. It is an important contribution to the Government’s commitment to fairness in the tax treatment of non-domiciles. I hope that I have made clear the importance of the current non-domicile tax regime for the UK economy.

Businesses see it as playing an important role in ensuring that the UK attracts skilled people from abroad to work, do business and invest. We would place ourselves at a significant competitive disadvantage if we simply scrapped the remittance basis at a time when countries with low tax regimes are competing to attract talent and investment-that would be an own goal.

Of course, it should not be forgotten that non-domiciles still contribute a significant amount of tax-it is estimated at £4 billion a year-to the Exchequer.

That was Labour’s Stephen Timms, then financial secretary to the Treasury, responding to questions from Norman Baker

I think the BBC was caught on the hop this morning as on the day of the much heralded Miliband announcement of the abolishment of Non-Dom status it turns out Balls had recently declared this would cost Britain money not make it money.

The BBC journo’s were so shocked that their natural journalistic instincts won over their usual carefully measured bias and the truth came tumbling out…well, a couple of them allowed themselves to dish the dirt.

The usually pro-Miliband Jon Pienaar told us that this was ‘The mother and father of all banana skins’ and Norman Smith, he of the ‘utterly terrifying’ prediction on Tory plans, said that Labour’s own plans had all gone ‘pear-shaped’….a corker of a story!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9JTMO0DZiM

The ‘BBC’ itself headlined with this all day despite the Balls revelation coming very early in the day….

Election 2015: Labour would scrap ‘non-dom’ tax status

If the Tories had made the same cock-up the headlines would have instantly been ‘Tory Policy chaos’ or ‘Tory Shambles’….the BBC’s reticence is all the more remarkable when Norman Smith tells us that Miliband’s Non-Dom policy was ‘the party’s most significant announcement of the campaign so far. ‘

Only at about 17:00 did the headline reflect the new situation…

Labour defends plans to scrap ‘non-dom’ tax status

…but even then the report attached hardly changed merely adding this…

Labour has defended its plans to end the non-domicile rule that allows some wealthy UK residents to limit the tax paid on earnings outside the country.

What is even more surprising, or not, is that two other of the BBC’s ‘star’ economics correspondents both fail to mention Balls’ earlier comments about the dangers of abolishing Non-Dom status when they are ‘analysing’ Miliband’s grand plan…..

Here’s Peston…

Are non-doms bad for UK?

And then there’s this curiously titled piece from Nick Robinson….

Election 2015: Non-doms – whose side are you on?

Strangely Peston also quotes Duncan Bannatyne…..

Strikingly the Dragons Den entrepreneur Duncan Bannatyne has argued that non-doms have an unfair cost advantage over other UK based business people.

But Non-Doms do get taxed on any income they make in the UK and if they bring money in from abroad to the UK that is also taxed….so they get no advantage.

What does Bannatyne think of foreign companies who get state aid to encourage them to set up in the UK and bring jobs here?

What benefits do Enterprise Zones offer for businesses?

Businesses basing themselves on Enterprise Zones can access a number of benefits:

• Up to 100% business rate discount worth up to £275,000 per business over a 5 year period

• Simplified local authority planning, for example, through Local Development Orders that grant automatic planning permission for certain development (such as new industrial buildings or changing how existing buildings are used) within specified areas

• Government support to ensure that superfast broadband is rolled out throughout the zone, and, if necessary, public funding

• 100% enhanced capital allowances (tax relief) to businesses making large investments in plant and machinery on 8 Zones in Assisted Areas

The BBC doesn’t really ‘fisk’ Miliband’s plans…..for instance where do they mention any other tax breaks such as those on offer in Enterprise Zones, or the double taxation jeopardy of the Dual Residents who don’t get taxed on foreign income if they are taxed on income earned abroad by the country they make that money in….. most Non-Doms will also get taxed on the income they make in other countries….so Miliband is threatening to tax them twice…or sabre-rattling for Public consumption when he knows full well that this is all headline grabbing nonsense from him.

The BBC doesn’t ask the difficult questions about the Labour claim that their policy has been audited by an ‘independent’ tax expert who confirms they may make up to a billion pounds from the policy….the BBC is not so keen to tell us that the IFS, an organisation the BBC usually quotes with allacrity when it criticises the Tories, said this……

It’s very difficult to say how much if any revenue Labour’s policy would raise.

“That’s partly because they haven’t yet given us the full details of the policy, it’s partly because there is a lot about these non-doms that we don’t know… and what’s hardest of all is to guess at how these people would respond to higher tax charges.”

Nor do they tell us that that ‘independent’ expert, Jolyon Maugham QC,  is in fact a Labour Party member who promotes them and their policies enthusiastically.

Here’s what the Tax Journal says….and look who stands out as the only one who supports the policy…

The move has been greeted with concern from some professionals. ‘It is a gamble in both a financial and a political sense,’ warned BKL Tax.

Blick Rothenberg partner Nimesh Shah agreed, saying: ‘The government needs to be mindful of the fact that non-doms and their businesses are internationally mobile by their very nature, and could decide to base themselves elsewhere.

Mark Pearce, tax partner at Thomas Eggar, said: ‘Simply abolishing the non-dom rule would be a disaster for the UK economy, as it would inevitably lead to a mass exodus of wealth and talent from the UK.’ He added: ‘Politicians are making sensationalist comments for column inches without giving true thought to the consequences of their stated position.

However, tax barrister Jolyon Maugham QC argued on his blog that the non-dom rule is ‘an unsightly bribe to those with some foreign connection to come to or remain in the UK’.

Here’s the Telegraph…

Ed Miliband’s non-dom crackdown is ‘cataclysmic’

Leading tax barristers warned that 30,000 of Britain’s 115,000 foreign investors could leave Britain in the wake of Ed Miliband’s announcement that a Labour government would abolish the tax rules surrounding non-doms.

Mr Miliband claimed that the party will raise “at least” hundreds of millions by abolishing the rules, which he described as “the right thing to do”.

But private banks, accountants, financial advisers and even the ‘independent expert’ who instructed Labour on the policy cast doubt on the Labour leader’s assertions.

And where is the exploration of the lie from Ed Balls about the Tories?

Craig at ‘Is the BBC biased?’ gave us the low down on the latest (well not quite…more of which later) bit of bias from Peston favouring the Labour camp…he is relentless and quite blatant…

Robert Peston gets carried away

It seems he has been giving us some very dodgy statistics about the cost/benefits of leaving the EU whilst cheerleading for Blair…which reminded me that I forgot to add this to the post on Blair….it’s the number of referendums that have been held in Europe, about European membership…and all without causing economic meltdown and market chaos….the EU even demanding countries that had referendums that voted no to Europe hold another one….so it looks like referendums can be good depending on whose asking…

Since the vote by the Republic of Ireland on the Lisbon Treaty [in 2008], the European Commission has stated that the Treaty would not force Ireland to change its view on issues such as having a permanent (as opposed to rotating) commissioner, military neutrality and abortion. The Irish voted again on the Lisbon Treaty on 2 October 2009. The vote was 67.1% in favour of the treaty.

Referendums related to the European Union

Of course it was Tony Blair who opened the borders to flood the UK with EU citizens….one intention was to have a large number of immigrants who who almost certainly vote for the UK to stay in Europe and who would tip the balance in any referendum which undoubtedly would be close anyway.

Blair and his unscrupulous sidekicks, many who still lurk in the shadow cabinet, committed serial crimes against the UK People and constitution….it is quite extraordinary that the banks and bankers are being held to account and scourged when politicians like Blair can walk free making millions off the back of a career that saw the UK brought to its knees, its culture and society undermined and sabotaged for Labour’s own ideological ends regardless of who got hurt.

There really should be a mechanism to put politicians like Blair who set out to betray the nation in prison.

Of course it would help if there were at least some sort of counterweight in the Media….such as an impartial news broadcaster that could challenge the politicians and bring to light their devious actions and intentions.

Shame we don’t have one.

The BBC  has been leading on this all day…

Tony Blair says EU vote plan would cause economic chaos

But nothing about this….

Markets spooked by threat of Labour-SNP coalition, economists warn

The prospect of a coalition being formed between Labour and the Scottish National Party after May’s election has frightened financial markets, economists have warned.

 

But back to Blair and Miliband on Europe.

Last week Miliband told us he was on the side of Big Business and would not have a referendum on Europe….ignoring the electorate’s wishes….

Miliband: EU poll is ‘clear and present danger’ to jobs

The Labour leader has outlined his party’s business manifesto, which includes a promise to “return Britain to a leadership role” in Brussels.

To reinforce Labour’s business message, the party also took out a full-page advertisement in the Financial Times, setting out its determination to “put the interests of Britain and British business first rather than risk an EU exit”.

 

Now having listened to the BBC reports on this and Blair’s intervention and read their efforts on the Website there’s a rather large hole in their reports, an elephant not in the room…this is a Labour Party that insists it is the Party of the people and is there to defend  the ‘people’ against the predators of Big Business….Miliband is now saying that actually,  no, what you the ‘people’ think is irrelevant, what really counts is what Big Business thinks.  Curiously nowhere in the BBC ‘analysis’ do we get to hear that accusation of utter hypocrisy from Labour….a Labour Party that has made a huge play of being anti-Business now turns around and dumps the ‘people’ for the Fat Cats.

Instead we have Nick Robinson telling us how brave Miliband is for having the guts to stamd up to pressure to have a referendum….

‘Admiring successor’s resolve’

The former prime minister knows that Ed Miliband came under sustained pressure to match the Tory promise of an EU referendum.

He was told “you can’t afford to oppose giving people a say, you’ll never face down the pressure from the press, a referendum’s inevitable” and more besides.

All the more reason, he believes, for admiring his successor’s resolve not to follow suit and for being contemptuous of David Cameron who has.

The BBC quotes Blair attacking Cameron for allowing a referendum when he, cameron, wants to remain in Europe…

“And the oddest thing of all about having this referendum? The PM doesn’t really believe we should leave Europe; not even the Europe as it is today,” he said.

“This was a concession to party, a manoeuvre to access some of the UKIP vote, a sop to the rampant anti-Europe feeling of parts of the media.

“This issue, touching as it does the country’s future, is too important to be traded like this.”

Isn’t that what Democracy is?  Regardless of your personal opinions the issues are put to the vote….Blair seems to think it is up to the self-serving elite to make the decisions for us…’us’ who are too uneducated and too easily swayed by the vulgar Press to be trusted with the decision…perhaps Blair wouldn’t like to hold elections at all and just be pronounced, annointed, King?  What has the Labour Party come to?

Here’s what the Telegraph said…

Tony Blair: public can’t be trusted to make ‘sensible choice’ on EU

 

Guido’s take…

The Mail…

Blair’s toxic embrace: Election intervention backfires on Ed as ex-PM says the people can’t be trusted with EU vote

Remember this from Blair way back when…

The People’s Pledge, which campaigns for an EU referendum, have dug out the quotes from Tony Blair’s 2004 pledge to hold a referendum on the EU constitution. Then he seemed rather keen to trust the British public to decide what’s best for them. Now, not so much:

This is what Mr Blair said in the House of Commons:

“Once agreed – Parliament should debate it in detail and decide upon it. Then, let the people have the final say.”

 

Guess not anymore….and the BBC are being very reticent about bringing such hypocrisy to the ‘people’s’ attention….and fail to mention Blair again u-turned…reneging on that promised referendum.

Here’s Nick Robinson not being very informative…just the usual knock about stuff we come to expect…he wraps up with this….

On 7 May this issue alone means the country faces a very significant choice because the two men who want to be your prime minister have themselves made two very different choices about how to handle calls for an EU referendum.

And isn’t that, ladies and gentlemen, one of the things voters say they want?

He’s telling us we get a referendum on Europe because we can vote for a party that wants one or a party that doesn’t….but that of course is rubbish because the General Election is about many issues not just Europe…so no, the General Election is not the same as a separate referendum about Europe….Nick is talking out of his backside…again….and the BBC is being less than open in its analysis, or lack of, of Miliband’s slippery and unprincipled volte faces.

This is another one of those stories that the BBC has disinterred from the archives but presents as new News just before the election…

Warning over Islamic radicalisation in England’s prisons

Staff shortages are making it harder to tackle Islamic radicalisation in England’s prisons, the former head of the National Counter Terrorism Security Office has warned.

Chris Phillips said shortages meant extremists were not properly monitored, enabling them to recruit others.

 

Staff shortages, due to government cuts, are leading to dangerous Islamic radicals taking over our prisons.

Shock horror….though the fact that the number of Muslim prisoners has doubled in the last few years could be the relevant factor rather than lack of staff.

Still….Funny what a difference a year makes as only last May the BBC was investigating the same problem of radicalisation in prisons and not a word about staff numbers…in fact the problem was staff knowing but not being able to do anything….not only that but then it was a ‘small problem’…though still a serious one when  it happens….

From jail to jihad? The threat of prison radicalisation

The head of the prison and probation service says there is a small but “significant risk” of Muslim prisoners becoming radicalised.

“The prison officers witnessed people become Muslim and in front of them I was giving them what we call Shahada, an invitation and acceptance of Islam.

“They was becoming Muslim in front of the prison officers – and they [the officers] felt sort of powerless.

There are around 100 Islamist terrorists in prison.

The Prison Service claims that the radicalisation of Muslim inmates is rare. But when it happens it can be serious.

Here is the Panorama film…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMXWyt78-6Q

You can see that there is little the prison officers can really do other than move prisoners from prison to prison…’Islamisation’ is occuring in front of their eyes so it isn’t a problem of not being able to monitor events…it’s being almost powerless to prevent them happening in standard prisons where Muslim, ‘moderate’ and ‘extreme’, and non-Muslims mix….the solution is an isolation prison just for the radicals.

And this isn’t just a problem that has recently occured because of ‘cuts’...here’s Quilliam detailing similar radicalisation in prisons in 2009…

New Quilliam report: British prisons are incubating Islamist extremism

A new report by Quilliam on prison radicalisation, Unlocking Al-Qaeda: Islamist extremism in British prisons, reveals that government measures to stop Islamist radicalisation in prison are failing to halt the spread of jihadist ideology in British prisons.

 Quilliam warns that failure to tackle prison radicalisation risks creating a fresh wave of hardened extremists, both inside and outside prisons, who are willing and capable of conducting terrorist violence.

Pro-active recruitment by extremists. Imprisoned extremists are pro-actively seeking to recruit other Muslims to their cause, for example, by befriending them soon after their arrival in prison, protecting them from other inmates and leading prison protests against alleged mistreatment by prison authorities.

 –          Extremists being empowered by the prison service. Extremists are often seen by prison staff seen as ‘go-betweens’ between the prison service and ordinary Muslims. In addition, leading extremists have been allowed to lead Friday prayers and given mentoring courses that allow them to become ‘spiritual advisors’ to other inmates.

 –          Increasing Muslim gang culture. There are increasing reports of Muslim gangs forming in prison, some of them involving known extremists. Some of these gangs aim to intimidate and attack non-Muslim prisoners. Convicted terrorists have additionally carried out violent attacks in prison against non-Muslim prisoners.

 –          Extremist books in prison: Some Muslim prisoners, including known and suspected extremists, report reading pro-jihadist books in prison such as Milestones by Sayyid Qutb, the main inspiration for modern jihadist thought.

 –          Extremists producing prison propaganda. Prominent pro-Al-Qaeda ideologues such as Abu Qatada have been able to smuggle messages out of prison to their supporters. Other convicted extremists have issued pro-jihadist statements from prison while others have appeared on Islamic TV stations from within prison.

 –          Staff failings are fuelling radicalisation. A widespread lack of understanding of mainstream Islam and of Islamist radicalisation among Prison Service staff has undermined government efforts to tackle prison extremism. In addition, incidents of racism and prejudice by staff towards Muslim prisoners risk pushing them towards extremist ideologies.

 

The issues raised are  the same ones that were raised again in 2014….very often the prison staff are facilitating Islamisation by their attempts either to be overly Islam-friendly or, in the eyes of the prisoners, too heavy handed in stamping down on their practises.

Quilliam says…

‘The Prison Service has taken some steps towards tackling extremism but these are not enough. Islamist extremists are running rings around a prison service which often seems clueless about the nature of the extremist threat.

‘It is staggering that known extremists, with their accommodation and food provided by the government, are effectively radicalising other prisoners at taxpayer expense. If this situation is not tackled, British prisons risk becoming universities of terror.

‘It is time for the British government to consider serious long-term measures to tackle prison radicalisation. The most important of these is to create a specialised de-radicalisation centre which can ‘de-programme’ existing extremists as has been done in Middle Eastern countries such as Egypt and Yemen.’

 

No mention of staff levels.

The BBC has wiped the archives clean and rewritten the history…just as it has with the economy….it’s cuts, cuts, cuts….but hardly a reference as to why the cuts are necessary….such as the worst recession in 100 years…thanks to you know who.

On time and awaiting your completion! If the bias has been disturbing you then detail it here so we can share it with the world!

Here’s a bizarre offering from the BBC bigging up the SNP leader in this very pro-SNP piece….

Election 2015: Can Nicola Sturgeon win over the UK?

 

Curiously after the wall to wall coverage the BBC gave to the leader’s debate last week the BBC is very coy about what happened in the one in Scotland where this happened…

Sturgeon booed as she hints at second independence referendum

Nicola Sturgeon was booed in the first Scottish leaders’ debate when she refused to rule out a second independence referendum.

Questioned by Bernard Ponsonby, STV’s political editor, she said there would be no referendum after May 7, but when he asked what would happen “after 2016”, she was booed when she said: “That is another matter, we will write that manifesto when we get there. I will fight one election at a time.”

The Press and Journal give us the news…

The First Minister Nicola Sturgeon was booed by a section of the audience when she was quizzed on the SNP’s stance on another Scottish independence referendum.

The Mail tells us…

She said she would not rule out such a call in the manifesto for the 2016 Scottish Parliament election, saying: ‘That’s another matter.’

The admission sparked howls of derision from the audience.

The BBC instead gives us this headline…

SNP ‘will help make Miliband PM’, Sturgeon says

Nicola Sturgeon has said the SNP would help make Ed Miliband prime minister if the Conservatives failed to win a majority in the general election.

Of course that doesn’t mean she wouldn’t prefer Cameron in No10…just that if that doesn’t happen she couldn’t be seen to be helping Cameron back in even if that is what she wants….and she could run rings around Miliband anyway…so why not have a stooge in No10 as a last resort should the hated Tories not help her out themselves by getting elected?

And absolutely no mention of booing by the BBC…can you imagine them not mentioning that if Cameron, or Farage, got booed?  Here they paint Sturgeon as the voice of moderation just waiting on the voice of the people to guide her….

Independence referendum

During the two-hour debate, Ms Sturgeon said she respected the result of the independence referendum last year and insisted the Westminster election was “not a re-run of the referendum campaign”.

She said a vote for the SNP meant a loud voice for Scotland at Westminster.

Former SNP leader and first minister Alex Salmond had said a further referendum was off the agenda for a generation.

Nicola Sturgeon said it was a decision for the people of Scotland, not politicians. “I can’t impose a referendum,” she said.

And who won the debate?  Did Sturgeon match up to her performance last week?…here’s the Telegraph’s Michael Deacon’s verdict…

Most impressive of these four leaders on the night has been Ruth Davidson. We’ve just seen a Tory, in Scotland, arguing passionately in favour of tuition fees – and getting applause. That takes some doing. She’s looked smart, she spoke with feeling, and unlike David Cameron she hasn’t relentlessly droned the same lines again and again about the economy. She doesn’t sound programmed.

Nicola Sturgeon is articulate and shrewd but she hasn’t looked anywhere near as confident as she did in the UK-wide debate. Last week, she was the outsider attacking the Establishment. Tonight, though, she herself is the Eatablishment, with her own government’s record to defend – and she hasn’t looked quite so comfortable doing that.

 

Guido tells us that Ruth Davidson ‘battered’ Labour’s Jim Murphy…

Jim Murphy was under the cosh during last night’s Scottish Leaders’ Debate, repeatedly mansplaining to Ruth Davidson and Nicola Sturgeon and coming fourth with the Sun’s Twitter worm. This is the moment the Scottish Tory leader pummelled her Labour counterpart on the economy….

There was no snap poll, but Ruth was the resounding winner among the pundits…

 

Strange that we don’t have the BBC applauding a Tory getting applause and having a successful debate.  As Deacon says it was relatively easy for Sturgeon to win out last week being the outsider just having to look as ‘statesmanlike’ as possible….not so easy when you have to actually defend yourself in the real world.

Also…

Matt Holehouse writes:

If you read the pro-SNP papers, or dip a toe in the murky world of Cybernat twitter, you could be forgiven for thinking all of Scotland was in hock to an angry, suspicious Nationalist creed that believes the referendum was “stolen” by Westminster and the BBC.

This audience is a useful corrective. Questioners demand tax cuts, keeping Trident and deficit reduction. There is applause for those who question Sturgeon.

There’s a big shocked gasp when Sturgeon refuses to rule out a second referendum in the manifesto.

What do the Cybernats, who claim to speak for Scotland, say? The audience “plants”, apparently.

The BBC’s coverage is deliberately very anodyne and favours Sturgeon.