‘But he also told her that the story chimes with what he has been told by senior SNP figures – that it suits their wider purpose to have a Tory Prime Minister because it rallies support for independence.’

The Telegraph released a leaked memo that said the SNP’s leader wanted Cameron for PM….to howls of denial all round.

The memo had a fair bit in it and ended like this…

The Ambassador also had a truncated meeting with the FM (FM running late after a busy Thursday…). Discussion appears to have focused mainly on the political situation, with the FM stating that she wouldn’t want a formal coalition with Labour; that the SNP would almost certainly have a large number of seats; that she had no idea ‘what kind of mischief’ Alex Salmond would get up to; and confessed that she’d rather see David Cameron remain as PM (and didn’t see Ed Miliband as PM material). I have to admit that I’m not sure that the FM’s tongue would be quite so loose on that kind of thing in a meeting like that, so it might well be a case of something being lost in translation.

 

The last bit is of course pure speculation….you could equally, or better, speculate that Sturgeon did say that…especially as that is what was set out in black and white in the memo….the ‘qualifying’ statement is based purely upon the nervousness of the person writing the memo rather than any actual knowledge…why no such qualification for other parts of the memo?….and not quite sure how such a statement by Sturgeon could be ‘lost in translation’ to the Ambassador and the Consul General who speak very good english…..also SNP officials have been saying the same thing to the BBC (see later)…so if they are speaking to journalists why not in a ‘private’ meeting with a friendly Ambassador?

The Telegraph reports…

The SNP-supporting Sunday Herald reported that the French consul-general, Pierre-Alain Coffinier, on whose testimony the account of Ms Sturgeon’s meeting was based, refused to deny that she had said she did not consider Mr Miliband to be Prime Minister material.

Senior UK Government sources said the account was written by an “experienced and reliable civil servant” on March 6, after a telephone call with the consul-general.

Sturgeon relies on the French denying having said anything…but look at the attitude of the French Consul General in Edinburgh who was the source of the information given to the Scotland Office having been at the meeting between Sturgeon and the Ambassador…

At the weekend, Pierre-Alain Coffinier, France’s consul general in Edinburgh, admitted to telling a Scotland Office official about the FM’s meeting with the French ambassador.

He denied it was Scotland Office Director Francesca Osowska but admitted it was “one of her colleagues”, declining to say who.

Told other parts of the UK Government were blaming the Scotland Office, he replied: “I’m not going to help them to get one of my friends – because these people are my friends – to help pin it down on him or her.”

He’s not going to help ‘them’ get his friend…in other words he’s not going to tell the truth if it gets his friend in trouble….and of course keeps himself in the clear at the same time.

Is the memo true?….even the BBC says it has inside information that it may be…SNP politicians admit to ‘an attraction in the idea of a conservative government’…and the National Socialists don’t like it….

BBC Scotland’s James Cook caught up with Nicola Sturgeon today and asked her about the Telegraph‘s leaked memo. But he also told her that the story chimes with what he has been told by senior SNP figures – that it suits their wider purpose to have a Tory Prime Minister because it rallies support for independence. His asking this question infuriated the CyberNats who rounded on him. Rarely for a BBC journalist, he commented on it:

What an extraordinary level of vicious abuse I have received today for simply reporting the news. Is this the country we want folks? Is it?

— James Cook (@BBCJamesCook) April 4, 2015

 

Jim Naughtie may have been throwing cold water on the idea but another BBC journo, more in touch with the world outside the studio, has other ideas.

However James Cook’s inside information doesn’t make it to later BBC news reports…..neither here nor here.

Why not?  An ‘incendiary’ claim that Sturgeon is lying to the Scottish voters is backed up by information that one BBC journalist has revealed but the BBC doesn’t subsequently report his findings?

Why not?  They go to the absolute heart of the story and undermine Sturgeon’s claim of innocence.  It is headline stuff in effect…a bombshell under Sturgeon.

But not apparently for the BBC which has presumably had a meeting and quashed all mention of it again.

News?  Not at the BBC.

Update:

Norman Smith on Today (08:45) says the revelations could be devastating if Sturgeon is thought to be being  economical with the truth…and grudgingly comes round to the idea that the claims might have some legs as he speculates that perhaps things were lost in translation when, if, Sturgeon suggested she had doubts about Miliband being capable of being Prime Minister that was ‘over-interpreted’ as meaning she would prefer a Cameron government.

Smith went on to say a hard headed SNP view would welcome a Cameron government….however he makes no mention of James Cook’s revelation that senior SNP officials had admitted such a thing openly to him….so again…not ‘lost in translation’ at all….and why would Sturgeon express doubts about Miliband and not intimate a preference for the Tories as a strategic advantage for the SNP in the never-ending demand for independence?  They both go together really and you can see how she might say both things.

So ‘devastating’ for Sturgeon…..and the BBC is still tip-toeing around the truth.

There is going to be a teacher shortage…the problem is a result of government failure to recruit more teachers in light of a baby boom, as the BBC put it on the radio.

Others might categorize the problem as having too many pupils due to the flood of immigrants coming to this country rather than too few teachers….just as the ‘housing problem’ is not one of too few houses but too many people walking across the border demanding a house.

Control the immigration and there wouldn’t be a problem.

The BBC, as stated, doesn’t mention ‘immigration’ just the fact that by 2023 we will have 9% more primary school pupils and 17% more secondary school pupils and that apparently we were 17% under target for teacher recruitment in 2014 and that Labour is outraged.   Which you might consider odd, as there are more teachers now and far more teaching assistants than in 2010.

The BBC is also less than honest when it comes to counting those teacher numbers.

It tells us…

Teachers warn of unqualified staff

A teachers’ union is warning that schools are increasingly likely to use unqualified teaching staff.

“Parents no longer have the certainty when they send their child to school that they will be taught by qualified teachers,” says NASUWT leader Chris Keates.

Labour’s Tristram Hunt says “this is nothing less than a scandal”.

The BBC does mention this…

But the Conservatives say there are fewer teachers in school without qualified status than in 2010.

But goes on to give us this less than clear claim bolstered by eyecatchingly large percentages….

The union has asked its members about their experiences. Among the 4,600 who responded 61% said they were “working alongside unqualified staff”, with 66% claiming the situation was “deteriorating” because of funding problems.

So just how many qualified teachers are there?  451,000. Just for a bit of perspective.  How many unqualified?  17,100.   But then there are also teaching assistants….so when the BBC tells us that 61% told the union that they are ‘working alongside unqualified staff’ does that also include those teaching assistants? Kind of skewing things a bit by not clarifying that.  In 2005 there were 434,200 qualified teachers and 18,800 unqualifed. Do the maths.

We now have more qualified teachers and fewer unqualified teachers both numerically and as a percentage.

Just how many teaching assistants do we have?  In 2005 there were 147,200, in 2013, 243,700.  In other words teachers are getting more help than ever before to teach…..Teaching assistants being there to assist teachers not to teach pupils themselves.

What of Labour’s Tristram Hunt who is ranting that “this is nothing less than a scandal”?

What’s the truth?

Is it any good asking the BBC?  Well it depends.

Here’s how they report the facts in the above article…

The most recent Department for Education figures available, for 2013, show the number of unqualified teachers rose compared with the previous year, from 14,800 to 17,100, but is lower than in 2010, when there were 17,800 of teachers without qualified teacher status.

However for academies, the proportion of unqualified teachers has risen each year since 2010, from 2,200 to 7,900.

It tells us that there are fewer unqualified teachers now than in 2010…but could have gone back to 2005 when there were 18,800 on Labour’s watch at a time when there were fewer qualified teachers as well…so a higher proportion were unqualified under Labour not just numerically.

And what of that word ‘proportion’?  Look at the second sentence…’However for academies, the proportion of unqualified teachers has risen each year since 2010, from 2,200 to 7,900.‘

The ‘proportion’ of unqualified teachers in academies has actually dropped….as the BBC’s own figures show in a more robust analysis.

In November 2010 there were indeed 2,200 unqualified teachers in Academies or 9.6%, in 2013 there were 7,900….a big rise….but that’s only 5.3%…how come?  In 2010 there were 22,800 qualified teachers in Academies, in 2013 there were 149,300….a  huge rise in qualified staff at Academies.

The BBC is being less than honest in its reports…on the one hand you have the regular news report which doesn’t give the full facts and favours Labour and the unions in its nuanced approach whilst the more indepth analysis, which I suspect most people won’t read, gives the figures but ends with this odd conclusion…

So as far as those political positions on qualified versus unqualified teachers are concerned, it seems the parties’ rhetoric is largely about staking out different visions of teaching and the school system.

One view is of a less regulated, more diverse teaching workforce; the other argues that formal training in the skills of being a teacher is an essential part of bolstering the status of the profession.

That’s a statement that flies in the face of all the facts that they have just given us on the numbers which clearly show the number of teachers has grown under the Coalition whilst the number of unqualified staff has fallen from November 2010…and not only that but the help teachers get in the way of teaching assistants has grown enormously which should make their job easier.

How the BBC can claim that Labour is the party of the qualified, high status teacher is beyond me…it’s just not borne out by the facts.

A guest Contribution by Graeme Thompson who posts as hippiepooter!

Check out the BBC landing page for Easter Day (@ 09:35):-

Just one incidental mention of Easter.

On it’s UK News site (@ 09:47):-

Just one secondary mention.

Well, at least its Easter Day headlines do not relate Easter to Islam as Alan has highlighted here and here.

Unless of course, one takes into account that the Easter Day Messages of His Holiness the Pope and His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury are centred on persecution Christians suffer throughout the world from … from … for once the BBC decide not to relate Easter to Islam.

The unparalleled Islamic evil of ISIS has at last resulted in Christian Militias aided by international volunteers to defend themselves, recover their homes and form part of the struggle to defeat ISIS.

My hope and prayer this Resurrection Day is that they will kill as many British Jihadists as possible so they don’t come back to Britain to murder people here, and, now that ISIS is on the retreat, those British Jihadists who do return are hung for Treason.

Christian readers of B-BBC may wish to consider donating the proceeds of their Lent sacrifice and Easter fast to the Christian Militia Dwekh Nawash.

The Guardian provides a perfect illustration of just how the truth is being twisted in the propaganda war in the run up to the election…one would have hoped for better from the über ethical Guardian…

The rise of DIY dentistry: Britons doing their own fillings to avoid NHS bill

In a country that prides itself on free healthcare, DIY dentistry is an almost Victorian notion of hardship. But poverty and inequality – and the increasing stigma attached to both – are blocking access to healthcare for the poorest people in the UK, and grim tales of a black economy are on the rise.

 

Ah yes the stigma of poverty and inequality…..so using Labour’s narrative that poverty and inequality are a Tory creation the Guardian is trying to suggest we vote Labour if we want a Hollywood smile…..not even the BBC has stooped that low…perhaps because they remember this from 2009 under Labour whose recession, the worst in 100 years according to the IFS, helped with that inequality…never mind their policy of abandoning manufacturing, replacing the shopfloor with banks and the trading floors of London financial houses…

Millions ‘opt for DIY dentistry’

Millions of people in England have resorted to DIY dentistry, a survey by consumer magazine Which? suggests.

Since a new dental contract was introduced in 2006 there has been growing concern over access to care.But the government said the findings of the survey were unreliable, and said access to NHS dentistry was improving.

 

And this in 2007…

Pros and cons of DIY dentistry

Problems with getting an NHS dentist are leading some people to pull their own teeth out.

 

Still the BBC isn’t being exactly honest in its reports about the NHS…but what’s new.

From the Telegraph….

Did BBC help win Labour the 1964 election by cancelling Steptoe and Son?

When Harold Wilson learned that the BBC planned to broadcast an episode of Steptoe and Son on the night of the 1964 general election, he sensed disaster.

The Labour leader feared that working class voters would stay at home to watch the comedy, which in those days drew audiences of 26 million, instead of heading to the polls. In an extraordinary intervention, he visited the home of the BBC director-general, Sir Hugh Greene, and pleaded with him to pull the show from the schedules.

A government minister, one of Asian background, Sajid Javid, tells us that ‘Muslim communities in parts of Britain have a ‘cultural’ problem that allows women to be viewed as commodities.’

He tells us….

“If we are to learn proper lessons from this, we have to look at the cultural side of some communities in Britain and see why it is that in some communities there are men that have a view of women that is completely unacceptable in modern British society; why do they have such a low value of women that they see them as commodities to be abused?”

“Some of the values that certain people in some communities have, in their attitudes to women or on the question of freedom of expression, are just totally unacceptable in British society; and we do no one any favours when we don’t investigate or talk about them.”

The Mail reports it, the Independent reports it, the Guardian hasn’t and the BBC hasn’t…presumably still working out the line to take on this one…perhaps due to a ‘misplaced sense of political correctness’.

But, even though just about every news outlet in the world reported the below story, even the Japan Times,  the BBC didn’t report what the Pew Research Centre had to say about religion and population…wonder why…..

The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010-2050

Why Muslims Are Rising Fastest and the Unaffiliated Are Shrinking as a Share of the World’s Population

‘Muslims are expected to account for 10 percent of Europe’s overall population, Pew added.’

The Sturgeon caviar turns out to be more cod’s roe, or is it cods wallop, as Sturgeon is revealed to be a secret Tory….or so the Telegraph tells us…

Nicola Sturgeon secretly backs David Cameron

“she’d rather see David Cameron remain as PM (and didn’t see Ed Miliband as PM material)”

The BBC seems rather put out and counters with the denial…

Nicola Sturgeon denies ‘preferring Cameron’

Naughtie on the Today programme also gave the denial more prominence and thought it was all a bit of political skulduggery by someone…after all he sniffed, the civil service is supposed to be neutral.

Funny.  Very very funny.

Back to the Today programme and we had the BBC’s Zoe Conway (08:20) giving us a run down of what ‘The People’ think and who they might voter for….first three told us they wouldn’t be voting UKIP or for those ‘extreme’ or polarising parties, the next was a nurse….Conway asked if she would be voting Labour as they have been making a good play  on the NHS, then we had a Conservative voter…who wouldn’t be voting Tory as he didn’t want a referendum on Europe..and he definitely wouldn’t be voting UKIP…and that was it.  A pretty broad and balanced segment of the populace….presumably she just went to the next door office at the BBC studio and asked her colleagues for their thoughts.

So four who wouldn’t vote UKIP, one of them anti the Europe referendum, a nurse who was probably Labour ….the BBC, you gotta love the bias.

So it’s all over bar the shouting….and what do we know that’s new?  Nothing.

Anyone who has listened to Sturgeon swatting aside the hopeless journos of the Today programme will know she is an effective speaker….never mind the poll ratings in Scotland.  And everyone else was as expected.

A complete waste of time that was more about the Media and its sense of its own importance than any attempt to provide us with real enlightenment….Paxman’s over aggressive interviews were equally unenlightening though they had the potential to be much more effective….in fact that was the format that should have been used for all party leaders….a head to head with a sensible journo with questions sent in from the public and fellow politicians….we might actually have learnt something and had less posturing from all, including Paxman and the interviews could have been longer and more involved spread over the day and not crammed into a couple of hours for 7 party leaders to try and get a word in on complex subjects…..you could also have known in advance when your politician of choice was going to be grilled and tuned in to watch without having to waste time on those of no interest to you….after all did we want to know what their policies are and how they defend them or was it more about watching a political dogfight to see who could out-talk all the rest, and not necessarily the winner because they had the best policies…..aren’t we told we are tired of such smooth talking politicians and want more grit and reality from them?  So why put them on show in a gladitorial contest?  Because it supposedly made good TV.

And what of Farage and his comments about HIV and immigration, comments he has made before?...the BBC lays into Farage …

BBC Political Correspondent Alex Forsyth, on the campaign trail in Ramsgate, said she had been told by a senior UKIP source that “people who support us are likely to agree with us on this issue”.

And the comment could be viewed as part of a “shock and core” strategy to “reach out to their core voters”.

…and quotes as many of the self serving sanctimonious put downs from other politicians who haven’t the guts to say the things that Farage does as it can cram into a report….a report that is remarkably lacking in honesty…..what’s missing?  Perhaps a quick shufty on Google would have made Farage look less like the pariah the BBC is trying to paint him as….how about this from only a year ago….

Ban on HIV positive immigrants entering the UK proposed for Immigration Bill by Tory MPs

Conservative MPs have been accused of trying to change the law to ban foreigners with HIV and Hepatitis B from living and working in Britain.

Nearly 20 Tories backed an amendment to the Government’s controversial Immigration Bill which would have required anyone coming to settle in Britain to prove that they were not HIV positive.

 

Or how about this from 2005…

Tories plan HIV tests for migrants

The Conservative party raised the political heat on immigration yesterday by demanding that anyone seeking to come to Britain for more than a year should undergo compulsory health tests including screening for HIV and TB.

And it wasn’t just the Tories…

Labour responded a week later with a range of tough proposals in the Home Office’s five-year plan, including its own proposals for migrant health checks, focusing on TB.

 

And never mind that ‘core’ UKIP vote that the BBC is so worried about….I suspect you could ask almost anyone in the street if Farage is right and get an answer that would have the chattering classes demanding  a new voting system…perhaps each vote in leafy lefty Hampstead be worth 5 of those from UKIP ghettos.

The Mail looked into this subject a while back…

Immigrants, HIV and the true cost to the NHS: Should the ‘International Health Service’ be treating patients who come here with the killer disease, asks SUE REID

And it’s not as if the BBC themselves haven’t raised the question about health tourism….

“It seems very strange when we’re shaving off the pennies here and there to actually open the door wide to the citizens of the world to walk in and have free medical care at primary care level in the UK.”

Farage is evil.  Or just honest.

From Harry’s Place...

‘Hey Khaled, looking good!’ The BBC as an Enabler of Antisemitic Terrorism

On 1 April the world woke up to a Hamas propaganda video. It took the form of a BBC ‘interview’ with Khaled Mashaal, the leader of Hamas, and an accompanying ‘analysis’ by the BBC’s Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen. It was so Andrex-puppy-soft, so simperingly unchallenging, so knowingly complicit in helping Hamas to spin to a western audience, that I thought it was an April Fools joke. (It wasn’t.)

When Bowen met Mashaal it was more Susanna Reid than Jeremy Paxman.

Just like the besotted Reid, Jeremy Bowen began with a bit of flirting. “Khaled Mashaal looked to be in good health. ‘Keep fit to keep on resisting,’ Mashaal joked before the interview” Bowen tells us.

(I bet Mashaal was looking chipper. A private gym in Qatar, private jets, luxury hotels and a personal fortune estimated at $2.6 billion will do that for you. And if the Jerusalem Post is correct, Mashaal also owns a 2.5 acre commercial centre in Qatar, which can put a smile on your face.)

Bowen then allowed Mashaal, an anti-Semitic terrorist who has exulted in the killing of Jews as Jews, to preen and pose, without challenge, before a global audience, with the full imprimatur of a respectful BBC, as a heroic Palestinian democrat, a moderate man, a peacemaker, and a reluctant Liberator in the glorious tradition of Nelson Mandela and George Washington.

Bowen might have asked Mashaal ‘If your goals are so benign, and so moderate, as you claim, why not revoke those parts of the Hamas Charter which say “The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdullah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.”?

Instead Bowen opted for a ‘Mr. Mashaal, do you have a message for the nation?’ style of ‘interviewing’. Matti Friedman calls this the ‘ideological onslaught successfully disguised as journalism.’ Yesterday, knowingly or not, the BBC was used as a vehicle for Hamas Propaganda. Yesterday, to its shame, the BBC became an enabler.

The Muslim Brotherhood propagandist has found a new cause…..it is worth looking to see what Bowen’s apprentice, Donnison, is saying on Twitter?  No, I can pretty much guess what Hamas’ mouthpiece in Oz is saying….ahh couldn’t resist…amused by this…

What if the BBC’s John Sweeney had said….Islam…A force for good or something more sinister?  It’s not easy to investigate Islam.  If you investigate them, they will come for you….a cult that is corrupt, sinister and dangerous, out to capture people and brainwash them.  So, a force for good or a brainwashing cult?

What if Piers Morgan had said that Tom Cruise must ditch the vile cult of Islam NOW before Hollywood ‎ditches him?

What if he said this…

What is different, and shockingly so, is what we now know about his always mysterious personal life.

And in particular, his relationship with an even more mysterious entity – Islam.

On Sunday, the BBC aired a much-hyped documentary into the cult , called “Going Islamic”.

It was an astonishing, terrifying film; one which finally nailed many of the unpalatable truths about this deeply secretive and deeply unpleasant ideology.

The whole ideology is utterly sickening in its cynical heartlessness and exploitation.

Muslims, as they always do, reacted with a vicious public diatribe against the BBC – condemning it as a pack of lies.

Denigrating opponents is their default position to any perceived attack.

But of course it wasn’t Islam it was Scientology that has enraged Piers and Sweeney.

Isn’t it odd how some religions get kid glove treatment whatever they do and others, whacko and slightly sinister perhaps, get absolutely vilified….would Morgan or Sweeney call Islam vile, sickening and deeply unpleasant…or even corrupt, sinister and dangerous?  Don’t think so.

And it’s not as if Christianity, the full-on ‘authorised’ and ‘approved’ versions don’t have their own dark sides…..but nothing that can compare to the acts done in the name of Islam…acts which can be justified with clear commands from the Koran and Hadith.

And yet……it’s Scientology that gets it in the neck from the Media (and Piers Morgan, whoever he was)…paradoxically the BBC’s Sweeney, who was ‘spying’ on the Church of Scientology and making a film about them complains that they were ‘spying’ on him and checking what he was up to as he spied upon them….their spying was bad, his good…..Sweeney’s investigation makes altogether fairly, by comparison, trivial complaints against Scientology, nothing that couldn’t be levelled at Christianity never mind Islam…..and the film seems more concerned with explaining away Sweeney’s mad outburst from a previous attempt to examine Scientology than anything else…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4PDZt74adg