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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.

Sturgeon is complaining about political dirty tricks...but of course the SNP wrote the manual on how to use them….claiming that the leak of the memo is a dirty trick is a dirty trick in itself as she makes wild claims about who is to blame and the reasons why…far less credible claims than the memo itself….and all about diverting attention from the contents that are, as Norman Smith says ‘devastating’ for her.

This is the SNP that tried to jerrymander the referendum by allowing 16 year olds to vote in the hope that the young, naive and idealistic youth would turn out in their droves for the SNP.

This is the SNP that stopped Scottish voters living in the rest of the UK from voting.

This is the SNP that tried to recruit Muslim extremists from the Muslim Brotherood as SMPs to win the ‘ethnic’ vote.

This is the SNP that spun wild tales of vast oil wealth that would fund the Glorious National Socialist Republic.

This is the SNP whose supporters physically attacked another politician to stop him talking and launched vicious internet attacks on anyone who was against independence.

This is the SNP which has stirred up racist animosity against the English for its own political purposes.

This is the SNP that made sinister threats against businessmen who also spoke up for the Union….warning of  a ‘day of reckoning’.

This is the SNP that claimed it wanted independence but it turns out that all they wanted was power for themselves as we see them manoeuvring for political influence in league with the ‘English’ parties.

This is the SNP that helped run a false flag operation pretending to be Labour people that wanted independence….one of whom admitted she was a long-term SNP activist who switched to Labour just a few months ago with the aim of undermining the party over the referendum.

And of course this is the untrustworthy, shameless and dishonourable SNP that reneged on the referendum result and now tries to deny the Scottish people their right to be part of the United Kingdom as they voted for.

The SNP are a bunch of political carpet baggers and charlatans who will lead the Scots to ruin using the same old tricks that the Nazis used to beguile and con the German people with a lot of flag waving dreams of a nation reborn.

Many may wish the BBC were biased against the SNP.

Unfortunately for them they are not…..if they are why are they hiding the fact that senior SNP figures told a BBC journalist that they might prefer a Cameron government?

‘What the Islamic State and the 1915 Ottoman Turks have in common is a cruelty based on ideology – even theology – rather than race hatred, although that is not far away.’

Now most people probably don’t agree with Robert Fisk’s take on things but he has bitten the bullet and gone against the grain of his usual fare….

The Christian tragedy in the Middle East did not begin with Isis

The Christian tragedy in the Middle East today needs to be re-thought – as it will be, of course, when Armenians around the world commemorate the 100th anniversary of the genocide of their people by Ottoman Turkey. Perhaps it is time that we acknowledge not only this act of genocide but come to regard it not as just the murder of a minority within the Ottoman Empire, but specifically a Christian minority, killed because they were Armenian but also because they were Christian (many of whom, unfortunately, rather liked the Orthodox, anti-Ottoman Tsar).

And their fate bears some uncommon parallels with the Islamic State murderers of today. The Armenian men were massacred.  The women were gang-raped or forced to convert or left to die of hunger. Babies were burned alive – after being stacked in piles. Islamic State cruelty is not new, even if the cult’s technology defeats anything its opponents can achieve.

The crimes of Islamic State are as brutal as any committed by the German army in the Second World War, but Jews who converted were not spared Hitler’s plan for their extermination. What the Islamic State and the 1915 Ottoman Turks have in common is a cruelty based on ideology – even theology – rather than race hatred, although that is not far away. After the burning of churches and of synagogues, the rubble looks much the same.

 

Of course Fisk could have gone all the way back to the blitz across the Middle East carried out by Muhammed in just the same bloody way that ISIS has swept the region…but I guess that would be a step too far for Fisk.

And note that statement….’What the Islamic State and the 1915 Ottoman Turks have in common is a cruelty based on ideology – even theology – rather than race hatred, although that is not far away.’

So religion is at the heart of this….and it is not ‘racial’….so Islam is not a race as Muslims  like to claim.

This should tide you over until the next open thread appears…..

Ed looking extremely comfortable as he stabs his brother in the back.

David Cameron  has been photographed feeding a lamb….an orphaned lamb…sweet, as Jeremy Clarkson would say.

The BBC has decided there is something decidedly of the ‘Dark Arts’ about all this and sent in intrepid reporter, John Humphrys, to investigate the important issues surrounding this breaking news.

Apparently this is ‘the new reality’ of politics with politicians kissing babies and doing photo ops…never been done before though Humphrys can remember back 30 years and vividly recalls a photograph of Mrs Thatcher holding a lamb and looking extremely uncomfortable.

Here’s the ‘new reality’ in 2007…

And why would Humphrys remember a photo of Thatcher all those years ago?

Couldn’t actually find the photo of Thatcher and a lamb….but here she is with a dead sheep…and yes, looking uncomfortable…

oh…hang on…

However she didn’t seem to have any problems with this…

Or indeed this fella….

Humphrys ended by asking if  ‘people are going to say Cameron is trying to manipulate us?’

But that is just the BBC trying to manipulate us by raising such questions….questions they don’t ask when Labour uses such tricks…and the BBC seems to think we are all fools….we know there is an election, we know that politicians kiss babies etc……we know they are trying to win our votes by massaging their images.

And we know the BBC will be trying to undermine the Tory charm offensive…whilst defending Miliband and his bacon sarny photo op disaster…

‘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.