Greg from Not Another Teaching Blog   sends this article for your consideration.

“How you see the BBC’s decision to remove the phenomenally popular presenter of its flagship worldwide show could very well depend on your view of the man in question. Those who support Clarkson see him as the last of dying breed of English TV personalities, the stubborn, old-school and humorous gentlemen who simply enjoys being himself while his detractors see him as obnoxious, offensive and unpleasant.

But let’s be clear: this was not a moral decision by the BBC management. To believe it was is to believe that a racial slur “slope” or a minor physical scuffle are greater crimes against humanity than covering up the sexual abuse of children committed by Jimmy Saville, for which nobody at the Beeb has been punished. The BBC’s firing of Clarkson was – or at least should have been – a business decision. That they have made the wrong one is a matter of delight for me, as it should be for anyone who admires Clarkson or appreciates a quality, politically neutral media service. Continue reading →

Here you go, a new Open Thread to detail the bias!

After the ‘Ted Talk’ mentioned in the last post I heard a trail for Thursdays ‘Crossing Continents’ in which we were told that we would hear the story of Gaza’s last remaining piano, the only one to survive ‘the bombing’ and which was being used to help traumatized Palestinian children….so it looked like Israel was in the frame again.

Curiously on looking at the actual blurb for the programme it gives a different slant altogether..

Sunday night and the BBC brought us the ‘TED Radio Hour’ which had some thought provoking thoughts.

Let’s hope someone at the BBC was listening…here’s the concluding remarks (46 mins 20 secs)…

‘The fact is that some of the biggest catastrophes we have seen rarely come from information that is secret or hidden.  It comes from information that is freely available and ‘out there’ but we which are wilfullly blind to because we don’t want to handle, can’t handle,  the conflict that it provokes….but when we dare to break that silence, when we dare to see and we create conflict we enable ourselves and the people around us to do our very best thinking.

Open information is fantastic, open networks are esssential but the truth won’t set us free until we develop the skills, the habits and the talent and the moral courage to use it.

Openness isn’t the end, it’s the beginning.’

 

Today we were told that Islamism has no connection with the beautiful religion of Islam. We saw Nigel Farage and his family hounded because of his views on immigration.  We are not allowed to criticise that other religion called Climate Change.

All taboos or attitudes cheerfully backed by the BBC.

When will the BBC find that ‘moral courage’ to do the right thing and start to openly debate what the Koran really says, what 300,000 immigrants flocking to the UK each year really means, the possibility that in tackling CO2 we may be ‘curing’ the wrong thing?

The BBC has been wilfully blind, it has sought to avoid conflict that would arise when certain truths are spoken, it has sought to silence those who would dare to break that silence.

The BBC and its good intentions may be putting us on the road to Hell.

BBC ‘bias’ hinders immigration crackdown, says report

The BBC’s bias in favour of immigration has been a key block on the Government’s ability to tighten control on Britain’s borders, a report has claimed.

Interesting to hear the BBC constantly refer to the EDL in their reports about Afzal Amin as ‘Far Right’.

Not sure how they come to that definition as the EDL’s sole ‘policy’ is to control extremist Islam….why is that a ‘Far Right’policy?  Their opponents like to suggest this is a cover for underlying racism and anti-Muslim prejudice but that is not for the BBC to judge or to second guess their motivations…and yet they have.

All rather confusing when immediately after the report on Amin the BBC reported that the government was cracking down on Islamic extremism and Sharia courts… Islam being completely compatible with British values and society….Sharia law not being Islamic of course….and Islamic ‘extremism’ not having anything to do with the ‘real’, liberal, moderate Islam’ of BBC lore, it being a perverted desire to practise a pure, unadulterated version of Islam….a ‘conservative’Islam’….not Islam at all really.

Why does the BBC not refer to Theresa May as being of the  ‘Far Right’ when she seems to be proposing the same things that the EDL does?

Why does May refer to good and bad Muslims?…or rather claims the Islamists are not Islamic.

Don’t call me moderate…

The men and women I met told me they found it infuriating that they could be devout in their practice of their religion but they would only be considered “moderate” Muslims – since moderate was often taken to mean not hugely observant.

If they are fully practising Muslims then they should observe all the rules of Islam…..and in doing so are not ‘moderate’ in comparison to the values of a secular, liberal, democfratic society…they are ‘extremists’…the teachings of the Koran being decidedly unliberal.

If Muslims don’t want to be divided into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Muslims then they have to accept that the Islamists are just as ‘Muslim’ as the non-violent ones are….and yet they lie to themselves being….

….rather insulted when asked if they could shed any light on why anyone from this country would wish to travel to Syria. They disputed the suggestion that their Islam had anything in common with the ideology of the jihadis.

‘Their’ Islam……‘ it quickly became apparent that they held views that many would not consider moderate at all.’

Until people like May, and the BBC, agree on what constitutes an ‘extreme’ value and belief they will never be able to tackle Islamist extremism.   When I say ‘agree’ I mean come to the realisation about what Islam really says and demands of its followers…those who fully observe its teachings as ‘non-moderate’ Muslims.

Even Dan Hodges admits…

We are going to have to start to reassess what we mean by “moderate Islam”.

The BBC is wrong. Many Muslims have sympathy with the Charlie Hebdo killings. Far too many.

 

 

Nicky Campbell this morning ran his phone-in on the news that Nigel Farage and his family were attacked by anti-UKIP protestors who were doing much what the Brown Shirts did in the 1930’s.

Campbell didn’t challenge the constant claims by the protestors that Farage was a prejudiced racist peddling fear…Campbell dodged that preferring instead to suggest merely that many people support Farage and vote for UKIP…which is a different thing altogether….Campbell leaving the thought that Farage and UKIP are racists up in the air.

Campbell was asking if direct action protests were legitimate…curiously he didn’t mention the prominent reports that Ed Miliband’s paymaster, Len McCluskey, has recently stated that he intends to ignore the law of the land if the Tories are elected and will engage in such direct action as necessary to force his will upon the country…views he has expressed before…..

“All concepts of politics, of whatever kind, are about conflict──how to contain it, or abolish it.”

So if we are on a march towards “one nation” and ultimately “one world”, it is a road that leads through struggle and conflict.

We are taught to believe that democracy is the cornerstone of a modern civilised society; but our Lords and Masters want to define democracy, limiting us to an ‘X’ on a Ballot Paper every 5 years.

This is not my definition of democracy.

They tell us strike action, civil disobedience, direct action and protest are all somehow unpatriotic.

Our history tells us they are not.

Whatever the upshot of electoral politics, working-class politics must grow and develop, based on the socialist education Ralph Miliband called for.

In the midst of an unending economic crisis, with what Ralph would have called a discredited ruling class at the helm, it is past time for the working class to step forward with its own vision and alternative.

One of Campbell’s main contributors was Charlie Kimber, National Secretary for the Socialist Workers Party…..it’s aim…

Workers create all the wealth under capitalism. A new society can only be constructed when they collectively seize control of that wealth and plan its production and distribution according to need.

For a party that demands respect for all sorts of people and claims to champion the downtrodden it might have been relevant to ask Kimber about the way the SWP handled rape allegations made against a senior member of the SWP… swept under the carpet by them…so much for respect. Then again Campbell could have asked about the many, many millions killed by Socialism including those under the National Socialist regime in Germany by those hoping to create the perfect Socialist society.

Or Campbell could have challenged Kimber about his allies….

SWP cosying up to Islamic fundamentalists…again

Thankfully Campbell was mostly irrelevant, most callers did his job for him and challenged the protestors, standing their ground and denouncing the protestors and their actions in a reasoned and measured way that completely undermined Kimber and his ilk.

Funny how Farage is allowed to be pilloried for his views but others, like Kimber, seem to get a pass for theirs on the BBC…..and on that… interesting that Theresa May mentions extremist Islamists and the Far Right as people with hateful beliefs in her speech today….again what about the Left?  The ‘leftwing’  UAF is the organisation that starts the violence at EDL marches.

Bishop Hill details the lack of detail in the National Trust’s latest claims about climate change…

Dame Helen Ghosh, the former Whitehall bureaucrat who now runs the National Trust, was on the Today programme this morning explaining why climate change is the biggest threat to the Trust’s work.

Pressed to explain herself, Dame Helen had almost nothing to justify her position, apart from a suggestion that the Trust likes to address the issues of the day. This came across to me as saying “we just jump on any passing bandwagon, it’s good for business”.

 

The BBC reports indepth on Dame Helen’s ponderings and produces an alarming headline…

Climate change ‘biggest threat’ to National Trust land

However, despite the very concerning and alarming claim the BBC fails to actually find any substance to back up the headline, the report having a complete absence of evidence for that claim.

Still a lack of facts never stopped the BBC from making wild claims about the effects of climate change themselves.

Here’s Roger Harrabin, apparently being ‘sceptical’, but not really…

Cyclone Pam: Did climate change cause Vanuatu damage?

Harrabin makes the unproven claim that….

Globally, temperature has risen by 0.8C, mainly due to greenhouse gases. And that is affecting weather around the world.

But attributing individual tropical storms directly to our planes, cars and factories is a different matter.

 

Naturally he means greenhouse gases as made by man.

The BBC has no problem linking climate change to severe weather…Katrina, Haiyan, and now Pam.

Listeners to Radio 4’s Today programme were given an unmistakable but totally bogus message last week: that catastrophic storms such as Typhoon Haiyan are linked to global warming – and are set to increase.

 

 

He then admits….

The world authority, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, found no evidence of a link between the frequency of tropical storms and climate change.

The effect of climate change on precipitation is poorly understood.

Which is curious really because the BBC has always linked storms to climate change…and made claims that rainfall is directly effected by climate change ala Somerset Levels, Harrabin himself stating that rainfall will be more severe due to climate change.

Harrabin then claims that there is…

….an undisputed link between emissions and rising sea levels, which leaves poor low-lying Vanuatu increasingly vulnerable.

 

Which emissions would those be?  CO2?  No proof that CO2 is the main cause at all. Even if you believe that CO2 is the main cause of climate change the UN tells us that it only causes 50% of warming….so even if we spend billions reducing CO2 you’re still in trouble.

He then links that to this warning….

So when a storm strikes the islands in the year that heads of governments have promised to sign an over-arching deal to protect the climate, the president’s remarks are understandable.

He can’t be sure that the gusts of Pam were propelled by human hands.

But he can be very sure that, as greenhouse gases increase, it is his people who are among the most at risk.

 

So dressing up his report as being sceptical about the science but is in fact continuing down the path of a religious adherence to the ‘orthodxoy’ which is completely unproven…that CO2 is the cause of climate change…the conclusion which drives all government policy in this area at massive cost to everyone…..what if it is the wrong conclusion?  Not only will they have wasted billions upon billions of pounds but will also have utterly failed to find a solution to the problem which therefore continues unabated as they tackle the wrong cause.

Just another ‘pro-climate change’ report from Roger.

Monday morning, and a new Open Thread for your completion!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdl_PCt1Yjs

Back in 2013 Afzal Amin told us, courtesy of the ever helpful BBC, that ‘Muslims “are an integral part of this country” and the murder of a solider in Woolwich should not be associated with the entire Islamic community.’

And indeed they are…so integrated in fact that they join forces with the EDL..or at least the good Mr Afzal Amin does…

Exposed: Star Tory candidate plotted with race thugs to stage fake EDL demo in cynical bid to win votes 

A key Tory Election candidate was suspended last night after plotting with far-Right extremists to stir up racial hatred in a cynical bid to win votes.

Afzal Amin hatched a scheme to persuade the English Defence League to announce an inflammatory march against a new £18million ‘mega-mosque’. But – as he revealed in secretly filmed footage obtained by The Mail on Sunday – the plan was that the demonstration would never actually go ahead.

And when the phoney rally was called off, the fiercely ambitious Amin, a Muslim, intended to take credit for defusing the situation – winning over voters, and police, in the marginal seat of Dudley North. 

‘This is my fantasy. If I could demonstrate to the people in Dudley that I can be a positive voice for community cohesion, for development, for campaigning against the evils and the terrorism and the child grooming and all the rest of it, then that would help me a lot in the forthcoming Election.”

 

Curiously the BBC don’t seem to have caught up with his latest thinking….maybe if he was a UKIP candidate they would be pumping this out all the time on every channel and every medium….how slow were they to react to the news that a LibDem peer was involved in dodgy dealings?

Still, despite the BBC’s best efforts to crush local news, we’ve got the Midland’s Express and Star to tell us that:

Dudley Tory candidate Afzal Amin suspended over EDL video claims

They also tell us that…

Most of 29 arrests at Dudley march opposed EDL

Most of the people arrested after an English Defence League march in Dudley were counter protesters, it has emerged.

Not an angle that gets emphasised by the BBC…especially as the ‘opposition’ is in the form of the fascist UAF…a Unite Union organisation with links to Miliband and whose vice-chair is an extremist Muslim.

Ah look the BBC does report it….er sort of….

From other local news sites

• Breaking News: Black Country MP hopeful suspended over EDL links Halesowen News

• Afzal Amin suspended by Conservatives in Dudley North West Midlands Express & Star

Unusual for the BBC not to take the opportunity to promote a moderate Muslim speaking out against extremism to show how integrated ‘they’ are.

Perhaps you have watched or listened to the BBC news recently and thought that there’s a lot of clever presentation but not much substance, altogether too much opinion and ‘interpretation’ in the News.

You may not be alone…even the esteemed Guardian has its doubts about the ‘theatrical’ BBC and I was thinking along similar lines as I heard Jon Pienaar describe Osborne as the ‘craftiest’ of Chancellors and Peston attacking Osbornes’s budget by giving us his emotional interpretation of cuts to welfare…apparently ‘That’ll make the handouts even meaner‘…and he’s eager to use the OBR’s flippant description of the economy post election as a ‘roller coaster’ even though it won’t be….more of a hockey stick…a jolly one perhaps?

Peston says ‘ George Osborne has not given any clue about how which benefits recipients would feel the pain‘  and  asks ‘ Can the Chancellor go through a general election without spelling out in more detail precisely which welfare recipients he would make poorer?‘

So Osborne’s policies will be ‘even meaner’ than they are already apparently and full of ‘pain’ for the poor who will be made ‘poorer’.

And let’s not forget Norman Smith and his cry that the economy under the Tories would be ‘utterly terrible’ as it sank into 1930’s like spending levels….or those of the year 2000 when Labour spent at the same rate before going back to their socialist roots and spending all the money and then some.

All too much personal angst and opinion from the BBC employees…not even going to mention Donnison and Bowen!

The Guardian wants more facts and less theatre…the BBC being less careful with the ‘facts’, inclined to spin for an agenda and indulging in theatrics….and tends to use the news to advertise its own upcoming programmes…

The News at Ten: ITV v BBC – how do the channels compare?

You might expect the BBC news to be more analytical and internationalist, and ITV to be more popular and jolly. But, based on Thursday night’s broadcasts, you would be surprised.

Metaphorical flourishes – visually lavish but often simplistic in content – have become a BBC news signature, whereas you feel that, if the prime minister happens to mention Game of Thrones, ITN will still think hard before despatching Brady to a fancy dress shop to choose a costume to wear outside the House of Commons.

The BBC1 news also felt in some ways more populist than its ITN equivalent. While ITN correspondents deliver their reports fairly straight, the BBC’s aim more for operatic notes of tragedy (Keane) and comedy (Peston). The reporter as performer, which you might more logically expect from ITV, is more likely to be found on the other side.

An increasingly familiar aspect of the BBC news brand….A report that appeared to be an impressive exclusive – on a gang smuggling illegal immigrants out of the UK so that they can come back in as asylum seekers – proved to be a trail for a documentary immediately following the news. Like some movie trailers, the best bits had been filleted so efficiently that there seemed little point in watching the full documentary.