The BBC has a disturbing habit of using spokesmen for Islam and Islamic issues whom anyone who had done a bit of research might think twice about using….Mo Ansar, Moazzam Begg and anyone from MPACUK come immediately to mind…..not to mention the MCB.
Here for example is how the BBC referred to Sheikh Haitham Al Haddad in 2010….
There is some difference of opinion among Muslim scholars whether make-up from a high street store or supermarket is allowed to be used by Muslim women.
Sheikh Haitham Al-Haddad, a leading Imam in the UK, says there are two schools of thought.
It is bad enough that the world is plagued by one terrorist atrocity after another.
Yet there are some things which can make it even worse.
Denial is chief among them. It is common amongst British Muslims. Oh no, it’s not Muslims who did that, it’s a conspiracy! The real culprits are usually the CIA or Mossad, of course.
This way horrific violence can be simultaneously disowned and used to fan the flames of hatred. It’s intensely perverse and disturbing as well as deranged.
Run this short clip of hate preacher Haitham Haddad to see a recent example. Ever so clever, he has figured out that Islamic State is all “a big conspiracy”.
Haddad’s conspiracy idiocy alone should make him a laughing stock, left to babble in a corner.
Instead it is part of his appeal, and it is considerable.
It is an appalling and deeply alarming state of affairs.
Denial isn’t just common amongst British Muslims but it has a good home at the BBC which turns a blind eye all too often to the real messages that such people preach as long as they say something agreeable to Western ears when on the BBC making Islam seem reasonable, peaceful and tolerant.
How long before Haddad is back on the BBC, just as Begg [Moazzem or Shakeel, take your pick] is and Ansar, even though he has been exposed…and by one of the BBC’s top investigative programmes at that?
The good Robert Fisk, where would we be without him? The Independent doesn’t need a cartoonist with such a man who can paint a scathing comic picture with a mere 10,000 words.
Fisk, you couldn’t make him up, and surprisingly he is real, a real, living, green ink splurging journalist, he’s not some comic character dreamt up by Private Eye to run as a spoof columnist ala The Vicar of St Albions.
Not sure exactly what he would offer in return for that peace, but as Tariq Ramadan suggests (23 mins in), peace for Muslims is a world run by Muslims on Islamic lines, we must start growing beards at the very least, very soon.
I paraphrase his thoughts…
The question is ‘Is Islam a religion of violence’? but I’m not going to answer that, we shouldn’t talk about that. For me there is no bad Islam and no good Islam. People are naturally violent and religion channels that violence to serve its purpose….[but he then turns it on its head]….the problem is not the book [Koran] but the reader….but the reader is reading a text that accepts people are violent and encourages people to use violence.
Use violence to move towards peace…[but what is peace in Islam?….the domination of Islam.]
See below for what he really thinks about how Islam should proceed in non-Muslim countries.
“All crusaders: safety for you will be only wishes, especially if you are fighting us all together. Therefore we will fight you all together…..The sea you have hidden Sheikh Osama Bin Laden’s body in, we swear to Allah we will mix it with your blood.”
“We will conquer Rome, by Allah’s permission.”
…who can doubt what any negotiations would entail?
Still it’s good to talk. It’s the same mindset that the BBC promotes…don’t fight the terrorists, embrace them, talk to them, surrender to them.
Rhetorical and actual violence indicates that many years of struggle lie ahead. Taylor, like everyone else, knows there are no quick solutions to all this, but he considers the question of whether talking can help.
Taylor shows how, even at the height of IRA activity, a channel of communication existed with London which even Margaret Thatcher allowed to continue.
The Independent concludes…
Partly because of such contacts, the Provisional IRA has now passed into history.
The smoking gun: how cigarettes became the IRA’s new weapon
Police raid a shop in the Midlands, seizing thousands of illegal cigarettes. Smuggling operations like this are linked to republican paramilitaries, who threaten a new wave of terror
The IRA war has continued with thousands of bomb alerts in NI, a good proportion of them ‘viable’, ie very live and dangerous bombs made to kill and injure.
Here is the BBC yet again promoting that stance in 2010 fronting it with Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair’s former chief of staff who was in the Guardian promoting his three-part documentary Talking to the Enemy on Radio 4 ….
We will talk to Mullah Omar, and maybe to Bin Laden too
In the end there always has to be a political solution. Tough military pressure to convince insurgents that they cannot win, coupled with offering them a political way out, seems to be the only way to resolve such conflict.
No…the only way is hail of lead and HE directed towards ISIS.
Islamic State militants are planning a takeover of Libya as a “gateway” to wage war across the whole of southern Europe, letters written by the group’s supporters have revealed.
The jihadists hope to flood the north African state with militiamen from Syria and Iraq, who will then sail across the Mediterranean posing as migrants on people trafficking vessels, according to plans seen by Quilliam, the British anti-extremist group.
The fighters would then run amok in southern European cities and also try to attack maritime shipping.
The document is written by an Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) propagandist who is believed to be an important online recruiter for the terror in Libya, where security has collapsed in the wake of the revolution that unseated Colonel Gaddafi in 2011.
And as promised….
Here is the good Tariq Ramadan explaining why how Muslims should go about promoting Islam in America…
We are not here to please the people, to change our religion, to make it acceptable. We are not here to become moderate Muslims meaning for some Islam without Islam. We are not here to feel victimized. We are here not with our humility but our pride. We are here to remain Muslims and we are Americans and Muslims at the same time and that’s it.
In this video the great reformer of Islam reveals the truth…it is the West that has to reform to adapt to Islam not the other way around….
“We should all be careful not to be colonized by something which is coming from this consumerist society.
It should be us, with our understanding of Islam, our principles, colonizing positively the United States of America.
But let me tell you something. On the long run, I”m quite optimistic. I think that Inshallah (inaudible word) our future in the West is going to be a bright future, to be positive.
By the way, we are not here by accident. We are not here by accident.
We are learning how to be a Muslim. It’s difficult, it’s a challenge, it’s a jihad…
On the long run, we also have to think about our contribution. We should be a gift to the United States of America. We should be a gift to the West.
We don’t want the West to be destructed.
What we want is the West to be reformed.
Still, the BBC likes him, as does the government, and both think he has something worthwhile to say. Shame they don’t actually listen to what he says.
Labour’s Margaret Hodge laid about the head of the HMRC for having lost track of an email from the supposed HSBC whistleblower in which he claimed to have information on tax evasion that HMRC might be interested in.
He also sent one to other governments and intelligence agencies and our own Foreign Office, in fact to the private office of our very own Foreign Secretary, who was at the time, David Miliband, brother of Ed Miliband who is now leading the campaign against HSBC and tax evasion in his election campaign…awkward.
Question.
Why has the BBC paid absolutely no interest in this vital second email that would lay Labour open to very serious criticism in the same way that the HMRC has been eviscerated?
The BBC is one of the most powerful and richly resourced news organisations in the world and yet it pays no attention to this subject… any investigative journalist worth his salt would be burrowing away at this story with a great deal of vigour and relish. It would be the scoop of the year to find that missing email. A nail in the coffin for Labour.
A nail in Labour’s coffin. An end to their election campaign based upon that very slippery ‘moral highground’ that they seek to occupy.
Maybe the BBC doesn’t want to look as it would be a shame to waste all that champagne that’s on ice at the moment waiting for a Labour victory.
Or maybe they’re just bad journalists…from the Independent:
It’s quite a charge: that a mixture of cuts, caution and complacency has destroyed the corporation’s ability and will to report or analyse events with any rigour. But the distinguished critic Michael Church is sticking by it. As part of his personal mission to revive standards, he has been glued to the Beeb’s bulletins and current affairs programmes. And, in his opinion, the BBC could learn a lot from competitors such as Al Jazeera – once it’s got its balls back.
When you read this the most important thing that you have to know is that Oborne is a supporter of Miliband and is anti-Murdoch and the right-wing press. Only days ago he wrote a glowing panegyric on behalf of the leader of the Opposition claiming he has led the political debate…whereas in fact Miliband has hidden in a left wing comfort zone pandering to his 35% with announcements that are designed to catch the mood and news headlines but would be highly unworkable and very damaging in practise….as Dan Hodges says, Labour’s policies are in tatters and all they have left is posing on the moral highground as ‘ethical’…which is why HSBC is so important to Labour…
Moral superiority is basically all Labour have left now. Ed Miliband’s party long ago gave up trying to convince the country Labour could govern more efficiently or prudently than the Conservatives. Their entire offer is now based upon convincing people they can do so more ethically.
So can we trust Oborne? No. HSBC is now at the centre of Miliband’s attack on the Government and Oborne complains that the Telegraph is not reporting enough about the HSBC affair…. the Telegraph is not a supporter of Miliband…so put the two together and we have a backstabbing journalist who took the Telegraph’s shilling but has jumped ship and tried to sink it as he left to help out his inspirational political guru, Ed Miliband.
You have to ask what is so interesting about the HSBC business..it’s a story that is five years old and was only raised from the dead by the Labour supporting BBC and Guardian in the hope that a bit of mud would stick to the Tories as Labour ran with the narrative of a Tory Party that only helps out the richest in society.
What has Oborne got to say about that? Nothing. And where will he now slink off to to get work? He’ll have to look hard to find a righteous and advertising free rag to peddle his own brand of piety.
Best of all, practically everything he says could be applied to the BBC’s news coverage….corrupted not for money but for ideology. Is that ethical enough for him… a corruption of the news for ‘principled’, ideological reasons? I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot more of Oborne on the BBC from now on.
I have worked for publications owned by Conrad Black, the Guardian’s arch-Satan Rupert Murdoch, and the Barclay brothers. I have also worked for Polly’s pristine conduit — and I can tell you that when it comes to political interference in copy, the only place I’ve had even the remotest problem, in 15 years, was the Guardian.
Only the Guardian. I’ve never had any kind of problem with any of the scumbag oligarchs, tycoons, fascist corporations — despite dissing Sky, sniggering in print about Barbara Amiel, suggesting people should vote Labour, demanding increases to the minimum wage, opposing the war in Iraq, criticising our trade links with China and referring to the Barclays as ‘the Ribbentrop twins’ the week they took over this magazine — hell, I could go on. Never any political interference at any point from all those bad guys. Only the Guardian.
Peter Oborne has sloped off from the Telegraph in high dudgeon claiming it is a principled stand against a newspaper that has allowed commercial interests to shape its news output.
This is not just a parting swipe at an employer by a disgruntled member of staff, it’s an explosion of anger about an issue that is worrying journalists across the industry.
Newspapers are in a state of crisis. The Telegraph has seen its print sales drop by around half over the last 10 years.
The less we spend on papers, the more our news will have to be paid for by companies.
I like that ‘an issue that is worrying journalists across the industry’….the BBC smearing the Press with an across the board, unproven slander.
Think we can see where the BBC is going with this…and you don’t have to wait long…a few lines on and the subtle slurs continue…
Peter Oborne has gone further, saying that “shadowy” executives are interfering on an “industrial scale” with basic news coverage.
This is strong stuff and the Telegraph denies it all – saying it’s all unfounded and full of inaccuracy.
Of course, these are turbulent times. The Telegraph is, like almost every other paper, having to reinvent itself.
Ah yes turbulent times in which any underhand method must be used to turn a buck and keep afloat…like the Guardian’s off-shore tax haven I suppose.
The BBC tells us that Oborne…
‘… had intended to “leave quietly” until he saw the paper’s coverage of HSBC and its Swiss banking arm.
In comparison to the coverage of the story in other national newspapers, “you needed a microscope to find the Telegraph coverage”, Mr Oborne said.
“There is a purpose to journalism, and it is not just to entertain. It is not to pander to political power, big corporations and rich men.
“Newspapers have what amounts in the end to a constitutional duty to tell their readers the truth.”
Curious Oborne has nothing to say about the BBC’s and the Guardian’s clearly political intervention into the election run up by running this story, a story that was at least five years old and brought nothing new to the table. The contents of the emails to the various governments were known in 2010…but what is odd is that it is only the email to HMRC that Labour’s Margaret Hodge is interested in and not the same one that went to David Miliband as Foreign Secretary. The BBC has also shown not the slightest bit of interest in this second email. Why not?
Funny how Oborne, supposedly a great journalist, looking through his microsope, didn’t see any of these recent reports from the Telegraph that are either about HSBC or are critical of HSBC’s services…..funny how the BBC hasn’t bothered to check the truth of Oborne’s claims preferring instead to publish them verbatim as if they had the ring of complete truth to them…..for some reason…
The BBC’s relentless preaching to us about immigration continues apace. It retains its patronising, elitist attitude that the ‘rest of us’, not blessed with being ordained into the cloistered BBC priesthood and thus bereft of the intellect, compassion and understanding that they have judged to be bestowed upon themselves by virtue of a vocation within the BBC, are not capable of understanding the issues surrounding immigration and world events without their guidance and tutoring.
The flow of migrants across the Mediterranean particularly catches the BBC’s imagination and they like to paint a vivid picture of the suffering of people who choose to cross in overcrowded boats…..the BBC suggesting such suffering alone earns them a place in Europe and that you should be responsible for feeding, housing, schooling and clothing them and theirs.
Here’s a little plea from the BBC to open your hearts, your wallets and your doors to all and sundry…from FOOC…
Tomorrow, right now, more desperate people will be stepping into dinghies, inflatable rubber boats, handing over money for a place in the engine room of a rusted cargo ship. I understand a little now of how pitiful their journeys will be. I daren’t guess as to how they will end.
Then there is this little piece of historical hokum which tries to paint the UK in the colours of the left as a ‘nation of immigrants’…there being no such thing as an ‘English or British identity’.
A few tricks from the BBC….this is about England…but much of the ‘immigration’ is from other parts of the British Isles so somewhat of a bluff from the Beeb…and note the rather loose association when they try to link anyone called good old British names like Smith or Baker or Shepherd to immigrants, you might think you’re English but you know what, you’re probably not…..and then there’s the bits from the research that the BBC doesn’t mention such as how the research was made possible and the meaning behind that.
It is our aim to reveal and highlight the diversity of the medieval immigrant experience, and in so doing to contribute an important historical dimension to current debates about immigration to Britain from Europe and the wider world.
Quite clearly their aim is to influence how you view immigration today and make you more accepting of immigrants. No wonder the BBC makes room for it in their busy schedule.
In medieval England one person in every hundred was an immigrant, new research has shown.
About 65,000 people came to the country between 1330 and 1550.
Lots and lots of people who today have names like Baker, Brewer, Smith or Cooper could actually be descended from immigrants in the Middle Ages who were given a name when they came into the kingdom.”
“The England’s Immigrants project transforms our understanding of the way that English people and foreign nationals, of all levels of society, lived and worked together in the era of the Plantagenets and early Tudors”, added Prof Omrod.
Here you can see the limits of the project…it’s about England and immigration comes from all over the British Isles as well as abroad…
The England’s Immigrants project by the universities of York and Sheffield details the names and occupations of those arriving from other parts of the British Isles and mainland Europe.
What the BBC doesn’t tell you is that they know how many foreigners were here because they each had to pay a special tax, and if they wanted to stay another tax…so if we’re making comparisons with today as to how immigrants should be treated….special taxes, oaths of allegiance, expulsions and close control of who was in the country seem to be in order…..
From 1440, a series of specific taxes, known as the ‘alien subsidies’, were levied upon first-generation immigrants resident in most parts of England, and the returns for these provide a vast amount of information regarding their names, places of residence, origins, occupations and gender.
On various occasions, the government took action against, or made demands upon, certain sections of the resident alien population. For instance, in 1436, people from the Low Countries were required to swear an oath of allegiance to prove their loyalty; in 1394, the patent roll contains a list of Irish people who purchased licences to remain in England following the general expulsion ordered by Richard II’s government; and from the outbreak of the Hundred Years War onwards, there were numerous attempts to identify resident subjects of the king’s foreign enemies, both lay and clerical. From the 1290s onwards, the government also issued letters of protection and denization, offering resident aliens (or at least those willing and able to pay) the opportunity to buy the right to remain within the realm, and to receive partial or total rights of naturalisation.
The BBC is pumping out yet more pro-immigration propaganda meant to challenge your ignorance and prejudiced stupidity should you be one of those ‘furious faced Ukippers’ who think having control on who and how many people come into the UK is a good idea.
Jonathan Freedland examines current debates surrounding immigration and legislation in the light of the 1905 Aliens Act; the first act to introduce immigration and registration controls into Britain from areas outside the British Empire and seen chiefly as a response to East European Jewish immigration.
Jonathan is joined by Mary Riddell, columnist and political interviewer for the Daily Telegraph, Dr David Glover, Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Southampton and the actor Henry Goodman.
David Cameron is trying to feed a beast that cannot be satisfied. There is no move he can make that would ever be enough, not for the constituency that has convinced itself that immigration explains every contemporary misery.
Mary Riddell is an ardent fan of Miliband and is very definitely from the Left and a pro-immigration, anti-UKIP campaigner who thinks that there is a‘poisonous mythology attached to immigration’.…
So a programme set up to provide us with an entirely impartial, unbiased, balanced and unprejudiced view of immigration.
The programme began by telling us that ‘Britain prided itself on liberty, that its borders were open and people were free to move in and out as they liked’ It was a ‘point of pride’ at the beginning of the last century that the borders were open.
Why did the BBC pick this particular moment in time? Because the main immigrants then were Jewish….the BBC is trying to make a ‘resonant’ comparison with Muslims today of course…Jews were being ‘scapegoated’ apparently as are Muslims today…apparently.
Were they? Were they scapegoated for their Jewishness or their religious practises which they undoubtedly forced upon the rest of the UK ? Or was the Act more about health, jobs, housing and social problems?
Kind of insensitive to make such a comparison between Jews then and Muslims now when Muslims are one of the main instigators of anti-Semitism across Europe right now.
Freedland makes a pointed interruption saying there hasn’t been much said about cultural change being seen as a threat to the make up of British society…..the Jews posed no threat to the ‘make-up’ of British society…maybe 120,000 Jewish immigrants came here over 30 or so years…how many are here now? Around 300,000. Compare that with Muslim immigratiion and the effect on the demographics and you can see that Muslims are rapidly increasing in number and vastly outnumber Jews, or any other minority religious community in the UK….and as for cultural changes…where to begin….perhaps attempts to change foreign policy, the Trojan Horse plot and its ilk, force feeding Halal meat to unsuspecting non-Muslims etc etc. Huge changes forced upon a nation, a society, a culture, that has been given no choice by the ‘elite’ who control such things.
This programme being just another example of that elitist imposition of their own views.
The answer to the question about cultural changes was a dismissive reply that ‘communities eventually find their own level and integrate.‘
So that’s alright then.
Hardly takes into account current circumstances and the failure to integrate, not just failure, but determined efforts not to integrate, by many Muslims led by the Muslim Council of Britain which we are told is most representative of the various Muslim groups in the UK.
We are told all this is ‘pertinent with Nigel Farage’ and his dislike of travelling in trains where no one speaks English…. a deliberate misrepresentation of his actual meaning.
The supposed subject of the programme was the ‘Aliens Act 1905’ which the programme suggested was just a piece of prejudiced anti-immigrant legislation intended to keep out the Joows.
Freedland and Co hugely misrepresented what the Act said…here is a description of it…
The Aliens Act of 1905 was the first piece of immigration legislation in 20th century Britain. It was the first to define some groups of migrants as ‘undesirable’, thereby making entry to the United Kingdom discretionary, rather than automatic.
The 1905 Act was passed because of fears of degenerating health and housing conditions in London’s East End. The cause of the degeneration was seen as the large number of Russian and Polish Jews who had arrived in the East End after fleeing persecution in Tsarist Russia.
The Act ensured that leave to land could be withheld if the immigrant was judged to be ‘undesirable’ by falling into one of four categories: ‘a) if he cannot show that he has in his possession … the means of decently supporting himself and his dependents …’; ‘b) if he is a lunatic or an idiot or owing to any disease of infirmity liable to become a charge upon the public rates …’; c) ‘if he has been sentenced in a foreign country for a crime, not being an offence of a political character …’; or ‘d) if an expulsion order under this act has [already] been made’.
The Act was aimed at excluding migrants who were destitute, diseased or criminal, but it specifically made exceptions for asylum seekers. ‘But in the case of an immigrant who proves that he is seeking admission to this country solely to avoid persecution or punishment on religious or political grounds … leave to land shall not be refused on the ground merely of want of means or the probability of his becoming a charge on the rates’.
The provision for asylum seekers was seen as an inviolable British tradition that should be upheld at all costs.
It seems entirely reasonable and not based upon any particular race or creed being targeted and far from the rabid anti-immigrant tract that the BBC presents it as.
And a pertinent extract about asylum seekers being allowed to come in regardless of the ability to provide for themselves…
Just another piece of very, very one-sided BBC propaganda promoting immigration combined with a patronising attempt to mislead us about the problems concerning Muslim intentions and the future shape of society in light of that.
Liking Top Gear brings shame. Jeremy Clarkson embodies everything that’s wrong with straight, white, old men, pampered but inexplicably vengeful, running the country. I’d rather drive a pastel-blue Hyundai Accent 1.5 CRTD GSI than be among the Top Gear studio audience, with their furious Ukip faces and suspiciously uniform laughter.
Ah those angry, straight, white, vengeful white men with furious UKIP faces packing out the audience.
The Telegraph is little better. It reviews Channel Four’s anti-UKIP bit of propaganda and suggests that its not bad except that…
However, it made one fatal error. The white working class, the disenfranchised section of society that Farage has courted, were reduced to an unruly, stereotyped mob, an army of bald-headed, beer-swilling thugs. A braver, more thoughtful piece would have put a “white van man” type at the heart of the drama: challenged his prejudices, certainly, but also given him a voice.
Now that’s the kind of support you don’t need….argues that ‘white van man’ is being stereotyped (Isn’t that a stereotype in the first place?) and then paradoxically claims that their ‘prejudices’ needed to be challenged.
So not only are all UKIP supporters dismissed as white van drivers, their views are dismissed as being based on ignorant prejudice whilst of course any political views the Reviewer holds are intelligent, informed and balanced with a tinge of humanity.
Perhaps we should have a UKIP ‘Lenny Henry’ ..an angry white one of course…demanding equality of representation on TV and in the news.
If you were ever worried about free speech in this country and the power of the Muslim attack lobby to frighten people into toeing the line here is the perfect example…
The Telegraph’s James Kirkup wrote an article which was decidedly pro-Muslim and based upon the ‘research’ by the extremist organisation The Muslim Council of Britain….it was originally titled ‘Worried about Muslims in Britain? Here’s the answer’...Kirkup has now changed that ‘offensive’ title.
The fact that Kirkup, a journalist, doesn’t know what the MCB is and what its intentions are is frightening.
This is the original article from Kirkup with the all new title from which you can see he has no idea what he is talking about…’Values’ are the be all and end all of this debate….
Many commentators and politicians approach integration as a cultural question, arguing that more should be done to persuade British Muslims to accept “British values”. Perhaps we’d be better off taking an economic perspective, accepting that a better aim is making them better off.
Worried about the rising number of Muslim children in our schools? Then you should hope they pass their exams, go to good universities and get well-paid jobs. Especially the girls. Really, turn more Muslims into fully paid-up members of the Waitrose-shopping, Audi-driving, Boden-wearing middle-classes and their values will take care of themselves.
That’ll be right..here’s a perfect example…a Muslim with a first class honours degree and a good job…‘I am a Muslim….I reject Liberal Values’ and that of course is just for starters…..
My article appears to have caused offence. Quite a lot of people got in touch to accuse me of being “soft” on Muslims, of failing to report and confront what they describe as a fundamental incompatibility between Islam and British society and British values. I don’t share that view. I simply note the concerns those people express.
Others, mainly but not solely Muslims, took a different view of the article. They raised a number of concerns, which I’d like to address here. Broadly, there were three types of complaint.
He has no concerns at all about his non-Muslim critics….instead he writes a long apologia to his Muslim critics answering these questions…
1 “Why are you just writing about Muslims?”
2 “You’re treating Muslims as a problem to be solved”
3 “Would you say that about any other group?”
The bottom line is that I wrote an article arguing that British Muslims should be richer and more free, and treated just like anyone else. Yet a lot of people thought that article was anti-Muslim.
So I’m amending the headline and withdrawing the poll. And I’m apologising for any offence those aspects of the article caused. But I stand by my argument, and hoping that the changes will allow people to focus on that argument and not the way it was presented.
The poll he ran asked if you thought Islam was a problem for British society…he has withdrawn the poll but the result was a resounding yes, Islam is a problem…
Kirkup says..
For me, journalism should provoke thoughts, not emotion, not least since the latter often obstruct the former. That’s what happened here: I inadvertently and unnecessarily caused offence, and that obscured my argument.
Journalists should never be afraid to offend. We should report and argue as we see the world, not according to the feelings of others. But offence should only ever be the necessary byproduct of journalism, not its aim.
Which is why this principled and professional journalist who cares about facts and is not bothered about causing offence if the facts are the facts changed the title of the original article and removed the poll that was designed to find the truth about how people saw Islam in th UK….can’t offend people with unwelcome truths…..and surely somewhat important to register what a great many people think about Islam and Muslims if you are talking about integration and the future.
Free speech? My backside. They didn’t even need an AK47..Kirkup just rolled up and died as a journalist with his self-censorship.
What Kirkup and the BBC don’t admit is that the MCB ‘research’ is purely designed to put pressure on government and ‘society’ to further Muslim interests. It tells a sorry tale of Islamophobia, disaffection and economic and educational backwardness…more money and cultural awareness and tolerance needed!….as well as one of an ever growing Muslim population…and with such a growing population comes political influence as politicians buy votes with policies designed for specific communities regardless of the cost to society as a whole.
Compare the BBC’s report on the MCB’s ‘research’ into the Muslim population with a Telegraph one…the BBC does no thinking for itself, it does no forward thinking about the meaning of this massive population growth…what it does do is take the MCB’s narrative and finshes off with this plea for government and society to ‘deal’ with the issues..
“This addresses many of the social issues that are always in the media and being discussed,” added Dr Sundas Ali. “Now we have the hard facts, let’s do something about it.”
Yes, let’s do something about it….trouble is the MCB’s answer is just ‘more Islam.’ Hardly the real solution.
The Telegraph takes a more honest look at the problems that will be encountered by a ever increasing and powerful and separate Muslim population….
The number of children growing up as Muslims in the UK has almost doubled in a decade in what experts have described as an “unprecedented” shift in Britain’s social make-up.
Muslims could play a decisive role in the coming general election, expected to be the closest in recent times, making up a significant share of voters in some of the most marginal seats in the country.
The Muslim population will continue expanding for “many decades” to come – something experts said could transform everything from social attitudes to foreign policy.
It is the dramatically younger age profile of the Muslim population which could have the biggest impact in the future.
Prof David Voas, director of the Institute for Social and Economic Research based at Essex University, said: “In terms of ethnic-religious minority groups expanding I think this is probably unprecedented.
“Even if immigration stopped tomorrow it is clear that in due course by the middle of this century or a bit later, 10 per cent of the population of Britain will be of Muslim heritage.”
He said that is likely to change political decisions and social attitudes on both a local and national level.
“It would start off with being relatively small but you could just imagine a situation where a more socially conservative view that might be conducive to Muslims might tip the balance.”
“You could see the effect with local authorities making accommodation with swimming baths where there are women-only swimming periods,” he said.
All, you might think, rather serious concerns, ones that might lead to serious conflict, more so than at present, in the future.
Wonder why the BBC completely ignored the likely scenarios.
One rule for the rich and one rule for the rest of us under Miliband as Labour condemns ‘sophisticated tax avoidance’ what ever that means….but defends Miliband’s own dodging.
Here the BBC promote Labour as the party that will tackle tax evaders…Ed Balls vows to crack down on tax evasion and the interview is hardly testing for Ed Balls who is fed a question by Marr and allowed to use it, as probably intended, to peddle his own line.
No hard questioning about the hypocrisy in Labour’s claims about dodgy donors to the Tory Party.
However the BBC is keen to highlight every word Miliband utters in relation to this matter….here closely examining the life and times of Tory Lord Fink….
Miliband claims that ‘the coalition is “shrugging its shoulders” on tax avoidance – which he claimed had left a £34bn hole in the UK’s finances.’
How hollow that claim is when you spend just a few minutes researching Labour’s history on tax dodging…something the BBC seems averse to but is quite happy to trawl for old history like this…
Mr Miliband accused the prime minister of “turning a blind eye” to the issue, and said tax avoidance threatened “the fabric of society”.
Which is all a bit strange really as a few minutes on Google and you can find plenty of damning information about Labour’s history on Big Business, the mega rich and tax avoidance.
It seems the BBC just isn’t interested in Labour’s role in creating the massive inequality in society and its protection of the mega rich. Below is a run down of just some embarrassments for Labour…I had to stop looking as it was all too easy….but all too difficult for the BBC.
For the ultra-rich few, this country is now a virtual tax haven, which is why more and more princes, tycoons and oligarchs are making it their home. James Meek sets out to uncover the secrets of Britain’s seriously wealthy
If there is more private wealth in Britain, and in London in particular, than ever before, where is it coming from? One explanation is that in the past few years London has become, even more than in the 1990s, the world’s conduit of choice for private wealth. Its generous tax treatment of the mega-rich, particularly those born abroad, makes it in some ways a virtual tax haven.
One of the big tax advantages for super-rich British residents who aren’t British-born is this country’s unique “non-domiciled” tax rule, which allows tens of thousands of wealthy people to avoid paying tax on income earned overseas. Almost four years after an investigation by Nick Davies in this newspaper showed how the Swedish billionaire Hans Rausing, then described as “the richest man in Britain”, had in one year received more from the Treasury in refunds and grants than it was getting from him in tax, the government shows no sign of closing the loophole. “Non-domicile is much bigger than people think. It’s massively important,” says the hedge fund manager.
“I’ve always thought that England would benefit a lot by becoming an ‘offshore haven’,” says Garnham. “It’s already halfway there. Why not make more of it? We’re only a tiny little island”.
Experts offering advice on legislation they helped to create is ‘ridiculous conflict of interest’, says select committee chair Margaret Hodge…”The large accountancy firms are in a powerful position in the tax world and have an unhealthily cosy relationship with government”
PwC said it had provided more than 6,000 hours of free technical support, worth £400,000 to political parties during the year, up by more than 20%, with almost 4,500 hours going to Labour and the balance mainly to the Liberal Democrats.
PwC’s party donation history at the Electoral Commission shows their offer of support for the main political parties is typically taken up by those on the opposition benches. The accountancy profession has been criticised for getting too close to politicians and government offices.
In its annual report, PwC said: “The firm has no political affiliation and does not make any cash donations to any political party or other groups with a political agenda. However, in the interests of the firm and its clients, we seek to develop and maintain constructive relationships with the main political parties.”
Any more stories about Labour’s dodgy donors? Yes plenty……
Within a week of India’s second richest man, Lakshmi Mittal, complaining that the Indian government was too slow in permitting the construction of new steel mills, Mittal’s home country has guys like him in the cross-hairs.
Rich people are costing Britain millions in lost tax by not registering their houses in their own names, according to land registry records and independent accountants’ estimates.
The wealthy individuals who appear to be enjoying the country’s choicest property virtually tax-free, thanks to their exploitation of legal loopholes include a number of Labour party donors, as well as the former Tory prime minister Margaret Thatcher, an influential Saudi prince and Mohamed Al Fayed, the controversial owner of Harrods and Fulham football club.
The computer tycoon David Potter, for example, owns not only his London house but also Rush Manor, a lavish home counties retreat by the Thames.
His fortune, despite recent collapses in the value of internet enterprises, is calculated at £98m.
We estimate that he may be avoiding liability on Rush Manor for his heirs of inheritance tax of around £600,000; liability of £80,000 in stamp duty on a sale; and capital gains tax on the profit he would make if he sold the mansion, originally purchased in 1989, of at least £160,000.
Mr Potter, a Labour favourite and £90,000 donor who gave a 1999 lecture at Downing Street on wealth creation, also uses a second controversial tax loophole by claiming to be “non-domiciled”.
In the eyes of the Inland Revenue, they therefore have “non-domicile status”. Although Mr Potter will pay tax on his UK income from Psion, he does not need to pay tax on income and assets he keeps abroad.
Land registry records show the same pattern in the case of a number of high-profile recent donors to the Labour party.
We found:
· a Panama company owning the north London house of pharmaceuticals tycoon Tony Tabatznik;
· an offshore company listed as owning the£9m summer palace occupied by Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal;
· an offshore trust holding the Grosvenor Square flat of the drug manufacturer Isaac Kaye;
· a Jersey trust company listed as owning the Hampstead home of businessman Uri David.
Another donor, financier and philanthropist, Christopher Ondaatje, has given £2m to the Labour party. For 17 years his second house has been Glenthorne, a coastal mansion in north Devon.
Yet although he has written lyrically about his feeling of “coming home” from Canada by buying it, the 93-acre estate is in fact in the name of the offshore Exmoor Ltd.
All these men claim non-domicile status. None wanted to comment on the allegation that they are avoiding tax liabilities on their UK homes.
And let’s not forget this one….
Tony Blair’s new government exempted Formula One from the ban on tobacco advertising after its boss, Bernie Ecclestone, had given Labour a donation of £1m.
I could go on…in fact let’s not forget that David Miliband, when Foreign Secretary, was sent the same email that the HSBC ‘whistleblower’ sent to the HMRC about tax evaders and yet he and Labour has escaped all investigation whilst the HMRC has been crucified by Labour’s Margaret Hodge in her position as chair of the Public Accounts Committee…not that I’m saying she has a conflict of interest in this…no, wouldn’t say that at all.
Nothing stopping the BBC from investigating that link though is there? Or indeed highlighting Labour’s very dodgy donor history and its role in facilitating the tax evasion industry…or indeed looking at this again….
Search Biased BBC
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