Here is something of interest from the now departed Stephanie Flanders in 2010 in one of her more impartial moments when she wasn’t urging Osborne to borrow and spend more as ‘interest rates are at a record low’ and pressing the virtues of ‘Plan B’ upon him….why do we have so much debt?…one reason is that Labour increased government spending [but not income] by 26% in 6 years……and to add insult to injury the borrowed money ‘went out the door’…it was squandered by inefficiency….

Spending cuts: Molehill and mountain

Are we all making too much fuss about the Spending Review? Nick Clegg thinks so. He likes to point out that, even with all the cuts we will see unveiled tomorrow by the chancellor, total public spending in 2014-15 will only be back to where it was, as a share of the economy, in 2006-7. At the end of the Parliament, the government will be spending £41bn more, in cash terms, than it is today.

That doesn’t sound so bad. How, you might ask, can it possibly take the deepest and most prolonged spending cuts since World War II, simply to take government spending back to where it was four years ago?

The answer, as a certain meerkat would say, is “simples”. All you need is the largest, most sustained increase in public spending for over 50 years, the deepest recession in more than 70 years, and the first decline in Britain’s nominal GDP since records began.

Pressure on government spending since WWII has been relentlessly upward.  As we get richer, we demand more of the kinds of things that government provides, and the cost of those things often rises faster than the economy.

It takes a very determined government – taking some very tough decisions – to fight that upward pressure for any length of time. You’ll note that the Thatcher era barely registers on the chart [of government spending].

Why did spending rise so fast? About half of it was due to the recession. But, as Tim Morgan points out in a paper for the Centre for Policy Studies, spending in 2006-7 was already 26% higher, in real terms, than it had been in 1999-2000. That was Labour’s promised investment in public services.

Maybe public services did not feel 26% better. But all that means is that it was spent inefficiently, and/or prices and wages in the public sector rose much faster than the economy overall (which they surely did). The money definitely went out the door.

Then the recession came, with a real decline in GDP of 6% between the spring of 2008 and the autumn of 2009. We have had recessions before, of course, but few that deep, and none, in modern times, that was accompanied by an annual decline in the cash value of GDP.

If the government follows through on this spending review, public spending in 2014-15 will be 4% lower, in real terms than it is today – but account for roughly the same share of the economy as it was spending in 2005-6.

It is about reversing a small-ish part of the relentless upward march in government spending since WWII. The fact that it should take such a gargantuan effort to achieve even this merely demonstrates quite how relentless that upward march can be, in a rich but now ageing modern economy.

 

The BBC doesn’t seem to do ‘history’ anymore…at least where Labour’s part in wrecking the economy lies.  If any Tory politician raises the matter of Labour’s responsibility for the economy and the subsequent austerity measures to put it back on track they are quickly slapped down by the BBC presenter who tells them that they have been in power for 5 years and can’t blame Labour anymore as if the consequences of one of the deepest and longest recessions can suddenly vanish after a set date.

Even Labour friendly voices admit Labour’s role in the crash….last week on 5Live one (can’t remember who) frightened the presenter by saying Labour had helped cause the recession by failing to regulate the banks and financial institutions….how often, if ever, do you hear a BBC presenter referring to Brown’s ill-judged light touch regulatory regime in a similar tone?

Didn’t hold out much hope for a balanced view of the budget from Pienaar when he said this last night…

‘They don’t come any craftier than Osborne’

 

A fairly derogatory way of describing Osborne from the BBC’s finest… just a touch ‘loaded’.

Pienaar has consistently claimed that Osborne is the most ‘political’ of Chancellor’s…..on what basis I don’t know as all Chancellors are political. Even today after the budget Pienaar was still making that claim…and yet Osborne is a politician, his job is to be ‘political’…politics is after all about providing what the ‘People’ want and getting their vote to implement those policies.

It is disengenuous to try to fault Osborne for being political when that is the job.

Having said that just how political was the ‘crafty’Osborne?  He had around £6 billion extra to play with and yet he refused to use it to make short term ‘political’ pre-election give-aways. Listening to one business leader he claimed that Osborne’s budget was good for business and highly responsible in not using that £6bn on such populist give-aways.

Osborne has after all presided over the hugely unpopular and difficult Austerity and made the very controversial move to lower the higher rate of tax as well as huge welfare cuts amongst other ‘controversial’ savings in government spending……hardly policies designed to win easy votes….Osborne adopted policies that he knew would cause a measure of uproar.

Pienaar is totally wrong about Osborne creating a Budget for purely political purposes, and in fact, Osborne has put the interests of the country ahead of his Party and its election chances when you consider the economic measures he has implemented over the last 5 years.

Pienaar has always had a soft spot for Miliband and rarely has a critical word to say about him or his policies, Pienaar often claiming it is Miliband leading the way and forcing the narrative.

The BBC is still pushing the ‘government spending will be back to the 1930’s level’ spin that we heard last year when Norman Smith claimed that the Tory spending levels looked ‘utterly terrifying’, taking us back to conditions like those written about by Orwell in his book ‘The Road to Wigan Pier’

The BBC tells us this today….

In 2019/20 spending will grow in line with the growth of the economy – bringing state spending as a share of national income to the same level as in 2000, the chancellor told MPs.

The BBC’s Robert Peston said this was a move aimed at neutralising Labour’s claim that the Conservatives would cut spending to 1930s levels.

 

No attempt to put the figures into context…such as GDP being far higher now, so  the same percentage of GDP actually means far more money.

Peston looks like he is trying to claim Osborne’s statement was pure spin aimed at neutralisng Labour’s claim….it is of course based on fact, Labour’s spending was as near as damn it to that level in 1999-2000….

Labour’s spending as a proportion of GDP in 1999-2000?  36%

The Coalition’s projected spending in 2019-20?        35.2%

 

Son of a Labour peer, Peston prefers to spin this by claiming Osborne is spinning, just as Pienaar does, and with Norman ‘utterly terrifying’ Smith on the same bandwagon Miliband is getting plenty of BBC subsidised propaganda handed to him on a plate.

Well then, I am sure you will have noticed the BBC have been desperately hoping for the defeat of Benjamin Netanyahu in the Israel elections. Up until the very last moment, those such as Jeremy Bowen were spinning like mad for his opponents and in a sense this was in synch with the international liberal elite, from Obama down, who ALL wanted to see BiBi fall. But hush – oh no – he has WON! Cue black armbands and solemn music and …surprise...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud Party has won a surprise victory in Israel’s election.

Exit polls had forecast a dead heat but with almost all votes counted, results give Likud a clear lead over its main rival, the centre-left Zionist Union.

The outcome gives Mr Netanyahu a strong chance of forming a right-wing coalition government. It puts the incumbent on course to clinch a fourth term and become Israel’s longest-serving prime minster.

You could tell this morning that the BBC were in mourning. They had soooo wanted Netanyahu to fall and their “surprise” reminds of the quote many decades ago from New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael : “I can’t believe Nixon won. I don’t know anyone who voted for him.” Through the anti Netanyahu prism of the BBC that surprise is understandable, but still a disgrace.

Well then, yesterday was St Patrick’s Day and didn’t you know it if you have the misfortune to watch or listen to BBC Northern Ireland. They spent yesterday assiduously pushing the laughable line that St Patrick’s Day in Northern Ireland is a wonderful beacon for “cross community” co-operation and multicultural tolerance of all people and traditions. Here is an image of some lovely Irish fans in Belfast yesterday showing their love of the British tradition. For some reason, the world class talent at the BBC seem to have missed it. Oh well, look the other way and start singing when Irish eyes are smiling…

Well, it’s Budget Day and I noticed the BBC telling us that Osborne will use this for electoral purposes, targeting key groups of voters. Gosh. How fortunate that Brown and Darling never played such low politics during THEIR Budgets. Anyway, here’s a new much needed Open Thread for your completion.

Monday morning and a fresh week of BBC bias I fear. Detail what you discover here!

Curiously we’ve had two articles today, one from AA Gill and one from Janet Daley, both questioning the BBC’s right, self-appointed or otherwise, to use the news, current affairs and entertainment programmes as vehicles to manipulate the audience’s opinions and behaviour.

Gill’s words have already been looked at here…but I reproduce them below for comparison….

Gill targets Danny Cohen as ‘a man of committed, right-on, social interventionist, politically precise principles.’

He says Cohen is ‘One of a cabal within the BBC who think broadcasting has a mission to guide, nudge and encourage society to be better….promoting a broadly homogenous, inclusive, positive, left-of-centre perspective on the world….and more importantly, expunge contrary or critical views….that the BBC has a duty to manipulate the country through information, education and entertainment.’

 

Daley says…

The BBC is not just in the programme-making, or the news-disseminating business. It is an actual player in the quasi-political social service sector.

This is certainly no bunch of ordinary media guys. It’s an arm of government which has the peculiar advantage of never having to submit itself for re-election. So this is where the BBC finds itself: being kicked around for its presumption and self-importance, even when it suspends someone whose behaviour was completely unacceptable, but refusing to relinquish the advantages that its anachronistic position confers. I find it hard to sympathise.

 

The BBC, far from being independent, is indeed an ‘arm of government’….one that is ambiguously obligated to be impartial and yet biased at the same time…set the task of maintaining ‘civil society and sustaining citizenship’ by its Charter…as set up by the politicians…so perhaps Cohen and his cabal are right….’…the BBC has a duty to manipulate the country through information, education and entertainment.’

The question is… who decides what those aims mean?…what is ‘citizenship’?, what is a ‘civil society’?  And more importantly who decides what those things are..and how they should be supported by the BBC.

It seems that it is the BBC itself which decides these issues which gives it enormous power, sanctioned by government and yet claiming to be independent of and unaccountable to government.

The BBC and its employees are entirely unelected and yet, just by virtue of the fact that they work for the BBC, are handed unlimited power to decide what are the acceptable ways of thinking and then to police those thoughts, given the power of judge and jury to denounce and malign anyone who doesn’t meet with the BBC imposed orthodoxy.

The BBC’s Charter is up for renewal…perhaps it should be stripped of its power and obligation to ‘sustain citizenship and civil society’ as it does seem that the values and beliefs it seeks to impose are those of a very narrow segment of society that are essentially left of centre and entirely unprepared to allow any other views a chance to speak. The BBC sets out to shape our nation in its own image and because it mainly employs people who already conform to that image or adapt to it in order to survive inside the organisation things are unlikely to change without outside interference.

Perhaps such a process is already under way as even Rona Fairhead has been forced to admit as she calls for outside overwatch of the BBC…

BBC Trust chair calls for external oversight of corporation

A radical overhaul of the BBC’s governance appears almost certain after the chair of the BBC Trust joined with vocal critics in both main political parties calling for the internal regulator to be abolished.

She said there was a “faultline in the blurred accountabilities” between the trust and the BBC management it was supposed to oversee, saying the corporation had been “damaged by a spate of issues in recent years”.

Responsibility for corporate governance should be given to a new unitary board, with an independent chair and a majority of non-executive directors – while regulation would be best handled by a “bespoke regulator” specific to the BBC.

She added: “The cleanest form of separation would be to transfer the trust’s responsibilities for regulation and accountability to an external regulator.

Below is a longer version the above written a while back….

Now that’s all very well, and indeed what this site has been suggesting for a long time, however there remains the crucial question of what exactly does the Regulator regulate and how?

The BBC’s Charter sets out the powers and responsiblities of the BBC and what is expected of the BBC therefore if these don’t change will the BBC ever change regardless of who regulates it?

The BBC is biased to the left, it supports mass immigration, it supports closer integration with Europe, it supports Islamist extremism here and in the Middle East, it supports Labour and it supports an ideologically based approach to climate change.

It supports all these things almost regardless of the Charter.  The issues are deeply felt by many in the BBC who use their positions in the organisation to promote their own personal political and social agendas.

The Charter paradoxically gives the BBC licence to be biased despite it also having a legal requirment to be impartial.

The Charter tells us that…..

The BBC exists to serve the public interest.

The BBC’s main object is the promotion of its Public Purposes
The Public Purposes of the BBC are as follows—

(a) sustaining citizenship and civil society;
(b) promoting education and learning;
(c) stimulating creativity and cultural excellence;
(d) representing the UK, its nations, regions and communities
(e) bringing the UK to the world and the world to the UK;
(f) in promoting its other purposes, helping to deliver to the public the benefit of emerging communications technologies and services and, in addition, taking a leading role in the switchover to digital television.

 

The major purpose that gives the BBC unlimited power to do as it sees fit is the first one, the requirement to sustain citizenship and civil society.

Who sets the limits of exploitation on that?  Who defines what ‘citizenship’ is or what a ‘civil society’ should look like?  And then who defines how the BBC should carry out those purposes?

The BBC is free to do both, to define citizenship and civil society and how they should be promoted,  giving it enormous power to ‘engineer’ Society along the lines it thinks acceptable.

Demand a measure of control over immigration the BBC can label you a racist little Englander, question the teachings of Muhammed and you’re a racist Islamophobe, raise any doubts about the science of climate change and you’re an ignorant blogger in the pay of Big Oil and probably deeply psychologically flawed, not want to be subsumed by Europe?…you’re again, a racist little Englander harping back to a non-existent golden age of the 1950’s.

The BBC sets its own agenda and is free to define what sort of society it favours and thence to promote it by various means…both positive and negative.

It is free to be ‘biased’, it is in fact charged to be biased by the Charter….the trouble is, as said, it is also free to decide what to be biased in favour of, making it almost unaccountable.

The politicians laid out the form of the Charter and so can hardly complain of the BBC’s bias when it is they who have given the BBC such free range to be so biased.

If the BBC favours Labour’s ‘Plan B’ or Labour’s NHS or welfare policies Tory politicians have few grounds to complain for if the BBC deems Labour policies to be the most likely to ‘sustain citizenship’ and a ‘civil society’ the the Charter would seem to give them carte blanche to be so biased.

With Charter renewal coming up next year perhaps the Tories should start to consider just what those requirements really mean and if they are necessary.

Trevor Phillips, in the Sunday Times (paywalled), tells us of the ‘stark warning of the passions that were being roused, even in this mild-mannered nation, by Britain’s growing ethnic and cultural frictions’.

He tells us that he came to the conclusion that ‘whilst beautiful in theory, in practise multiculturalism had become a racket, in which self-styled community leaders bargained for control over local authority funds that would prop up their own status and authority.  Far from encouraging integration it had become in their interest to preserve the isolation of their ethnic groups.’

Phillips goes on to conclude that ‘If we are to tackle the problems of racial inequality and segregation, we at least  have to name the problem…and we have to face the consequences of our mealy-mouthed approach to race….Britain’s lack of frankness is echoed in every major European country and it is fuelling a growth of angry, nativist political movements across the continent…..People need to feel free to say what they want without the fear of being accused of racism or bigotry.’

The BBC takes the opposite view…hence we get the abuses that happened in Rochdale where the Authorities looked away and were allowed to look away because organisations like the BBC, that are there to challenge the Authorities and ask awkward questions, also ducked the issue as too racially and culturally sensitive.

The same with immigration where all we hear is how wonderfully beneficial immigration is, the real truth, about the enormous pressures on housing, schools, the NHS, the legal system and so on, are glossed over and downplayed.  The BBC doesn’t want to give you any information that would lead you to think immigration, whatever the numbers who come here, is anything but good for Britain.

Maybe one day the BBC will bring us the real news.

This all plays into another article in the Sunday Times, one by AA Gill in support of his friend Jeremy Clarkson.

Gill says that the BBC has ‘ruinously lost touch with its audience…having an arrant disregard for the viewers’.

Gill targets Danny Cohen as ‘a man of committed, right-on, social interventionist, politically precise principles.’

He says Cohen is ‘One of a cabal within the BBC who think broadcasting has a mission to guide, nudge and encourage society to be better….promoting a broadly homogenous, inclusive, positive, left-of-centre perspective on the world….and more importantly, expunge contrary or critical views….that the BBC has a duty to manipulate the country through information, education and enterrtainment.’

Gill goes on to say that the BBC has ‘Given up on making programmes for Top Gear’s audience…making programmes only for metropolitan types…wanting to dismiss Top Gear’s audience as UKIP voting dinosaurs.’

He says that the BBC ‘has to make programmes for all licence holders not simply the ones it approves of…if it cannot show that it is serving the nation as a whole then it should be a subscription service for those who want to watch it.’

I’m sure we’ve heard that all before somewhere.

Naomi Klein is female, left wing, anti-capitalist and now it seems, fully onboard the climate change bandwagon enlightening us all with her scientific expertise and sense of moral outrage….what’s not to like for the BBC?

Indeed the BBC has leapt aboard the Naomi Klein bandwagon on the grand occassion of her latest publication being released into the wild (all monies going to a good cause no doubt).

Klein is once again berating Capitalism, this time as the cause of climate change, at war with the environment, in her new book This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate…., The Guardian, The New York Times and little Owen Jones are drooling over it…as is the BBC.

Klein pretty much gets a free run at putting her case…Jenni Murray only interrupting to suggest that there might be some sceptics out there…or as Murray put it….’There are of course climate change deniers’ …so quite clear how she thinks about climate change and anyone who dares raise doubts about some of the science.

Klein dismisses all ‘deniers’ as rightwing free market ideologues who realise that if man-made climate change is real Capitalism is finished…according to Klein’s own ideology….though still no proof that it is ‘man-made’…but let’s not let the facts spoil a good read.

Klein says that we shouldn’t debate whether there is a climate crisis or not with such people because she knows that there is one…whether she knows what the cause’s climate change is debatable….er….

She is of course talking to the converted at the BBC….whilst Klein has absolutely no scientific credentials to her name she is allowed to lecture us courtesy of the BBC platform she has been granted almost unchallenged….and the reason she is allowed to do this?  Because she supports the BBC’s own view that the ‘science is settled’ and is in line with the supposed 97% of all scientists who are said to also back that view.

If, like Nigel Lawson, you raise awkward questions that throw doubt upon the whole charade you are about as welcome at the BBC as a reborn Jimmy Savile, or Jeremy Clarkson…which must seem a curious way to run a news and current affairs media empire that is charged with entertaining, informing and educating us…..only bring people the news and information that the BBC agrees with….all very Big Brother.

And speaking of which, the Royal Society, another BBC favoured climate change champion, gets a blast from professor Michael Kelly..

Why my own Royal Society is wrong on climate change: A devastating critique of world’s leading scientific organisation by one of its Fellows

 

Reading his take down of the Society’s approach to climate change you can readily see a comparison with how the BBC has decided to report climate change….

The implication was clear: the Society seemed to be saying there was no longer room for meaningful debate about the claim that the world is warming dangerously because of human activity, because the science behind this was ‘settled’.

The Society has become more, not less dogmatic. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have continued to rise, but since 1998 there has been no statistically significant rise in global temperatures at all.

This flies in the face of the confident predictions made by nearly all the climate computer models that the temperature would continue to rise as it did from 1975 to 1998. More than 60 different explanations have been proposed to explain why this ‘pause’ or ‘hiatus’ has happened, and their sheer number is the clearest evidence that the system that climate scientists are seeking to model is irreducibly complex. Human-sourced carbon dioxide is at best one of many factors in causing climate change, and humility in front of this complexity is the appropriate stance.

Yet the Society continues to produce a stream of reports which reveal little sign of this.

Those who fail to provide balance are not giving advice, but lobbying. It is with the deepest regret that I must now state that this is the role which has been adopted by the Royal Society. And when scientists abandon neutral inquiry for lobbying, they jeopardise their purpose and integrity.

 

 

A month ago the BBC was proclaiming that the Iranian Islamic revolution was a good thing for women….the BBC is rather too keen on promoting Iran’s interests for some reason….the BBC sees its job as an effort to combat and counter those who characterise Iran as a malevolent force in the world which aims to destroy Israel, arms and funds a variety of militias and terrorist groups and has been a major opponent of British forces in Iraq and in Afghanistan.

But the BBC’s belief that everything is relative, there are no black and whites, no good and bad, means even Hitler would have had his spokesmen on the BBC during the war…and in Iran’s case the BBC likes to portray it as the victim of an aggressive America with enemies surrounding it intent in its destruction…much indeed as they portray Putin and his drive to rebuild the Soviet empire.

If as part of that drive to polish Iran’s reputation and image the BBC has to manage the truth then so be it….here it reports that Amnesty International has criticised Iran…Iran birth drive ‘turns women into baby-making machines’, but the report is remarkably short and very unlike the usual BBC analysis that goes into deatil about such cultural and social issues.

How different to this positive one about the wonders of Islamic feminism where we get much more information…How Iran’s feminist genie escaped telling us that ‘Iran’s 1979 revolution may have put an ayatollah in charge – but for women it had plenty of positive side-effects… in education, in the workplace, and even in the home, discovers Amy Guttman during a ride on the Tehran underground’.

‘Positive side effects’ such as these from the Amnesty report that the BBC has decided to omit from its report…..

Despite claims by Iran’s authorities, including statements by President Hasan Rouhani that men and women in Iran are treated equally, in reality this is far from the truth. Sexual violence and discrimination against women in Iran is rife and women in Iran are denied equal rights with respect to marriage, divorce, child custody, inheritance, travel, and even in their choice of clothing.

Iran’s Penal Code penalizes women and girls as early as nine years old who fail to cover their hair with a headscarf and comply with compulsory dress codes with imprisonment or a cash fine. These laws are regularly used by the police to harass and detain women in public for their appearance and clothing.

According to Iran’s existing Civil Code, a woman would not be entitled to spousal maintenance if she refuses to comply with the “duties of marriage”, which can include refusing to have sex with her husband or leaving the house without permission .

A woman’s testimony in court is valued at half that of a man in legal proceedings and reparations paid for killing or causing injury to a woman are half those payable for same harms to a man. The age of criminal responsibility for girls is just under nine years old but just under 15 years for a boy. Rape within marriage and domestic violence are not recognized as criminal offences. Engaging in lesbian sex is punishable by 100 lashes with a fourth time conviction resulting in the death penalty.

Early and forced marriages are common with 41,226 girls between the ages of 10 and 14 getting married, according to the 2013-2014 annual report by the National Organization for Civil Registration, and at least 201 girls under the age of 10. At some universities women are barred from studying certain subjects, ranging from engineering to English literature, as a result of quotas that seek to reverse advances made in the number and proportion of female university students. They also face restrictions on watching sports in public stadiums.

 

If they are examples of that ‘positive’ side effect of the Islamic Revolution life must have been really, really terrible before.