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Here’s the story…

Nigel Farage backs Australian-style immigration curbs

 

UKIP would restrict migrants over the age of 45 from coming to the UK, Nigel Farage has said.

He told LBC Radio his party would adopt “sensible” measures to control unskilled migration based on an Australian-points based system.

Those with criminal records and life-threatening illnesses would be barred.

Has Farage done a U-turn on UKIP immigration policy with his new fangled Aussie points system?

Strange if he had…because that was a BBC report from July 2014.  Sounds rermarkably like his immigration policy announced today.…so not a U-turn and not ‘Making it up’ as he goes along as a BBC sub-heading suggests.

Odd that dropping the 50,000 cap is a U-turn when the Australian points system would have limited immigration to 27,000…and UKIP would still allow up to 50,000 migrants to come here…

UKIP would cut the numbers allowed into the UK to work but would not set an annual target, Nigel Farage said.

The party wants immigration to return to “normal” levels, said Mr Farage, with between 20,000 and 50,000 migrants given work permits.

Mr Farage said that under the Australian-style points-based visa system he wants to see, 27,000 people would have qualified to come to work in the UK last year.

 

A very curious ‘U-Turn’!

The BBC says this today…

A UKIP spokesman said last week work-related immigration should be capped at 50,000 a year.

 

But in fact this is what UKIP actually said…as linked to by that BBC report…

…within the points based system UKIP commits to bringing UK net migration down to 50,000 people a year for employment.

Ah so hang on….around 50,000 people based on a  points system…em…how different is that to what Farage said in his speech today and in 2014?  No difference.

Listening to the BBC reports of this on the radio and I had the distinct impression that the BBC was trying to make out that Farage had abandoned his immigration control policies and had essentially joined the ranks of Cameron and Miliband…and therefore anyone thinking of voting for UKIP on the basis of their immigration policies would be wasting their vote.

The Telegraph, not a friend of UKIP, confirms that line of attack, if somewhat less subtly…

Is Nigel Farage just like all the others?

Ukip voters must be looking at this U-turn and wondering if Mr Farage is any different from Miliband or Cameron

Whilst you expect the Torygraph to adopt a partisan line and do what it can to undermine UKIP the BBC is supposed to be above such things…the whole reaosn for the BBC is to stand aside, apart from the fray, and deliver the unvarnished truth to the Public so that they can make genuinely informed decisions on the best available information.

If the BBC cannot deliver that truth then its whole existence must be brought into question.  What is the point of the BBC if it acts in the same way as all the other broadcasters and news providers who have their own agendas?

There is no point, at least as a public service funded at the pont of a gun, so to speak.

How can the licence be justified if the BBC fails to fulfill its most basic purpose, its whole Raison d’être?

Who needs facts when you can just make stuff up.  Vote Tory and your relatives will die in hospital.

Two things you can be sure of in life…death and taxes…and that the BBC will lie through its teeth to put Labour back in power.

OK…Three things that you can be sure of in life….

When reports about events at Stafford Hospital finally came out the BBC ducked and dived to avoid mentioning Labour’s role in the chaos in the NHS that resulted in hundreds of deaths…the BBC preferring to place the blame solely onto hospital management.

Now in the run up to an election the BBC has changed its mind about pointing the finger of blame, in fact it has gone one better, instead of just blaming the encumbent government for any deaths in the NHS they have predicted, well, speculated,  that Tory reforms of the NHS will result in another ‘Stafford’ with patients dropping like flies.

The BBC’s Nick Triggle asks disengenuously…

Is another NHS scandal brewing?

Now that’s a curious opening to a report on another deadly scandal that happened under Labour’s watch.  Surely the BBC’s report’s thrust should be on the actual scandal and not on sensationalist, and highly political, speculation.

What does Triggle base his speculation on? Curiously it’s on yet another report of a scandal, under Labour….and yet once again you’d be hard pushed to know that as ‘Labour’ isn’t mentioned.

You might in fact be misled into thinking this was a scandal that occured under this government on reading Triggle’s opening lines…

Lethal. Shocking. Unacceptable. Dysfunctional. Failures at every level. So said the report into maternity care at Cumbria’s Furness General Hospital.

But as was pointed out repeatedly as the inquiry published its findings on Tuesday, the parallels with Stafford Hospital are chillingly similar. In fact, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt went as far as calling it a “second” Stafford Hospital – albeit it on a smaller scale.

Certainly it took until 2011 for the scandal to ‘break’ but it had been going on since 2004…hardly down to the Coalition you might judge….and one reason it didn’t ‘break’ was because Labour signed off on Trust status for the hospital and was told that legally the Department of Health couldn’t then intervene (page 10)…..

As the application had been deferred in 2009, rather than rejected, the Trust did not go through the quality assessment newly introduced by the DH in the aftermath of the Mid Staffordshire affair, and the DH received legal advice that it should not intervene, as the application had already received the Secretary of State’s approval in 2009.

Triggle goes on to suggest what happened could still be going on now…

In both cases it led to unnecessary suffering – and it was left to patients to expose the truth. So can we be sure this is not happening elsewhere?

Dr Bill Kirkup, the chair of the Morecambe Bay Inquiry, named after the trust which ran the hospital, admitted as such. He said “there could be elements” of what he found happening elsewhere when pressed by journalists.

But then again ‘There might not be.’  Pure speculation.

Triggle suggests a cause for the scandal…changes in the NHS…

Why? The report lists in detail a series of missed opportunities by the North West Health Authority, Care Quality Commission and Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman to tackle the problems at an earlier stage.

This spanned a period when the structure of regulation and monitoring was changing. Some of this was part of the constant state of revolution the NHS finds itself in, but other changes were being made in light of the Stafford Hospital scandal.

Triggle’s final paragraph slips the knife in to the hilt and makes the claim that Coalition (ie Tory) reforms to the NHS will result in similar scandals and deaths…

The NHS has just under gone one of its biggest ever reorganisations with the dismantling of regional health authorities and primary care trusts.

It begs the question: in a couple of years could we be in the same position we are now?

Must be an election coming.

The BiasedBBC Question Time Chat may be returning!

Some excellent work by our very own Julio has produced software which seems suitable. We’ve tested it behind the scenes and now it’s time for the Public Beta trials.

You can find it here.

We would be very grateful if you could take a look. Leave any feedback in the Comments themselves and we will read them. At certain times today we’ll be replying to them real-time in the chat too.

There’s a Registration link on that page which you will need to use first. Standard disclaimers apply … we don’t know, care, check, remember or outright give a rat’s scrotum about your registration details.

Please give it a go and let us know what you think!

AllSeeingEye

Well then, wonder what you thought of the BBC’s coverage of the Netanyahu speech to Congress? Betraying my own bias, I thought it was fantastic BUT I got the distinct impression that the BBC were outraged that the Israeli PM was daring to stand up to Obama’s dodgy dealings with the Mad Mullahs. A favoured line spewed out by Jeremy Bowen was that this was “electioneering” by Bibi. Gosh – just imagine that – a politician electioneering. Thank god we have principled politicians like Ed Miliband who never electioneer and ‘weaponise” healthcare, right? The rousing reception he got must really annoy the BBC.

Here you go, a new Open Thread. I see there was more welcome news on the economy this morning with the suggestion that  average income back to pre-crisis levels.  On Today, I heard the BBC interview ponder what wages would be had we not had the economic crisis! Oh dear – as Ed’s ‘cost of living crisis” narrative goes off the rails the comrades are doing their best for the glorious leader!!!

From the Telegraph:

Mohammed Emwazi’s younger brother voiced support for the radical Islamic cleric who inspired one of Lee Rigby’s killers, the Telegraph can disclose.

Omar Emwazi, 21, indicated that he admired Sheikh Khalid Yasin on his Facebook profile, which was deleted shortly after his brother was identified as “Jihadi John”.

Yasin is an notorious American preacher who converted from Christianity to Islam and is believed to live in Manchester. He was named by Woolwich terrorist Michael Adebowale as his inspiration for converting to Islam.

Adebowale, 22, said that lectures posted online by Yasin taught him the purpose of life.

In 2011 the BBC broadcast a ridiculously biased film (some things never change) attacking anti-Islamist Dutch politician Geert Wilders.

The film portrayed Sheikh Khalid Yasin as a moderate, describing him as “an American Muslim teacher…on a mission to de-radicalise”.

Here are a couple of my blogposts from 2011 about the Wilders documentary which detail the BBC’s disgraceful whitewashing of Yasin’s radical views:

BBC Geert Wilders Hit-Job

Khalid Yasin Update

Think about that for a moment. The BBC was so determined to use anything it could to attack Geert Wilders it broadcast a film that pretended the guy who inspired one of Lee Rigby’s murderers was a moderate.

I wonder how many young Muslims had their paths to radicalisation informed, in part, by that piece of BBC propaganda.

Peston’s in trouble…or is it Ian Katz…or Jenny Parks? On last night’s Newsnight debate on the EU alarmist film they forgot to mention the female author….she’s not happy….

In regard to the EU’s alarmist scaremongering film given a platform on the BBC …..,

A BBC spokesman responded to the accusations over EU funding and bias saying:

No EU money was used in the making of the programme being aired on the BBC. Impartiality is of paramount importance for the BBC.

 

 

UKIP says different…

The mockumentary producer Bill Emmott confirmed on twitter last night that the production company had received EU funding for the film’s dubbing and distribution across Europe.

The BBC itself didn’t get the funding for the film but the film  itself did get money from the EU….Can’t see that Tweet from Emmott...but there is this though…

 The Mail confirms the funding went on translations for the film.

The film was  broadcast across Europe..

The film will be aired across Europe by eight different broadcasters, a feat Piras described as her “impossible challenge”.

 

Apparently, if I read this right, someone at the BBC thinks it should be shown in the EU Parliament….

Good that the same BBC person, Philippa Thomas,  Lead presenter World News Today @BBCWorld & BBC4,  thinks comparisons of Christianity with ISIS are fair in this day and age…..presumably Jihadi John is Henry VIII?…..

One raised finger…seem familiar?

Compare the Telegraph’s report on Mohammed Emwazi’ school  and the BBC’s.

The Telegraph tells us there was a ‘Muslim Mafia’ at the school that was very religious and pro-active in demanding that the school adopt Muslim friendly practices such as introducing a prayer room. The BBC gives us the ex-headteacher’s thoughts….you might think the BBC would have tried a bit harder to challenge what was in all likelihood a bit of backside covering by her.

The Telegraph reveals Omar Emwazi, 21, was known as a member of the ‘Muslim Mafia’ at school and supported an Islamist cleric who inspired one of Lee Rigby’s killers

[Omar] Emwazi attended Quintin Kynaston, the same north west London school as his older brother, and was known there as a member of the “Muslim Mafia” – a group of particularly religious teenagers.

He is an integral member of a network called Power of Dawah, an evangelical Islamic group that tries to convert people in the street.

The group has hosted lectures by various preachers, which are filmed and put online.

Its Twitter account follows Abdur Raheem Green, a controversial preacher who has justified domestic abuse and has suggested that the 7/7 and 9/11 attacks could have been carried out by western governments.

Emwazi registered the PowerofDawah.com website.

A friend of Emwazi’s said she believed many pupils were being groomed by radicals whilst they were still at school…The “Muslim Mafia” were not popular among their peers as they were considered too judgmental.

“They had a very specific set of values,” she added.

“Quintin Kynaston was full of that. It was 70 per cent or 80 per cent Muslim. There was only one white kid in our class.

“In every year there was a set that was the Muslim Mafia that hung out together and were very religious.

“So many of them are second generation immigrants whose parents are still very much in touch with their culture.

“I think there was a system of grooming at Quintin Kynaston because there have been a few of them.

“They petitioned to have a prayer room so they could pray five times a day and they always went to Regent’s Park mosque every single Friday.

“I think that’s where it happened. A lot of them suddenly got very religious.

 

Was Mohammed Emwazi just as religious as his younger brother at school?  The Daily Mail suggests he did….

After finishing primary school in 1999, young Mohammed moved to Quintin Kynaston Community Academy, in St John’s Wood, where he is believed to have studied alongside former X Factor judge and pop star Tulisa Contostavlos.

Once there, he became more observant of his religion and began wearing more traditional Islamic dress, and his sisters began to wear the hijab.

Curious that the head teacher claims she saw nothing amiss.

The BBC whitewashes the school and makes no mention of any problems with overly devout religiosity from some Muslim pupils…

‘Jihadi John’: Emwazi’s school not aware of radicalisation

Islamist militant Mohammed Emwazi was never suspected of being radicalised at school, his former head teacher says.

Jo Shuter, who was head of Quintin Kynaston Academy in north-west London until 2013, said he had not been “seen as a huge concern” as a pupil.

Emwazi has been named as the man known as “Jihadi John” in several IS hostage videos.

Two other pupils from the school are also thought to have gone to fight in Syria and Somalia.

Ms Shuter, who was head teacher for more than 10 years from 2002, said there had been no indication that any pupils were becoming extremist.

“I am not prepared to say when the radicalisation took place. All I can say is absolutely hand on heart, we had no knowledge of it. If we had we would have done something about it,” she said.

“There was never any sense that any of these young men as I knew them were radicalised when they were in school.”