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…

Understanding a little of the migrants’ pitiful journey

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.

Here is what the researchers said was their aim……

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.

Here’s the BBC write up, such as it is…..

England’s medieval immigrants revealed by universities

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.

 

No wonder the BBC dodged reporting that bit.

Here you go, I’m back in Blighty so time to catch up! BBC being its usual effortless BIASED self? Detail it here!

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.

As you may imagine the BBC have handed the baton to Jonathan Freedland who picks it up and runs with it ….to the left of course.

We had a look at the Sunday Times attitude towards Richard Littlejohn (H/T  Sue at Is the BBC biased?) and various BBC reviews of films it sees as at odd with its world view.

TV reviewers seem to be a redoubt of a particular brand of liberal, middle class snobbery which looks down its nose at the ‘common man’.

Here is the guilty secret of a Guardianista…

Why Top Gear remains annoyingly excellent television

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….

British Muslims: integration and segregation are about economics, not values

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…..

Kirkup says in his latest apologetic article…

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.

It is remarkable how the BBC manages to avoid rigorously investigating donors to the Labour party and their various tax dodges.

The BBC defends Miliband and his inheritance tax dodge…

Ed Miliband should publish tax documents – Conservative MP

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….

Ed Miliband accuses Fink of U-turn in tax avoidance row

And here giving Miliband an unquestioning promotion of his rhetoric on tax avoidance and the Tories’ part in it….

Miliband pledges ‘root and branch’ HMRC review

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…

HMRC failed to prosecute tycoon over tax evasion

The BBC goes on to reinforce Labour’s message with this report…

Ed Miliband: Tax avoidance threatens ‘fabric of society’

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.

Here’s the Guardian in 2006…..

Super rich

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”.

In 2013 Labour’s Margaret Hodge said:

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”

 

Of course she was talking about the Coalition government but at the same time Labour were getting massive help from accountants PWC:

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……

Labour donor Lord Sainsbury avoids £27m capital gains tax

 

Donor John Mills’s gift to Labour avoided tax bill of £1.5m

India Guns For Its Tax Evading Billionaires

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.

This is from the Guardian in 2002 and is a damning indictment of Labour….

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….

The Today programme (about 08:40) wanted to talk about donations to political parties so who did they invite on?  None other than Labour’s Lord Levy who peddled Labour’s knavish bit of election jerry mandering that parties should have donations capped.

This has the effect of limiting donations from single donors such as rich millionaires, who just by coincidence mostly favour the Tory Party and not Labour.  This results in the Tories having far less money to fight election campaigns whilst Labour still gets Union funding as the Unions can get around their supposed limitations on political funding by giving Labour help in kind on top of any cash donation…such as drivers for the famed Barbie Bus.

Humphrys made no comment about this obvious advantage to Labour and almost failed to mention the Unions…..and only did so in passing eventually.

Levy wants the Public to fund political parties directly.  The opposition already get enormous funding from the tax payer and his suggestion that the Unions are capped as well has already happened but as said the Unions can get around that as Levy knows….so the only loser would be the Tory party.  Go figure.

Good that the BBC provides a platform for a bit of blatant Labour policy promotion.

Humphrys has a personal interest in all this…he is a shareholder in, and contributor to, the YouGov polling organisation and only days ago ran a poll on this very subject…

Politicians and the Rich: Cause for Concern?

Tthis already highly sensitive issue becomes even more so when those rich people thought to be dodging their taxes are the very same people donating money to political parties. That was Mr Miliband’s accusation in the Commons on Wednesday.

Does it matter that rich people give money to political parties? After all, if they want to ‘waste’ their money on a bunch of politicians (as some would see it), then that’s their business. But those who think it does matter do so because they worry that the donors are buying influence over policy.

 

When Humphrys asks about people ‘buying influence over policy’ does he mean like PWC who provided Labour with massive free support and which says, whilst being entirely non-political it “…in the interests of the firm and its clients, we seek to develop and maintain constructive relationships with the main political parties.”

PwC chairman to receive £3.7m share of rising profits as business grows

 

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.

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.”

 

Humphrys himself says there is no conflict of interest in his shareholding and participation in an influential polling company and his position on the Today programme…

The BBC said there was “no ruling that staff can’t own shares”, but there will be surprise in some quarters that the anchor of the country’s biggest daily radio news programme was allowed a stake in a firm renowned for political polls, reported by Today.

Humphrys told the Times he was comfortable with the shares and it didn’t pose a conflict of interest.

“YouGov features as a ‘basis’ for stories in the same way that any other polling company does. Decisions as to the editorial content of Today are made by its editor, not by me,” he said.

A pretty unsympathetic interview from John Humphrys with a Rabbi talking about anti-Semitism in Europe this morning on the Today programme (08:10 ish)

Unsympathetic in comparison to how anyone making similar claims about Islamophobia might be treated by the BBC that is.

When the Rabbi suggested that governments had the responsibility to continually protect Jewish locations Humphrys thought it ‘all a bit much’.

Humphrys suggests that perhaps Jews should take up Netanyahu’s offer and flee to Israel…can’t imagine him suggesting to Muslims that they flee to Pakistan or some such country.

Humphrys then suggested that ‘there is a danger in overstating what’s happening’.  Ever hear that from a BBC presenter in the face of a Muslim complaining of Islamophobia?  No, the BBC laps it up and adds to the hype.

The BBC has a well deserved reputation for downplaying anti-Semitism whilst championing the Islamophobia industry …but it does seem that the Jews are the ‘new Jews’ in Europe and not the Islamists who claim that status for themselves in what is just another way of twisting the knife into the Jewish community by making such a comparison.  An odious comparison when much of the anti-Semitism is coming from the Muslim community itself…their ‘dirty little secret’.

Whilst the BBC were still refusing to put a name to the attacker in Denmark they have trawled ‘social media’ to find photographs that apparently show evidence of Far Right involvement in an attack on a Jewish cemetry…

Hundreds of Jewish graves have been desecrated at a cemetery in eastern France, near the border with Germany.

Images on social media showed the gravestones in Sarre-Union daubed with swastikas and Nazi slogans.

 

Just the BBC’s usual rapid reaction to any such attack….regardless of lack of real evidence  start pointing the finger of blame at the Far Right by default.

Would they be so quick to point the finger in this case at a Jewish cemetry in Glasgow?….

An Israeli news site makes no mention of such daubings…

French media sources reported that 36 of the 600 graves in a cemetery in Nice were damaged, with Stars of Davids ripped off of memorial candle lamps and headstones smashed. Parts of some headstones were even stolen.

 

In fact in six other reports from other news organisations make no mention of swaztikas or nazi slogans.

The Jerusalem Post shows a photo…from Reuteurs not social media, and says this in its caption…

A French gendarme stands guard next to tombstones desecrated by vandals with Nazi swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans in the Jewish cemetery of Brumath near Strasbourg.

 

The BBC says ‘Nazi slogans’, the JPost says ‘anti-Semitic slogans’.

Why did the BBC choose the very specific term ‘Nazi slogan’ which narrows the culprits down to the Far Right when ‘anti-Semitic slogans’ leaves the field open for a wider range of possibilities?

I can find no photographs with the slogans shown clearly so we’ll just have to take the BBC’s word for it that they are ‘Nazi slogans’ but it is interesting how fast the BBC are to apportion blame to the Far Right even in the most oblique manner in order to divert attention away from Muslims, and how slow to apportion blame when the likely culprit in a crime is a Muslim.

Perhaps it was the Jews themselves…

Perhaps we, and the BBC,  should wait for the proof.

No name from the BBC for the gunman in Denmark, they fallback on this get out…

The man’s name has not been released.

Certainly the police hadn’t officially released the name but Danish media have published the name as has the Mail and many other news outlets…and the name has been out for many hours now…

Danish-born Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein, 22, was killed after opening fire on officers who had closed down the area surrounding Norrebro metro station at about 5am today.

 

Not only that but they have several photos of the man…

The last is a photo released by Danish police in 2013 when the man made a knife attack on someone.

The BBC are still hoping it is another Breivik.