Women are born and raised to hate men.  It’s basic misandry and there has to be a zero tolerance of it says Lord Ahmed speaking to Victoria Derbyshire….we ignore this problem at our peril!  It stems from the Christian religion and the Genesis story which enshrines the myth of masculine evil as a justification for male oppression.

Actually, no.  The BBC never broadcast any such thing.  Except it did.  Sort of.

All men hate women.

In May there was a great deal of attention being paid to women being abused, attacked and otherwise oppressed around the world.  The BBC investigated this issue using several high profile cases as proof of their contention that men just hate women.

Yes, all these cases have a common theme…’Male hatred of women’…not just individual instances of disturbed or criminal men but all men, all men hate women, it’s innate, bred into them, their brains are hardwired that way, they learn it in church or on their mother’s knee….so look out….

‘The whole process of becoming masculine is at risk in the little boy from the date of his birth on; his still-to-be-created masculinity is endangered by the primary, profound, primeval oneness with the mother.’

It is only by setting woman apart as Other, by resisting intimacy with her, by treating her with contempt and aggression, that men assert their own independent and fragile masculinity.

Contrast that sweeping accusation, that men hate women,  with the BBC’s concerted effort to separate the Muslim community from the actions of fundamentalist Muslims done in the name of Islam….the BBC makes huge efforts to put a firewall between them and the ‘Religion of Peace’. These fundamentalists are mad, bad and certainly not Muslim we are assured.

The BBC doesn’t just make the claim that all men hate women but exploit it as an entry point to weave an amazing web of intrigue,  tying together many different strands and narratives that reflect and highlight the BBC’s own ‘bête noire’ and concerns.

The issues that keep the BBC awake at night?

Firstly of course, the knowledge that ‘all men hate women’. The world must awake to this intractable and ever-present problem.

Then there is British aid money….so often the target of ’Daily Mail’ types who want the money spent on the poor and needy at home…the BBC’s contention is that such aid is vital in helping various communities around the world, educating them about an array of issues…in this case of course it is educating men about women’s rights…and we know Cameron chatted to the BBC’s James Harding about the BBC’s presentation of European issues…what else did they discuss?  Perhaps Cameron’s own pet project of maintaining foreign aid…and perhaps the BBC would like to help out by highlighting just how brilliant and worthy and successful it all is.

Then we have Islam, at the time of writing the issue was Boko Haram and it‘s kidnapping of Nigerian school girls….again this was presented by the BBC as an issue of men hating women rather than having a political motivation or just being plain old desire for women…and the BBC uses this to also declare that Boko Haram is most certainly not really an ‘Islamic jihadist group’ as such but merely a reaction against Western colonisation…er…in 1903.

Of course Boko Haram is not the only example of women being abused in Islamic lands.  Large numbers of women are being killed or abused in such countries…but the BBC is keen to promote the idea that such treatment of women has nothing to do with the teachings of the Koran……the BBC presenting it as merely ‘misogyny’….again…merely as a hatred of women.

Many of the reports come from those Islamic countries and the BBC is concerned of the image that that creates about Islam…that it oppresses women and generates hate towards them.

The BBC has a natural inclination to try and downplay anything that might be construed as ‘evil’ about Islam and to find another way to explain the events…such as they maybe merely cultural or pure Misogyny, or a result of some external pressures on the society….therefore it has settled on an overarching explanation of all such events as one of men hating women.

The BBC illustrates it’s theory that men hate women with various examples.

• First we have Boko Haram kidnapping hundreds of girls…and converting them to Islam.

• Then the rape and murder of two girls in India.

• Then the death sentence pronounced on a Christian woman in Somalia for ‘apostasy’.

• Then they latch onto the teenager in America who apparently went on a hate filled rampage against all women.

The problem is…not one of those events is actually based upon a hatred of women….not even the Elliot Rodgers’ killing spree in the US.

Boko Haram’s motives must be manifold….all derived from their intent to impose an Islamic state upon Nigeria…..other than the actual Islamic teachings that make women second class citizens, which the BBC doesn’t refer to, there is nothing in this that indicates Boko Haram hates women….they are after all happily slaughtering hundreds of men as well…the girls are political pawns and sex slaves.  They don’t hate them, they just use them.

The rape of two girls in India?…is that hate or just sexual gratification and a covering up of the crime by killing the ‘witnesses’…is it a class issue?

The woman sentenced to death in Somalia?  That was based upon her being a Christian not on her gender…if she had been male the sentence would have been the same…

He reminded the world that Meriam was not abused because she was a woman or from a minority. She suffered persecution because of her faith.

The BBC even admits it elsewhere: Sudan woman faces death for apostasy

Elliot Rodgers in America?   What the BBC doesn’t admit is that he actually killed more men than women…and that he was mentally ill.  Rodgers problem was that he loved women but they didn’t love him, he thought they hated him….“All of those beautiful girls I’ve desired so much in my life, but can never have because they despise and loathe me, I will destroy.”   So not really an inborn hatred of women on his part….and he killed more men than women…

Authorities now know Elliot Rodger’s killing spree across Isla Vista began before he even left home.
The 22-year-old former Santa Barbara City College student fatally stabbed three young men in his own apartment — George Chen, 19, Cheng Yuan Hong, 20, and Weihan Wang, 20.
Chen and Hong were the attacker’s roommates.

And consider this: Elliot Rodger was mentally ill. That conversation needs to take place.

Not on the BBC it doesn’t…he’s a man, therefore he hates women.

And of course then there is Rochdale…..another case of ‘men hating women’ apparently…and nothing to do with Islam or race or criminal abuse and exploitation.

It is highly dishonest of the BBC to conflate all these cases and to present them as examples of how women are treated terribly because men ‘hate’ them.

None of them illustrate that at all.

The BBC dragged in the ‘Defender of the Faith‘, Baroness Warsi to comment.  She of course did all she could to deflect any blame for her religion, Islam….it’s that usual suspect Misogyny…..

Baroness Warsi: ‘We have to name and shame’ misogyny

The recent brutality against women in Pakistan, India and Sudan is due to “basic misogyny”, said Baroness Warsi, Foreign Office Minister and Conservative Peer.

Lady Warsi said a “zero tolerance approach to everyday sexism” is needed.

Here is some of the interview, paraphrased for brevity….

Victoria Derbyshire asks Warsi…..

VD:  Why are some women being treated like this in some parts of the world?  Why are women still 2nd class citizens in many parts of the world?

Warsi deliberates…..‘It comes down to basic misogyny…..There is a view that women do not have the right to make choices or have the same opportunities as men…economic, financial and social decision making……‘

Derbyshire feeds her a line, making th claim that it is about misogyny and to allow Warsi to claim there is no particular religion or place that is particularly prone to it…..

VD:  The cases are not unique to Pakistan or Somlia or India….the killings in the US were done by a student who hated women…so it would appear to be basic misogyny right across the world.

Warsi…Yes….this is not restricted to a particular culture or part of world  religion to which this behaviour is unique.   We’re using aid in these places to make sure women have rights, championing them…focus on education of girls international development….fight only successful when women have tools to raise their own voices and make their own choices.

Derbyshire pushing the aid theme….

VD:   How much impact does British aid have?

Warsi:  Huge impact….real changes happen because of it.

VD:   In end it is men in power however much women are educated.

Warsi:  There must be a zero tolerance approach to everyday sexism to reduce misogyny.  We have to make sure women play a full role and have their voices heard…..raise our sons to respect women, bring them up right…we must call out when you see something wrong.
Child exploitation trials in Rochdale…that was misogyny…not Islam.

The BBC Doesn’t miss a trick and promotes this book about Misogyny….

Joan Smith’s Misogynies
Duration: 45 minutes First broadcast: Thursday 05 June 2014
It’s been 25 years since the first publication of Joan Smith’s book Misogynies. In 1989, this collection of essays created shock waves with its analyses of everything from Page 3, violence in films, women in the clergy and the bungled Yorkshire Ripper murder investigation. But how much have things really moved on in the past quarter century? Jenni talks to crime writer Val McDermid about the culture Misogynies sprang from and to Alex Clark about current feminist literature. Martin Daubney and Dr Claire Hardaker discuss the impact that online pornography and trolling have on society and we talk to a group of men about joining the fight against misogyny.

Even the BBC’s Paul Mason (Gone but not forgotten) is draughted in to make the case:

Is there a tech solution for hatred of women?

If it’s a social problem and not a technological one, what is the root of it? Ms Norton, believes it is stark:
“The social problem is that men are raised to hate women and technology is not going to fix that.”
You can already feel cyberspace divided into a world that hates women and one that does not. Fortunately the former is small, but incredibly powerful – and underestimated at its peril.

Some extra reading on the subject…..
New details emerge about California killer and his victims
The rampage started with his roommates
Authorities now know Elliot Rodger’s killing spree across Isla Vista began before he even left home.
The 22-year-old former Santa Barbara City College student fatally stabbed three young men in his own apartment — George Chen, 19, Cheng Yuan Hong, 20, and Weihan Wang, 20.
Chen and Hong were the attacker’s roommates.
A friend of Rodger’s family said Rodger recently had a feud with his roommates, complaining to his landlord that his roommates were too noisy and played lots of video games.
The assailant himself outlined his plan to kill two roommates in a 137-page manifesto he left behind.
“I’d even enjoy stabbing them both to death while they slept,” Rodger wrote.

Rodger’s history of mental health issues was no secret to his family, and the young man was seeing at least two therapists prior to his death.
He had been seeing therapists on and off since he was 8, family friend Simon Astaire said. When he went to high school in Van Nuys, California, he met with a therapist “pretty much every day,” Astaire said.

In “My Twisted World: The Story of Elliot Rodger,” the writer said he bought his first handgun in 2012 in preparation for a possible “Day of Retribution.”

On Friday, minutes before he shot three young women in front of a sorority house and killed a young man at a nearby deli, Rodger e-mailed his writings to two dozen people, including his parents and at least one of his therapists.
“My orchestration of the Day of Retribution is my attempt to do everything, in my power, to destroy everything I cannot have,” Rodger wrote.
“All of those beautiful girls I’ve desired so much in my life, but can never have because they despise and loathe me, I will destroy. All of those popular people who live hedonistic lives of pleasure, I will destroy, because they never accepted me as one of them. I will kill them all and make them suffer, just as they have made me suffer. It is only fair.”

Elliot Rodger was mentally ill. That conversation needs to take place.

Rodger wrote that the “first phase” of his massacre plan would be to stab his two male roommates to death.
“These were the biggest nerds I had ever seen, and they were both very ugly with annoying voices,” he wrote. “If they were pleasant to live with, I would regret having to kill them, but due to their behavior I now had no regrets about such a prospect. In fact, I’d even enjoy stabbing them both to death while they slept.”
“After that, I will start luring people into my apartment, knock them out with a hammer, and slit their throats. I will torture some of the good looking people before I kill them, assuming that the good looking ones had the best sex lives. All of that pleasure they had in life, I will punish by bringing them pain and suffering. I have lived a life of pain and suffering, and it was time to bring that pain to people who actually deserve it.”

Somalis grow fearful of Islamists

Public anger at the recent stoning of a 13-year-old girl in Somalia shows the growing resentment towards radical Islamists who have gained control of much of the south and centre of the country.
Her 62-year-old aunt told the BBC that the teenager had in fact been raped by three armed men – and she took Asha to the police station to report it.
Several days later, after two suspects had been arrested, she was asked to return to the station with her niece.
To her surprise the girl was taken into custody too.
“I tried to speak to the police but they said they were not talking,” she said.
Three days later, after Asha had been tried in an Islamist court, she was stoned to death.
“They said that the girl had chatted up these men and had confessed to adultery,” she said.
But the aunt said the authorities clearly failed to notice her age, how mentally disturbed she was by her experience, or her history of mental illness.
“She was only 13 years old. I have got her card from Hagarder refugee camp which has her age on it.

Not Islamic

The rather desperate counter argument in light of the fact that Rodgers killed more men….

Elliot Rodger hated men because he hated women.

Misogyny kills men, too.
Rodger hated women, that much was clear.
But men who loved women also incurred Rodger’s wrath. “I will destroy all women,” Rodger wrote. “I will make them all suffer for rejecting me. I will arm myself with deadly weapons and wage a war against all women and the men they are attracted to.” Rodger viewed women as objects, and he resented other men for hoarding what he viewed as his property. “If I can’t have them,” he wrote, “no one will.”
Elliot Rodger targeted women out of entitlement, their male partners out of jealousy, and unrelated male bystanders out of expedience.

Why Men Hate Women

It is only by setting woman apart as Other, by resisting intimacy with her, by treating her with contempt and aggression, that men assert their own independent and fragile masculinity.
Germaine Greer once commented that ‘women have very little idea of how much men hate them’. For it is painful to confront the extent of men’s hatred.

You have probably all seen those old war films set in the Stalag Lufts where the POWs set up a fight to distract the guards whilst others dig their way to freedom.

The thought entered my mind, cynic that I am, that the fisticuffs between Jean-Claude Juncker in the EU’s corner and David Cameron in the UKIP-lite corner were similarly somewhat staged, in this case for the benefit of British Eurosceptics in order to make it look like Cameron was ‘tough on Europe’, especially as he negotiates reforms….something we are supposed to take note of ahead of the referendum as stated by…

former Conservative minister Bernard Jenkin who said Mr Cameron had “demonstrated that he is going to be a very tough negotiator” when it came to reform talks.

“He’s not going to be a pushover. And that will have an effect. That will strengthen his credibility with our European partners.”

More importantly it was also meant to strengthen his crediblity at home with the voters.

Even though we know Cameron is desperate to stay in Europe it is undoubtedly all complete nonsense, wild conspiracy and over active imagination on my part….

Still, the thought entered my mind again when I heard that Juncker had made an appointment that surprised everyone:

The UK could get some of what it wants in Europe – and it’s thanks to Jean-Claude Juncker

The City’s expectations that the UK would be given a standalone financial services brief were so low that it by and large opposed the job’s split from the Internal Market Portfolio. The shock in Brussels when it was announced that Lord Hill would be given this responsibility reverberated all the way to London.

Dealing with financial services isn’t the total of Lord Hill’s duties, either. He will also have to deliver Juncker’s grand aim of creating a ‘Capital Markets Union’. The implications for this are two-fold: Firstly, the UK will have significant scope to deepen the Single Market and unlock its full growth potential – which happens to be one of its key priorities for EU reform. Secondly, Britain’s Commissioner will have an enormous role to play in implementing the banking union as well as building on it.

This will go some way to mollifying concerns that the UK will be sidelined and disadvantaged by the deepening of Eurozone integration. Instead, through the work of Lord Hill, it will be central to these discussions.

Britain will be ‘central to the discussions’ on the deepening of Eurozone integration?

Hardly sounds like the UK has been sidelined or that Cameron had genuinely upset the EU bureaucrats does it?  And ‘deepening Eurozone integration’?  Isn’t that the complete opposite of what Cameron claimed he was fighting for?

And so far from the BBC headlines of June:

Cameron denies being ‘humiliated’ over EC Juncker vote

David Cameron has suffered “utter humiliation” over the nomination of Jean-Claude Juncker as European Commission president, Ed Miliband has claimed.

The Labour leader told MPs the PM’s renegotiation strategy for the UK in Europe was now “in tatters”.

But the prime minister insisted he would work with Mr Juncker despite his opposition to him.

The BBC chattering heads were full of talk and laughter about Cameron’s defeat and humiliation, how it would isolate the UK and leave us without influence.  Endless, endless, debate about how badly Cameron had dealt with this issue and just what the fall out would be.

The exact same arguments were made when Cameron vetoed the financial regulations in 2011 and strangely enough as soon as the dust settled Angela Merkel was in the headlines saying how close a relationship Germany and the EU had with the UK and how important it all was.

Once again the UK miraculously was still in the fight….indeed even as Juncker triumphed the Germans again made it clear what they thought…….

Wolfgang Schauble said his country would do everything in its power to keep Britain in the union

“Clearly, we have in many economic questions and regulatory questions a broad consensus,” he said.

“Historically, politically, democratically, culturally, Great Britain is entirely indispensable for Europe.”

It is curious that events in the real world are so often so very far from those forecast by the conclusions of endless BBC analysis and discussions.  So much hot air, so much clever opinion, so much witless speculation by those with their fingers supposedly on the pulse filling the air waves with their expert insights, almost as if that’s all it was…purely something to fill the airwaves until events, dear boy, events take over and catch up, and of course, all that analysis is quietly set aside and they start again.

Would we miss BBC ‘political analysis’, such as it is?  I doubt it.

Sack Peston, sack Robinsosn, sack Pienaar, sack the lot.

Online beer and more Top Gear, that’s what we want.

The BBC reports….

Arab states back US push against Islamic state

Look though I may I can find no mention of the obvious….such support from so many ‘Arab’ countries must surely mean the ‘foreign policy’ must be kosher and will not result in ‘angry’ Muslims on home soil.

Considering how constant and prominent the BBC’s warnings are that those angry Muslims will be on the march if we dare to even think about military action in the Middle East you might have thought the opposite may also merit such a high profile comment., but no, not even in their segment ‘Analysis: BBC diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus‘.

It must be confusing though…as the ‘radicals’ are the ones we are now fighting in Iraq and Syria…and yet the BBC et al say we must adapt our foreign policy to suit them…and their followers back home.

And yet here we are, with a solidly Muslim group of countries backing an attack on those angry Muslim radicals who are angry apparently because of Western interference.

The truth is…the ‘radical’ Muslim’s first priority is the ‘Caliphate Project’, always has been, always will be, and until the BBC et al start being honest about that things at home will be forever dangerous as the Government is forced to kowtow to these ‘radicals’ under pressure from the Media, politicians with dubious mandates and others with vested interests and powerful voices keen to keep to the mantra that this has nothing to do with Islam.

Surely it is a major concern as to how Muslims on home turf will respond to this initiative as it is, as it is said, ‘radicalised’ Muslims who are going to fight for ISIS, so we are told, because of that very foreign policy of intervention in Muslim countries.

Worth a moments ‘analysis’ surely?  Or is it only when the narrative goes in the right direction, anti-war, pro-Muslim, that the BBC indulges itself?

For those with delicate sensibilities be aware that this post contains some robust language.

The BBC have followed the fortunes of the small but growing sporting business of Insane Championship Wrestling….

Insane Fight Club

A group of friends have created a brand new subculture that is taking over the streets of Glasgow. They’ve established their very own fight club, but this is no ordinary wrestling event – this is brutal, riotous chaos. Fights don’t always stay inside the ring, people are bounced off the side of buses and thrown off balconies in pubs. They now plan the biggest show of their lives. The stakes are high, will it bring them the fame and recognition they need to survive?

It’s a great film but once it’s over what does the BBC do when the cameras are packed away and they move onto the next bit of schedule filling entertainment?

Let’s face it the BBC aren’t interested in the political, cultural and social views of the people who fill this film….working class, white, male….and just as intelligent, thinking, humane and creative as any number of Will Self talking heads that normally populate the BBC.

They’re happy to exploit them for a film, and it’s a good film, but when will the BBC take an interest in their views on immigration, Europe and Islam, anything the BBC thinks ‘populist’.

The last time the BBC paid any heed it was only to call such views ‘poisonous’…’polluting’ decent people’s views of the world.

Vice has a film looking at Britsh wrestling…it opens with this raw statement from Mark Dallas, the promoter of Insane Championship Wrestling, and his views on the Media……

“What’s going on in Hollywood?  Well who gives a fuck what’s going on.  Who drank what, who slapped whose arse, who fucking cares? You represent every journalist who puts a fucking story out about Jordan or some cunt like that on the front page of your fucking paper when there are cunts dying in the world you represent everything that’s wrong.  And you know that was all fine, that was fucking fine when there were other options, when there was shit for me to watch and shit for me to be entertained by, but now there’s not. There’s fuck all for me. I’m not meant to have an option. So I created my own fucking option. It’s called Insane Championship Wrestling.”

There’s fuck all for me!!

Damn right!

I though it might be useful to have this as we move into the final week of the campaign. I feel the BBC has been doing all it can to help Salmond and his socialist cronies, wonder if anyone agrees with that view?

We seem to be down a mid-week open thread so here’s one to keep things humming along…..

This Morning Robert Peston on the Today show (08:10) made a highly political statement on behalf of the Yes campaign in Scotland….and considering the fact that Peston admits that not having a currency union would be ‘the greatest blow to Mr Salmond’s separatist ambitions‘ you have to wonder at the careless, or not  so careless choice of phrase.

He told us that the reason RBS and Lloyds might relocate their HQs to England was simply because  of the refusal of the Westminster politicians to countenance a currency union.….it all flows from that refusal to countenance that union he told us.

John Swinney, the SNP’s finance minister, in a following interview, immediately leapt upon that claim saying the uncertainty was there because of the Westminster politicians…‘as Robert Peston said’.

But the truth is that the uncertainty is created by the SNP’s refusal to countenance an independent Scotland with its own currency and the SNP’s continual and blinkered claim that upon a yes vote there will be a currency union.  The SNP has consistently refused to discuss the currency issue candidly and has no ‘Plan B’ should there be no currency union.

The phrasing of Peston’s claim makes it sound as if the position of the three parties, which he keeps referring to as ‘Westminster’ or ‘London politicians’, all good SNP language, was one of pure intransigence and not based on economic and political realities.

The reality is, as the Governor of the Bank of England has just stated, that it is not possible….as this report from the BBC a mere 9 minutes ago states:

Bank of England governor Mark Carney has told trade unions that currency union in the event of Scottish independence would be “incompatible with sovereignty”. 

Mr Carney told the TUC conference that a currency required a centralised bank and shared banking regulations.  Common taxation and spending were also needed, he said.

Why would an independent Scotland want to then have its finances under another country’s governance and why would that other country take on the risks of another country’s debt?

The European Union shows why the currency union wouldn’t work.  The EU has a currency union but no overriding political and financial union, it is made up of sovereign states all making their own decisions with economies of vastly differing sizes and efficiencies.

Peston himself admits it doesn’t work in his book How Do We Fix This Mess?: The Economic Price of Having it all:

A gamble on the prosperity of an entire continent…devastating consequences for the prosperity of Europe…..wonder what the message is there about currency union without political and full financial union…taxing, spending and borrowing determined centrally?

Here Peston again suggests that their position is one based on mere stubbornness and ill-will…..suggesting they were ‘thrilled’ when they later discovered their intransigent, and apparently ‘hypocritical and inconsistent’, position was actually based on real economics and constitutional politics:

BBC economics editor Robert Peston said that the coalition parties and Labour feared that an independent Scotland in a currency union could “live dangerously beyond its means and borrow on a scale that degraded sterling”.

He added: “There was no way that the Tories, Labour and LibDems could allow full budget-making freedom to Scotland even as part of the UK, because to do so would make their argument against monetary union with an independent Scotland look inconsistent and hypocritical.

“They were therefore thrilled today when the governor of the Bank of England agreed with them that a currency union would be incompatible with Scotland being an independent sovereign state,” he said.

Looking through some of Peston’s articles it is a stance and language he has adopted consistently:

It is this refusal of the political establishment in London to countenance formal monetary union with Scotland which is seen by many to have dealt the greatest blow to Mr Salmond’s separatist ambitions.

If anything, Standard Life may have reinforced the intransigent stance of Labour, the Tories and the Lib Dems against forming a partnership with an independent Scotland on stewardship of money and finance.

…their seemingly implacable opposition to monetary union.   Though, for what it’s worth, I do not see any sign of government, civil service, Labour or Bank of England lessening their opposition to currency union by even a scintilla.

It looks like Peston works in a similar fashion to the SNP….having all the facts at their finger tips, knowing and understanding the issues, and yet their final conclusions are at total odds with those facts when they come to sum it all up.

Peston frequently explains the issues and the reasons for not having a currency union and for businesses to flee South…and yet he still portrays the decision not to have a currency union as intransigence, implaccable stubbornness, hypocrisy and inconsistency.

In March Robert Peston told us this: EU law may force RBS and Lloyds to become English

If Scotland were to vote for independence, both Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds may be forced to move their registered offices or legal homes to London under European Union law, I have learned.

What matters is that the Treasury – and the cross party troika of George Osborne, Danny Alexander and Ed Balls – have cited these apparently unaffordable potential bail-out costs when explaining why they reject the demand of the Scottish government for a formal monetary union between an autonomous Scotland and the rest of the UK.

They say that it would be to trample on the interests of taxpayers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland to enter into a monetary pact with Scotland, which left these taxpayers implicitly exposed to the risks of rescuing two big banks, when regulators in London would not have been in a position to keep them prudent and healthy.

And it is this refusal of the political establishment in London to countenance formal monetary union with Scotland which is seen by many to have dealt the greatest blow to Mr Salmond’s separatist ambitions.

Here Peston tells us Standard Life would relocate because of the risks of a Scottish economy too heavily reliant on the financial sector and exposed to the consequent risks….he goes on to explain why RBS and Lloyds would leave..because most of their customers in are not in Scotland….

This about Standard Life’s reasons for relocating:

Our initial observation is that the Scottish financial sector is unusually large, with total assets estimated at 12.5x GDP [or more than 12 times Scotland’s annual output].

“We would therefore likely view the financial sector as a significant contingent risk to the state. At the same time, a large part of this activity could be re-domiciled to the UK.”

Or to put it another way, S&P thinks there is a pretty good chance that Lloyds and Royal Bank of Scotland, both of which have their legal homes in Scotland, would also relocate to England.

Why?

In the case of the big banks, it would be even more complicated and potentially nerve-racking for their customers, than for Standard Life’s, if their regulator after independence was a yet-to-be created Scottish financial authority, rather than London’s Prudential Regulation Authority and the Financial Conduct Authority.

How so?

Well, like Standard Life, the vast majority of their millions of UK customers are in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, not Scotland.

Here again he points out that uncertainty is an issue…But it is uncertainty created by the SNP…The UK stance of no currency union is certain…it is the SNP’s ‘intransigent’ refusal to accept reality that creates the uncertainty…..

The point is that lenders to banks, including ordinary depositors, have a choice about where to place their money. And many of them will take the view that there is no point leaving cash in RBS when there is a greater than average degree of uncertainty about that bank’s long term prospects.

It is not that independence would definitely be bad for RBS. It is simply that creditors don’t like uncertainty.

So RBS will knock that uncertainty on the head by turning itself into a rest-of-UK financial institution rather than a Scottish one.

And here he points out that Scotland wouldn’t be able to bail out all the customers of its financial institutions….

Would English savers fear that the Scottish government and state might not have deep enough pockets to underwrite an effective insurance scheme for their savings?

To be clear, in an independent Scotland, English, Welsh and Northern Irish customers would be the equivalent of English customers of the Swedish bank Handelsbanken.

This statement on Handelsbanken UK’s website probably says all you need to know (it says Handelsbanken’s UK customers are protected by the Swedish deposit protection scheme, not the UK’s).

On independence it would be the Scottish government’s responsibility to protect deposits of foreign investors and depositors….and they haven’t got the deep pockets, or a big enough sporran, to do that.

So ‘all the facts’ point to currency union being a non-starter for good economic and constitutional reasons….why then does Peston insist on wording that makes it seem that currency union is possible if only it weren’t for the intransigent and unreasonable stance taken by the hated ‘Westminster’?

That’s a very, very political claim to keep making especially days from the referendum vote.

From The Evening Standard:

H/T to Teddy Bear for the title…it sums up this post in one line…how the BBC can misrepresent the facts by spinning and contorting cause and effect so that the guilty are innocent and the innocent are guilty.

A point in case, which came first, the Islamic desire for a Caliphate or Muslim anger at Western ‘interference’?  Upon that question lies the West’s response to the likes of Al Qaeda and ISIS.

Get the analysis wrong and you are fighting the wrong battle.

The BBC tries to influence that response by changing the Public’s perceptions of Islam and the reasons for Muslim ‘anger’, thereby attempting to put pressure on politicians using Public opinion.  The BBC of course blames Western interference, that is, foreign policy.

So far that pressure has worked and the politicians refused to tackle Syria and are still trying to wriggle out of any direct military action against ISIS due to the ‘hangover’ from Iraq and Afghanistan.

The correct answer is naturally that the desire for a Caliphate came before all else…after all there was no British foreign policy in the 7th century when the first Caliphate was created in a remarkably similar way to the ISIS one, a small band of fanatical warriors taking advantage of a power vacuum and the lack of will of the great powers to stop them.

There are three major questions that need to be answered….

• Why are Muslims being radicalised?  (and does it matter if they are?)

• Are Muslims obliged to go on Jihad in order to defend other Muslims and Muslim lands?

• If Muslims are so obliged are they justified in their belief that Muslims and Muslim lands are under attack and need defending?

The narrative used by the BBC is the same one used by the terrorists, that foreign policy has forced them to fight against the West which has launched a war against Islam and Muslims who now need defending.

If you don’t change that narrative it is hard to see how you can defeat this enemy and prevent radicalisation due to that narrative….the BBC’s assertion is that if you fight against ISIS then you just add to the Muslim perception that you are anti-Muslim…thereby creating more Jihadis…though it is a curious thing that the BBC highlights Muslim disapproval of ISIS and yet tells us that the same Muslims will be angry if we set the troops onto them….the BBC having its cake and eating it….telling us how moderate and integrated the UK Muslims are….and yet still managing to try and block military action in the Middle East.

Shiraz Maher in the New Statesman has a different view and gives a far better and indepth explanation of the causes of events in the Middle East than the BBC cares to do:

From Bin Laden to Isis: Why the roots of jihadi ideology run deep in Britain

Had Osama Bin Laden lived to see the present state of the Middle East he would have been rather pleased. The realisation of his ultimate ambition is gripping the Levant with the announcement of a caliphate straddling parts of Syria and Iraq.

This is precisely what Bin Laden always envisioned. His main thesis on the failure of the Islamist project was that western interference in the Middle East prevented the rise of Islamic governments. Weaken the west’s sphere of influence, he argued, and a caliphate would emerge.

The BBC puts ‘western interference’ as the cause for the conflicts….the reality is that the ‘Islamist project’ to create a Caliphate came first….’western interference’ was not the cause, it was merely an obstruction on the road to a Caliphate.

That is a crucial point……if people fail to grasp that they cannot counter the Jihadis narrative or at least the rationale for it, something we are constantly told is essential to prevent radicalisation.

Nick Cohen isn’t impressed with the likes of the BBC’s narrative, though he claims it is cowardice rather than betrayal…..

Since 9/11, western intellectuals have had a choice. They could have taken on militant religion, exposed its texts, decried its doctrines and found arguments to persuade young British men not to go to Syria and slaughter “heretics”. But religious fanatics might have retaliated. Instead, they chose the safe option of attacking the phantom menace of militant atheists, who would never harm them. Leaving all philosophical and moral objections aside, they have been the most awful cowards.

ISIS is scaring the hell out of everyone.

Famously there’s no strategy to deal with it…apart from this exercise in futility….

The US government has slipped out a sly little video that tries to undermine ISIS by highlighting its tendency to kill what the US government says are Muslims…as well as blowing up their mosques.

The video, graphic in nature, is available to view on the Huffington Post site,  or you can see it on YouTube…where ironically you cannot see it unless you sign in to ‘prove’ your age….so kind of limited as propaganda…and the fact it is obviously from the US government must somewhat undermine its credibility with anti-The Great Satan recruits.

The problem with the video’s thesis that ISIS claims it is defending Muslims but is in fact killing Muslims is that the ‘Muslims’ being killed are Shia, so not Muslim in the Sunni’s eyes, and the mosques are also Shia mosques…so no problem there….and the people being crucified are criminals….probably not a problem there either for many who like to see the smack of firm justice.  So IS is killing apostates, heretics and criminals.  All good so far for the fundamentalist Sunni Muslim.

The release of this video at least gives the lie to the claim that religion has no part in this.

Personally I prefer the sentiments expressed in this video (graphic)

A second part to the propaganda war is the wooing of discontented Jhadists who want to come home to mom and apple pie…..the BBC’s preferred course of action….treating terrorists as victims.

The BBC has leapt upon the ex-MI6 bod, Richard Barrett, who wants us to allow these Jihad dropouts to come home where they will be recruited to serve in the government’s war of ideas:

Good idea, as all the talking heads and politicians who rushed onto the BBC professed….and using an ‘ex’ MI6 person gives a degree of separation from the government…so this isn’t a government initiative…yeah right.

Only…..not so much of a good idea.

Imagine a Jihadi who jumps ship, not only does he flee the battlefield leaving his comrades to fight on but he begs the hated British government to let him back home and not to sling him in jail….and then he goes on the telly or gets a write up in the Guardian and the Times where he tells potential Jihadis they’re makimg a mistake, stay home, get an education, get a job, stay under the thumb of the Kufar.

What do you reckon any potential Jihadi would make of him, or even any ‘moderate’ Muslim?

Consider what they think of Quilliam.

They would have nothing but disdain and contempt for such people.

Consider the appeal of the Caliphate…..

You have to admit there would be a romantic appeal to this for many.  ISIS is working hard at the hearts and minds as well as slaughtering people.

So that is one aspect any government should be trying to disprove and undermine…the belief that there is an obligation upon all Muslims to defend Muslims and Muslim lands from attack and that there is any justification for acting on any such obligation….problem with that is…there is such an obligation.  Islam, that religion of peace, demands it.

If there is such an obligation that leaves only one other way out…to persuade Muslims that Islam and Muslims are not under attack….and therefore they have no need to conduct Jihad.

Trouble is….the BBC et al have spent years telling Muslims they are under attack.  Kinda hard to reel back on that one.

Another aspect to this is the frequent assertion is that, you know what, these Jihadis aren’t really Jihadis…they went to help charities, feed the poor, build schools for the children, they were just caught up in the fighting, in the worng place at the wrong time,  only radicalised once they get out there…but not true……

Islamism with a Human Face

The British media is continuing to publish puff pieces about Islamist extremists working for British charities in Syria.

“Aid workers”  use philanthropic endeavour to put a human face on extreme Islamism. These various puff pieces paint violent Islamism as nothing more than welfare provision. Although the misuse of charitable aspirations is by no means a new phenomenon, the media is, at present, particularly guilty of affording legitimacy to such barefaced exploitation.

And of course we all remember ‘charity worker’ Moazzem Begg, the BBC’s favourite goto boy for a comment…the BBC that campaigned to get him released from Guantanamo….the same Begg who is now proselytising on behalf of the Islamist cause as part of the Islamist campaign group Cage’s operation.

Why is it the BBC sees no problem with the statements made by Cage?  Islam offering a genuine alternative to neo-Liberalism?  What could that mean?

“We’ve been a bit politically naive,” he said. “We haven’t questioned some of the underlying assumptions about who Muslims are and what they believe in.”
PREVENT strikes at the heart of the transnational identity that Muslims have, and confuses or shrouds the core principles of Islam which offer genuine alternatives to an aggressive global neo-liberal system.
Asim Qureshi, Research Director at CAGE

Is it a crime to care?

The concepts of jihad, shariah and khilafah are not the exclusive possession of ISIS but core Islamic doctrines subscribed to by almost one third’s of the world’s population. It is telling that the government’s treatment of ISIS is similar to its treatment of Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hizb-ut Tahrir, and the Taliban, despite the enormous differences of belief and methodology between the groups.
Witch-hunts such as the Trojan Horse hoax and the mass hysteria over issues of the niqab, halal food and conservative Muslim values demonstrate that the criminalisation is spreading beyond Middle Eastern politics.
Join CAGE at this series of events around the country to unite the Muslim communities against this criminalisation of our faith, our beliefs, our mosques and organisations, and our leaders.

It would be a mistake to kid yourself that what is being proposed is merely a campaign to ensure Muslims can practise their faith, within the confines of a secular, democratic society.

The BBC’s and the Establishment approach to defining the problem is the problem.

Finally it must have been very galling for the BBC to hear an Iraqi Sunni spokesman on the Today programme (08:00 ish) state that Sunnis were proud to be Iraqis an wanted to remain as part of an Iraqi nation….John Humphrys certainly sounded surprised.

That undermines the line the BBC has been spinning that the creation of such nation states is an anathema to Arabs who all want to live in a borderless caliphate…..and therefore Britain and France are to blame for all the ills in the Middle East due to the imposition of the ‘secret’ Sykes-Picot agreement.

Sykes-Picot was not secret, the Arab leaders negotiated the agreement before the Bolsheviks revealed the agreement to the world….and of course it was the League of Nations who finally settled the borders and status of the different regions.  The Arabs agreed the borders and fought with the British in order to end the Ottoman Empire, or Caliphate, and not to save it…they wanted their own nation.  Sykes-Picot gave them an Arab state, Saudi Arabia, and eventually, as agreed, much more, such as an independent Iraq and Trans-Jordan..or Palestine as it should be called.

The BBC has long supported the terrorist’s own narrative, the one that also recruits fresh blood to the cause…the idea that Western foreign policy is to blame for all ills in the Middle East and for the radicalisation of Muslims.

However that line is designed by the BBC to avoid one inconvenient factor, the responsibility of Muslims themselves for their own situation and for the urge to conduct a holy war against their chosen opponents.

Muslim supremacists want to impose Islam upon the Middle East.  That should be the starting point of any explanation for events.  This isn’t an attack on the West per se…that will come later.  The Holy war is to impose Islam…the West just happens to be in the way.

The BBC and others instead start from the point where the West is the target due to ‘blowback’ for its actions, if the West weren’t in the Middle East there would be peace, but they refuse to explain the real issues, the real cause of the wars…to do so would put the blame squarely onto the Islamists, the Muslims.  And the BBC is desperate to avoid doing that for many reasons.

IS…that’s Independent Scotland rather than Islamic State..however a cynic, a realist, might conclude that the Tartan Mussolini might well take Scotland to the edge of respectability with his promises of a free-for-all Scotland and a brave new socialist republic.  Of course when the NHS puts up the shutters and there’s no more BBC it will be free…because if there’s nothing to ‘buy’ you won’t need money…so that’s the currency argument dealt with as well.  LOL.

But is the BBC biased on the question of Scottish independence?  The Nats think so, pro-Union of course, but on the national coverage I’d suggest they were pro-Yes, though that is based purely on my perception of whatever I manage to hear or see.

It’s not scientific but I always got the impression that the BBC gave Salmond & Co a free ride in interviews whilst the pro-union camp were  dealt with in a more negative manner….for example Humphrys’ interview with Darling recently where he constantly interrupted and seemed determined to run down the pro-union campaign…whereas a little while later the SNP’s John Swinney swanned in for a quick chat and moments later was off the hook without breaking sweat.

The BBC seems prone to talking of the ‘anti-independence’ or the ‘no’ campaign rather than choosing to call it the ‘Pro-Union’ campaign whereas the Yes crowd are more often than not the ‘Yes’ campaign or ‘Pro-Independence’….all very positive.   Admittedly the pro-Union campaign didn’t help itself but the BBC should be impartial regardless of the incompetence of one side or another.

The BBC has been big on the ‘panic’ references recently, the papers are of course full of it, but again why follow the paper’s lead?  The BBC should be above the fray and giving us a cool assessment but this morning we heard that it was not the appearance of panic but actual panic that sends Cameron et al to take the road to Scotland.  But not so long ago he was accused of ducking the issues as he was unpopular in Scotland as a Tory (despite the Tories getting nearly as many votes as the SNP)….so when the campaign is on a knife edge and he makes an appearance he then gets accused of panic.

But it isn’t panic….looking at the polls they thought the referendum was probably in the bag for a long time only for the polls to suddenly show a swing to the Nats…..of course they’re going to react…it’s not panic just common sense. Why the BBC emphasises the ‘panic’ label I can’t imagine other than to compete with the tabloids…and it just happens to be the Nats own narrative:  John Swinney: Atmosphere of absolute panic in no campaign

It would be a natural fit for the BBC to cheerlead independence despite their aversion to the nation state.  Their aversion to ‘Britain’ as an historical, political, economic, social and racial, ex-Imperial construct overrides their dislike of nationalism.

Their failsafe is that independence makes the remnants more vulnerable to be picked off and absorbed by the faceless EU, something the Tartan Mussolini is desperate to achieve for his own wee personal fifedom….ironically….never mind still wanting to keep the BBC, the NHS, the Queen and  oh yes the currency.

Independence?….my arse.

I admit to not seeing the benefits of independence, it seems all based on emotion and hatred of Westminster politicians and the ‘English’ generated by the Tartan Mussolini and his mob who of course are politicians themselves.  The downsides seem all too apparent and decidedly risky….the marginal, and merely promised, benefits massively outweighed by those downsides…emotional, historic, practical and economic.

Scotland’s Future

Can’t wait to see the Tartan Mussolini going shirtless in a Braveheart moment…can’t be long now…certain to be good friends with this guy: