Jon Snow  grandly, sententiously, told us he was ‘bearing witness’ to events in Gaza rather than reporting them in  a balanced and impartial manner.  Never mind the facts, the context, the causes of those events that Snow ‘bears witness’ to.

The BBC’s Archive on 4, Media and the Middle East, programme opened with Snow’s words.

And it went downhill from there as it explored how the Israel/Palestinian conflict has been reported….or at least that is how the programme was presented to us.

In fact this was a self serving piece of very, very carefully crafted BBC propaganda designed to tell us the BBC is not pro-Israeli and its seemingly pro-Palestinian stance is merely a just rebalancing of the media narrative which has been too heavily slanted towards ‘plucky’ little Israel.

The programme had two very revealing conclusions.  Firstly they told us that neither Israeli nor Hamas social media operations caught the Public imagination.  What did catch that imagination were the casualties in Gaza.

Now Hamas might consider that their social media offensive failing is hardly a disaster when they had a massive, powerful, respected, world wide broadcasting organisation such as the BBC pumping out their message for them…the exact message that Hamas were trying to generate…that of high civilian casualties.

In other words what caught the public’s attention was the Hamas message, courtesy of the BBC…and this was a deliberate BBC policy, carried out to the nth degree by the likes of Jon Donnison….undoubtedly overseen approvingly by his boss, Jeremy Bowen.

The second conclusion was that the narrative about Israel has changed over time…once the plucky little country fighting for survival, now the enormously powerful bully turning its might upon a weak and defenceless People who could barely fight back.

Now again that’s a narratve that is familiar…it is one we have heard repeatedly from BBC journalists, that Israel’s overwhelmingly powerful army is crushing a helpless, defenceless Palestinian opponent.

So once again the BBC has worked to completely alter the narrative of the conflict and has managed to create an image of Israel that bears little relation to the truth, missing out important context and causation…never mind that Israel is surrounded by enemies out to destroy it.

Curiously the BBC is far more sympathetic to Iran whom it explains is only so aggressive because of the enemies (The Great Satan) surrounding it.

From those two conclusions we can see just how powerful and effective the BBC’s attempts to manipulate the narrative in favour of the Palestinians and against the Israelis has been.

By coincidence this morning we also heard something about ISIS and what needs to be done to tackle and lessen its appeal to Muslims. The main answer, we were told, was to create functioning, decent states, societies and democracies in the Middle East.

Which, you may recall, is what was attempted in Iraq. What was the main obstacle on the road to a democratic, just State in Iraq?  The radical Islamists…..and who encouraged them to fight in Iraq?  The BBC….the BBC ‘fought’ the Iraq war all the way, declaring it illegal, Blair a liar and the army murderous.

The BBC was one of the obstacles to that fair and just State as it spent a decade pumping out anti-Iraq war messages that ensured Muslims were in a perpetual state of anger and anti-Western funk.

Once again the BBC has interfered in the Middle East with devastatingly dangerous consequences.

The programme seemed to concentrate more on Israel than the Palestinians or Arabs…..the clips played were all unfavourable to Israel, or intended that way.

We heard Pathe News was terribly pro-Israel…apparently the soundtracks accompanying the reports of Israeli victories in the various wars were far too triumphant ….personally, having heard many a Pathe News film clip, I’d say they were about standard for the time…nothing that would indicate it was intedned to be pro-Israel.

We heard that the BBC was at the mercy of the ‘Jewish Lobby’….a view later reinforced when Bowen came on to claim he was bombarded by complaints…..mostly as a result of orchestrated Jewish campaigns against him and the BBC….oh, yes the Palestinians also complained…but you know what, it was just that terrible old Arafat……not the lovely Hamas…nor the Palestinian people.

What we didn’t hear from Bowen was how his journalists were controlled by Hamas and the reports they sent out were censored by the terrorists…..something which the BBC of course denies.

Those were the most notable points from the programme which overall was just as you might expect…Israel in the wrong and the defenceless Palestinians doing the best they can in a cruel world.

But essentially as said, this was more about the BBC than about either Israel or the Palestinians.

A couple other notable points…one claim was that the UK was very pro-Israel as a bulwark against Arab nationalism….hmmm…well Britain was never enthusiastically pro-Israel and favoured the Arabs far more….not to mention the British long term support for the Muslim Brotherhood….as a bulwark against Arab nationalism….something the BBC fails to mention here for some reason.

One of John Lloyd’s final comments was that social media played no part in the ‘Arab Spring’…which is curious as that was a central theme for much of the BBC reporting at the time….the BBC itself being chastised for its casual use of the social media sources for ‘news’.

Interesting how the Arab Spring is now being quietly downgraded itself….could it be that the BBC prefers to lay the blame for the rise of massive unrest in the Middle East on the doorstep of the Americans and Blair after Iraq 2003?….which is odd really…as the BBC told us this:

“We had a clean revolution [In Tunisia]. The former president turned out to be a coward. He just ran away. Not like the others – like the poor Libyans, or in Syria – but it lit the fuse to all the other revolutions” Wassim Herissi, radio DJ

The downfall of Tunisia’s President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali inspired pro-democracy activists across the Arab world.
Widespread discontent at economic hardship, decades of autocratic rule and corruption erupted into mass demonstrations in December 2010 after a young, unemployed man, Mohamed Bouazizi, set fire to himself after officials stopped him selling vegetables in Sidi Bouzid. Around 300 people were killed during the subsequent unrest, which forced Ben Ali to resign in January 2011, after 23 years in power, and go into exile in Saudi Arabia. He was later sentenced to life in prison in absentia.

Not the Iraq war then?  And ISIS?  It came out of the Arab Spring and Syria.  Again not from Iraq 2003.

It’s also interesting to hear all those Syrians and Iraqis who are proud of their countries and who intend to fight to keep them in one piece…..not a message the BBC likes, preferring instead to tell us that Sykes-Picot forced diverse ethnicities and religions unnaturally together, a ticking time bomb just waiting to explode…never mind the Ottoman Empire was constructed from all those various identities itself…and that the Arabs fought to create an Arab nation alongside the British against the Islamic Caliphate.

The BBC… which never lets the facts get in the way of a good story.

We had this story earlier in the month:

Illegal immigrant clung to axle of motorhome for more than 100 miles to get to Britain from Calais through the Channel Tunnel

Yesterday the BBC tackled it on 5 Live with Clare McDonnell, who, sad to say, could quite easily be mistaken for the much missed Victoria Derbyshire….who, you will be happy to know, brings her undoubted talents and take on the world to the small screen:

James Harding, the director of BBC news and current affairs, said: “Victoria has rightly won many awards for her ability to find the stories that matter in the lives of people in this country.

“We are very excited to bring her range of interests, determination to get to the bottom of the story, and her capacity to surprise, to a television audience.”

 

McDonnell interviewed the two Brits who were surprised to find an immigrant emerge from underneath their motorhome…and who promptly gave him a cup of tea, a sandwich and a banana.

To set the scene McDonnell wanted to give us a ‘a reminder of why immigrants are prepared to go to such lengths to get to Britain.’   I think you can see where she is going with this.

Naturally we hear tales of woe and a love for Britain, a desperate need to work and to live in such a lovely country where justice and law prevail and just how much they really want to contribute.

No doubt they wouldn’t dream of asking for the generous handouts available.

Back to the particular immigrant in question and McDonnell suggests that the couple were  naturally scared but that fear soon turned to sympathy for the poor fellow’s plight….asking if they now had compassion for immigrants…he maybe sent back…how does that make you feel?  she asks.

Indeed they did have sympathy…and then the husband said ‘….but of course this is a small country…can’t take ’em all’

McDonnell suddenly didn’t want to talk to him and turned to the wife asking how she feels…unfortunately she gave the same answer…essentially ‘we can’t take ’em all.’

Must have been a great disappointment to find two such sympathetic people, so obviously caring and generous…..and they turn out to be complete fascist nazi UKIP voting immigrant bashing little Englanders.

Have they learnt nothing from the years of BBC propaganda?

Just another sad little BBC attempt to tell us how hard life is in an immigrant’s home country and ipso facto how much he needs and deserves a home in the UK,  to tell us how hard a journey he has had to get here…again how desperate he must be….and therefore clearly so deserving of a home for his trouble, and look, he loves Britain, he’s not a scrounger, he wants to work, he wants to be ‘British’…..how can you refuse to love him and find a place not only in your heart but in your home for him?

The message was clear….you might fear immigrants but once you get to know them you can only have sympathy….therefore let ’em in, all of ’em….numbers no object.

Shame the BBC doesn’t interview all those people who have had relatives killed by immigrants, or people who have been raped, robbed, burgled, pick-pocketed, credit card scammed, shoplifted or otherwise attacked and abused by them.

In the last ten years more people have been killed by immigrants in the UK than were killed on 7/7…how many more were otherwise victims of crime by immigrants?

Which is more dangerous, terrorism or open door immigration?

Both of which the BBC seems to support in its own way.

I thought this was pretty good from Delingpole…!

“MEMO TO THE BBC: THE ‘FAR RIGHT’ DID NOT DECAPITATE DAVID HAINES NOR RAPE 1400 GIRLS IN ROTHERHAM”

Here you go, a new general OPEN thread to detail the bias!

Well, Scotland gets to decide if it stays in the UK today and I am putting up this post to capture all your thoughts on BBC coverage of this issue!

I can see why the BBC might find Islam attractive what with death for apostasy being a favoured way of dealing with critical ex-members of the cult.

Paxman is famously grumpy as he slowly grinds to a halt, and Paul Mason shows a distinct lack of loyalty as well…from The Spectator:

Former Newsnight correspondent Paul Mason seems rather happy to be free of Auntie, especially since the Scottish independence referendum campaign sent the establishment to panic stations: ‘Not since Iraq have I seen BBC News working at propaganda strength like this. So glad I’m out of there,’ he writes on his Facebook page, to the consternation of former colleagues. ‘It’s on my friends-only Facebook page so not meant as any great statement other than weariness,’ Mason tells Mr S, ‘it says what it says.’ Lucky, then that he is now at Channel Four News – that famed bastion of slant free news.

 

 

Nicky Campbell investigated ISIS this morning and what needed to be done about them.

First of all we have to think up a really uncool name for them…To call them the Islamic State is just addressing them in the manner they want to be addressed and gives them a legitimacy they don’t deserve.

Naturally they are ‘unIslamic’ but also barbaric, murderous and cruel terrorists…yes that’s right, terrorists.

Curious that when the BBC wants to defend ‘Islam’ anything that reflects badly upon the religion or community is deemed unIslamic, bad, mad or in this case terrorists.

Curious that when the BBC wants to attack Israel similar bad, mad, unIslamic ‘terrorists’ are described as ‘resisters’, militants heroically defending their land and people against a violent oppressor.

Campbell of course couldn’t make it through the programme without finding an excuse to bring Israel into the discussion.  When someone suggested ISIS didn’t follow the norms of most states or international rules Campbell claimed that there would be thousands of people screaming at the radio asking ‘What about Israel?‘

Why Israel?  Why Israel in particular when Russia has annexed the Crimea and has invaded the Ukraine, never mind its attempts on Georgia and Chechnya…never mind Syrian atrocities, or Iranian, or Pakistani?

Why does Nicky Campbell compare Israel to ISIS?  Must be all those ‘undocumented’ settlements…sorry, illegal settlements.  Again curious how illegal immigrants are welcomed to Britain by the BBC and yet Israeli ‘illegals’ in the West Bank are criminal war mongers.

At best this is Campbell trying to generate some cheap interest in his programme, trying to stimulate some controversy and argument by throwing Israel to the dogs.  At worst he is demonising Israel and legitimising attacks upon it.

From The Spectator:

Like it or not, Isis are Muslims. Calling them ‘monsters’ lets us off the hook

There are various pieties that politicians observe in the wake of some barbarity committed by Islamic fundamentalists and duly David Cameron observed them in his statement yesterday about the murder of David Haines. Of the perpetrators, he observed:

‘They are killing and slaughtering thousands of people – Christians, Muslims, minorities across Iraq and Syria. They boast of their brutality. They claim to do this in the name of Islam. That is nonsense. Islam is a religion of peace. They are not Muslims, they are monsters.’

I really wish he wouldn’t. It doesn’t add anything whatever to our understanding of Isis to say that they are not Muslims but monsters. They may not be our preferred kind of Muslims – my own preference is for the C of E sort you used to get in the former Yugoslavia – but they are, unquestionably Muslims of a particularly unattractive stamp. Calling them monsters is an impolite way of abnegating any effort to understand them.

BBC coverage of all things Israel is always cutting edge bias! I am aware that a rally had been organised to PROTEST against this but I understand thus has been moved. See below.

“Thank you to everyone who has contacted us about our rally to protest media bias against Israel. This is an incredibly important issue, especially in the wake of Operation Protective Edge.

Unfortunately, the date proposed for the rally coincides with that of the Scottish referendum, one of the biggest news stories of the year. As we have approached the date, many of our supporters have contacted us with their concerns that our rally would therefore not have the impact it deserves.

In light of this, we have taken the difficult decision to postpone the rally until after the referendum. We will be releasing details of the new date shortly.”

The SNP’s Jim Sillars made some astonishing threats to companies that didn’t promote the SNP pro-independence line:

The BBC is biased…in favour of the United Kingdom……

Nationalists brand BBC’s Nick Robinson ‘a liar’ as thousands protest at corporation’s ‘biased’ coverage on referendum

Why?  Because the BBC’s Nick Robinson actually did his job and asked an awkward question…one that Alex Salmond avoided answering…….the spineless Robinson then fell into line and meekly stated that Salmond had answered the question about tax…and note, Robinson has not since gone on to investigate the claims made by Salmond…which is a shame as they bear only a passing resemblance to the truth..but Salmond has Robinson on the run it seems…..

Nick Robinson @bbcnickrobinson  ·  Sep 11

To all tweeting about me saying that @AlexSalmond did not answer me : He DID answer re RBS but did NOT re why trust him not company bosses

In fact Salmond’s ‘answer’ was a masterclass in evasion, bluster and bluff redirecting attention away from the issue and onto Salmond’s favourite subject…the persecution of the poor wee SNP by the bullying English in Westminster….playing the victim card to perfection.

If you watch the video near the end Robinson has to demand the answer again to the question about tax revenues and RBS…so clearly at that time he felt Salmond had not answered the question…..

And Robert Peston wonders why Salmond is making such a fuss:

And, to be clear, for all the outrage of Alex Salmond at what he sees as the politically motivated leaking by the Treasury of this migration south, he has known these were the banks’ respective intentions for months (because RBS, for one, told him).

The BBC has responded in its usual way…nothing to see here…in this case there isn’t…except for Robinson’s craven surrender to the SNP bullying…..

We received complaints from viewers who felt Nick Robinson’s report on the Scottish First Minister’s press conference implied that Alex Salmond had not answered a question put to him

The BBC’s Political Editor Nick Robinson asked Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond two questions at his press conference on Thursday 11th September. The first question centred on the tax implications of RBS moving its legal headquarters to London; the second on why voters should trust a politician rather than businessmen.

Nick Robinson’s report showed the second question on trust, with a script line noting that Mr Salmond had not answered that point.

The BBC considers that the questions were valid and the overall report balanced and impartial, in line with our editorial guidelines.

Robinson asked if Salmond still believed there were no consequences resulting from businesses such as RBS moving to London, or did Salmond accept that tax revenues would go to London?

Salmond replied that corporation tax depends on economic activity not where your registered office is claiming that RBS’s and Lloyd’s registered office’s were merely brass plaques with no significance.

But that’s not true.  The brass plaques represent the legal entity of the company.

The Banks are moving their legal entities from Scotland to England…..and as such would likely be under English tax jurisdiction….and Lloyds does have its head office in London but it is a Scottish company legally…and its subsidairy, The Bank of Scotland, has its HQ in Edinburgh…so that will move also…disengenuous of Salmond to dodge that….

The move will end more than 100 years of heritage for the Edinburgh based Bank of Scotland, which has its head office in St Andrew Square.

From City AM:

Lloyds Banking Group will move its official headquarters out of Scotland if the country votes for independence in next week’s referendum.

The banking group which owns Lloyds Bank, Halifax and Bank of Scotland largely operate from its London headquarters, however the bank’s registered offices are in Edinburgh.

RBS statement:

As part of such contingency planning, RBS believes that it would be necessary to re-domicile the Bank’s holding company and its primary rated operating entity (The Royal Bank of Scotland plc) to England.

The Guardian looks at businesses moving their head offices…although RBS and Lloyds aren’t moving for tax purposes such effects could happen by default…..

Corporate inversion – moving the head office for tax purposes

A corporate inversion occurs when a multinational group moves its notional head office, often for tax purposes, from its home jurisdiction to an overseas territory. The impact on operations is often minimal, with manufacturing activities and the markets in which it operates remaining unchanged.

However, combined with a web of crossborder transactions between companies owned by the same group, such inversions can play an important role in shifting profits within an international business to low-tax jurisdictions, boosting returns for shareholders.

Peston says he doesn’t know exactly what will happen tax wise and he is still trying to find out…so Salmond must have been blustering….

Does the Anglicisation of banks matter?

From the BBC’s Peston….

In a globalised world of multinationals, working out where tax is paid – if it is paid – is ferociously complicated.

Here the BBC delves deeper telling us the banks want to move their ‘tax homes’ to England:

Scotland: Why would banks shift tax headquarters south?

Banks and financial services firms have said they will move their tax headquarters, and in some cases part of their operations, to England in the event of a vote for Scottish independence.

Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group said they would “re-domicile” their main groups south of the border if there were a Yes vote.

Tesco Bank would also “re-domicile” in England, Clydesdale Bank would re-register as English, and TSB would also “re-domicile” parts of its business.

But what does that actually mean?

According to Patrick Stevens, tax policy director at the Chartered Institute of Taxation, large companies typically “re-domicile” to take advantage of perks offered by a particular country’s tax regime.

It’s helpful to think of a company having to have a “home” for tax purposes. To move that “home”, multinationals make a holding company tax resident in a particular country.

Like the outcome of the referendum itself, it’s very difficult to see what the eventual tax outcome will be.

However, one thing is certain: banks want to move their tax “homes” south as a backstop in the event of Scottish independence.

Salmond tried to mock Robinson by saying someone from the BBC should know that Lloyds has their head office in London…..but that’s semantics….the registered office is the one that pays the taxes.

Peston the day before the little spat made clear what was what:

Lloyds would relocate its registered office to where it currently has its head office – which is also London (naturally).

Salmond smirked and laughed off any suggestion that he couldn’t be sure about how much oil was in the Clair Field, and the SNP has been insistent in BBC interviews that it was enormous and would guarantee a massive windfall without the BBC challenging that assertion……

The SNP’s business mouthpiece, Business for Scotland, tells us:

Off the West coast of Shetland is the Clair Ridge field. It contains an estimated 8 billion barrels of oil, with an estimated 120,000 barrels per day production at peak levels.

 

However whilst there are estimates of 8 billion barrels of oil in the field BP says that in reality only 640 million are recoverable:

The development will produce about 640m barrels of oil over 40 years.

What does Salmond say one day later after the Robinson interview?

Is there a massive unreported oil field off Shetland under the Clair Ridge?

“There is a lot of suggestion.”

Is it credible suggestion?

“Oh yes, it’s credible. But can I confirm it? No. What I can tell you is many of my constituents believe this to be true.”

Are they misguided?

“Well, I don’t know. I can’t say for definite.”

Salmond claimed there must be a conspiracy between No10 and the businesses as they’d all had a chat with Cameron recently….unfortunately Salmond then went on to admit the company announcements weren’t news at all to the Scots, they’d known all along…indeed these businesses had announced these plans and commented on the consequences of Independence months earlier.

Finally Salmond refused to answer the question about the trustworthiness of politicians….he himself has his doubts….

This argument’s been won,” he carries on, “for the following reason: that the overwhelming majority of people want to keep the pound, and secondly they don’t believe the Westminster politicians.”

So all in all, Salmond gave an ‘answer’ but he didn’t say anything that could be relied upon.  Many taxes will go to England as a result of the registered offices moving, The BBC did know that Lloyds had its head office in London.  The oil field is big but nowhere near as productive as the Yes campaign claim….and Salmond now admits he can’t be sure at all.  And of course politicians aren’t trusted anywhere…..all of which are the opposite of what Salmond claimed.

So no, Salmond didn’t answer either question and if Robinson had a bit more backbone he’d have tackled Salmond again, and again.

Much of this is revealed in an interview Salmond did with the Herald newspaper the day after the Robinson session:

Is the BBC’s referendum coverage biased?

“Yes, absolutely,” he says. “Of course it is. The problem with Nick … I mean, don’t get me wrong, I like these folk, but they don’t realise they’re biased. It’s the unconscious bias which is the most ­extraordinary thing of all. If the BBC were covering, in my estimation, any referendum, in any democracy, anywhere in the world, they would cover it impeccably, in a balanced fashion.

“What they don’t understand is they’re players in this.”

He says BBC journalists from London are reporting old news as fresh out of ignorance.

This argument’s been won [of the currency debate],” he carries on, “for the following reason: that the overwhelming majority of people want to keep the pound, and secondly they don’t believe the Westminster politicians.”

Is there a massive unreported oil field off Shetland under the Clair Ridge?

“There is a lot of suggestion.”

Is it credible suggestion?

“Oh yes, it’s credible. But can I confirm it? No. What I can tell you is many of my constituents believe this to be true.”

Are they misguided?

“Well, I don’t know. I can’t say for definite

He’s always said the result would be a Yes. What about the scale of the victory?

“I’d be absolutely delighted with 50.1%. I do have something [greater] in mind but I’m going to leave it to the people.”

I  wonder if he will be so accepting of a 50.1% No vote?  Keep that statement in mind.