With ISIS and its British recruits dominating the news we are also bombarded with ‘messages’ that parcel out the blame for radicalisng these Jihadi warriors….Western foreign policy being the favoured, default, unthinking but sometimes Machiavellian option.

The BBC has always accepted that assertion without challenge…thereby adding to the credibility of the cause for potential recruits to the Jihad…it after all fits in with the BBC’s own agenda about the Iraq war and it will promote any line that makes Blair’s ‘illegal war’ the trigger for all the evils in the world.

However because the subject is very involved and complex before we take a look at whether there really is a justification for that claim let’s look at a sample of the rhetoric expressing such a narrative so that any post about foreign policy can be kept as short as possible.

Mehdi Hasan is always fun to read….guessing how long it will take before you realise he has completely contradicted himself on a subject having previously said something  totally different always makes it worth the effort to read the double-dealing dissembler’s dodgy prose.

Hasan has many lines to spin but few scruples.  One day he’ll be saying this, the next day that…it’s hard to take him seriously…unfortunately many people who should know better do swallow his guff whole and regurgitate it for their own readers giving Hasan an unwarranted veneer of respectability and credibility and his words an undeserved authority.

Daniel Hannan, for example, unfortunately references a Hasan article that misleadingly tries to  separate Jihad from Islam…and Hannan is not the only one to pick up on Hasan’s article, it has spread far and wide on the Web which is why I think it is worth looking at his claims in detail.

Here is Hannan’s reference to it:

What makes some British Muslims become jihadis?

Mehdi Hassan has a fascinating piece in the Huffington Post, in which he reveals the books that two Brummie Muslims had ordered from Amazon before heading out to join the insurgents in Syria. Yusuf Sarwar and Mohammed Ahmed, who pleaded guilty to terrorism offences last month, had not bought works on politics or advanced theology, but Islam for Dummies and The Koran for Dummies. Dummies indeed.

Daniel Hannan is no doubt well meaning rather than wilfully naïve as many are who want to brush the subject under the carpet and do so by proclaiming Islam is the religion of peace and that the Jihadists aren’t Muslims.

What did Mehdi Hasan say that caught Hannan’s eye?  Hasan tries to ridicule the Jihadists as ignorant of Islam because they bought books about the religion…he concludes this proves they can’t have a true knowledge of Islam that would provide a credible intellectual and theological basis for their Jihadi adventure…..and we, on that basis, presumably can’t be considered democrats because we don’t know every law in the statute book and need lawyers (God bless ’em) to represent us …Others, less intent on trying to mislead readers, might conclude that buying such books showed a commendable desire to become more conversant and knowledgeable about their own religion and might indicate that they did take their religion seriously. But Hasan has a political point to make…Islam has nothing to do with Jihadis…..which is a hard sell really….Jihadis being ‘Holy warriors’ with an intent to set up an Islamic caliphate.

It might be noted that the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is theologically qualified having a degree in Islamic theology and having been an Islamic cleric in a Mosque….therefore just like the Pope, his ‘flock’ need only listen to his authoritative judgements to know the ‘correct’ path to follow.

Below is Hasan’s piece from the New Statesman…..but consider this first:

One former hostage, who was held for a year by the [Islamist] group in Raqqa, told the Guardian that the British executioner [of James Foley]  is “intelligent, educated and a devout believer in radical Islamic teachings”.

Who do you believe…a slippery, dishonest Islamist who will say anything to further the cause of Islam or someone who has had close contact with the actual Jihadists and has no axe to grind?

What the jihadists who bought “Islam for Dummies” on Amazon tell us about radicalisation
Pretending that the danger comes only from the devout could cost lives.
Sarwar and Ahmed, both of whom pleaded guilty to terrorism offences last month, purchased Islam for Dummies and The Koran for Dummies. You could not ask for better evidence to bolster the argument that the 1,400-year-old Islamic faith has little to do with the modern jihadist movement. The swivel-eyed young men who take sadistic pleasure in bombings and beheadings may try to justify their violence with recourse to religious rhetoric – think the killers of Lee Rigby screaming “Allahu Akbar” at their trial; think of Islamic State beheading the photojournalist James Foley as part of its “holy war” – but religious fervour isn’t what motivates most of them.

Islam isn’t to blame for the behaviour of such men

So that’s Hasan’s pitch….Islam isn’t to blame for the Jihadist’s behaviour.

Perhaps he should consider the words of Bertrand Russell who compared Islam to Bolshevism… ‘Practical, social, unspiritual, concerned to win the empire of the world’.  

Note that word….’unspiritual’.

To buttress his argument Hasan quotes from a leaked MI5 document obtained, and interpreted, by the Guardian…….

In 2008, a classified briefing note on radicalisation, prepared by MI5’s behavioural science unit, was leaked to the Guardian. It revealed that, “far from being religious zealots, a large number of those involved in terrorism do not practise their faith regularly. Many lack religious literacy and could . . . be regarded as religious novices.” The analysts concluded that “a well-established religious identity actually protects against violent radicalisation”, the newspaper said.

Instead they point to other drivers of radicalisation: moral outrage, disaffection, peer pressure, the search for a new identity, for a sense of belonging and purpose.

Religion does, of course, play a role: in particular, a perverted and politicised form of Islam acts as an “emotional vehicle” (to quote Atran), as a means of articulating anger and mobilising masses in the Muslim-majority world. But to pretend that the danger comes only from the devout could cost lives.

Whatever the Daily Mail or Michael Gove might have you believe, long beards and flowing robes aren’t indicators of radicalisation; ultra-conservative or reactionary views don’t automatically lead to violent acts.

What is wrong with Hasan’s reasoning?  Firstly he has no idea as to the extent of the Jihadist’s knowledge of Islam….in one BBC radio interview with a Cardiff Imam talking about youths who had gone to Syria the Imam stated that the youths had been acting very strangely…they were far more devout than usual, wanting to follow their religion far more strictly….strange indeed…following their religion! Most Imam’s would be pleased…but here it is a reason for suspicion!

That might indicate, if not any particular level of knowledge, at least the desire to learn and practise the religion undermining Hasan’s claim that they couldn’t be religiously motivated.

Secondly Hasan tries to pull a fast one hoping the reader knows nothing of Islam, or indeed what the MI5 document actually said.  From the Guardian….

The MI5 authors stress that the most pressing current threat is from Islamist extremist groups who justify the use of violence “in defence of Islam”

That ‘violence used in defence of Islam’  is a crucial conclusion by MI5 and gets to the heart of the problem….

Islam imposes an obligation upon all Muslims to defend Islam and Muslims when they are perceived to be under attack.

The Obligation of Jihad “Allah hath granted a grade higher to those who strive and fight with their goods and persons than to those who sit (at home). …Those that neglect Jihad will be disobeying something God has commanded us all to partake in; they have not aided in protecting the Religion of God, they have not defended the Book of God, its messages and His law, they have not helped the Ummah against the enemy who wants to destroy them.

“He who dies without having fought in the way of Allah or without having felt it to be his duty, will die having a trait of hypocrisy

Hasan refrains from mentioning that obligation and instead tries to claim that anyone going on Jihad requires a deep knowledge of the Koran and Islamic law….that’s just not true….the only requirement is that you be a Muslim, practising to whatever degree, and that other Muslims are under attack whom you must defend.

This is from Luton Mosque’s information website:

Honour, victory, and strength will only come to this Ummah when we return and unite upon the pure religion as it was brought by the Prophet (alayhis salaam) and practiced by the Companions. Only when we single out Allah, alone, in worship and give obedience to Him and His Messenger, will the Help of Allah come.

You might ask just how much can you trust MI5’s report on the causes of radicalisation and its belief about the lack of religious influence on radicalisation (seemingly in contradiction to its final conclusion)?  The government makes tremendous efforts to play down any link between Islam and Jihad in the interest of community cohesion.  Some suggest this might have been a deliberate leak in order to spin that line:

To our suspicious minds, this makes it more likely to be a cynical bit of Whitehall propaganda spin and media briefing, rather than a principled leak by a courageous whistleblower.

The Telegraph has a more realistic view of the MI5 document than the Guardian….one that backs up the ‘conspiracy’ theory that the government is downplaying the link to Islam…….

People in MI5 tell me that denying the connection between Islamism and terrorism derives from the belief that if you accept it, there’s no hope for a multicultural society in Britain: we would just have to recognise that part of the population is permanently liable to become terrorists.

Of course you have to trust the Guardian’s interpretation and emphasis on certain parts of the document.

And what of that ‘Islam for Dummies’ jibe from Hasan?….‘Sarwar and Ahmed, both of whom pleaded guilty to terrorism offences last month, purchased Islam for Dummies and The Koran for Dummies. You could not ask for better evidence to bolster the argument that the 1,400-year-old Islamic faith has little to do with the modern jihadist movement.’

You may remember Mehdi Hasan made an infamous speech where he denounced non-Muslims as ignorant cattle …but the speech had much more in it than that….here(19 mins in ) Hasan explains the importance of knowledge and the obligation to keep learning for Muslims, especially as most Muslims have little knowledge of their own faith and are therefore unable to defend it from critics……

Our holy Imam said that one hour spent in reflection, in contemplation, in thought, is worth seventy years of worship…think about that…one hour of thought…..how can that be?……because worship is worth nothing unless we have first put our thought into it, unless we have engaged our intellect, Allah is not asking us for blind worship, faith based on our brains, they are based on our minds engaging with Allah
How much do you understand what he is praying and why you are praying…do you blindly pray?….if so you benefit very little……the benefit from that worship is based exactly on your understanding and intellectual engagement with that worship.
We are not told only  to engage intellectually with the argument, to use our reason to find Allah, no we are also called upon to acquire knowledge…Islam says don’t give up on that intellectual pursuit, there is no point thinking if you have nothing to think about, if you have no knowledge to go with those thoughts.
Islam orders us that to go with those thoughts you need some basic knowledge…..it may not be common to our community but it is common to our holy book.
Our Holy Prophet said seek knowledge your entire life from cradle to grave…the most learned of the learned has to acquire knowledge till he dies.

We Muslims everyday embarrass ourselves by our lack of knowledge….when challenged about our faith we don’t defend it because we don’t know our faith…we haven’t bothered to study and understand it so we have no response and embarrass ourselves.

Knowledge is the twin of action, knowledge goes hand in hand with action.  He who is knowledgeable must act for knowledge calls out for action, if it is not answered that knowledge will depart.  We must use that knowledge to improve our lives, our families, our Umma….do not act just on emotion but with knowledge.

Hasan preaches that Islam demands you learn, that you continue to learn about Islam, and that you use that knowledge to further Islam’s cause.

From that you might conclude Hasan’s recent outburst against the Jihadis who bought the ‘Dummies’ books is dishonest and highly political, an outburst designed to deceive people by steering them into a particular, and mistaken, way of thinking about Islam, that is, that it is a ‘religion of peace’.

What you have to remember is that Hasan himself is every bit an Islamist as these Jihadis…the only difference is that he doesn’t advocate violence to spread Islam.

As said  from the beginning Hasan has a habit of saying one thing one day and the opposite the next…here’s a couple of examples…..

Hasan attacks Muslims for being too concerned about foreign policy:

British Muslims have too long defined politics by the Middle East. We have an obligation to engage with the national debate.
Why is it that most British Muslims get so excited and aroused by foreign affairs, yet seem so bored by and uninterested in domestic politics and the economy?

And yet here he is himself complaining that Muslim complaints about foreign policy are ignored…..

Extremists Point to Western Foreign Policy to Explain Their Acts. Why Do We Ignore Them?

He accuses David Cameron and others of trying to “zealously police the parameters of the debate, pre-emptively warning off those who might dare connect the dots between wars abroad and terror at home”.
Foreign policy is purportedly a recruiting sergeant for terror yet it has become “the issue that dare not speak its name”….establishment figures continue to denounce those of us who cite the radicalising role of foreign policy
The inconvenient truth for Rubin, Johnson et al is that Muslim extremists usually cite political, not theological, justifications for their horrendous crimes.
[disingenuous…as it is based upon Muslims defending Muslims as instructed by the Koran]
The point is this: terrorism may indeed be a criminal political act but it is a political act nonetheless. It is not, contrary to the conventional wisdom, theologically motivated; according to a leaked MI5 study in 2008, most violent extremists are “religious novices”.

In another example Hasan shows just how slippery he can be….and paradoxically, considering his comments about the Jihadists not knowing about Islam, he himself deliberately misquotes a passage from the Koran in order to make the Koran appear merciful and forgiving…….Hasan says:

‘Whosoever killeth a human being…” says the Koran, in the 32nd verse of its fifth chapter, “it shall be as if he had killed all mankind, and whoso saveth the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind.”
Thus, the two supposedly Muslim men suspected of killing and mutilating an unarmed, off-duty soldier in the middle of a London street, while shouting “Allahu Akbar” (“God is Great”), were violating the injunction of their own holy book

However when a Muslim quotes that verse (5:32) to you in that manner you know immediately you are being spun a line and  it seems Hasan has been ‘cutting and pasting’ to suit himself for the actual, full quote reveals that verse refers to Jews and not Muslims:

We decreed upon the Children of Israel that whoever kills a soul unless for a soul or for corruption [done] in the land – it is as if he had slain mankind entirely. And whoever saves one – it is as if he had saved mankind entirely. And our messengers had certainly come to them with clear proofs. Then indeed many of them, [even] after that, throughout the land, were transgressors.

The verse was not telling us that God told Muslims that killing another human was like killing all mankind, it was merely telling what God had said to the Jews, not Muslims.

The ‘peaceful’ Koran goes on in the next verse (5:33):

Indeed, the penalty for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and strive upon earth [to cause] corruption is none but that they be killed or crucified or that their hands and feet be cut off from opposite sides or that they be exiled from the land. That is for them a disgrace in this world; and for them in the Hereafter is a great punishment.

Which conveniently brings us back to Hasan and the Jihadis…going on Jihad to defend Islam against ‘those who wage war against Allah’.

Just another verse in the Koran justifying what they do…..guess they have read the Koran.

Actually no Haggis were spotted( rare and nocturnal) but this was:

Glacier-like hazards found on Ben Nevis

Hazards common in arctic and alpine areas but described as “extremely unusual” in the UK during the summer have been found on Ben Nevis.

A team of climbers and scientists investigating the mountain’s North Face said snowfields remained in many gullies and upper scree slopes.

On these fields, they have come across compacted, dense, ice hard snow call neve.

Neve is the first stage in the formation of glaciers, the team said.

The team has also encountered sheets of snow weighing hundreds of tonnes and tunnels and fissures known as bergschrunds.

The large, deep cracks in the ice are found at the top of glaciers.

Just curious perhaps that this report didn’t appear on the BBC’s science and environment page….lurking instead quietly on the Scotland sub page  ‘Highland and Islands’…from which it seems to have disappearedjust a few days on…..

…though we do have this as a main story on the Scotland page:

Salmond does ice bucket challenge

Alex Salmond takes the ice bucket challenge, along with his deputy Nicola Sturgeon, after being nominated by actor James McAvoy. .

‘There is no rise in the number of reported major floods events over the past 129 years……it is unclear if climate change is implicated in recent flooding.‘

This report demonstrates why the likes of Nigel Lawson should have a place in the debate, the so-called debate, on climate change and its effects.

The BBC seems to have done a volte face and is not only reporting things that might cast some degree of doubt on climate change but also links to the much derided GWPF….an organisation that Harrabin especially has been quite negatively aggressive towards but for this report he provides a link to them.

The BBC is also reporting this:

Global warming slowdown ‘could last another decade’

Though it is still hedging its bets with Harrabin’s favoured reason for the ‘pause’,  as they call it, ocean warming getting top billing (even though the IPCC admitted having no data to prove that):

The latest theory says that a naturally occurring 30-year cycle in the Atlantic Ocean is behind the slowdown.

The researchers says this slow-moving current could continue to divert heat into the deep seas for another decade.

Has there been a sea change at the BBC with a decision to give more coverage to information that is ‘inconvenient’ to the consensus?

Will Bob Ward now be demanding that Roger Harrabin must be banned from BBC airwaves…….a heretical climate denier?

I’m sure there is a stiff letter on its way right now to Fraser Steel.

Harrabin is now having to admit the evidence for floods caused by climate change isn’t there….and, shock horror…immigration, or ‘population growth’ as he coyly puts it, is a major cause……..

‘Growth drives UK flooding problems’

Part of the UK’s problem with flooding is self-imposed, new research suggests.

The study says the number of reported major flood events has increased, but in parallel with population growth and a boom in building in vulnerable areas.

It says it is unclear if climate change is implicated in recent flooding.

The researchers admit their study is a fragment of a complex picture. They have not, for instance, been able to account for the benefits of flood defence spending.

Neither have they factored in land use changes like road-building, ploughing grasslands or draining marshes – which all contribute to floods.

But looking at the broad picture, they conclude that when population growth and building growth are taken into account there is no rise in the number of reported major floods events over the past 129 years.

There has, though, been a rise in the number of reported small flood events.

Dr Clarke said he had been misquoted as ruling out climate change as a contributor to recent floods.

“We have categorically not ruled out a link between climate change and flooding,” he told BBC News. “We just can’t demonstrate that there is a link.

Someone had better tell the government:

UK storms: Hammond says climate change ‘clearly a factor’

Matt McGarth might need a heads up:

Climate impacts ‘overwhelming’ – UN

Some impacts of climate change include a higher risk of flooding and changes to crop yields and water availability.

Roger Harrabin better have a word with himself:

Have we learned our lessons on flooding?

‘…tracts of the UK lie under water, and scientists warn this is likely to happen more often with man-made climate change.’

He puts the blame for the worst effects of the floodng on government policies on flood defences….will Harrabin now look at the effect of Labour’s immigration policies?  Probably not as the BBC’s complaints head honcho, Fraser Steel is also a director of an immigration advisory and campaigning company.

The BBC, and most of the other media, use Ajmal Masroor as a Muslim spokesman asking his views on all the current issues concerning Muslims…..such as what would Sharia Britain look like, is it Islamic to punish people so cruelly ( he blames the Old Testament) and why are young Muslims being radicalised?

We’ve had a look at him before in ‘Blowback’.

Harry’s Place asks:

Is Ajmal Masroor an Extremist? (The answer is yes)

Stand for Peace asks, and answers, the same question:

Ajmal Masroor describes himself as an Imam, broadcaster and politician. Although Masroor advertises himself as a moderate voice, he propagates some of the usual conspiracy theories peddled by extreme Islamist groups.

The Telegraph yesterday thought he was a suitable person to ask about radicalisation:

Three steps to combating Islamic extremism in UK
Muslim Council of Britain spokesman Ajmal Masroor says the government needs to be “more consistent with their foreign policy” and in order to deter British citizens fighting with Islamic extremists in Iraq

“First we need to inculcate the spirit of solidarity, togetherness and our unique identity, and that is we live in this country and it is our home,” he said
He emphasised the need to tell young Muslims, that whatever their grievances that there was no justification for picking up the gun, and “that it cannot be done in the name of Islam”.
Finally the government needed to be “more consistent with its foreign policy”, not support dictatorships and encourage the spread of democracy in the Middle East.

I think anyone who thinks he is suitable as a spokesman for the Muslim community should perhaps think again.

They should listen to this recent speech he gave at Palmers Green Mosque.

When Muslims say they are radicalised by Gaza…who is whipping them up into a frenzy of righteous indignation about the suffering of their fellow Muslims?  People like Masroor…who calls Israelis racists, savages and murderers….blaming Britain, the USA and the Zionist lobby for all the suffering of the Palestinians.

Masroor advises Muslims on the best lines to take when talking to the Media…there are ten main points that in summary say that the Zionists control the world, Palestine, all Palestine must be free and Israel destroyed…peacefully of course…that is the Muslim’s jihad…and Muslims must use their money and power to change government policies.

 
1.  Zionism is  a secular philosophy, a defunct philosophy a philosophy that is rotten to the core based upon racism and the supremacy of the Jewish people and it cannot be accepted in any  narrative.  It is no different to any supremacist ideology today and we must stand together against all forms of extremism.

2.  Zionism is anti-Judaism, against the teachings of Moses.  God does not want Jews to have a home, not in Palestine, not by lying, stealing and murdering.

3. Israel has created the biggest open prison in the world.  1.7 million people sardined into  a tiny strip of land…how did that happen?  They came from the neighbouring land occupied and stolen by the Zionists.
The blockade of Gaza is on 3 sides by the Zionists, on the fourth by the Pharoahs….the Jews are worse than the Nazis.

4.  Israel refuses to allow food and medicine into Gaza…a war crime as the Israelis try to starve the Palestinians.

5.  Israel contaminates the water of Palestine…another war crime.

6.  Israel bombed the power plant…another war crime.

7.   Israel deliberately targets women and children….a war crime.

8.  Israel is a racist, apartheid state and must be peacefully dismantled, a racist state should not exist.  Israel wants all of Palestine.

9.  Who is responsible for creating Israel?  Britain is.  Britain created this monster, Britain must sort it out.

10 One country could end the misery of the Palestinians immediately by bringing Israel to its knees…the USA,  Don’t blame the people of the USA, they are brainwashed by the Zionist media, owned and funded by the Zionists, 60% of people in power are funded by the Zionist lobby.
The existence of Israel is bad news for the USA, Britain and Europe.

We must struggle until Palestine is free, until Palestine is totally free, when all the people are equal and free,  that’s our struggle, that’s our Jihad!

We must unite and become powerful again.  Imagine if all 3 million Muslims withdrew from every financial institution…unite together, become powerful, believe in Islam like it should be believed in, believe truly.  Part of that belief is to unite, to enable us to fight with our wealth and establish ourselves as powerful in this country.

Why is it that 200,000 Jewish people, those who hold positions of power, those who wield the Zionist mantra and use it to gain power and force the politicians to bend over backwards, why is it that their values and their views our stronger and more worthy than the Muslims?

I have news for you.  We are nearly 4.5% of the population of this country, our economic muscle is stronger and more powerful that it was 20 years ago but what we lack is unity amongst ourselves.
If we are united and we went to the Tories and offered them more money than the Zionists they would take it.
We should use that power that we have, the money, to fight and struggle in the cause of Allah.
The Jewish community is very smart, we must learn from them.  Their Zionist brothers have abused their Jewish identity and held our government and MPs hostage.

The government must suspend all arms sales to Israel, stop Israeli trading privileges and prosecute the Israelis for war crimes.
We must boycott all products from Israel and boycott all companies that support the Zionist state of Israel.
We must establish a lobby group to change government policy.

You must believe in Allah and struggle for Islam against injustices in the world.
Rise up and believe.
Part of our belief is struggle, we don’t struggle enough.
Israel was illegally established on Palestinian land, Britain had no right to partition that land.

The conflict is between savages and the civilised world.
The savages murder and intend to obliterate innocent people by dropping bombs on schools, hospitals and mosques, in crowded markets and residential areas, that’s what savages do.
The argument is very simple…we must stand firm with the Palestinians and support their right to have their land returned.

Is there any wonder why Muslims in Britain become so radicalised against Israel, and indeed against Britain and the USA, when fed such inflammatory invective by an Imam.

Makes you wonder how his collar hasn’t been felt by the anti-terror cops.

Still, good to know the Media propagate his views on how to stop radicalisation.

You couldn’t make it up could you?

Tough one for the BBC.

Hamas sources in Gaza say 18 people suspected of collaborating with Israel have been executed. The killings came after an Israeli air strike killed three senior Hamas leaders on Thursday. Two more Palestinians died in overnight strikes.

Ah, that all important “context” and of course can one REALLY blame Hamas for MURDERING 18 Gazans when those Joooos are being beastly to Hamas? Note the use of the word “executed”

Oh, and I also note that a 4 year old Israeli boy has been killed by a mortar fired from beside a UNRWA school. I am sure the BBC will be enraged about this terrible abuse of this alleged “humanitarian” resource. The day after hell freezes over.

Good to hear the BBC raising important issues that prick the social conscience of the nation and remind us of the callous indifference that the Tories have for the suffering of the poorest in society.

Last year Labour’s PCC, in Durham, Ron Hogg, launched a new scheme to help those forced into a life of crime by ‘Austerity Britain’:

Police going easy on skint shoplifting mums in Austerity Britain

Durham Police Commissioner Ron Hogg said Austerity Britain meant the force was adopting a more ‘humane’ approach to such crime.

As Tory cuts bite into benefits and hit the most vulnerable in society, cops are working with support agencies to prevent some offenders going to prison.

Today we learn it’s been a grand success:

Scheme to help women stealing food to feed families declared a success

Police across the region say food theft has increased in recent years due to pressure on family finances due to economic factors.

Products such as cheese and meat among the most stolen items, according to one report.

One report certainly did say that...but it was the more expensive, and resellable foodstuffs that were being nicked:

Meat and cheese. There is growing interest in the more expensive cheese such as parmesan.

Ron Hogg made an appearance on 5 Live today (19 mins 30 secs) where the presenter, Chris Warburton, introduced him as the PCC from Durham…forgetting to mention, several times,  that he was the Labour PCC from Durham….Warburton also stated that police in Northumbria, Derbyshire, North Wales and Devon and Cornwall were making similar noises about shoplifters….failing to mention that they were respectively..Labour, Labour, LibDem…oh and Devon and Cornwall has a Tory PCC…however the Chief Constable has been making a lot of political comments about cuts to his budget…wonder what caught the BBC eye?:

Devon and Cornwall police chief says gaps in funding are going to get worse

Labour’s Bob Jones, the police and crime commissioner for the West Midlands, also got in on the act when ‘last month suggested that the increase in shoplifting was partly caused by benefit cuts and job losses, which have pushed “desperate” Birmingham parents to steal food and nappies to feed and clothe their families

Hogg delighted in telling us that ‘Typically with welfare reforms and other such things [society is failing the vulnerable]…in an environment now where payday lenders are thriving, where loansharks are thriving, where foodbanks are thriving…this is in 20th century Britain and it ought not to be happening…and we have here a very unforgiving approach to welfare due to welfare reforms.’

Nothing at all political about this I’m sure…however as the British Retail Consortium tells us that 80% of offenders are at least second time offenders, and others suggest at least 60% may be stealing to feed drink and drug habits, and this scheme is for first time offenders who shoplift specifically for food because they don’t have enough money to eat you might suspect the offenders ‘rescued’ by Ron Hogg and his scheme might actually be far fewer than the impression he gives…no actual figures are mentioned…and there are no links to the police breakdown of the shoplifting figures which Hogg tells us that once you ‘drill down’ into them reveal this horrifying statistic about starving Briton’s forced to steal to live.

That lack of the data means we have absolutely no way of checking the claims made by PCCs whose politics may be colouring their statements to a very great extent.

How much of this rise in crime is due to retailers such as the Coop  and Asda who have become more proactive in catching and reporting shoplifters?

How much is the rise due to changes in police reporting procedures and a reclassification of each crime?…..‘For 2013, we estimate that Christmas losses in the UK in the six weeks from mid-November to end-December will be as high as £978 million. This figure is based on a new classification of crimes and a different source of data compared to last year.’

You have to ask why these police forces are highlighting food theft especially when food theft by people literally on the breadline is probably very limited….the biggest problem is organised gangs stealing high value products:

‘A key factor driving the upward trend in the cost of offences is thought to be the impact of organised crime gangs, who are systematically targeting higher value items. Half of fraud is thought to be committed by organised groups.’

You might conclude that the highlighting of food theft is politically motivated when much more serious theft crimes go unmentioned...both Labour politicians, and Police disgruntled with ‘Tory’ cuts, have a reason to keep this ball in the air as we approach an election….and it looks lke the BBC is quietly helping them out.

But should we trust the BBC to get it right?

The Centre For Retail Research thinks perhaps not:

The BBC claimed this:

‘Research by retail consultants Global Retail Theft Barometer and Checkpoint Systems has suggested a new wave of middle-class shoplifter is targeting high-end delicacies from supermarkets in order to maintain a lifestyle they could no longer afford.’

When in fact:

‘Nothing irritates us at the Centre more than hearing that we believe that shoplifting by the middle classes is now a significant problem driving retail theft upwards.

The most recent claim about our alleged views on the criminality of the middle classes when they enter a shop can be found on the BBC website page entitled Why Do Well-off People Shoplift? (found at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16469928).

This references our findings in the Global Retail Theft Barometer (GRTB), which of course we produce every year.

There are many other press articles referring to our findings on middle class shoplifting.

In fact we have never researched whether the middle classes are stealing more.

We have never ever published anything stating that middle-class crime is driving retail crime, or that prosperous people are shoplifting much more than they did before.

We assume that middle-class crime is on the rise as is crime by other sectors of the community. We do not know and we never have stated that middle-class criminals have become a much bigger problem for retailers than a few years ago.

The story about our alleged opinions started in 2009 as a result of publicity for the GRTB. What we actually said in the 2009 edition of the GRTB (page 25) is shown here:

That is our only reference to middle class shoplifting.’

The decapitation of US journalist James Foley has caused a stirring at the BBC. I was on BBC London this morning and asked if I though the fact that the man who murdered Mr Foley spoke with a London accent was shocking. I said no, and am surprised anyone could be surprised at this. Last year, in LONDON, we saw the virtual decapitation of Lee Rigby by two “British” Muslims so why are we shocked when they travel abroad and do the same thing? It’s a bit like ISIL. The BBC are now rowing in behind the new US position that this Jihad cancer has to be tackled in Syria AS WELL as Iraq. Obama continues to lead from behind and yet the BBC compliantly present this as ground breaking initiatives from President Narcissus. Look, of COURSE ISIL need tackled in Syria but the West was too busy arming them to do that. Of course the UK exports Jihad.  No one can be shocked at these things although we can be disgusted and angered and outraged. But in the salons of the chattering classes, it seems to cause at least a murmur that Islamists can be savage. Did they sleep through 9/11 and every subsequent year?

Here you go and it’s on time. Please detail the bias here. Keep it polite and on topic. The floor is yours…

Jon Donnison gets ever more bizarre:

Still relying on children to get people to look at his ‘journalism’ though….

He’s so popular that he has to limit those who want to read  and respond to his schtick:

Some unfortunately he can’t block…the truth is out there…just not on Donnison’s Twitter feed:

Always tickles me how numbnuts Israel hating Donnison doesn’t have a clue what is going on in Gaza and yet keeps bluffing it like he does……claiming Hamas didn’t kidnap the Israeli teens….

Who is the Plitnick Donnison links to?…..a lefty peacenik:

Mitchell Plitnick is the former Director of the US Office of B’Tselem: The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories and was previously the Director of Education and Policy for Jewish Voice for Peace.

Why not listen to Hamas and the terrorists themselves?:

A longer video of Hamas commander al Arouri’s speech – as broadcast on Al Jazeera – can be seen here courtesy of MEMRI.

“Our goal was to ignite an intifada in the West Bank and Jerusalem as well as within the 1948 borders [Israel]. The activity of the people has broadened to include all the occupied land, reaching its peak in the heroic operation, carried out by the Al-Qassam Brigades, in which three settlers were captured in Hebron. There has been a lot of confusion regarding this operation. Some said that this was a conspiracy of the occupation [Israel]. That’s not true. Your brothers in the Al-Qassam Brigades carried out this operation to support their imprisoned brothers who were on hunger strike.”

Al Qassam being the military wing of Hamas.

The terrorist killers of the three teenagers admit it was a Hamas operation:

Hossam Kawasmeh, arrested on July 11, admitted to leading cell which abducted and murdered Gil-Ad Schaer, Eyal Yifrach, and Naftali Frenkel; He received funds from Hamas.

Kawasmeh received funding for the terror attack from Hamas members in the Gaza Strip. He was arrested by Yamam, an elite counter-terror unit, following a tip from the Shin Bet.

Here Donnison tries to tell us Hamas is not like ISIS….

Trouble is, in essence it is true……their aims are the same and they work together indirectly…ISIS has few if any direct links with Hamas but it is an offshoot of Al Qaeda which is in Gaza….

Here is what a senior Hamas member said in 2007:

Zahar went on about the inevitability of Islamic rule in Gaza, the West Bank and across the Arab world.
“We believe that this is the era of change, that the coming decades will see Islamic rule in Arab countries,” he said. “I am not speaking about hopes here. I am just reading the reality. Today, even the thief, before he commits his crime, asks god to help him.”
“In a few years [Islam] can gather supreme power in the form of money, power, armies, human beings… from Morocco to Indonesia.”
“How are we going to manage the relationship between the West and Islam? If we are going to see each other as enemies we will see world war IV.”

…..and Hamas works hand in hand with Al Qaeda terrorists of the Abdullah Azzam Brigades:

Abdullah Azzam Brigades launches rocket attacks from Gaza

The Abdullah Azzam Brigades, which is named after al Qaeda’s co-founder and Osama bin Laden’s mentor, was formed by Saleh al Qarawi sometime after 2004 as an offshoot of al Qaeda in Iraq, and was tasked with hitting targets in the Levant (Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and the Palestinian Territories) and throughout the Middle East.

And here is Al Qaeda expressing its brotherhood and solidarity with ISIS:

“We announce solidarity with our Muslim brothers in Iraq against the crusade. Their blood and injuries are ours and we will surely support them……We stand by the side of our Muslim brothers in Iraq against the American and Iranian conspiracy and their agents of the apostate Gulf rulers.”

Sickeningly Donnison tries to hijack the Holocaust to defend his own anti-Israel stance against allegations that reporting such as his is responsible in part for a rise in anti-Semitism:

Donnison then links to a BBC article that is trying to play down anti-Semitism around the world….because it is implicated in its rise with coverage from the likes of…guess who…Jon Donnison….

Despite ‘The UK Association of Chief Police Officers, which has released statistics on hate crime since 2009, has talked of a “significant rise” in anti-Semitism since the latest fighting began in Gaza in early July’  apparently we’re, and they are, mistaken…..it’s not so much a rise in anti-Semitism…. it’s only an increased awareness of it…our perceptions distorted by a few eye catching, high profile mass killings…difficult to identify a trend…the picture is mixed…the questions asked in polls fail to adequately identify if it really is anti-Semitism….it could all be based on criticism of the Israeli government…and anyway….“We have many surveys, even before 1990. What they show is a decline in prejudice towards minorities, and especially towards Jews. Actually Jews are the best accepted minority in France….the Jews remain the most accepted group in France. We see the same thing in Europe.”

Ultimately it’s all in the Jew’s own little minds….’While the overall trends are harder to discern, the current nature and level of anti-Semitic incidents are enough to make some Jewish people feel afraid.’

Shame the BBC doesn’t ask a particular community how they feel about Jews….Kinda think wouldn’t then be ‘the most accepted group in Europe’ for that group.

Perhaps the BBC should also be asking who is carrying out the most anti-Semitic attacks.

Finally we have this from Donnison…..ironic considering Donnison’s exploitation of dead and injured women and children to peddle his support for Hamas:

So just how well did Donnison do?

He’s wrong about Hamas not kidnapping the Israeli teens.

He’s wrong about Hamas/ISIS not being alike.

He’s wrong about there being little anti-Semitism…which is the not so subtle drift of the BBC article he links to.

He relies on pictures of dead and injured women and children to get any interest in his stuff…and that interest is going to be mostly from pro-Hamas people praising his ‘journalism’.

He doesn’t like criticism of his ‘journalism’.  Which must be difficult for him all considered.

Suggest he go walk-about in Oz and stay away from Twitter and the porn.

The BBC tells us that….

US President Barack Obama has said the beheading of US journalist James Foley is “an act of violence that shocks the conscience of the entire world”.

Mr Obama compared Islamic State (IS), the group which made a video of Mr Foley’s killing, to a “cancer” and said its ideology was “bankrupt”.

I’m not sure why suddenly, when a journalist is killed, this behaviour from ISIS is suddenly ‘an  act of violence that shocks the world’s conscience’ when ISIS is well known for beheading people, never mind crucifying them or burying them alive, and at the end of July released a video showing the mass murder of hundreds of Iraqi men tied up and bussed out to the desert just as James Foley was….where was the ‘shocked conscience of the world’ then?

Indeed the BBC’s Frank Gardner admits as much:

Shocking as it is, the video of James Foley being beheaded by a masked jihadist is not without precedent.

But he goes on…..

Pursuing an extreme form of Sunni Islam, IS has persecuted non-Muslims such as Yazidis and Christians, as well as Shia Muslims, whom it regards as heretics.

These grisly murder videos are abhorrent to most Muslims and non-Muslims alike and they’ve even been discouraged by Osama Bin Laden’s successor as a “vote loser”.

“It (ISIS) attracts the worst kind of psychopaths,” he said. “This is not about religion. It’s not even about territory.”

Gardner plays down the religious aspect to all this….which is in fact, obviously,  central to everything ISIS does….Gardner is making a claim that ISIS carries out everything it does for no reason other than they are ‘psycopaths’,  thus Gardner tries to separate their actions from the ideology of Islam.

Unfortunately what ISIS is doing is like a full colour, live action replay of history, the history of Islam when Muhammed first swept across the Middle East introducing Islam to the world at the point of a sword taking advantage of the weakness of the Roman and Persian empires just as ISIS exploits Obama’s reluctance to stand and fight for Western values at a time when the rest of the Arab world is in turmoil…..Muhammed slaughtered whole people’s, beheading the men and enslaving the women and children….sound familiar?

This has everything to do with religion and territory….hence ISIS proclaim an Islamic Caliphate.

And as for Al Qaeda distancing itself from the extreme violence of ISIS as the BBC constantly tells us…..maybe not so much:

“We announce solidarity with our Muslim brothers in Iraq against the crusade. Their blood and injuries are ours and we will surely support them……We stand by the side of our Muslim brothers in Iraq against the American and Iranian conspiracy and their agents of the apostate Gulf rulers.”

Other than those issues Frank Gardner is totally correct.

The BBC goes on to explore the intention behind the release of the video and the possible political fallout from it.

James Foley: Extremists battle with social media

PJ Crowley: James Foley video not intended for US

The BBC looks at the use of social media and the uploading of violent images and pictures of dead Muslims as propaganda intended to shock and recruit new ISIS members to ‘defend Islam’.

The BBC tells of urgent attempts to close down such propaganda.

Which you might think was more than a little ironic when the BBC itself has spent a great deal of time and effort broadcasting similar propaganda for Jihadists.

Only today the BBC was telling us every 20 minutes or so that the Israelis had killed the wife and daughter of a Hamas member, clearly intended by the BBC to incite a negative reaction to Israeli military actions in Gaza…in other words pro-Hamas, pro-terrorist propaganda exploiting  the deaths of a girl and her mother.

Recently the BBC has been encouraging a positive image of the ‘Caliphate‘….a questionable approach when establishing a ‘Caliphate’ is a prime motivation of ISIS.

The BBC rounded up its discussion, in which 90% of the comments were pro-Caliphate, by saying that ‘For many Muslims the Caliphate is something to aspire to, to unite the community and provide a sense of security…the idea of the Caliphate’s resurrection is not forgotten.’

No kidding!

Then of course we have the output from the various BBC journalists in Gaza whose preferred choice of report centres around dead and dying children and women, blown up hospitals and schools.  There is little about Hamas, its fighters and their real intentions.

The BBC’s choice of image and tone is hardly different from that which ISIS might choose to utilise in its own propaganda.

It is therefore something of an irony that the BBC reports with a straight face the outrage at ISIS’ exploitation of social media and its shockingly violent and graphic videos that are intended to grab world Media’s attention when the BBC itself indulges in a not too dissimilar course of action.

The BBC explains why this sort of propaganda is a problem….

Frank Gardner, the BBC’s security correspondent, said the video could encourage people to join IS.

Ever wonder just how many British Jihadi recruits were ‘encouraged to join’ by the BBC’s acceptance of the extremist’s narrative that foreign policy was to blame for the ills of the Muslim world and that Muslims, both in the UK and worldwide, are oppressed by non-Muslims?

..the BBC goes on….

The Metropolitan Police said it was investigating video footage posted online showing Mr Foley being killed.

It warned that “viewing, downloading or disseminating” the video may be an offence under terrorism legislation.

Perhaps the likes of the BBC’s Jon Donnison will get their collars felt for promoting a narrative favourable to Hamas terrorists?

The BBC also tells us….

Sunday Times photographer Paul Conroy, who worked alongside Mr Foley in 2011, said: “Without him… these tyrants will get away with things without people probing and pushing to show people what’s really happening in these war zones.”

Perhaps the BBC would like to show us where they have ‘probed and pushed to show people what’s really happening in a Gaza controlled by the ‘tyrants’ of Hamas.’