Good to hear on the BBC (2 mins) that  ‘Israel continues to bomb Gaza in defiance of the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas who has called for an end to Israeli airstrikes.’

Nicky Campbell talking to an Israeli military spokesman earlier in the day (09:41) was busy making equivalence between the Israeli government and the terrorist organisation Hamas.

After asking if the Israeli airstrikes might be described as a ‘barrage of aggression’ he suggested ‘some people might think‘ that as well as Israelis living in fear perhaps Palestinian children are also living in fear at the moment because of those airstrikes asking ‘What would you say to those families?’.

He went on to say there is a [fair] comparison between civilian deaths.

But there isn’t.  You cannot separate out the intentions of the various State actors.  Hamas deliberately targets Israeli civilians whilst Israel does everything it can to avoid civilian casualties.

Campbell seems to think that Israel should not defend itself and should sit back and shrug off any amount of bombardment….philosophising that violence only begets more violence.

All very easy when sat in the comfort of a radio station in the safety of the UK.

The relative safety of the UK I should say…because Nicky Campbell has been traumatised by violence here…..as reported by the Mail today.

‘I was spat on because I tackled litter yobs’, says Five Live host Nicky Campbell

Nicky Campbell has revealed how he was left ‘extremely upset’ when  litter louts spat on him  outside his home.

The Radio 5 Live Breakfast host was verbally abused and ‘showered’ with spit when he confronted the gang of yobs for ripping open bin bags and kicking rubbish all over his street.

Speaking for the first time about the emotional impact of the attack in Clapham, south London, he said he had to be comforted afterwards by his wife Tina.

‘I asked them very politely to put [the litter] in a bin and they covered me in spittle all over my hair,’ he told this week’s Radio Times.

‘I walked back home and then I went upstairs and had a shower and lay on the bed.

‘I called Tina and she came up and I talked to her about it and I was extremely upset.

Although the incident occurred in 2011, it appears from Mr Campbell’s comments that it has had a lasting impact and remains in the forefront of his mind.

The shocking encounter happened just weeks after the father of four found himself having to chase a burglar from his property.

After being alerted by the family’s golden Labrador, Maxwell, he jumped out of bed naked at 5am to confront the thief who was trying to steal his £600 bike from the garden.

At the time Mr Campbell said: ‘I ran downstairs, opened the back door and flew out with Maxwell beside me.

‘My body parts were dangling in the wind. I just wanted to get him. I was pumping with adrenaline.’

However the burglar fled the property empty-handed. ‘If I’d caught him I don’t know what I’d have done – probably hit him,’ Mr Campbell added.

‘Or maybe I would have tried to sit on him naked until the police arrived – that would have traumatised him for life.

‘Something primordial took over…’

Interesting how a bit of abusive language and being spat at can have a lasting impact on the traumatised Campbell…and how he just wanted to hit a burglar.

Guess Campbell applies a different standard for Israelis who have been under attack by Muslims for over 60 years, living under the threat, once again, of annihilation.

Bishop Hill links to various green/BBC stuff:

The BBC’s internal contradictions

Is it ‘cos he’s a green?

And this via GWPF and originally the Times:

The BBC Has Lost Its Balance Over Climate Change

Victoria Derbyshire wants to know what Ramadan means for you. (11:50)

Remarkably the BBC didn’t find anyone who said Ramadan was a pain in the backside, you starve, you get irritated and angry, you get thirsty and for what?  It’s so stupid.

Instead we had the ‘wonders’ of Ramadan…it makes you more empathetic towards the less fortunate, the poor and starving, it cleanses your soul, detoxes your body, makes you closer to God, makes you more spiritual, less materialistic.

It must be good, the fellow from the BBC’s Asian Network (ghetto radio) told us ‘I highly recommend it for everyone!’

Nothing like a bit of propaganda to fill the airwaves.

Speaking of which just before that Derbyshire had on a woman from the Muslim Women’s Network speaking about the ‘boys’, and girls, heading off for a bit of Jihad.

She of course was totally against them going…..but said, after claiming it was Western society’s fault that they were ‘disengaged and disenfranchised‘, that if the belief is there and they have the courage of their convictions ‘you will go’…and that ‘there is a lot of glory attached to being a martyr or a shahid.’

Another speaker spoke of them ‘fighting for truth and justice’…..curiously mixed messages…don’t go, but…….seemed more weighted in favour of going than not.

Still, I’m sure the BBC knows exactly what it is doing and the message it is broadcasting.

The BBC asks……

Were child abuse inquiries blocked?

Curiously it omits this statement from Geoffrey Dickens in the Commons in 1987:

I have received on my desk many cases involving children’s homes where the children are mentally disabled and people are certainly abusing them but the Director of Public Prosecutions is unable to act in spite of the fact that he, the police and the Attorney-General know very well that those things are happening.

The Government have been making rapid strides. They have reviewed the child care law, published inquiries into the sad deaths in cases of child abuse—we have learned from the lessons—and put the names of those who have been warned or convicted of child offences on a central computer so that there can be a blackball system when someone seeks employment to work with children. Those are all marvellous things that the Government have been doing, and I applaud them; I do not attack them.

I should like to place on record my thanks to the Home Office and the departments within the Home Office for following up the many cases that I keep sending to it. I should also like to thank the Attorney-General. They have been very helpful and a strength to me in my campaigns.

So was Geoffrey Dickens unhappy with the Home Office response, or not?

As for the 114 missing files……it seems that losing files is a common occurrence at the Home Office……

The missing documents were some of the 36,000 records which officials presumed were lost, destroyed or missing. They were not part of the 278,000 documents the Home Office destroyed as part of its “retention and destruction” policy. However, Sedwill told Vaz in a letter published on Saturday that the department had found “no evidence of the inappropriate removal or destruction of material”.

So it might be a conspiracy or it might just be bureaucratic chaos….but the BBC don’t bother to tell us of that lost 36,000 files which might put a bit of perspective onto things.

Oh to have friends in the Media who smooth away your troubles.

Whilst a s**t storm is raging around accusations of a cover up surrounding accusations of child abuse here is Harriet Harman in the Observer (Guardian) from this Sunday glossing over her PIE associations with the help of a Guardian journalist who suggests that it was the ‘times’, public morals were different then, the general atmosphere of sexual liberation and all that meant people could abuse children with a clean conscience, so supporting PIE in any way should be seen in the context of the times:

You were embroiled in a spat earlier this year with the Daily Mail over your role at the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL), at a time when one of its affiliates was the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE). How do you think you handled that?

Well, I don’t spend any time at all working out whether I got approval from anybody for how I handled something. The point is accusations and allegations were made and I answered back to speak out for the truth of the situation. I’m not interested in how I handled it. I’m not in the business of handling.

Well, you are. You’re a politician. How you come across on issues – moral, political, historical – is of importance to the voting public. But I wondered how you rated your own performance.

I try not to do too much introspective handling. I answered the allegation. The public can make their own minds up.

What’s it like being suddenly thrust into that kind of media storm?

It’s very unpleasant and really offensive to find that you’ve been alleged to have done something that you would deplore. It’s the nature of the allegation rather than the focus of attention which is the issue.

There has been a shift in public morals over the intervening years. If you were now in the NCCL, it would not be acceptable for the PIE to be affiliated. Do you think you were being asked to comment from today’s perspective on what happened in the 1970s?

By the time I came to NCCL they [PIE] had been denounced. They weren’t allowed to speak at the AGM – the battle had been fought. I heard someone say in relation to the Rolf Harris case, “Oh well, these things were regarded as much more acceptable in those days than they are now.” And I profoundly disagree. Because I think for the young girls who were the victims, it was never acceptable to them. What’s changed is that there has been the beginnings of a recognition that the victims of sexual offences will get justice if they speak out. That’s what’s changed. It was never acceptable to the terrified victims of child abusers.

But that’s not all that’s changed. In the 1970s, in the general atmosphere of sexual liberation, there was part of that liberationist movement that turned a blind eye to the abuse of children and entertained the false notion of consent. At the high point of those debates, there was a tolerance of that idea.

Not by me. It might have been what other people were arguing, but it wasn’t what I was arguing. I’m not answering for the culture at the time. I’m answering for what my views were, and the question of consent to sexual intercourse was very much part of our campaigning around the question of rape and sexual offences. All of those arguments were going on. If a woman says no, she means no.

Other Labour politicians might also look at their associations such as Lord Smith, vice-president of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality  (originally rather coy about admitting his position)…the CHE wanting to block certain prosecutions for child abuse:

CHE is delighted to announced that Lord Smith of Finsbury has agreed to become one of our Vice-Presidents. As Chris Smith he was Britain’s first openly gay MP and he’s currently Chairman of the Environment Agency.

A few months later…….

Pink News tells us that in July 2009 this happened:

The Campaign for Homosexual Equality has been disaffiliated from human rights organisation Liberty, allegedly over a motion which called for a time limit on reporting child sex abuse.

The contentious motion read: “We urge the government to introduce a Statute of Limitation which would debar any criminal prosecution in respect of alleged child abuse unless the matter was brought to the attention of the police within five years of the complainant reaching the age of majority.”

The group has claimed that in cases of historic abuse, evidence or acknowledgment of an accused man being gay can damage his chances of acquittal due to homophobia and confusion between homosexuality and paedophilia.

Liberty said…...”In particular, your motion on child sex abuse is also clearly contrary to the objectives of Liberty”

Curiously links to CHE which admit Smith is their Vice-President are missing.

The BBC has been reporting the vandalising of the 7/7 memorial on the radio all day….unfortunately untill I’d seen a web report I had no idea what the graffiti said.

“Blair lied thousands died” and “4 innocent Muslims”.

Curious how coy the BBC can be when it wants to be….not wanting to stir up that islamophobic hate mob that is just waiting for any excuse to attack Muslims….despite little reaction from that ‘mob’ after 9/11, 7/7 and the murder of Lee Rigby.

And very apt that the vandals should bring together the BBC’s own narrative about Blair lying and ‘innocent’ radical Muslims, radicalised to a greater or lesser extent by that very BBC narrative.

Note what the press clipping says…...’There have been four Home Secretaries since the People reported on the “The Vilest Men in Britain” on May 25, 1975.

Not one of Mr. Brittan’s predecessors took effective steps to deal with this festering evil.’

But only Brittan is in the frame today.

The BBC looks to be concentrating on the 1980’s as its starting point for reporting on historic child abuse in the corridors of power and elsewhere and has happily reported Leon Brittan was interviewed by police after a rape allegation was made against him, the police taking no action, and the Today programme dragging in Peter Bottomley…seemingly only on the basis that a false allegation was made against him by the Mail 30 years ago for which he received a large amount of damages…are they hoping a bit of mud sticks to all these Tories?  The BBC seems to be ignoring Labour people.

Timeline: 1980s child abuse allegations

1980s child abuse claims explained

Geoffrey Dicken’s allegations centred around PIE and most of the abuse would have been pre-1980’s.

It is not clear from the reporting that there were at least three ‘dossiers’ from Dickens relating his concerns…..in none of the press reports are there particular mentions of MPs being involved…..Tom Watson is getting his information from Peter McKelvie, a retired child protection team manager, who has spent more than 20 years compiling evidence of alleged child abuse….not sure where McKelvie gets his information….but he seems to have enough to make accusations such as this:  I first contacted Tom Watson MP, about in October 2012, ie the link between a powerful paedophile ring and No. 10 which very much remains a live and ever increasing Police investigation.

Watson uses the same language:

‘….clear intelligence suggesting a powerful paedophile network linked to Parliament and No 10.’

But you have to ask what is that ‘clear intelligence’?  If they have this ‘clear intelligence’ why is it that they do not know what was actually in Geoffrey Dicken’s dossier?  The evidence seems slight with only one politician possibly in the frame with others merely worthy of further investigation……

McKelvie said that:

‘…..he believed there was enough evidence to arrest at least one senior politician.

“I believe there are sufficient grounds to carry out a formal investigation into allegations of up to 20 MPs and Lords over the last three to four decades, some still alive and some dead. The list is there.”

In a letter to his local MP Sir Tony Baldry last month, Mr McKelvie suggested that a further 20 MPs and Lords were implicated in the “cover-up” of abuse of children.

Mr McKelvie, who has compiled a dossier of evidence by speaking to alleged victims and care workers with whom they are in contact, does not suggest that any of the MPs and Lords colluded with each other.’

As we know that eye-witness evidence isn’t necessarily accurate, as the BBC found out to its cost, relying solely on the alleged vicitms to identify the abusers seems somewhat risky….here one witness is under 10:

At least one witness is understood to have told police in the 1980s that he was abused by a Tory MP at the guest house when he was aged under 10

Would any 10 year old be able to identify an MP?  Could you identify your own MP now?

Here the BBC admits not much is really known about the contents of the dossier:

What did the Dickens files allege?

Press reports from the era claimed one file concerned a civil servant and that another one related to an employee of Buckingham Palace. The papers also contained allegations concerning the Paedophile Information Exchange, a group that campaigned to make sex between adults and children legal.

In an interview with the Daily Express in 1983, Mr Dickens said he had eight names of “really important, public figures” he was going to expose.

So where is that ‘clear intelligence‘ Watson talks of?

And I note that whilst the BBC mentions a civil servant and Buckingham Palace it doesn’t mention anything about a senior TV executive:

It seems I am not the only one confused about these dossiers.  Peter Mckelvie himself looks to have got one dossier wrong claiming here…..

‘a newly discovered press cutting (see below) shows that Geoffrey Dickens personally delivered a separate file to the Director of Public Prosecutions, Sir Thomas Hetherington, in August 1983.’

Unfortunately reading the clipping tells a different story…the file came from the police.

Curiously elsewhere McKelvie gets that right:

SCOTLAND YARD FILE #2,  25th August 1983 (delivered to DPP same week as Dickens Dossier #1)

The Director of Public Prosecutions, Sir Thomas Hetherington, – today takes delivery of a file on paedophilia – the distasteful fruit of two years’ work by Scotland Yard’s Obscene Publications Squad. The squad’s thick file, containing the names of the famous, the wealthy, and hundreds of anonymous citizens, was sent from the Yard yesterday.

“Because it has technically left our hands, we can say nothing about the file’s contents as the matter is effectively sub judice”, a Scotland Yard spokesman said last night. “It is now up to the Director to decide what action should be taken. It is purely coincidental that the report has been concluded at the time investigations are under way.”

Source: Daily Express, 25th August 1983, Daily Mail, 25th August 1983

The Independent, and the Telegraph, both seemed to have taken the mistake and run with it:

Westminster child abuse exclusive: Geoffrey Dickens also gave copy of file to top prosecutor Sir Thomas Hetherington

As you can see Dickens didn’t give the dossier to the DPP, the police gave the DPP a file containing the ‘fruits of two years work’.

Also there must have been a lot of people who knew much of what was in Dicken’s dossiers as they were involved in the research…never mind the police:

He [Dickens] used House of Commons researchers and enlisted local reporters, librarians and friends to help go through records, check files, even empty dustbins of some of the suspects. In the end there were just those eight men on the list of shame. Discussions with Scotland Yard followed.

This might be of interest:

The morning after the broadcast of ‘Secret Life of a Paedophile’ (BBC) in 1994, Richard Johnson, the author of the book A Kind of Hush, rang in to the Inside Story team to say that at 1.30 am he had received a phone call from ‘Mick’ (who the central character in A Kind of Hush is based on) to say that the documentary had vindicated him and everything he had told Richard about many years before. According to Richard Johnson the book was loosely based on a paedophile network that included Peter Righton, a Labour MP, a well known Labour politician, and a central figure allegedly named as a major paedophile in Islington children’s homes.

Strangely no mention by the BBC of Harman or Hodges in relation to any of this.

Minced PIE?

Manufacturing The Age Of Consent

Margaret Hodge’s Double Standards on Abuse

From the Sunday People 1983:

Alright folks, another week starts and here is where we NAIL the bias from the BBC. Please detail egregious instances of their serial bias but also have regard to libel laws! The floor is yours….

DV WARNING —  I WILL REMOVE ANY COMMENTS THAT COULD OPEN US i.e. ME TO LIBEL. PLEASE BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WRITE.

Ex Guardian editor, Peter Preston, tells us that ‘the most vehement critics of the press are academics and campaigners who’ve long held the BBC as their news chronicler of choice (people who wish that grubby old print could match the loftier aspirations of Broadcasting House).

Ironically the trouble is that it is the BBC’s single minded commitment to those very ‘lofty aspirations’ that corrupts the BBC and tarnishes its fine ideals.  It deems those ‘fine ideals‘ so self-evident that it cannot countenance any other way of looking at the world and ‘manages’ its news output to ensure that its own ideological world view predominates.  How it reports climate change is the classic example of this, its environmental reporters no longer to be trusted as independent, impartial journalists, but more often than not looking like campaigners for a cause….and all backed up by the BBC Trust.

Preston goes on to talk of the BBC chair of that Trust and suggests that if Tory Lord Coe gets the position ‘there ought to be a monstrous howl from everyone who values media freedom.’

Curiously he has nothing to say about all those Guardian journo’s and Labour politicians taking the BBC shilling….though rumour is that James Harding may be heading back to the FT…a suitably pink rag.

The BBC is reporting the arrest of several Israelis:

A number of Jewish suspects have been arrested over the murder of Palestinian teenager Mohammad Abu Khdair, whose death sparked days of violent protests.

Though they haven’t bothered with the arrest of a Palestinian for murder:

Palestinian man arrested in connection with killings of three Jewish teenagers

They do however highlight the arrest of another Palestinian:

A Palestinian-American teenager, a cousin of Mohammad Abu Khdair, was one of those held after the clashes.

Mobile phone footage appears to show two Israeli policemen repeatedly punching Tariq Khdair, 15, from Florida, in the head.

Only nasty Israeli coppers beat people up don’t they?:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fc9xGW2efOE

Similarly the BBC are keen to report this:

Lord Brittan ‘interviewed over historical rape allegation’

But somehow overlook this:

Labour Lord’s ‘sex attacks on 12 children’: ‘Horrific’ allegations include rape and serious sexual assaults MoS reveals

The case against Brittan was from a single claim whilst at least 12 separate men have complained about the Labour Lord….‘These are some of the most horrific child abuse allegations you can imagine.’

Guess the BBC have their reasons for not reporting that.