Bishop Hill reports:

Simon Buckle of the Grantham Institute at Imperial has penned some nice thoughts about the Bengtsson affair:

‘Professor Lennart Bengtsson’s resignation from the GWPF Academic Advisory Council has received wide coverage and raises important issues.’

‘received wide coverage’?…..but not from one of the world’s biggest and best resourced news organisations.

And a matter that ‘raises important issues’…….so important that one of the world’s biggest and best resourced news organisations deliberately ignores them.

Proof positive that the BBC is engaged in a cover up and is manipulating climate coverage to hide ‘inconvenient truths’.

The climate lobby is intimidating and threatening other scientists to remain silent about their doubts on the ‘science’……threatening their careers and sometimes threatening the very lives of anyone who dares to raise a sceptical question.

It was the BBC’s very own Harrabin who wanted to punch the sceptical Christopher Booker for ‘spreading  lies and disinformation’….or good common sense, truth and reason to you and me.

No doubt who is helping to foster the atmosphere of bullying and threats then.

Buckle from the Grantham Institute went on:

It is regrettable that perceived political stances on the climate issue are apparently so affecting academic activity.  The Grantham Institute at Imperial has always opposed such behaviour, believing that scientific progress requires an open society.  We try to engage with a wide range of figures, some with radically different views on climate change.

Sorry but his boss, who stumps up the cash for these people says different.

Grantham’s aim is to silence the critics with a bombardment of propaganda:

The misinformation machine is brilliant. As a propagandist myself [he has previously described himself as GMO’s “chief of propaganda” in reference to his official title of “chief investment strategist”], I have nothing but admiration for their propaganda. [Laughs.] But the difference is that we have the facts behind our propaganda. They’re in the “screaming loudly” rather than the “fact based” part of the exercise, because they don’t have the facts. They are masters at manufacturing doubt. What I have noticed on the blogs and in the comments section under articles is that over several years, as the scientific evidence for climate change gets stronger, the tone of the sceptics is getting shriller and more vicious and nastier all the time.

The sceptics are getting angrier and more vicious every year despite the more storms we have, and the more mad crazy weather we have…
One of the problems is that typically you are not dealing with the facts. Putting in more facts makes the sceptics more angry. They have profound beliefs – as opposed to knowledge – that they are willing to protect by all manner of psychological tricks.

Ironically he says…….

If you’re saying something that people don’t want to hear or accept, a significant proportion of them will reply with hostility. Not because they know the facts, or because they have researched it themselves, but because they’re so psychologically involved in believing good news that they will oppose it with a reflex.

Could be talking of the climate fanatic’s response to any scepticism couldn’t he?

Grantham suggests the climate lobby is all sweetness and light despite the relentless, nasty attacks of the sceptics:

The equivalent on the other side is a weary resignation, sorrow and frustration and amazement that people on the other side can’t look at the facts.

We can try to bypass them on one level and we try to contest the political power of the sceptics. They are using money as well as propaganda to influence the politicians, particularly in America.

That from a man who coughs up £165 million to fund his climate propaganda.

So concerned is Grantham, 70, over this issue that he has set up the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment, endowed with £165m of his own money, to fund environmental research and campaigns. From it he is funding the LSE and Imperial donations, and other grants to American groups such as the Environmental Defense Fund.

Grantham is hoping the sceptics will all die off…the sooner the better:

Changing people’s minds is almost impossible, even among scientists. Max Planck said, to paraphrase, that science advances one funeral at a time. You could add that economics advances the same way. You have to wait to get rid of the people who have career investment in a topic before a new generation can see the light.

Where Grantham’s real loyalties lie…..

Our first responsibility is to make money for our clients….and nothing is more important than oil.

The director of television wants to send out a “powerful message” about giving less experienced employees a louder voice in the organisation, including a stake in some of the BBC’s biggest recruitment decisions.

Cohen outlined his idea, which he has picked up from studying US new media companies, to staff last week. It will conceivably change the way channel controllers and genre commissioners are appointed. “The US companies have very open, collaborative structures, where people can talk, embrace ideas and challenge. I want more of a culture where people are able to challenge, and speak up,” Cohen told Broadcast.

Perhaps if the BBC had some outsiders, from outside the ‘Bubble’, sitting in on the interviews, or indeed actually being interviewed for the jobs, it might make a difference to the homogenous, monotone make-up of the BBC staff profile.

‘Is the BBC biased’ notes this comment from Rod Liddle about Newsnight:

I don’t think Rod Liddle was very impressed with last night’s Newsnight. “It was bad on a whole new level of badness”, he said.

Presented by an Afghan-Australian woman called Yalda Kasem, of whom I had never heard. Yalda was hampered in her presentational debut by being unable to string a sentence together; nor did she have the knowledge or acuity to ask interesting questions of her guests.

Mind you, she’s quite fit. And yes, that would be a sexist observation were it not for the fact that I cannot fathom any other reason the lass was presenting the BBC’s premiere news and current affairs show. Well, ok, I can think of one, but let’s not go there.

Liddle possibly just putting the stats into words….the stats being:

Newsnight ratings fall 5%

The figures come after the programme pulled in its lowest audience in more than a year last Thursday.

Newsnight registered an overnight rating of 320,000 (2.5%) after inheriting a below-par audience from documentary Blurred Lines: The New Battle of the Sexes.

Ian Katz faces an uphill battle to improve Newsnight’s ratings after its audience fell 5% since he took over as editor in September last year, according to data compiled by Broadcast.

But it appears that the efforts are yet to convince viewers.

Newsnight has recorded an average consolidated audience of 590,100 (3.98%) from 2 September 2013 (Katz’s first episode) to 30 April 2014, compared with 623,300 (4.05%) over the same period in 2012/13.

The BBC’s defence and its proudest moments?:

“Since Ian Katz took over last year the programme has produced a string of much talked TV moments including Jeremy Paxman’s encounter with Russell Brand, which has now been viewed over 10m times on YouTube, and an interview with Harriet Harman where she talks exclusively about the Paedophile Information Exchange.”

So….Newsnight’s glorious peaks were a farcial interview with an intellectually incoherent comedian and an interview with Harman about PIE…..on the very revelations in the Mail that the BBC had been stubbornly ignoring for weeks.

All brought to us by the ‘BBC2’s flagship current affairs brand’….’current affairs’?….so current it was weeks behind the times…and decades behind the times in bringing to us Brand’s revolutionary ideas…news in 1917.

Extraordinary…not a peep out of the BBC about this story…despite a great deal of coverage  by most of the other media outlets.

Here’s the BBC’s best effort……

Sorry, there are no results for ‘Lennart Bengtsson’ in the category ‘News’.

Guess it is not only climate scientists who are engaged in a cover-up.

It’s almost certain that everyone reading this has heard of ‘manufacturing of consent’, if you haven’t, read on for the perfect example of this in action which has surfaced from Labour’s very own ‘think tank’ the IPPR…..always curious how the IPPR is a ‘think tank’ whilst Migration Watch is a ‘pressure group’ in BBCspeak.

The IPPR has produced a classic of its kind.  You can see the cogs spinning hard as the machine churns out the blueprint for a persuasive plan of action that is designed to manipulate the Public into accepting a course of action that a particular pressure group wishes to have implemented by politicians.

In this case the IPPR is manoeuvring to change the way vehicles are taxed.

The IPPR starts from the premise that the Public will be resistant to any changes…to overcome this resistance the ‘plan’ is put into action…approaching the issue indirectly...essentially tricking the Public:

• The first problem is how to get the Public interested and primed to accept behaviour change…to do this you have to create a ‘problem’ that must then be ‘solved’, one that is urgent, compelling and personal….in this case they chose  ‘air pollution’…a problem that you can easily make alarmist and exaggerated claims about having serious and detrimental effects upon the Public…especially their children….and all headline grabbing, so guaranteed Media coverage.

• Once you have created a ‘problem’ and alarm about that ‘problem’ you can go on to suggest the solution….the ‘solution’ that is in fact the one you were really wanting to implement regardless of the amount of air pollution ….in this case to tax vehicles in a radically new way….with the rich paying vastly more to travel.

• So now you have a ‘problem’ and a ‘solution’…all you need to do is persuade the politicians to buy in…which is easy as if the Public have bought in they will be demanding action, or rather ‘they’ in the shape of the pressure groups on their ‘behalf’….assuring politicians that there are votes to be won.

• The politicians legislate for the new tax measures. …to er…cut air pollution.   Job done.

You wanted to change the taxation and you succeeded, not by raising dry, boring technical issues about vehicle taxation but by a subterfuge….pretending the issue you were looking to solve was air pollution.…and it ‘just so happens’ changing the vehicle tax was a good method to do this.

There are other details that add impact to the plan and either bring more arm twisting pressure to bear or add ‘credibility’ to it.

• You might like to get the endorsement of credible and authoritative organisations…in this case ‘Liberty’.

• Get local authorities on board who will use their resources and even legal powers to engineer the changes.

• Present this as a local issue, spin it so that the problems and the benefits of reform will be felt locally, effecting people’s own families, and not on a national, impersonal level.

• Use health and safety legislation to bypass any barriers to implementation….H&S trumps all these days.

• Avoid referendums….don’t give people time to think and other alternatives to your favoured solution.

• Put a cost onto the ‘problem’ that you have conjured up…possibly a financial cost or health or quality of life….if people can be persuaded that the ‘probelm’ costs them money they are likely to be happier to pay, or be inconvenienced, to change things…encourage the idea that reform is cost neutral….any costs will be mitigated by savings.

• Use euphemisms to add glamour and mystery to your project…or to hide unpleasantness….such as  ‘active travel’….what is ‘active travel’?   Walking and cycling…but, the plan says…only in the summer.  Enjoy that bike ride to work.

• Raise awareness of how the ‘problem’ impacts on quality of life and the safety of families.

Relevant to the BBC?

Firstly the proposal to change vehicle taxation methods bears a similarity to proposals to change the BBC’s licence funding…any changes are complex and involve a ‘subscription’ method….pay by the mile for cars and pay by view for TV.

If it can be done for vehicles, which would in fact be more complicated, it can be done for the BBC…..and just as the present vehicle taxation regime is untenable long term, so is the BBC licence levy.

Secondly the IPPR has produced a scheme that is a classic of its kind…..one that the BBC has already adopted and adapted to present climate change to us and persuade us to accept the claim that there is an apocalyptic problem and that it is man made, to accept the idea that we are going to burn, to accept the need for action, to accept the need to close down CO2 producing industry and other CO2 generating methods such as travel.

The BBC is at the heart of the climate change lobbying industry, without it providing such heavyweight propagandaand authority it would be difficult for the climate lobby to make such headway…it already struggles against mere bloggers and a few ‘maverick’ scientists who stick their heads above the parapet.

Who is the Svenagli that is leading the BBC by the nose down the road to ruin for us all?  Roger Harrabin.

Harrabin was at the centre of the plot to cajole, coax and convert the BBC to the Green agenda.  His CMEP seminars were designed to bring together all the editors, news heads, programme commissioners, producers, writers and performers and persuade and convince them to make climate change a major part of their programming…either as news and documentaries or inserted into dramas, comedies and children’s programming as almost subliminal messaging for viewers.

Quality of life issues, cost to the planet, danger to your own families and guilt about how our actions are supposedly effecting poor nations are all emotional, logical or shaming strategies deployed to prompt us into accepting the green agenda by the BBC….as well as relentless disaster scenarios and tales of how successfully other nations are adopting renewable energy….to make it seem ‘normal’ and that we are being left behind.

However whilst the planet has certainly warmed there is no proof as to the cause…just speculation and the constant reference to ‘risk’…what if we do nothing and it is real?

The Science is far from ‘settled’.

The costs of doing nothing are unknown in reality but the costs of doing something are known and ever increasing.

You could say Roger Harrabin is the man to blame when your energy bill goes up due to the enormous cost of subsidising renewables or you aren’t allowed to drive your car anymore and you have to take up ‘active travel’ instead.

Roger Harrabin….history will be the judge….and I don’t think it will look back too kindly on him….or the BBC for not living up to its mandate to provide impartial and accurate news and information.

When the story broke that Gary Barlow had been avoiding tax what was the one feature that the BBC emphasised first and foremost?

That David Cameron didn’t think Barlow should lose his OBE.

This line led every report on this throughout the day and I thought at the time that it was probably a less than subtle attempt to link Cameron to the super rich and suggest he is siding with them…..a line also spun by Labour’s Ed Milliband….coincidentally….and here by Hodge the Dodge….

Take That star Gary Barlow should keep OBE – Cameron

David Cameron has rejected calls for Take That singer Gary Barlow to hand back his OBE after it emerged he had put money into a scheme ruled to be set up for tax avoidance purposes.

The chair of the Commons Public Accounts Committee Margaret Hodge had suggested Barlow “might show a bit of contrition by giving back his OBE”.

I was reminded of that when the Daily Mail published this today:

Will tax dodger Gary Barlow’s support for the Tories backfire on his chum Dave?

I don’t think it was an accident that the BBC were highlighting Cameron’s thoughts on every bulletin throughout the day and a reasonable case could be made that they were deliberately trying to stir things up and make Cameron look as if he is indeed only looking after the interests of the rich.

It’s Friday and time for the final OPEN THREAD of the week. Has the BBC been annoying you? If so, share your pain here!

When confronted by a story like this you might think the BBC would be all over it but you’d be wrong:

It is a constitutional scandal of the first order.

From the Telegraph:

EU officials plotted IMF attack to bring rebellious Italy to its knees

The revelations about EMU skulduggery are coming thick and fast. Tim Geithner recounts in his book Stress Test: Reflections on Financial Crises just how far the EU elites are willing to go to save the euro, even if it means toppling elected leaders and eviscerating Europe’s sovereign parliaments.

The former US Treasury Secretary says that EU officials approached him in the white heat of the EMU crisis in November 2011 with a plan to overthrow  Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s elected leader.

“They wanted us to refuse to back IMF loans to Italy as long as he refused to go,” he writes.

Geithner told them this was unthinkable. The US could not misuse the machinery of the IMF to settle political disputes in this way. “We can’t have his blood on our hands”.

This concurs with we knew at the time about the backroom manoeuvres, and the action in the bond markets.

It is a constitutional scandal of the first order. These officials decided for themselves that the sanctity of monetary union entitled them to overrule the parliamentary process, that means justify the end. It is the definition of a monetary dictatorship.

An unelected EU plots to bring down the government of a member country…..nothing to see here…move on.

Ironically and perhaps hilariously the BBC does report this:   ‘Five rivals for the EU’s top job have argued over the economic crisis, immigration and other key issues for the 28-nation bloc in a live TV debate…….This debate – and others – is being heralded as a major step towards making Europe and its institutions more democratically accountable .’

The EU and ‘democratically accountable’…two phrases never before and never likely to be uttered together in one sentence…at least not unless as part of a comedian’s routine.

Shame about the coups plotted by the EU against national democratic institutions.

Lennart Bengtsson

A scientist who joined the board of the GWPF has been intimidated and hounded out by the climate lobby:

Shameless Climate McCarthyism on full display – scientist forced to resign

But the BBC has remained resolutely silent about this.

This is the same BBC that is more than ready to claim scientists are silenced by climate sceptic’s ‘vitriolic attacks‘, as Evan Davis put it…

Is there a Green hush?

We looked at the BBC’s habit of attacking Sceptics whilst ignoring the violent rhetoric and intimidation from the climate lobby in  Climate of Fear   and Strangle The Climate Sceptics In Their Beds!!

The attacks on the GWPF are all part of a campaign by Bob Ward (and Harrabin) to silence anyone who dares to suggest that people like him aren’t telling the whole truth about the climate.

Ward has relentlessly been attacking the GWPF:

The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), set up by the former chancellor Lord Lawson, a Conservative, was accused of publishing “inaccurate and misleading” information about climate science in a formal complaint to the Charity Commission in June last year.

In his submission to the commissioners, Bob Ward, policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, said the “continual activity has damaged the public interest” and was a breach of the rules governing charities.

“Nothing more important than oil”

Ward isn’t a scientist, least of all a climate scientist, he’s a PR man, he’s here to sell a story….and the story is one bought and paid for by his boss Jeremy Grantham:

This is what Jeremy Grantham, Bob‘s ultimate boss and paymaster, said about how he makes money:
Jeremy Grantham on how to feed the world and why he invests in oil
On whether there’s any conflict in him (via GMO and/or his foundation) investing in oil and gas companies?

The first point is that each fund we have at GMO – maybe 80 or so – is run by its own team. I don’t think that money management can easily have too many rules coming down from the top. Our first responsibility is to make money for our clients….and nothing is more important than oil.

Interesting phrase and attitude from an ‘environmentalist’….follow the money!

So a non-scientist PR stooge in the pay of Big Oil is running around telling the Media not to interview people like Nigel Lawson because they are not scientists and therefore cannot possibly have any understanding of the climate and cannot talk authoritatively about it…unlike himself oddly enough….and his colleague Lord Stern, also paid for by ‘Big Oil’ Jeremy Grantham, is an economist.

Here  Ward complains that Lawson ‘infamously compared environmentalists to Islamic fundamentalists, stating: “the new priests are scientists (well rewarded with research grants for their pains) rather than clerics of the established religions, and the new religion is eco-fundamentalism” ‘

When you see what has happened to Lennart Bengtsson who was forced to resign from the GWPF you realise Lawson was right….the ‘religious’ fanatics and extremists are as effective at cowing the Media as any AK47 wielding Islamist.

And the BBC, no doubt guided by Roger Harrabin, has decided not to reveal this very unpleasant characteristic of the green movement, once again….or that another well qualified scientist has doubts about the approach being taken by the climate lobby….got to keep up the pretence that there is a consensus about the lies.

Ironically Der Spiegel ran this two days ago:

Climate Change Debate: A Famous Scientist Becomes a Skeptic

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mr. Bengtsson, why did you decide to join the Global Warming Policy Foundation, an organization known for its skepticism about climate change?

Bengtsson: It is important to allow a broad debate on energy and climate. We must urgently explore realistic ways to address the different scientific, technical and economic challenges in solving the world’s energy problems and the associated environmental issues.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why do you think the GWPF is particularly suitable for that goal?

Bengtsson: Most of the members of GWPF are economists and this is an opportunity for me to learn from some of these highly qualified members who are active in areas outside my own expertise. At the same time, it will allow me to contribute by my own meteorological knowledge, to broaden the debate.

Harrabin keeps saying he just can’t find any sceptical scientists…is there any wonder they are so relatively rare when it is career suicide to go against the orthodoxy?

It must surely be the BBC’s job to provide a platform for such people to hold a reasoned debate instead it helps those who wish to silence by intimidation and bullying anyone who might have vaild questions to ask….the BBC’s failure to expose this bullying is a result of its own decision to accept that the ‘science is settled’,  one result of which is that it is reluctant to engage sceptics in debate itself and is also reluctant to allow anything to be aired that might bring the ‘Science’ into question.

The BBC is utterly failing the ‘Science’, failing the scientists who want a real debate, failing the politicians who have to make decisions based upon the science and most of all failing the Public who has to pay through the nose for the resulting policies and for the BBC licence fee that funds all this failure and betrayal….and ultimately it is failing people like Lennart Bengtsson who fall victim to a witch hunt and mob rule in a febrile, extremist atmosphere generated to a great extent by the BBC itself….a trail that goes all the way back to Roger Harrabin and the CMEP.

The immigration figures for the last year…ending september 2013:

ONS estimates of Long-Term International Migration in the year ending September 2013
The latest ONS provisional estimates of Long Term International Migration (LTIM) show that there was a statistically significant increase in net migration to 212,000 in the year ending September 2013 from 154,000 the previous year.

Net migration is the difference between immigration to and emigration from the UK. The increase in net migration is due to the combined effect of a slight increase in immigration and a slight decrease in emigration, neither of which were statistically significant changes.
532,000 people immigrated to the UK in the year ending September 2013, compared to 497,000 the previous year, whilst 320,000 people emigrated from the UK compared to 343,000 the previous year.

Here is Tim Stanley in the Telegraph spelling out the real reasons people have for opposing uncontrolled immigration so often ‘forgotten’ by the BBC in its rush to assure us of the benefits of immigration:
Here’s a classic example of how the metropolitan elite gets it wrong every darned time. The latest immigration figures show that there are currently 144,000 Bulgarians and Romanians working in the UK – a rise of 26 per cent since 2013 and 44 per cent since 2012. “Ah, but,” says the aristocracy of Notting Hill, “the number actually fell after work restrictions were lifted in January. And didn’t Nigel Farage say that we’d be swamped with migrants in the New Year?”

Well, if he did say that then he had drunk too much London Pride: the idea that the whole of Bucharest was going to relocate to Bexhill on January 1, 2014 was a nonsense. But the failure of that particular prophecy to come true is beside-the-point. As is the small dip in the numbers since the restrictions were lifted. What will actually matter to most voters reading these words is that there are now 144,000 Bulgarians and Romanians working here. That’s the equivalent of building a whole new Notting Hill. A frightening thought in itself.

A word about the figures. First, the number of Bulgarians and Romanians might be down 4,000 since January but they are up 29,000 compared with a year ago. Second, we’re talking about net migration, so while some people will have left the country since the New Year, many new may have arrived – which means that the small overall fall might disguise fresh arrivals. Third, the work restrictions were lifted in all EU countries – so it’s likely that many Bulgarians and Romanians have chosen to work in other nations rather than our own (but may come here eventually). Finally, the number that really matters in the report is the one that shows there are now an astonishing 4.5 million non-UK workers here in Britain. That represents a 7 per cent increase year-on-year.

So will voters look at the latest figures and think, “Nigel Farage got it wrong?” Or will they look at them and think, “Ok, so the Bulgarians and Romanians didn’t all arrive in one go aboard a Megabus, but 144,000 still seems like a large number and 4.5 million is eye-watering?”

The latter, probably.  People approach this issue on an instinctual level.

The establishment doesn’t understand that Ukip doesn’t get judged by the same political standards as the mainstream parties. When David Cameron or Ed Miliband makes a prediction and gets it wrong, they suffer in the polls. But when Ukip talks about “invasions” or “swamping”, they are dealing in metaphors rather than statistical facts – and the floating voter senses that they contain a kernel of truth, even if they are shrouded in tub-thumping nonsense. Yes, there is something dark about Ukip’s conversion from a libertarian eurosceptic party to a populist nativist one, and there is something farcical about its tendency to make up warnings and solutions on the spot.

But they are a protest vote, not a vote for a Prime Minister, so people will tolerate their mistakes. Moreover, Ukip’s fumbling pessimism accords with the experiences of most Britons. Our lives have not gotten better in the last six years but much worse. The middle-classes are overtaxed. The working-classes – white, black, Asian, whatever – have to compete for work with EU migrants while the price of living goes ever upwards. For everyone living outside of the metropolitan Xanadu, mass immigration is not about celebrating our wonderful diversity as a continent (viva Conchita!) but about fewer jobs, school places, council houses, hospital beds.

No one is for zero immigration: they want controlled immigration. And these latest figures will add to the sense that we don’t have any real control over our borders, that they are too porous and that this works to the detriment of regular Britons.

That’s what matters and that’s what people will probably vote on next Thursday.

This from Der Spiegel might be of interest:

‘Fresh Meat’: A Bulgarian Businessman Moves His Village to Germany

Kurt knows that his people are unwanted in Germany. They are poorly educated, rather than being doctors and engineers, they don’t speak German or English, they are not members of any elite and they are not even skilled workers. But none of this has deterred them from coming to Germany.

Those who leave Slivo Pole usually have a brother, a sister or a cousin already living in Wilhelmsburg. They have neighbors whose wives have become prostitutes, siblings who live in basements in Wilhelmsburg, paying €250 a month to sleep on a mattress or acquaintances who sleep under bridges. They are familiar with the stories of bosses who pay €3 an hour and beat their workers when pallets aren’t being packed quickly enough, or of construction foremen who suddenly leave without paying their workers.

And still they board Gül’s bus.

Kurt doesn’t even need to speak German in Wilhelmsburg. His doctor is Turkish, and so are his bosses. The grocer, the cigarette seller and the man at the Western Union counter are all Turks. “What do I need to learn German for?” he asks. “To talk to the bums?”