Christopher Booker has a pretty sharp analysis here of the BBC cadre..

“When Jeremy Paxman joins the growing chorus of those who criticise the way the BBC has become a “smug”, dysfunctional, over-blown bureaucracy, run by overpaid unaccountable apparatchiks, one might think that they are describing the European Union, which is doubtless why the BBC loves it. We are familiar with the main reasons why the BBC, for all that it continues here and there to make much-appreciated contributions to our lives, has come to inspire such hostility (“loathsome” was Paxman’s word for it)”

I was up early this morning and tuned into the SUNDAY programme on Radio 4 presented by my old pal William Crawley. There was a story about how ISLAM was the fastest growing religion in the UK,  a story about the terrible “poverty” facing the UK that requires Food Banks and the like and a story about the need for an amnesty for terrorists in Northern Ireland. That was in about 30 minutes. The bias is so easy, so institutionalised, that it just flows out naturally.

A man was shot dead in republican west Belfast yesterday. He was an alleged “dissident terrorist” who had fallen out with other “dissident” terrorists. Dogs and fleas. This morning, on BBC Radio 4 today, I heard the most cringing interview possible with a Sinn Fein/IRA spokesperson on this topic. She was allied to claim that these dissident republican terrorists  are criminals with little support. The IRA were also criminals but she was out to rewrite THAT bit of history. She went on to whinge about lack of “equality” and political progress, inferring Godfather style that unless some “progress” is made (meaning accommodating Sinn Fein agenda) why “dissidents” are almost forced to kill the odd person. At NO point was there any challenge made to the Sinn Fein/IRA history agenda and we are presented with the IRA’s proxies being given a platform on this major news station so they can present themselves as the voice of moderation and reason. Repulsive.

Did you catch this interview with the father of Abdullah Deghayes – the jihadist who met his death in Syria. It is amazing how gentle the softball questions are as Mr Deghayes dissembles for all he is worth on the subject of the jihad. Two of his other boys are out in Syria, also presumably fighting the Jihad. Great to see British exports going so well.

Oh my but the comrades are always thinking ahead and covering the big issues;

Do we need gender neutral loos for transgender people?

Five minutes devoted to this hot issue. Unbelievable.

The wheels must be coming off Miliband’s election campaign already….he’s got himself a new axle…well, an Axelrod, imported from the US of A.

The BBC has noticed….telling us that:

Mr Axelrod said he had been struck by the power of the Labour leader’s ideas

[It’s not the six figure payment his political spin company gets paid to do this type of work then…a commercial decision?]

…….and are giving the new appointment quite a bit of airtime…unlike when Miliband’s last American at the court of the Marxist princeling was in the news…or not (via Guido):

Illegal Foreign Worker Inside Labour HQ

The BBC pretty much ignored this bad news stor fro Labour, only showing interest when Labour wanted to dismisss it all as Tory smears.

To be fair Justin Webb did give Labour’s wee Dougy a few awkward moments when questioning the need to import such a person…..such as…‘What if he asks Miliband to apologise for crashing the economy?’

Shame the BBC doesn’t actually explore that rather important question a bit more….Labour’s part in bringing us to the edge of ruin.

Wee Dougy’s answer….we can’t learn any lessons from looking back…the solution to our problems is ‘The Future’.

Very philosophical…and conveniently dodges all responsibility……from Miliband and Balls…treasury advisors to the last government.

Guido though has spotted soemthing that must be a major embarrassment for Miliband…what does his new guru thin about intervention in Syria?:

Axelrod Said Miliband Was Wrong on Syria

Last September after Assad used chemical weapons, Axelrod wrote

After Iraq, folks are justifiably weary and leery. But this isn’t Iraq. In plain sight, Assad’s committed mass murder with hideous weapons. No response would be a green light to Assad, Iran, Hezbollah and others that the U.S. and world will look the other way. Grave mistake. A targeted strike on their delivery systems is right, just and proportionate. Failure to act would be another tragic legacy of Iraq war.

The Today programme had a look at how Syria has been forgotten and terrible things are happening there…mothers feeding their children boiled grass to survive etc……and yet made no link to Miliband’s decision to block any military intervention in Syria.

Surely that would have been a relevant and poignant question to put to Wee Dougy on the appointment of Axelrod who clearly supported such intervention when the Today prograamme is talking to him on the same day they highlight the disaster that is Syria….and important because Miliband trumpets his intervention as one of his major political achievements…bringing ‘peace’ to Syria!

 “If you look at the decisions I have made as leader of the opposition on Libya, where I supported intervention, or on Syria where I opposed it, I think I have been consistent with those principles and they are principles that I would apply in government.“

The Conservatives also appointed an Obama strategist, Jim Messina…but the BBC’s report was somewhat lacklustre and kept to the bare bones….this being the sole positive note for the Tories:

“I have long admired Prime Minister Cameron…….. While I will not be moving to London, nor will I be managing any type of day to day political operations, I will be offering strategic campaign advice leading up to 2015.”

Compare that with how they report the arrival of Axelrod and his thoughts on Miliband……

‘Huge asset’

Ed Miliband hailed the appointment as “excellent news” and predicted the strategist would be a “huge asset to our campaign as we work to show the British people how we can change our country for the better”.

Mr Axelrod said he had been struck by the power of the Labour leader’s ideas and the “strength of his vision”.

He drew a comparison between Mr Miliband’s economic policies and the arguments articulated by Mr Obama in 2008, saying both have at their core “the experience of everyday people”.

He said: “I think candidates who can win are candidates who articulate a vision that speaks to the lives and concerns of the people they are running to represent.

“Ed Miliband understands the struggle that people are going through in Britain to make a living wage, to support their families, to retire with some dignity.

“He understands that a growing economy demands that you have broad prosperity and not just prosperity that’s hoarded by a few. And so I think you can build a movement.”

Just how bad is Miliband if, when he has the support of one of the world’s biggest news broadcasters he can’t make any headway without employing the machiavellian skills of a US spin doctor to sprinkle the magical ‘Obama’ fairy dust upon him and his election stratagems?

Can I take this moment to express my sincere thanks to ALL those very kind and generous Biased BBC readers who have contributed towards the costs of the server for this site. Following the recent appeal I can advise that we are sorted out financially and that all will continue as normal. As ever, you all prove one thing to me – YOU are the greatest asset this site has and I sincerely thank you for your support.

Hi all! I’ve been away on business for the past few days so apologies for lateness in posts. Anyway, here is a new Open thread for your edification.

The Trussell Trust no doubt started off with good intentions when it began its food bank operations 12 years ago but it has now become a highly politicised campaigning organisation that seems no more than a Labour Party front….not helped of course by the fact that its Chair, Chris Mould, is in fact a Labour Party member….and one who receives a very good income from the Trust….we looked at the Trussell Trust a while back…..The Foodbank Is Born…..

And as we said then…no coincidence about the Trust’s timing and who it aligns with…

Just a coincidence that it made its claims just in time for PMQ’s…Ed Miliband even quoting them in one of his questions….it says the figures were released to coincide with World Food Day.

And it can be no coincidence that the Trust today has launched its latest publicity campaign on the day that the pay figures were released…no doubt timed to ‘rain on the parade’.

No coincidence that the Socialist Daily Mirror was primed and ready with the latest ‘poverty’ propaganda about food banks….

A moving picture you will no doubt acknowledge…and no doubt the Editor of the Mirror thought so…so much so that the Mirror purloined the picture from a personal website….the girl is in fact an American girl from a well to do family…not starving, not British and not on the breadline….and crying because  a worm she’d ‘adopted’, named Flower, made its escape from her.

The Mirror could have used this one….

.

The BBC, in its look at what the papers say,  seems entirely uninterested in the fraud perpetuated on its readers by the Mirror’s editor [even when a Tory MP on Fogarty’s show mentioned it…no interest]:

Poverty ‘scandal’, benefits ‘outrage’

The BBC does of course publish a story about the Mail  newspaper having to pay damages for publishing a photo of Paul Weller’s family……

Paul Weller children win damages from the Mail Online

The tears of a child say so much more than the facts….certainly for the Guardian who acknowledges the fraud but thinks that’s just fine…..

Perhaps it doesn’t matter if the Daily Mirror’s weeping child is a lie

The Mirror’s front page picture illustrating a food banks story in Britain is of a child in San Francisco. But all photographs have a problem with authenticity

The BBC has been blasting away all day on foodbanks and whether we are still suffering from the ‘cost of living crisis’ ….using the much trumpeted rise in foodbank use as evidence that the poor are suffering ever rising poverty as a callous tory led government fills the pockets of the bankers and its millonaire mates with gold.

Trouble is there is something missing from the picture, a very important piece of the jigsaw without which no genuine sense can be made of what is happening…and a lot of nonsense can be spouted as fact by the likes of the Trussell Trust and repeated with all the authority of the BBC as fact.

The BBC today publishes this:

Food banks see ‘shocking’ rise in number of users

A food bank charity says it has handed out 913,000 food parcels in the last year, up from 347,000 the year before.

Note this, of that 913,000 food parcels:

‘The Trussell Trust said a third were given to repeat visitors’

.….and yet on their website they hide that fact:

So in fact only 600,000 people were given support in 2013-2014.

What’s missing from that?  How many foodbanks there are….and how many there were before.

If there were no foodbanks there would be no foodbank use [and no food poverty?]….the more foodbanks there are the more poeple that can use them, all encouraged by the huge publicity that surrounds them making their services far better known….the Trussell Trust being so good at marketing its services and narrative.

Here are some figures:

In 2004, Trussell only ran two food banks.

Before the financial crisis, food banks were “almost unheard of” in the UK.

In 2007–2008, there were 22 food banks in the Trussell Trust Foodbank Network

By early 2011, The Trussell Trust supported 100.

As of May 2012, they had 201.

By August 2012, 252.

The rate of increase has been rising rapidly. In 2011, about one new food bank was being opened per week. In early 2012, about two were being opened each week. By July, The Trussell Trust had reported that the rate of new openings had increased to three per week. In August, the rate of new openings spiked at four per week, with three new food banks being opened in that month for Nottingham alone.

Here the Trussell Trust shows how many parcels it doles out:

When you compare the increase in people using the foodbanks with the increase in the  numbers of foodbanks you can see that in absolute terms numbers of people using foodbanks has risen….but the rate of use hasn’t….the numbers per foodbank now are similar to the numbers in 2005-2006….in other words there isn’t a rise in use per foodbank.

If there is one foodbank in London serving 1000 people in one year and then the next year another foodbank is opened in Brimingham and that serves 1000 people also…does that mean that as 2000 people a year are now being fed,  instead of 1000, that poverty has increased?

A stupid claim…and yet one the BBC, our prestigious and highly funded and resourced news gatherer, is happy to promulgate.

This rough graph illustrates that relationship…the black line is the number of foodbanks, the red line the number of people using them (‘000s)

The use of foodbanks rises almost exactly in proportion to the number of foodbanks….and does not indicate a rise in food poverty and starvation in ‘breadline Britain’ as the BBC like to call it:

The growing demand for food banks in breadline Britain

Kind of puts things in perspective and makes it ever more apparent that the Trussell Trust is not at all trustworthy as it bangs the drum for its highly political anti welfare-reform campaign.

Just a shame that you won’t find these figures on the BBC and yet the increasing numbers of foodbanks is a crucial consideration when judging how they are being used and what that supposedly tells us about ‘food poverty’ and welfare reforms etc.

In this BBC story you can see the problem:

The Trussell Trust said its network of food banks across Cumbria, Lancashire, Merseyside, and Greater Manchester fed more than 13,500 people since April. This compares to just 22 people in same period last year.

Is the BBC really suggesting that a year earlier only 22 people were in poverty…and sudenly…due to government welfare cuts…13,500 find themselves poverty stricken?

Poverty has always been with us…just ‘hidden’…because we had few foodbanks and no one campaigning so fervently about them….which begs the question where were all these priests in those years?…

Open letter to the leaders of the three main political parties about UK hunger

Published to coincide with the end of Lent, this letter is signed by over 600 British church leaders in addition to the 57 undersigned

From the BBC’s reporting today you’d never have known that poverty could possibly have existed before 2010….you’d never know that we’d had the worst recession in living memory…in large part caused by Labour’s policies….you’d never know that government policies now are a direct result of having to deal with the financial ruin left by Labour….

The BBC is even now, as I type this up, pumping out the propaganda about a ‘national hunger crisis’:

The Archbishop of Wales has urged the UK government to tackle a national hunger crisis as figures show a big rise in numbers using foodbanks.

The Trussell Trust said it had given emergency food aid to nearly 80,000 people in Wales in the last 12 months, more than double the 2012-13 figure.

The BBC does have the grace to mention this:

A UK government spokesperson questioned whether the Trussell Trust’s figures took account of return visits and defended welfare reforms, saying a report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found the proportion of UK residents finding it difficult to afford food had fallen from 9.8% in 2007 to 8.1% in 2012.

Curious then that it prefers the Trussell Trust’s figures and narrative.

Remember this when the BBC went to town over police corruption and the shredding of the evidence?

New details about the mass shredding of documents relating to a corruption inquiry in the Metropolitan Police have been uncovered by BBC News.

It is understood the inquiry produced a “lorry-load” of material and that the shredding took place over two days.

Ah well…seems ..er…they may have got that wrong.

Danny Shaw on Derbyshire’s show today (around 10:50) is now saying that far from it being a lorry load of documents it may have just been 4 bin bags full.….not only that but it isn’t clear, he tells us, if that was just the paper documents being shredded after having been copied to computer database somewhere.

Regardless of that the BBC’s original story [‘Uncovered by BBC News!!!!’] was full of holes even then as we revealed:

Bang To Rights!

From the Ellison inquiry……

‘There are very few documentary records capable of providing insight into the veracity of Mr Francis’ claim that he was “tasked to find intelligence that might be used by the MPS to smear the Lawrence family”.  A number of possible explanations have been advanced as to why.

These include the suggestion that incoming intelligence reports were routinely destroyed after SDS office analysis and intermittent ‘document review’.

As with other MPS records, it does not appear that any clear records were ever kept of what was being destroyed.  Accordingly, in our view little weight can be attached to the fact that no record can be found to confirm any relevant aspect of claimed SDS activity.’

Routine destruction is one of ‘a number of possibilities’…but it is the one the Review highlighted…presumably as the most likely…..and the one the BBC ignores….despite the Review suggesting ‘ little weight can be attached to the fact that no record can be found to confirm any relevant aspect of claimed SDS activity.‘

The BBC is attaching quite a lot of weight to the allegations….there may be substance to them but the BBC looks to have already found the Met. guilty.