Don’t you think it a little strange that despite its vast resources and all those “world class” journos it employs (at our expense) the BBC might have picked up on the fact that a French-based Muslim extremist has been arrested on suspicion of having slaughtered four Jewish people in Brussels last week? Still, at LEAST it is bringing us the breaking news that climate change is going to be the death of us…..

Nicky Campbell ran a phone in about the state of the economy…notably several callers said that when they raised the question of a pay rise with their bosses the answer was ‘There are plenty of East Europeans who will do it for a lot less’.

Whilst Campbell eventually highlighted such comments this is what the BBC’s economic genius from Wake Up to Money, Adam Parsons, said in response (55 mins):

‘Fascinating that, that disaffection that people sometimes have and their limited horizons…..it’s one of the symptoms of that long period of downturn and the change in the dynamic really of the British economy…we have got people who are prepared to work for lower wages, there’s a lot of them coming in, but I wonder sometimes whether the spectre of that, the memories of all those Polish plumbers who came along, resonates in people’s brains as much as the reality of it.’

Even as he admits there are workers being imported who undercut British wages he denies it saying it is just some sort of residual mythical belief generated by the Daily Mail no doubt.

So not, maybe, he says, the reality….never mind the callers stating quite plainly that it is happening to them here and now.

Of course Parsons does a double act with the venerable Micky Clark who is always more than happy to be unhappy about good news….the other day as the British Chamber of Commerce and the CBI stated that they believed the economy was bouncing back Clark decided (ala Flanders and the OECD) they couldn’t be trusted….saying they had got it wrong so many times before.

On that basis Clark and Parsons should be taken off air.

One of our occasional off thread rambles to provide a short break from the usual.

I see the BBC is employing the services of a firm that employs Lord Hall’s wife to headhunt a new BBC Trust Chairman.

As the BBC previousily spent £350,000 to headhunters to fill two vacancies and then filled them from within its own ranks perhaps the money might be better spent on employing the services of a cleaning company, whether or not it has relations of Lord Hall on its books.

BBC’s new £1bn HQ a ‘toxic waste pit that is making staff sick’ claims presenter Peter Dobbie after contracting a vomiting bug that left him needing treatment in intensive care

Newsreaders at the BBC’s flagship £1billion headquarters have complained that the revamped building is a ‘toxic waste pit’ which is making them ill.

Staff at the new Broadcasting House in Central London claim there is a ‘trend of filth, human waste products and a badly built building’.

They have called on bosses to intervene ‘as a matter of urgency’ over the ‘unclean and dangerous’ premises they say are so unhygienic that staff regularly become sick.

AA Gill comments on the BBC’s coverage of the Euro elections on Vote 2014.

His conclusion….

Political reporting on television…..moribund, unchanged and unconsidered.  Politics on televison is a shabby, undemocratic national disservice.

No kidding.

He goes on to say that BBC 2 has been good, but is now ‘an arty social worker.’

No kidding…and of course that is a description that could sum up pretty much all of the BBC’s output more concerned as it is with social engineering than entertainment and genuinely, truthfully, informative programming.

Interesting item here by the BBC. It almost looks like they are trying to tell us that Sharia has a bright side to it.

Wonder what you make of this news?

“Sebastian Coe is today being urged to step down from some of his current work commitments if he wants the role of BBC Trust chairman. The former track star and London 2012 chief is the frontrunner to replace Lord Patten, who stood down three weeks ago after heart surgery. However, MPs are today urging Lord Coe to step down from some of his 20 other jobs to dedicate his time to the demanding role.”

I wonder why the BBC provide has-been singer Billy Bragg with influential platforms such as Any Questions from which he can spew his 1970’s agitprop?

Hi all. Here’s a Joey Barton endorsed Open Thread for you to complete. And to think some claim Question Time has been deliberately dumbed down. Next week, Wayne Rooney?

Will the BBC spend a day pouring relentlessly over this report, as they did with the ‘racial prejudice ‘ one,  that over the past 10 years overcrowding has become a huge problem:

The Telegraph reports:

Figures show surge in ‘overcrowded’ homes

More than three million people now live in a household with at least five other individuals, according to figures from the ONS