The BBC is quick to air grievances expressed about groups lobbying politicians…say the food industry or energy companies…but it seems they aren’t immune to a bit of arm twisting as they go nuclear to defend their gravy train license fee…..as Douglas Carswell points out in The Empire Strikes Back:

The magnificent Andrew Bridgen MP has tabled an amendment to the Deregulation Bill to make non-payment of the BBC license fee a civil, rather than a criminal offence. And quite right, too.

Now the £3.6 billion a year BBC empire has struck back.

In an unintentionally funny “briefing note” sent to naughty MPs minded to back the amendment, the BBC complains that “the BBC cannot turn off services for those who do not pay the licence fee”.

A ‘briefing note’ to MPs?

Perhaps, just like Prince Charle’s letters as demanded by the Guardian, we should be allowed to see all BBC ‘briefing notes’ to politicians….independent?  My backside.

Did you know that Miliband was going to hold a referendum on Europe?

If not you can’t have been listening to the BBC who trumpeted this apparent fact all day yesterday.

There does seem to be some confusion even amongst BBC journos about the meaning of Miliband’s little pledge.

John Pienaar, surprisingly perhaps,  drew a deep breath and actually criticised Miliband, saying that the….

‘Ed Miliband promise is extraordinarily tangled and is not meant to mean what it seems to mean’.

He later went on to say that Miliband’s plan was ‘incoherent’.

Contrast that with Nick Robinson who seems to lean ever more Labourwards these days:

Labour and Europe – is that clear now?

Robinson tells us that the message Miliband wants to get over is:

A message of reassurance to big business that a future Labour government will, unlike the Tories, not put Britain’s EU membership at risk.

At the same time, a message of reassurance to the wider electorate that no further powers will be given to Brussels without them getting a say in a referendum.

Is it though? That all sounds a bit pat and thought out.  Isn’t the message purely one that Miliband wants to stay in Europe and has taken it upon himself to make that decision….by himself….dodging the inconvenient problem of allowing the ‘People’ to have their democratic say on this weighty matter.

Miliband wants his cake and to eat it….stay in Europe but also give the diminishing hope of that long promised referendum that so many people want…..and thereby maybe win over a few gullible voters.

Robinson tells us that:

The result is nuanced and will be torn into by the Tories and their friends in the press who will claim there is now a simple choice between those who will guarantee you an in/out vote and those who won’t.

‘Nuanced’?  No it’s not, its quite clear as said….Miliband, the millionaire elitist, has decided the people get no vote.

As for the ‘Tories and their friends in the press’ comment…guess we know where Robinson is coming from here…..the tone of that suggesting any criticism of Miliband is ill-founded based on political prejudice rather than the fact Miliband has made a huge error….as Labour man Dan Hodges [Tory friend in the Press?] admits:

Ed Miliband hasn’t shown strength over Europe. He’s lost control of the narrative

Yesterday, watching Ed Miliband’s shambolic Euro referendum announcement, it finally occurred to me. Labour has no narrative. Or rather, it has no coherent narrative. And the elements of a narrative it does have bear absolutely no relation to reality.

Labour has no clarity of vision. That’s why there’s no settled narrative. There’s nothing to build a narrative around.

“We’re still just casting about,” one Labour MP fold me yesterday. “Cost of Living’s been tried and dumped. The Squeezed Middle’s been tried and dumped. Watch. There’s going to be a bit on child care and a bit on housing and then he’s going to run back to health. And when the Labour leader circles the wagons around the NHS you know the game’s up.”

Robinson was clearly reading the runes wrong and then he rounds off with this:

[Miliband] will invite voters to choose between a government led by David Cameron which he’ll claim would be obsessed with Europe and riven by splits over it and one led by him which would focus on what most people care about more – the economy, living standards and the NHS.

Odd how any BBC analysis always manages slip in critical comments about the Tories (obsessed with Europe…riven by splits) whilst Labour is associated with the good stuff….NHS, building the economy (ha ha ha) and living standards.

‘A 2009 poll by Gallup found that British Muslims have zero tolerance towards homosexuality. “None of the 500 British Muslims interviewed believed that homosexual acts were morally acceptable,” the Guardian reported in May that year.’  Mehdi Hasan

Dan Hodges in the Telegraph asks:

Why did the BBC censor a debate about gay Muslims?

The programme was conducting a live debate last night in the Birmingham Mosque, in which people are invited to submit video clips on various current affairs issues, which are then debated by an invited panel.

One of the questions was from Asifa Lahore, who self-describes as “Britain’s first and only gay Muslim drag queen”. The question Asifa wanted answered was: “When will it be accepted to be Muslim and gay?”

The question was shown, and then just as the panel appeared to be preparing to debate the issue, the BBC presenter Rick Edwards announced, “We were going to debate that question but today after speaking to the mosque they have expressed deep concerns with having this discussion here… so we’ll move on to our next question.”

The program is called “Free Speech”. Its website boasts that “Britain is a democracy where we can say what we want. So let’s say it”.

Let’s say it? Let’s say it unless you’re a gay Muslim appearing on the BBC.

Dan Hodges obviously never watches the BBC  [As indicated by this article: The BBC isn’t anti-Tory. It’s anti-government] as he finishes with this:

It’s not the BBC’s job to pander to censorship or prejudice. The corporation has some serious explaining to do.

And as Raheem Kassam noted:

No one batted an eye-lid. Even amongst the predominantly ‘liberal left’ panel, no one said a word. Not the Liberal Democrat peer, not the Huffington Post editor, not the left-wing comedian, and not even the transgender rights activist.

All appeasers and apologists….the old cultural cringe….or as ‘Jim Watford’ says in the comments to Kassam’s article:

From the Telegraph at 18:42:

David Cameron condemns ‘barbaric’ missile attack on Israel

Prime Minister David Cameron condemns “indiscriminate” attack as 50 missiles from Gaza Strip fired into southern Israel during official visit

David Cameron tonight condemned a “barbaric” missile attack on Israel that struck on the first day of his visit to the country.

From the BBC at 18:56, their Frontpage report:

Prime minister’s belief in Israel ‘unbreakable’

Way, way down at the bottom the BBC manages to refer to the barrage:

In front of the assembled members of the press Mr Cameron condemned rocket attacks from Gaza which Mr Netanyahu had referred to in his opening remarks of the news conference.

And that was that….no quotes about barbaric indiscriminate targeting of civilians and children.

The BBC does deign to give us a further report, at 22:15…tucked away in the world news as a small headline….this is what they tell us Cameron said:

British Prime Minister David Cameron, on a visit to Israel, condemned the rocket attack.

“They are a reminder once again of the importance of maintaining and securing Israel’s future and the security threats that you face, and you have Britain’s support in facing those security threats,” he said.

And that was that….no quotes about barbaric indiscriminate targeting of civilians and children.

Bit quicker off the ball reporting an Israeli air response….as I type at 23:32:

Israeli planes hit Gaza in response to rocket strikes

Funnily enough that makes it to the Frontpage unlike the rocket barrage.

This though does feature on the Frontpage in a large box of its own:

Features

Suburbia to Syria

The Briton who drove a truck bomb into a prison

On 6 February, Abdul Waheed Majeed, from Crawley in West Sussex, drove a truck bomb into the gates of a prison in Syria. Does his death represent everything that the government fears about radicalisation on a foreign battlefield?

But was he a violent jihadist, just waiting for his chance – either at home or abroad?

“My brother was not a terrorist. My brother was a hero,” says Hafeez Majeed.

“If I could put it like this, if my brother had been a British soldier and there were British people in that prison, I know he would have been awarded the posthumous Victoria Cross.

“My brother paid the full price with his life for what he did. He was not a threat to the British public and never has been a threat to the British public.”

The BBC…you can rely on it to glorify and excuse the Jihadists.

It’s fun watching the bank held up by Labour as the modern template for ethical and efficient banking – The Co-Op- described as “ungovernable” by its departing CEO. It’s also a tricky one for the comrades at the BBC who are usually so KEEN to get stuck into the “banksters” The default mode seems to be report this as best they can but just ignore the VERY close links between this corrupt and failed Bank and Labour.

Anyone else catch Peter Mandelson being allowed a gentle canter on the Today programme this morning as he explained how Miliband has shown courage and real leadership by denying the British people a referendum on EU membership?

On time and for your edification, a new Open thread! Please detail the bias here!

As David has mentioned the BBC has been particularly fawning about Bob Crow so far….he is presented as a roguish lad with none of the tough  realities behind his actions given any credence…..Thatcher was immediately, within minutes of her death, being denounced as divisive and hated, Crow is apparently ‘loved and respected’.  Pienaar has been glossing over all the complaints targeted at Crow….his high salary, living in a council house, his holiday as the union was about to strike….Crow was just a loveable rogue.

Ken Livingstone only had nice things to say about him according to the BBC…..

Mr Johnson’s predecessor Ken Livingstone told the BBC the “endless strain of being a media hate figure” may have taken a toll on Mr Crow.

And Crow wasn’t a serious threat to anything he was much misrepresented by those with an agenda….

Mr Crow’s class-based politics made him a regular cartoon villain for some newspapers.

The nearest the BBC comes to the truth is in this ‘Magazine’ article:

Bob Crow, who has died at the age of 52, was an intensively divisive figure. But he was easily the best-known trade unionist in the UK.

To his admirers he was a working-class hero and fighter who stood up for his members and won. To his enemies he was a bully who inflated his workers’ wages by bringing misery upon commuters.

In the eyes of his opponents, Crow’s achievements were gouged by exploiting his position in order to inflict misery on travellers. But to his members it was a testament to his tactical acumen, negotiating skills and mastery of industrial relations.

But such views were not reflected in the news and other coverage as I listened today.

The Telegraph gets the tone about right:

Bob Crow – obituary

Bob Crow was the belligerent RMT leader whose tough tactics were loved by union members but hated by commuters

He had John Prescott, a former official of the union, expelled for failing to renationalise the railways, then resigned from the board of Transport for London after the exasperated mayor, Ken Livingstone, urged workers to cross the RMT’s latest picket line. In 2004 Labour expelled the RMT from the party.

But what about cuddly Ken, did he always think such nice thoughts about Bob?  From the Guardian:

Tube strike: how Bob got on with Ken

I think that the right to strike is our second most important right after the right to vote. What appals me about the RMT is that by misusing the strike weapon, basically as a bullying technique rather than to resolve a genuine and irreconcilable difference, they undermine that. It certainly would not be right, I don’t think, to impose on people in Unite and the TSSA the loss of their right to strike because a small handful of people on the RMT executive are behaving rather more like a protection racket than a proper industrial union.

Not as if the BBC didn’t know that…from 2009:

Even the former Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, said in 2007 the RMT executive behaved more like a “protection racket than a proper industrial union”.

So far they have managed to avoid repeating Ken’s previous thoughts today.

An irony is that it may have been privatisation of the railways that gave Crow so much power, the BBC tells us….though he surely would have had more over a nationalised monopoly:

Ralph Darlington, professor of employment relations at Salford University, says the union’s confrontational style can be traced back to rail privatisation.

“I think we could characterise the RMT as one of the most militant and left-wing unions in Britain. The politicisation has come about in the face of the challenges which they feel they have faced.”

What of Crow’s communist ideals?:

“When I see Ronaldo earns half a million quid a month and people say train drivers are greedy working nine hours downstairs in them temperatures – nah, I think it’s the rate for the job. The reality is it’s a jungle out there.”

So its dog eat dog and damn everyone else as long as his union members get their pay rise.

The boy done good but there was a price to pay…..the BBC loved his tough negotiating stance ignoring the threats and just telling us how wonderfully successful his last minute negotiation were…the reality was a bit different, not quite so romantic:

Often his first step was a strike ballot, with negotiations only on the eve of disruption, if then. He once told West End retailers who warned that another Tube strike would put them out of business that they would be “casualties of war”.

Retailers…pah…who needs them…they just feed the greed,  materialism and consumerism that is destroying society and the planet.  No wonder the BBC likes him.

Nick Robinson at least recognises that Bob has been transformed into a second ‘Saint Bob’…..though he thinks it is more to do with Crow’s admirable belligerence and entrenched opinions rather than what is more likely…the romantic appeal amongst the BBC trots of someone who opposed the Bosses……

Bob Crow: Public enemy number one or national treasure?

No-one, of course, likes to speak ill of the dead but there are other reasons why Bob Crow may appear to have been transformed overnight from public enemy number one to a national treasure.

This was a man who knew what he thought, knew whose side he was on and knew who the enemy were – in an era when that can be said of a shrinking number of people in public life.

The BBC were quick to fill the airwaves with critical comment about C4’s ‘Benefits Street’….not so quick to mention this dangerous programme from C4:

Channel 4 News removes video report from their website after it emerges four of the five ‘normal’ people questioned were from the same marketing agency

Channel 4 News has removed a video from its website after it emerged that four of the five people it interviewed about police relations in Brixton were employed by the same marketing company.

It was deleted from the Channel 4 News website on Sunday after questions were raised over how representative the video could be when the majority of those interviewed were employed by youth marketing company Livity.

The report featured five interviews with apparently random members of the local community, all of whom were critical of relations between the public and the police.

Only one of the four interviewees, youth development mentor Naomi Brown, was credited with having a connection with Livity, with the fifth person interviewed being Lee Jasper – the former chief race advisor to London Mayor Ken Livingstone.

The video was presented by Channel 4 News reporter Jordan Jarrett-Bryan, a former professional wheelchair basketball player who was previously youth editor of the Livity-run publication Live Magazine.

Why is such programming dangerous?  Because it encourages the view that Black people are always the victims of racism whether it comes to not getting something they want or policing or being England captain.

Conservative MP Rob Wilson condemned the broadcaster, saying: ‘This is very disappointing from Channel 4 News. A distorted report could have been very unhelpful, indeed inflammatory, and I hope the people concerned have learnt an important lesson.’

Perhaps the BBC does not report this telling story because they don’t want to give the impression that much of the ‘discontent’ is activist driven and hyped.

But C4 isn’t alone in promoting that grievance driven thinking…Macpherson of course is the most significant purveyor of that excuse…but the BBC isn’t above claiming or allowing the thought to develop that Black people are victims of racism, and, if not obvious racism, then it must be unintentional, unwitting or unconscious racism.  Sol Campbell claims the FA is unconsciously racist…as he has no evidence of actual racism….a Kafkaesque accusation that is impossible to disprove and is used solely to abuse white people….ironically stereotyping them in a racist fashion.

Victoria Derbyshire had Sol Campbell on today to explain his recent comments…she wasn’t exactly hard hitting in her questions allowing him to get away with comments that clearly contradict what he claims.

Campbell originally said this, as reported by the BBC:

“I believe if I was white, I would have been England captain for more than 10 years – it’s as simple as that.”

He’s now saying this….

“People took the 10-year thing too literally, read too much into it and were too quick to comment on it.”

…and that he only meant that he should have captained England more than 3 times.

But that’s not what he said…and he has been roundly condemned, even by other black players, hence his rapid retreat.

But Derbyshire let that slide and didn’t press him on it…until much later when a caller had to do her job for her….and the later news bulletins started reporting his new line without reference to he old as if it had never been said.

Campbell says he was so brilliant that he deserved to be captain….and yet Bobby Charlton (106 appearances) only captained 3 games, Wayne Rooney (89 appearances) has only captained 2 games, Alf Ramsey 3 times (32 appearances), Frank Lampard 3 times (109 appearances)….Campbell made 73 appearances and captained 3 times.

Campbell is talking out of his backside when he claims racism is the reason he only captained England 3 times.

Oh…maybe Sol’s right…look, Sir Bobby Charlton kept appearing in photographs with black people…maybe that’s why he was only given the captaincy 3 times…just like Sol.

Derrbyshire asked Campbell about claims he was gay….Campbell replied that he wasn’t the normal lad about town footballer…he ‘didn’t fit’ which is why such claims arose.

Perhaps Derbyshire might have asked…is that maybe why you weren’t asked to be captain so often…not colour but personality…you didn’t fit in with the team?  But she didn’t.

Campbell claimed a sponsor asked him if he was gay (10:42 ish), and who was disappointed to hear he wasn’t as it would have been a good ‘selling point’ for their media campaign…Campbell said he hoped that sort of attitude has changed.  Would have thought that was an attitude to encourage if you wanted to promote gay friendly attitudes.

When Derbyshire did ask him about his attitude and his claims of racism he said he had every right to make them because this is what he felt.  Well that’s OK then…no need for proof.

She didn’t challenge him on that though you might have thought she would….is it right that Campbell can make unfounded allegations of racism, accusing people running the FA of being racist, and somehow that isn’t slander or libel?

That in a nutshell sums up the problem….claims of racism are allowed to be made, whether against the police or the FA or society in general, purely on the basis of what someone believes or wants to believe.

Channel Four’s little charade adds fuel to the fire, encouraging the belief that Blacks are suffering racism everywhere, especially at the hands of the police…..all of which is highly dangerous adding to the paranoia and giving a spur to those who seek to inflame any situation.

Did you read that the BBC was not sceptical enough about immigration and the ‘European ideal’, according to one of its most senior journalists – John Humphrys? Thoughts? I don’t see how the Today programme has changed in any way and is still a toadying supplicant for the Euro ideal.