I was sorry to read of the death of RMT Trade Unionist Bob Crowe. He was only 52.  That said, I am a little surprised to see the BBC run this as the LEAD story on their news portal all day. Isn’t this a little over the top? What say you? There is also a deference in their coverage of his untimely death which was noticeably absent when Margaret Thatcher died. Perhaps Mr Crowe was more their kind of guy?

Hot on the heals of Humphrys’ admission that the BBC promotes the all conquering EU we have this prime example of that type of thinking in action:

The BBC should say it is based in Manchester instead of Salford in a bid to boost the area’s international reputation, one of the corporation’s star presenters has said.

Evan Davis said it was a ‘serious problem’ for Manchester that areas such as Salford – home to the BBC at MediaCity UK since 2011 – and Trafford refused to be called Manchester.

Salford mayor slammed Mr Davis’s comments – saying it was ‘quite surprising that a journalist wants to rewrite the geography of the country’.

He added: “What really is confusing is when a media pundit tries to shift the boundaries of the city. The Quays are in Salford – they always have been and always will be and people know that.

“People clearly won’t know about Salford if we remove all mention of it from the map.

“This view is typical of a London-centric view of the world. Fortunately the British isles is more diverse than London and a handful of big cities. Our strength in the north lies is our diversity, not in all being the same.”

Ah those xenophobic Little Salfordians, not wanting to lose their identity and be engulfed and absorbed by a giant neighbour.

The BBC…celebrating diversity and difference except when it’s not.

John Humphrys has admitted the BBC is biased in favour of the EU….it has ‘bought into the ideal’

I thought the EU had been the one doing the buying….

The millions in EU funding the BBC tried to hide

John Humphrys says:

Chris Warburton stands in for Victoria Derbyshire this week.

He was discussing this (10:41):

BBC to argue for licence fee to be linked to inflation

The Sunday Times reported that the BBC had a preference for a subscription model of funding.

The BBC have leapt on that suggestion and denied it vigorously….

“The report recommends that the BBC pursue an inflationary licence fee increase with greater commercial revenue. No subscription model is recommended.”

Unfortunately one of those involved in the funding review, David Elstein, didn’t ‘rule out’ a subscription model..indeed he seemed pretty enthusiastic about it saying the BBC would ‘do pretty well out of it’..…and if avoiding the license fee is de-criminalised then the subscription model is probably the best method…not to use it would be ‘slow suicide’….though he suggests the proposal to decriminalise is merely a negotiating tactic by the government…despite many MPs actually urging it.

However he was very enthusiastic about the subscription model.

Elstein is ‘A long-time critic of the licence fee who believes the BBC should be funded by subscription’  and he made some interesting comments (in Jan 2014) about the license fee in light of the BBC’s recent claim that de-criminalising the license fee might lead to a drop in funding…

“Just a 1% increase in evasion would lead to the loss of around £35m, the equivalent of around 10 BBC local radio stations.”

Elstein points out that [discussing the BBC’s reporting, or non-reporting, of immigration]:

“It’s not a happy place to be when you are one of the very few public organisations directly benefiting from the unlimited expansion of the population.

“It’s not [the BBC’s] decision, there’s nothing they can do about it. It is a side product of a certain social phenomenon [and] the BBC might benefit.”

Elstein said the growth in single person households over the last two decades had a similar impact on BBC funding, leading to a “50% rise in the number of households paying the licence fee”.

Wonder how many local radio stations were funded by that increase!

Janet Daley in the Telegraph isn’t impressed by the BBC’s ‘ideal’ license fee + inflation:

The BBC wants even more money

Bizarrely, the BBC itself has chosen this moment to suggest that its licence fee should not simply be protected in future but that it should be unfrozen and (wait for it) linked to inflation. And in addition to requesting these automatic rises in the licence fee – which would mean that every increase in the cost of living would push up the cost of television-viewing – they also plan to introduce paid-for services to compete with iTunes and netflix. What planet, as they say, are these people on?

Here is a suggestion for what it might do. Instead of demanding a licence fee from every owner of a computer or smart phone (which it is, believe it or not, considering), it should make the consumption of BBC content on any device dependent on having a licence. It should be simple enough to introduce: in order to log on to the BBC website, or to access iPlayer, you would need to supply your licence number – just as you have to do now with most subscription-only web services. That way, anyone who wanted to use any BBC service on any platform would have to pay the fee. But you would have a choice. And it is only that – giving the consumer a real choice – that will bring BBC funding into the twenty-first century.

Sounds simple and effective.

Another interesting interview (11:27) was with Alistair Morgan, brother of Daniel Morgan, a private detective investigating police corruption, murdered in 1987….possibly, and significantly you might think, just as he was about to expose that corruption.  Alistair Morgan suggests that if the botched investigation into his brother’s murder had been properly examined the subsequent investigation into Stephen Lawrence’s murder would not have also been ‘botched’ if lessons had been learned.

As Daniel Morgan was white that kind of suggests that botched police investigations are not solely, if at all, related to ‘race’ of the victim…and it should be noted that Morgan was murdered in 1987, the government, despite a long campaign by the family, only initiated an inquiry concerning the police investigation in 2013…compare that to the Lawrence case…Stephen Lawrence murdered in 1993, a review was announced only 4 years later in 1997….and Lawrence’s mother is now a ‘Baroness’  on the strength of her campaigning….though other matters  may have influenced that.

Here you go folks, a new OPEN THREAD to start the week.

I haven’t paid the Macpherson Report much attention, assuming its conclusions about ‘institutional racism’ to be knee jerk politically correct appeasement of the Black community.

Having started to read it nothing has so far disabused me of that…nor has anything reported about the police investigation….more corruption, incompetence and arse covering than racism by the Police.

The BBC of course are more than happy to unquestioningly label it all as ‘institutional racism’…..more on that when I have completed reading the report…but in the meantime some more police ‘racism’ to chew on……Stephen Lawrence’s murder was a tragedy but just one amongst many….and one amongst many where the police or the establishment failed the victims, black or white…..and yet only one gets the massive attention and the claims of game changing importance resulting from the case……seems that many more are forgotten…….

Is it because she was black?:

Horse trainer sues murder police who ‘framed her for murder’ over lover’s bonfire death

Why did the police refuse to accept this was a racist attack?:

Boy’s fight to prove attack by Asian gang was racist

And this….a 73 year old white gangsta?:

Police pay 73-year-old driver £20,000 after officers smashed his Range Rover’s window and windscreen for driving without a seatbelt

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

As said more incompetence and corruption than racism at the bottom of police failure.

From the Sunday Times in 2006 (£)….lest we forget in the deluge of coverage over Stephen Lawrence:

 
The hidden white victims of racism

Last week’s horrifying trial of three Asians is part of a worrying trend, says Brendan Montague
No one who saw Angela Donald giving her dignified statement that “justice had been done” outside the High Court in Edinburgh as the racist murderers of her 15-year-old son were jailed last week could feel anything but sympathy. For Margaret Massey there was more, though — a sense of fellow-feeling and anger.

Kriss Donald was snatched off the street by an Asian gang and subjected to a terrible ordeal: beaten, stabbed, doused in petrol and set ablaze. Massey’s son Lee, a rugby player, was also the subject of a racially motivated attack when he was set upon by a gang of Iraqi asylum seekers “out looking for someone” to hurt.

He and two friends were stabbed in a car park in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, in October 2003. Lee was then thrown into the air and suffered devastating brain injuries when one of the gang used a car to run him down. Three years later he has not fully recovered.

Massey still feels aggrieved that — in her view — the police inquiry was hindered by political correctness because officers feared that reporting that a white man had been so brutally attacked by asylum seekers would further fuel racial tensions following several such brawls in the area.
“The police didn’t charge 13 members of the gang even though I believe there was some evidence,” she says.
“If our Lee had run over one of the Iraqis he would have been arrested right away and sent to prison for the rest of his life. The police are nervous when white people are attacked. In this area this is happening more and more often.”

The killing of Stephen Lawrence 13 years ago sparked off an orgy of soul-searching throughout liberal Britain.

But we have never quite acknowledged that violence comes from both sides. Gavin Hopley, 19, was kicked to death by up to eight Asian men in Oldham in February 2002. Six men were convicted of violent disorder and theft offences but no one has been convicted of his murder.
An Asian gang was also responsible for the violent killing of 17-year-old Ross Parker, who was savagely stabbed with hunting knives during an attack in Peterborough in 2001. David Lees, 23, was run over and killed during a fight between whites and a gang of Asians in Prestwich, Manchester, only last month.

There has been numerous inquiries and new legislation since the Lawrence case and almost everyone concerned with race relations will confirm that policing in cases involving race has improved immeasurably since that tragic event.

However, the debate about the white victims of racist attacks seems to have progressed no further in the past 10 years — because of fears of “political correctness” and the threat of the far right making political capital out of personal tragedy.

Sir Ian Blair, Britain’s most senior police officer, even attacked the press as “institutionally racist” in January this year because cases such as the killing of Tom ap Rhys Pryce, the solicitor, had gained more publicity than the equally terrible death on the same day of Balbir Matharu, who had tried to stop thieves ripping the radio from his car.

An extensive search of national and regional newspaper reports, however, shows that cases involving black and minority ethnic victims are widely reported, while there is an almost total boycott of stories involving the white victims of similar attacks. Is this because newspapers fear their reports appearing on BNP leaflets, or because the police are less likely to issue appeals for help?

Peter Fahy, chief constable of Cheshire police and spokesman on race issues for the Association of Chief Police Officers, said: “A lot of police officers and other professionals feel almost the best thing to do is to try and avoid [discussing such attacks] for fear of being criticised. This is not healthy.”

The silence means it is impossible to know how many white people are victims of racist attacks in today’s multicultural Britain and whether they are right to feel aggrieved that the attacks they suffer do not appear to get the same recognition as those of black victims.
Take the case of Christopher Yates, who had been out celebrating a birthday with a group of friends in London and, concerned about their safety, insisted on taking some of the women he was with to a bus stop during a cool November evening two years ago.

Without warning, the 30-year-old office worker was viciously assaulted by a gang of drunken Asian men — Sajid Zulfiqar, Zahid Bashir and Imran Maqsood — who stamped on his head, smashing every bone in his face before killing him.

After the murder the attackers shouted in Urdu, “We have killed the white man — that will teach an Englishman to interfere in Paki business.” Despite this appalling racism, the three were never convicted for committing a race crime — which would have meant a heavier sentence.

This led to comparisons with the brutal and unprovoked murder of Anthony Walker, a young black man who was attacked when walking to a bus stop in Liverpool with a female friend. The 18-year-old was bludgeoned with an ice axe by Paul Taylor and Michael Barton, both white, and died later in hospital.

The attack was undoubtedly racially motivated, but the fact that Taylor and Barton received sentences nine and three years longer respectively than their equally racist counterparts in London has led to suspicions that racist attacks against whites and non-whites are treated differently in the courts.

At the same time there is growing concern that attacks by Asians and other ethnic minorities have been steadily increasing, leaving some white people feeling too scared to enter city areas dominated by Asians and other minority ethnic groups.

Figures recently published under the Freedom of Information Act seem to support such fears: of the 58 people killed because of the colour of their skin between 1995 and 2004, almost half were described as white.

The British Crime Survey reveals that in 2004, 87,000 people who described themselves as black or minority ethnic (BME) had been victims of what they believed was a racially motivated crime. They had suffered 49,000 violent attacks, with 4,000 being wounded.

At the same time a staggering 92,000 white people also said that racism was the cause of an attack or crime they had suffered. The number of violent attacks against whites reached 77,000, while the number of white people who reported being wounded was five times the number of black and minority ethnic victims at 20,000.

The truth is hard to get at: Jenny Bourne, of the Institute of Race Relations, says its figures show only eight white victims of racially motivated killings between 1995 and 2004: “The Kriss Donald case involved an Asian gang which had been involved in violence already. These cases are incredibly rare compared with the number of racist attacks on minorities which take place every day.”

What is clear is that unless the attacks on whites are reported and discussed, the truth about what is happening out there will remain hazy.

Paxman sounds as if he’s tired of the whole bally lot of ’em…the peace loving lefties who roam the corridors of the BBC spreading peace and joy….through self-indulgent appeasement.

Jeremy Paxman: why we would not fight the Great War now

BBC broadcaster Jeremy Paxman suggests Britain is too self-obsessed and hedonistic to become involved in a conflict like the First World War

Storyville: 2013-2014:  The Little Nation that Fought Back

Oscar-nominated film compiled from the film diary of an Israeli family which over six decades documented the Muslim attempts to erase their country from the map, and them along with it.  David Shalit started filming following the birth of the new nation in 1948.  Surrounded by hostile Muslim countries he filmed as they invaded and the new Israelis begin to resist the attacks.

Over 60 years his family continued to film the violent attempts to annihilate Israel as it struggled to create the only real democracy in the Middle East and turn it into an oasis of technology, invention , science and  political and social inclusion shaped and forged from the empty, barren desert left behind after 1400 years of Muslim colonisation and occupation.

Despite the constant attacks by Muslims, the ever-present rockets fired from over the border by Palestinians at Israeli civilians, the terror threats and sniper fire that forced Israel to build a wall in self defence and the misleading and malign reporting by organisations such as the BBC which aim to cast the Israelis in the role of Nazis and attempt to de-legitimise the new land of Israel,  it succeeds against the odds despite one attack after another and hostile media coverage.

Shalit’s family collaborate with Palestinian director Ibn Kelb to produce this powerful and moving documentary of over 60 years of resistance in the face of terrorism and war imposed upon them.

See here for BBC Watch’s critique of this fascinating BBC film that recognises the bravery, ingenuity and stubborn refusal to be erased from history of the Israeli nation.

The BBC finally get around to reporting this:

‘Islamic takeover plot’ in Birmingham schools investigated

Although the authorities have been aware of the alleged plot since November, the details have only become public now thanks to the letter which has been widely leaked.

We still don’t know whether it’s genuine or a fake, but that’s one of the questions the city council is attempting to answer with its investigation.

It’s clearly a sensitive subject and there will be great concerns about the effect on what the authorities euphemistically call “community cohesion”.

Finding anyone who is directly involved and prepared to go on the record has also proved difficult.

No-one wants to be called an “Islamaphobe” or a racist, nor do they wish to be labelled a right wing conspiracy theorist.

So the truth about such matters and open debate is suppressed because people don’t want to be labeled ‘islamophobes, racist or right wing conspiracy theorists’?…..guess Mehdi Hasan et al’s work is done then, they have succeeded in closing down criticism of Islam or Muslim actions based upon promoting that ideology…..all aided by the BBC…ironically one of those ‘authorities’ who  suppress such criticism in the name of that euphemism ‘community cohesion’.

What’s going on in the Crimea should be a warning as to the dangers of having highly active political/ideological groups within separate communities and the ease with which they can change the facts on the ground.

What would the government do if fundamentalists urged a vote in a Muslim majority city to run it on Islamic principles and the community voted for that? What could the government do?

Couldn’t happen?  Look at the Crimea and their vote to separate.  If I was a Muslim ‘radical’ I would be looking at that and the West’s impotence and start thinking how easy it would be to annex a city using ‘democracy’ and politician’s fear of taking the necessary action….there’s no ‘Russia’ to back such a move but there is the Guardian and the BBC who would denounce any police action or ultimate military intervention…..ala Israel.

Russia controls the gas pipeline  to Europe and the BBC controls the flow of information, anything it doesn’t like the BBC turns off that flow.

[Just been listening to 5Live presenter…apparently this isn’t Russia ‘ramping up its authority’ over the Ukraine]
Would the local Muslim community vote along those lines?  Maybe, maybe not….this is what the BBC tells us about ‘Operation Trojan Horse’…..

It says that Salafi parents should be enlisted to help, because they are regarded as a more orthodox branch of Islam and would be more likely to be willing to help.  
The BBC itself tells us that Muslims are identifying more and more with their religion and parents want their children to go to Islamic schools……how many would be tempted to press for a Muslim only area where they are in the majority if given the opportunity?

Which is why it is so important for organisations like the BBC to openly debate the implications and consequences of mass immigration and the importation of ideologies that are opposed to liberal, democratic principles and the social and cultural aspects of such a society.

Of course some would say it’s not a problem having areas of Britain run along Islamic principles…some ‘liberals’ have already suggested London be turned ‘Islamic’…but many more would object….it would be nice to have a say without being labeled ‘islamophobic, racist or right wing conspiracists’.

The BBC is quick to jump on this proposal:

TV licence fee non-payment ‘could be decriminalised’

Amazing how fast the BBC can report a story they have an interest in….they’ve already rounded up a load of viewers and listeners on 5Live (at death O’clock this morning) for their comments….guess what…most support the license…the BBC providing a wonderful service at a reasonable price.