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?”

Bold claims about how little effect the lifting of labour market restrictions will have on the numbers of Romanians and Bulgarians working in the UK over the next year are premature.

Claims of this sort, based on a single quarter of evidence from one source, are nearly as risky as the predictions last year that lifting work restrictions would lead to a sudden “flood” of A2 migrants.     Oxford University’s Migration Observatory

The BBC has been playing up the significance of the latest immigration figures released by the ONS which show a fall in the number of Romanians and Bulgarians in work in the UK in the last Quarter compared to the previous one….despite the annual figures showing a significant increase.

Five Live has been reporting that the ‘alarmist’ predictions by ‘some politicians’ (UKIP)  and some ‘campaign groups’ (Migration Watch) have been proved wrong.

Here is Nick Robinson’s dismissive take on the figures:

So much for those predictions of a flood of immigrants coming from Romania and Bulgaria once the door to the UK was opened

 And Mark Easton’s:

MPs and newspapers warned of a “flood” of hundreds of thousands of poor Romanians and Bulgarians who would strain our welfare system and public services. It was an argument that played directly into anxieties about immigration and the influence of the EU.

But today’s figures, the first official estimate of workers from Romania and Bulgaria since the transitional employment restrictions were removed on the so-called A2 countries in January, suggest there has been no flood. If anything, the reverse.

So some ‘bold claims’ based on one quarter’s data made by the BBC….‘premature and risky’?

But today is also a good day to bury other figures which are good for the government but which shouldn’t be forgotten.  In the same ONS report we have these figures for employment:
1.57 million people were employed in the National Health Service, up 13,000 from September 2013 and up 6,000 from a year earlier.

1.52 million people were employed in education, up 8,000 from September 2013, and up 44,000 from a year earlier.

Back to immigration.

Was Migration Watch wrong?

This is what they predicted as the likely annual immigration figures:

As in 2004, there is no purely statistical basis on which one could estimate the likely future flows of migration from Romania and Bulgaria. It is a matter of judgement, taking into account the factors outlined above. Our view is that they are likely to add between 30 and 70,000 to our population in each of the next five years of which about half will appear in the immigration statistics.

So our central estimate is that immigration from these two countries will add 50,000 a year to the UK population for the next five years of which about half is likely to be captured in the immigration statistics.

In other words they were pretty much spot on….the statistics show that there has been an increase of 26,000 Romanians and Bulgarians coming to the UK over the past year…..so as suggested half of their predicted figure was captured by the official statistics….and the statistics only tell us who is employed not the total number of people coming here.

The ONS itself admits this:

“These figures will not show how many Romanians and Bulgarians arrived to work in Britain between January and March this year,” said an ONS spokesman. “They only show how many were in employment during that period. They do not show when they arrived in Britain.”

In other words you could have had an influx of immigrants as the fugures don’t say when they arrived.

The ONS also states that not all immigrants admit their country of origin:

These UK and non-UK estimates do not sum exactly to the total number of people in employment because some people do not state their country of birth in their Labour Force Survey interviews.

What does the Oxford University’s Migration Observatory have to say about the new figures?:

Today’s (14 May 2014) new data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has shown a small reduction (a drop of about 4,000) in the number of Romanian- and Bulgarian-born people employed in the UK in the first three months of 2014 – the period immediately after restrictions on the employment of migrants from these countries ended.

It is tempting to conclude that the new Labour Force Survey (LFS) data – showing that the opposite has happened and that actually, fewer Romanian and Bulgarian people are now working in the UK than at the end of last year – proves these stories wrong. But it is far too early to tell.

Bold claims about how little effect the lifting of labour market restrictions will have on the numbers of Romanians and Bulgarians working in the UK over the next year are premature.

Claims of this sort, based on a single quarter of evidence from one source, are nearly as risky as the predictions last year that lifting work restrictions would lead to a sudden “flood” of A2 migrants.

So the reality is that Migration Watch have been proved correct and anything up to 50,000 Romanians and Bulgarians have probably entered the country…half not showing up on the statistics.

The full picture can’t possibly be known as to the effect, if any, of the ending of work restrictions until this year has ended….as you can see from the chart the June to September period there were 135,000 Romanians and Bulgarians in work…this leapt to 144,000 the next Quarter, then dropping to 140,000 for the latest quarter…the surge in immigration occured before the new rules were put in place….and could quite as easily go up again.

The BBC has been presenting this and talk about immigration control in general as Right Wing scaremongering but how true is that?

Here are Labour’s words of warning about immigration spoken only today:

Labour’s shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said the government had to do more “to address people’s legitimate concerns”.

She said: “Ministers aren’t doing enough to stop employers and agencies exploiting cheap migrant labour, particularly from Eastern Europe, to undercut wages and jobs.”

Here is Labour again:

Immigration figures to drop 20,000 as Home Office ‘massages’ numbers

Labour accused Mrs May of trying to “fix” the net migration figures.
David Hanson, the shadow immigration minister, said: “This is a desperate attempt to fiddle figures from an increasingly desperate Home Secretary.
“David Cameron promised his Government would cut net migration to the tens of thousands and he has failed. Now Theresa May wants to fix the figures brazenly, trying to take the British public for fools. If the Home Secretary thinks cheating the public is the way forward, it’s this Government that’s the fool.”

Here is Labour’s own think tank the IPPR telling us of the problems that immigration brings:

In transition: Romanian and Bulgarian migration to the UK

The report draws three key conclusions about the likely shape of migration from Romania and Bulgaria:
It is likely that patterns of migration from Romania and Bulgaria will be different to those seen after the A8 countries joined the EU in 2004.
However, the impacts of future migration from Romania and Bulgaria will be similar to other flows from eastern Europe.
Romanian and Bulgarian migration remains a source of worry for the public, but this has been exacerbated rather than alleviated by political interventions.
The main challenges that arise as the result of new A2 migration flows are likely to relate to increased demand for housing and public services, as well as new arrivals’ language needs. Over time, these migrants will accrue more entitlements to welfare, which needs to be planned for. There are also some specific issues that will need to be tackled at both national and local levels, such as the exploitation of workers from these countries and the integration of Roma migrants.

And look here’s the BBC itself reporting that:

EU migrants: Public services ‘must prepare’
23 December 2013

Ministers should take practical steps to help public services cope with the arrival of Bulgarian and Romanian migrants, a think tank has urged.
There should be more funds for housing, schools and policing, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) said.
Bulgarians and Romanians have been able to work in the UK only in certain circumstances, but EU restrictions on movement will be lifted on 1 January.
The institute said practical help was needed to deal with increased demands on the privately-rented housing sector and on police who may have to deal with more incidents of anti-social behaviour by people unaware of UK laws and customs.
It also called for extra translators in schools and health centres.
It said there should be a “dedicated” pot of money to pay for the measures, from visa fees and the European Social Fund.

So is the BBC ‘scaremongering’ as well, and Labour and the IPPR?

Seems that it is only Right Wing politicians, newspapers and ‘pressure groups’ who get accused of that by the BBC.

I happened to catch a BBC report on the imminent findings of the investigation into the Islamification of certain schools in Birmingham this morning just after 7am. BBC only managed to find parents and schoolchildren who PRAISED the schools they attended and who were shocked, yes shocked, at this outrageous slur that they were being Islamified. One pupil helpfully pointed out that in her school, the Muslim population attending the school was around 99.9% “there are a few others” she added. Funny how the BBC miss a story within the story, isn’t it? It struck me that this was the BBC getting a pre-emptive strike in ahead of the official report which comes out next week. The meme is that we have little to worry about with State schools that are almost 100% Muslim and which are much loved by the parents and pupils. Clear?

Middle of the week and time for a new one of these!Off you go…..

Labour’s leader, Ed Miliband I should perhaps have to remind you, is having a torrid time…..the Tories have just overtaken Labour in the polls, he is being condemned left, right and centre, even from within his own labour ranks, he has no big policy ideas and the ones he does come up with are almost immediately shot down.

You might suppose a grilling on the Nicky Campbell show would be the last thing to look forward to if you were Miliband.

That’s of course if he were to get a grilling.  What he in fact got was a few soft questions lobbed half heartedly in his direction and a lot of airtime to assure Britain that Labour has the ‘solution’….not quite sure what the problem is that Labour has the solution to though.

Campbell had a pleasant little chat this morning with Miliband (08:36) who had learnt his lines well and refused to deviate from the script….‘there is a ‘deep sense of discontent in the UK, a sense that the country only worls for a few people at the top and not for most ordinary families…and ‘we’, Labour,  have the solutions.’

Campbell asked Miliband about his refusal to meet the CEO of Pfizer after having claimed that the ‘stakes couldn’t be higher’….Miliband dodged the question and Campbell didn’t press it.

The same with the recent video released attacking Clegg…Miliband claimed it was merely a ‘light hearted’ comment on the government……not admitting it was targeted at Clegg personally and was highly offensive to the Tories.

Campbell did suggest it was ‘chippy and mean-spirited’ but once again Miliband was allowed to brush that off saying he didn’t see it that way and that when you’ve seen the pain and suffering that results from the unfair and unjust decisions of this government you can understand the sense of anger out there.

Campbell didn’t raise the question of just who might ultimately have been responsible for all that ‘pain and suffering’…could it not have been a Labour government that destroyed the economy and left us in the worst recession in living memory?

Campbell didn’t get Miliband to expand on his economic policies and exactly what he was going to do with the economy….the best he got out of him was that Labour would protect scientific research and create high skilled and highly paid jobs…not saying how and where the money would come from.

Then Campbell asked about Miliband’s latest proposal on providing GP access…Campbell decided not to challenge him on this merely asking if Miliband had ‘sorted out the problems with that policy’ when it was last tried by Gordon Brown.

Miliband assured us that it was all good and that it was a no cost policy…..the savings made on cutting this government’s bureaucracy would pay for it.

Campbell didn’t question that…you might have thought he would as GPs themselves say the policy would cost £3 billion.

Ed Miliband’s promise to give all patients a “same-day consultation” and a guarantee of an early GP appointment was questioned this morning after the Royal College of GPs said the policy would cost £3 billion to implement.

 

Campbell’s final probing question was which of the leaders of the other parties would Miliband have a pint with?

The real question might be would any of them want to have a pint with Miliband?

All in all a pretty poor interview when elections are due in just over a week and the national election in a years time with Miliband campaigning hard already….Miliband wasn’t exactly on the ropes and must have traipsed away happy that he’d got away with it again.

I imagine Cameron, Clegg and Farage have been lined up for similar interviews…..wonder what treatment they will get, just how rigorous will the questioning be?