You’re either in front of Guido, or you’re behind…

Data Shows Cost-of-Living Crisis About to End

Guess the giant corporate BBC is a long way behind the tiny, but highly successful, Blogger

The Government has announced that wages are inching ahead of inflation.

The BBC’s own Iain Watson said that (from 12:10):

Labour’s figures on the economy go unchallenged…Labour is dominating the debate….This  is undoubtedly the political battleground .

Peter Kellner (YouGov) said…..‘This economic argument is absolutely central to who comes out of top at the election.’

So you kind of get the idea that the economic statistics are important….and that the BBC has allowed Labour’s propaganda to go unchallenged.

But Watson adds…

Will the government’s claim resonate with the public?  The Tory claim is obviously ‘so political’.

The Tory’s claim is ‘so political’...and Labour’s aren’t?

This is the crux of the problem with the BBC’s coverage of this debate, this so-called debate.

The BBC has entirely failed to challenge Miliband’s claim that there is a ‘cost of living crisis‘….they fail to challenge his narrative based on wages having fallen £1600 since 2010.

The BBC has recently taken to labeling any policy statement or announcement from Cameron or Osborne as ‘electioneering’ …or as above, ‘political’.  No such label is attached to Miliband’s statements.

Watson was otherwise pretty even handed it has to be said in his analysis…..his final word was that:

‘The Government are not overclaiming, it is just one piece of evidence that we are going in the right direction.’

In other words nothing to get really excited about…and yet we have had a day of relentless dissection of the Government’s claim…..hardly making a ripple in the newspapers….rapidly off the frontpages whilst it was top story until very late evening on the BBC Frontpage.

Why? Because this completely undermines Labour’s last remaining line of attack…the ‘cost of living crisis’…which in fact is just the usual ‘Marxist’ approach….so not even new.

Unfortunately when it comes to the broadsweep of events the BBC loses sight of such expert analysis as Watson provided and imposes the ‘Party line’ which seems to be remarkably always in Labour’s favour.  News bulletins report half the story or puts the emphasis on something that distorts the truth and presenters more often than not ignore the specialist reporter and continue to push their own interpretation of events.

The BBC cast aside its lack of interest in investigating Labour’s statistical claims today as the Government moved to put its side of the story:

‘The government has released figures which claim to show that real take-home pay has increased for most people in the last year.

Using the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE), the government said pay has increased for all but the top 10% of earners.

But how true is that? The answer, as so often, is that it depends on which data you look at.’

I’m not sure the BBC is so concerned with the ‘truth’ as with undermining the Government’s message.

The BBC  launched a massive operation to counter the Government’s ‘good news’ on the so called ‘cost of living crisis‘ that tells us that wages maybe inching ahead of inflation…it was relentless, all day long barrage of ‘analysis’ designed to cast doubt on the figures….no such barrage for Miliband’s ‘cost of living crisis’ claim.

The ‘good news’ is disastrous politically for Labour’s recent line of attack.  Having failed miserably in their attempts to promote ‘Plan B’ as a credible policy, heavily supported by the BBC, they were forced to change tactics and adopt the new line saying that there was a ‘cost of living crisis’...that being… since 2010 (note selective choice of date) wages had fallen behind inflation by £1600.

However…

This is what the IFS said last year (2013):

Once inflation is taken into account, real-terms pay has fallen by more since the recession began in 2008 than in any comparable five-year period, said the think-tank in a working paper for the magazine Fiscal Studies.
The research found that the period since 2008 has seen “the longest and deepest loss of output in a century” but that the downturn is different from previous slumps.
Productivity levels have fallen “to an unprecedented degree” but employment has held up far better than in previous recessions and inequality has declined, in sharp contrast to experiences in the 1980s.

Note that…‘real-terms pay has fallen by more since the recession began in 2008 than in any comparable five-year period,…the period since 2008 has seen “the longest and deepest loss of output in a century”….Productivity levels have fallen “to an unprecedented degree” ‘
Since 2008 not 2010.   Labour’s legacy.  Wages fell massively and will obviously struggle to catch up with pre-2008 rates.

And remember this from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation:

Always Interesting What The BBC Chooses to Highlight

Poverty (relative of course) is almost at a record low.

Living standards have been declining since 2003…not since 2010.

Fewer working adults were in poverty in 2011/12 than in 2008/09 under Labour.

Child poverty is lowest for 25 years.

Pensioner poverty at lowest in decades.

All ignored by the BBC’s report in favour of Labour’s narrative:

Most people classed as being in poverty ‘have job’

Which in itself is misleading…..for the JRF explains:

The fall in poverty among those in workless and retired families is obviously related to the fall in pensioner poverty.

In other words there isn’t a rise in families in work who are in poverty but a fall in out of work poverty changing the ratios.

The BBC tells us….’the number of working poor has steadily been rising for years.’

But hang on….the report tells us that there are 3,060,000 working adults in poverty in 2011/12…..but in 2008/09 there were 3,500,000 working adults in poverty.

Yep….3,500,000 in 2008/09……with a drop to 3,060,000 in 2011/12.

So there are in fact fewer numerically in poverty now….proportionately they have risen but that is a statistical quirk due to non-working people being taken out of poverty.

The ‘working adults in poverty rise’ has been a Labour line, used in PMQs by Miliband this week, and indeed by Lefty Jonathan Freedland given airtime on the BBC, coincidentally also this week, who claims….

‘A new challenge is growing, the growing number of people in work who are also facing poverty.
That’s the story today with a report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation showing that the number of working families in poverty has now outstripped those without employment.‘

And yet that’s an outright lie……as a quick read of the report, as shown above, would show.

It’s pure left wing propaganda, a Labour Party broadcast,  courtesy of the BBC.

However today, not only are the BBC rigorously challenging Government claims (‘But how true is that?’) but their journalistic instincts kicked in and they also set out to forensically dissect Miliband’s claims…here’s the indepth report:

That is another major problem with BBC reporting….whatever is said in the longer programmes is then condensed by the News bulletins, either deliberately or due to incompetence, in a manner that completely distorts the reality…the nuances and complexity, never mind the truth, are lost and the listener is left with something that will leave him badly informed, changing his perspective on events, and his subsequent actions such as voting, based on false information.

This is especially pernicious as most people probably get their news from these bulletins and haven’t time to listen to the longer, indepth analysis.

As the BBC has consistently all day led with the same headline you have to think it is the ‘party line’ they have agreed upon.

It is a curious thing that the criticism of a policy becomes the headline rather than the policy itself.

Finally the BBC is quick to report a speech to be given on Saturday by Ed Balls (Just as they were with Miliband’s speech last week for which they gave him two sets of headlines)….but they totally ignored Mark Carney’s statement that dismissed Miliband’s plans to cap bank market share as unworkable…considering he is the Governor of the Bank of England you might think they would think his views were worthy of note.

Ed Balls will pledge to ‘balance the books’ by 2020

Just wonder how much analysis from the BBC this will get.

There is this last word in the BBC report:

The last time the government ran an absolute budget surplus – meaning that it generated more in revenues, including tax yields, than it spent – was in 2001.

The UK has only balanced the books in seven out of the last 50 years.

aAslight note of scepticism?

Let’s hope that isn’t really the last word on this subject and Labour’s ‘pledge to balance the books’ doesn’t become an unchecked vote catching legend promoted by the BBC as the ‘cost of living crisis’ has become.

Via ‘Not a Sheep’:

A scientist who is not afraid to speak out against the consensus…the political consensus of the IPCC that is:

A submission “The views of an independent physicist” by Professor Pierre DARRIULAT 1 to the Energy and Climate Change Committee’s inquiry about the latest conclusions of the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Review (AR5)
Written evidence submitted by Professor Pierre Darriulat (IPC0049)

The inquiry recently launched by the House of Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee was brought to my attention by colleagues of mine who encouraged me to make my views· known to the Committee.
 
I am a physicist who contributed mostly to particle physics (from 1965 to 1995, at CERN where I served for seven years as Director of Research) but also to nuclear physics (1960 to 1964), condensed matter physics and material sciences (1996 to 1999) and astrophysics (2000 to present). A brief CV follows.
 
I submit for the Committee a text summarizing my views on the latest conclusions of the IPCC
and answering explicitly the questions being asked in the inquiry. I am not a climate scientist
and my interest in climate science is only ten years old. My only motivation is to serve science in general, and British science in particular, with a sense of my responsibility as a scientist and of the ethic that it implies. It goes without saying that the views expressed in the text are mine and do not commit anyone else. It would be an honour for me if they could be of help to the Committee and a ple.asure to have been of some help to my many friends and colleagues in the physics community of the United Kingdom.
 
 
CV for Pierre DARRIULAT
 
I was born in 1938, I entered Ecole Polytechnique when I was 18 and, after two years of military service in the French Navy, I studied at Orsay where I obtained my PhD when I was 27. The first six years of my research life were in the field of nuclear physics and shared between France (Saclay) and the US (Berkeley). I then moved to elementary particle physics and settled at CERN, Geneva, where I spent most of my life as a scientist. There I conducted several experiments, some of which are recognized as important steps in the progress of particle physics during the last third of the past century. In particular, I was spokesman of experiment UA2, one of the two experiments that simultaneously discovered the weak bosons and gave evidence for quarks and gluons being produced in the form of hadronic jets. This won me the award of Grand Prix of the French Academy where I was elected as corresponding member. For seven successive years, 1987 to 1994, I took the administrative load of CERN Director of Research. I then turned to condensed matter physics and studied RF superconductivity in niobium thin films. For thirteen years I have been living in Hanoi, Vietnam, where I have been· teaching quantum physics and particle physics at the National University of Education and where I am presently teaching, as an invited professor, astrophysics at the National University of Sciences. In Hanoi, I  have created a laboratory – called VATLY – for the study of astrophysics: first cosmic rays, in association with the Pierre Auger Observatory in Argentina, thanks in part to scientific material which I had been able to collect in Europe and in the States and later in radio astronomy, in collaboration with Observatoire de Paris and other laboratories abroad. I am doing my best to establish in VATLY a research team of international stature. In Vietnam, I became known for my action in favour of improving the level of higher education and of scientific research.
 
My scientific work is recognized by the international community. I have been invited to lecture in prestigious universities, such as Harvard and Cambridge; on two occc.sions (Leipzig 1984 and Glasgow 1994) I was asked to give the summary talk of the main conference in our field (so called Rochester conferences); I have been often asked to take part in, or chair, various committees dealing with scientific policy. I have been awarded a Honoris causa doctorate from Pavia University and was made Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur in 1997 in recognition of my scientific work. I have been awarded several prizes such as the Prix Joliot Curie in 1973, the· Prix du Commissariat á l’Energie atomique in 1987 and the Prix Andre Lagarrigue in 2008. I was
awarded two medals in recognition of my efforts in helping Vietnamese science, one from the Minister of Sciences and Technology, the other from the Vietnamese Physical Society. In 2007, I published a book (EDP Sciences) on the relations between science and philosophy, Reflexions sur Ia Science contemporaine.
 
Pierre Darriulat, 2013
 
A submission “The views of an independent physicist” by Professor Pierre DARRIULAT 1 to the Energy and Climate Change Committee’s inquiry about the latest conclusions of the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Review (AR5)
 
Summary
 
The AR5/WG1 IPCC report, and particularly the Summary for Policy Makers (SPM), conveys an alarmist evaluation of the influence on the climate of anthropogenic C02 emissions that does not properly reflect current scientific knowledge. This results in part from the ambiguity inherent with asking scientists to express themselves consensually on what they think is the best message. There is a need to produce a scientific summary addressed to scientists and giving an objective picture of our knowledge and ignorance in climate science, with emphasis on the issues that are less well understood and what it implies to clarify them. Such a summary should pay particular attention to a number of contentious issues that have been identified by a number of climate scientists who do not share the alarmist interpretation of the science. In the short term, the IPCC report weakens the case for taking urgent action. In the long term, it supports the importance of taking global warming as an important factor in decisions affecting the future of the planet, together with energy policy, management of natural resources, social, financial, economic and geopolitical considerations.
 
1.              Late September the IPCC published Climate Change 2013: the Physical Science Basis, a document of over 2200 pages, which will be read by very few people, and an accompanying “Summary for Policymakers” (SPM) of 36 pages, which will be the document that is generally read by politicians, officials and the media. In my opinion the main point to appreciate is that as it has the purpose of addressing policy makers, the SPM can not be a scientific document. When writing the SPM, the authors are facing a dilemma: either they speak as scientists and must therefore recognize that there are too many unknowns to make reliable predictions, both in the mechanisms at play and in the available data; or they try to convey what they “consensually” think is the right message but at the price of giving up scientific rigour. They deliberately chose the latter option. The result is they have distorted the scientific message into an alarmist message asking for urgent reaction, which is quite contrary to what the scientific message conveys.
 
 
2.              Most scientists who contribute to the IPCC work enjoy the intellectual integrity that is supposed to be inherent to scientific ethic. They are well aware of the high degree of uncertainty that is attached to their predictions. However, one should not have asked them to state what they think is the right message; or at least, one should not have asked them, as scientists, to do so. Doing so is a highly subjective exercise that depends heavily on the weight that one is prepared to give to the principle of precaution. Anyone who has responsibility understands that the principle of precaution is a good thing if it is used wisely. It is not surprising that most IPCC contributors prefer to stay away from the political debate, with which they do not feel at ease; it is natural that they think “I have done my job as a scientist, it is not up to me to take political decisions, but if you really insist, I   prefer to be on the safe side because I   do not think that it can harm to reduce our C02 emissions, while I   cannot exclude that it may harm to increase them to some high level”.

Of course, they think as scientists and are miles away from realizing that in fact it does harm when it leads to wasting enormous amounts of resources by taking wrong decisions, such as investing billions of dollar in electric cars or in large windmill farms, to quote just two examples. But these are problems of economics, which they consider not to be their business. Professor Judith Curry is rightly critical of the misleading impact of the concept of consensus the way it has been used by the SPM.
 
 
3.              What we are witnessing are successive distortions of the scientific message of the AR5 report on the Physical Science Basis: first from the report to the SPM by those who wrote and/or amended the SPM, then from the SPM to the press by those who speak in the name of the IPCC (including the IPCC chairman) then from the press to the general public by green activists who too often behave irresponsibly in misrepresenting the findings of the work.
 
 
4.               It is wise to pay attention to the possible damage that anthropogenic C02 emissions may imply for humanity. We have become conscious over half a century of the fragility of the planetary equilibrium that is necessary for our survival. Actions that may be necessary cannot· be decided in an atmosphere of panic and under the pressure of urgency. They require deep thinking and take time. In particular, they are strongly interconnected with other important issues of relevance, such as energy policy at the planetary scale and economic, financial, social and geopolitical considerations that are in constant evolution.
 
5.              It is sensible to ask for a scientific summary of the IPCC work, not addressing policy makers but as objective as possible a summary of the present status of our knowledge and ignorance about climate science. Such a report must refrain from ignoring basic scientific practices, as the SPM authors blatantly do when claiming to be able to quantify with high precision their confidence in the impact of anthropogenic C02 emissions on global warming. Statistical uncertainties, inasmuch as they are normally distributed, can be quantified with precision and it can make sense to distinguish between a 90% and a 95% probability, for example in calculating the probability of getting more than ten aces when throwing a die more than 10 times.

In most physical problems, however, and particularly in climate science, statistical uncertainties are largely irrelevant. What matters are systematic uncertainties that result in a large part from our lack of understanding of the mechanisms at play, and also in part from the lack of relevant data. In quantifying such ignorance the way they have done it, the SPM authors have lost credibility with many scientists. Such behaviour is unacceptable. A proper scientific summary must rephrase the main SPM conclusions in a way that describes properly the factors that contribute to the uncertainties attached to such conclusions.
 
 
6.              The issue of the 15 or so year pause in global temperature has not been properly addressed. Even if it is true that we are experiencing a simple hiatus, that more heat has been stored in the oceans than expected but will some day be released, that on a long time scale this will only be seen as a fluctuation, we have no serious basis for the argument. It is undeniable that the pause has come as a surprise in a context where anthropogenic C02 emissions keep increasing. It has obvious implications on factors that are not properly taken into account in the climate models. As such, it deserves a very critical study aiming at a proper evaluation of the uncertainties attached to predictions. This is what should be expected from a serious scientific approach. An indirect consequence may be that the warming which occurred in the latter part of the twentieth century is only partly the result of anthropogenic C02 emissions. If such were the case, it would affect the models in a way that has not been properly taken into account by the IPCC report. Moreover, the pause indicates that one should take one’s time before deciding on irreversible actions; should keep one’s head cool rather than panicking; and use the time efficiently to improve the models that are not consistent with observations.
 
 
7.               As a neutral scientist observing the climate debate, I  regret the harm that it does to the image of science with the general public. I recognise the existence of a significant number of competent and knowledgeable climate scientists, who refuse to have their results misused by irrational propaganda. I   note that they mostly express themselves with integrity and have to face unacceptable aggressiveness, including insults and ad hominem attacks, by those who· consider that they know better than them what the right message should be. While being by conviction a supporter of the precautionary principle and a defender of the preservation of the environment of the planet, I   am shocked by the unscientific attitude that prevails in green interpretations of the IPCC work. In such a context, I  consider that the IPCC scientists should feel morally compelled to produce a scientific summary of their work while refraining from giving the world a message. They should feel morally compelled to answer the legitimate objections that have been voiced by people such as Professor Curry, in particular in her April 2013 testimony to the US House of Representatives , or Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT, to quote only two of the most emblematic figures.  Specifically, the 2013 Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change: Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science , while intentionally written as a provocation, lists a number of questions, which IPCC should consider it a duty to answer scientifically, without using arguments of authority. The main points of contention might be, for example:-
 
 
              that climate models predict warming that has not occurred at all: atmospheric (>0. 3° over the past 15 years), oceanic (>0.2° since 2000), tropospheric (hot spot) and south-polar in the late twentieth century that they assume a sensitivity of 3° for a doubling of CO2 above pre-industrial values while at most 1° is observed that they underestimate by a factor of 3 surface evaporation caused  by increased·temperature that they wrongly assume the whole temperature rise since the beginning of the industrial revolution to have resulted from human co, emissions that they ignore internal oceanic climate oscillations such as the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation and Pacific Decadal Oscillation (El Nif\o/La Nina) that they ignore the incidence of the solar cycle on the cosmic ray flux and the resulting formation of clouds that they inadequately model cloud formation and aerosol induced changes. Now to answer specifically the questions the Committee:-

How robust are the conclusions in the AR5 Physical Science Basis report?
 
Have the IPCC adequately addressed criticisms of previous reports? How much scope is there to question of the report’s conclusions?
 
 
The AR5 report reviews a large amount of valuable work, including a significant part of which has been produced after the publication of the 2007 AR4 report. Its conclusions, as expressed in the Summary for Policy Makers (SPM), -are far from robust; address only partly criticisms of previous reports; and give a distorted view of the full report itself.
 
 To what extent does AR5 reflect the range of views among climate scientists? While it is easy to find a vast majority of scientists who consider that evaluating the potential danger of an excessive (whatever it means) emission of C02 is of utmost importance, they will usually recognize that our current knowledge prevents making reliable predictions and they will not see it as urgent to take decisions. However, in most cases, on the basis of their relying on the precautionary principle, they would mostly be for considering seriously ways to limit in the long term, our C02 emissions. They will agree that no decision should be taken under pressure, but should take due consideration for economic, financial, social and geopolitical considerations for which they do not claim particular competence (other than as ordinary citizens).
 
 
Can any of the areas of the science now be considered settled as a result of AR5’s publication, if so which? What areas need further effort to reduce the levels of uncertainty? A scientist will never claim that issues are definitely settled. However, it seems that issues concerning the dynamics of oceans and the complex roles of clouds are in the forefront of matters that need to be researched. Understanding better the north-south asymmetry or the so-called hot spot seem also issues requiring much immediate attention. Not being a climate scientist, however, I cannot give much weight to my assessment of the situation in this respect.
 
 
How effective is AR5 and the summary for policymakers in conveying what is meant by uncertainty in scientific terms? Would a focus on risk rather than uncertainty be useful? The way the SPM deals with uncertainties (e.g. claiming something is 95% certain) is shocking and deeply unscientific. For a scientist, this simple fact is sufficient to throw discredit on the whole summary. The SPM gives the wrong idea that one can quantify precisely our confidence in the model predictions, which is far from being the case.
 
 
Does the AR5 address the reliability of climate models? Even if it does it in several places in the report, it lacks too often the critical attitude that should be expected, sometimes eluding rather than facing embarrassing questions. The SPM does not address in a proper way the issue of the reliability of the climate models.
 
 
Has AR5 sufficiently explained the reasons behind the widely reported hiatus in the global surface temperature record? Of course not, how could it? One can only suggest hypotheses. The coming decade should help us with understanding much better what is most relevant.
 
 
Do the AR5 Physical Science Basis report’s conclusions strengthen or weaken the economic case for action to prevent dangerous climate change?
In the short term, it weakens the case for taking urgent action. In the long term, it supports the importance of taking global warming as an important factor in decisions affecting the. future of the planet, together with energy policy, management of natural resources, social, financial, economic and geopolitical considerations.
 
 
What implications do the IPCC’s conclusions in the AR5 Physical Science Basis report have for policy making both nationally and internationally? I  am not competent to answer this question (other than repeating what I  have already said).
 
 
Is the IPCC process an effective mechanism for assessing scientific knowledge? Or has it focussed on providing a justification for political commitment? The mission given to the IPCC of addressing policy makers rather than scientists has contributed to the deterioration of the quality of the climate debate up to a point that may well now be no return. One may claim today that it was predictable, but I   do not think that one could have predicted that it could reach such a depressingly aggressive and irrational level.
 
 
To what extent did political intervention influence the final conclusions of the AR5 PhysicalScience Basis summary? I  have no competence to comment on this point.
 
Is the rate at which the UK Government intends to cut C02 emissions appropriate in light of the findings of the IPCC AR5 Physical Science Basis report? I   have no competence to comment on this point.
 
 
What relevance do the IPCC’s conclusions have in respect of the review of the fourth Carbon Budget? I  have no competence to comment on that point.
 
December 2013

And perhaps look again at this from us:

We Think, Therefore It Is

The Coalition is far from perfect and I am no fan of either Party but credit where credit is due! However Labour needs us to believe that if there is economic growth, it is the wrong sort of growth. They need us to swallow the “cost of living crisis” now that they cannot sell us PLAN B. But when the Coalition then produces figures that at least indicate that INCOMES have risen ahead of inflation over the last year, the BBC leads with Labour denying this. Labour, of course, has little interest in INCOMES, for them it is all about WELFARE. Naturally, as Government seeks to reduce WELFARE then there will indeed be a “cost of welfare” crisis for the idle. But Labour spins this as if it applied to all working people and the BBC is VERY quick to run with this propaganda line. Shame on them. They have an obligation to be neutral, instead they shill for Miliband.

Good economic news! Quick, raise doubts and pour water on it so that “cost of living crisis” meme is unaffected! Over to you gang! A new Mark Carney approved Open Thread!

This from Bishop Hill…..where is the outrage at the intimidation and violence of the greens, including firing flares at police helicopters?  Why is ‘green’ thuggery and violence any different to any carried out for instance by the EDL during their protests?

More violence and intimidation from greens

The Mail is reporting that environmentalists are flocking to the iGas site at Barton Moss, where they are intimidating the locals, spitting at policemen and generally behaving badly.

[Chief Inspector] Roberts said the force had recorded offences of assault, damage, harassment of residents and workers, a flare fired at the police helicopter and threats to kill.

‘I attended a residents’ meeting last week and people there were close to tears and have had enough of this daily disruption to their lives,’ he continued.

‘Locals, who initially supported the protesters, out walking their dogs and driving down Barton Moss Road have been approached by protesters in balaclavas and have been questioned by them, which has been extremely intimidating.

This is perhaps a good moment to ask ourselves whether the BBC has ever made a programme critical of environmentalism or environmentalists.

Hope the BBC still have hooman rights lawyer, Phil Shiner, on speed dial…he is needed right now….

Blasphemy case: Briton in Pakistan sentenced to death

A court in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi has sentenced a 65-year-old British man to death after convicting him of blasphemy.

Mohammad Asghar was arrested in 2010 after writing letters to various people claiming to be a prophet, reports say.

His lawyers argued for leniency saying he has a history of mental illness, but this was rejected by a medical panel.

Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy laws carry a potential death sentence for anyone deemed to have insulted Islam.

 Mr Asghar is believed to have been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and had treatment at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Edinburgh, but the court did not accept his medical reports from the UK, reports say.

Sentenced to death for claiming to be a prophet eh?

Obviously a crime that makes planning to terrorise ‘The West’ pale into insignificance…..I just hope Shiner doesn’t get distracted from his humanitarian mission to free Guantanamo inmates and Taliban ‘insurgents’ by this petty, trivial little example of Islamophobia.

Curiously the first I heard of this case was, well 2 minutes ago….not heard anything on the radio at all.

Perhaps being white I didn’t ‘hear’ the BBC reporting it because I just didn’t recognise the suffering and persecution that other ethnicities go through and blank it from my mind in a fit of subconscious racism.

Or maybe the BBC bulletins never bothered to report it.

Yep…it’s the second, just checked the iPlayer…not in Today’s running order and certainly wasn’t in the news bulletins.

Strange really…such an obviously unjust case, and one with an extreme sentence…..and he has been held since 2010.

Where has been the BBC’s coverage…similar to that it gives to the residents of Guantanamo Bay…who often aren’t even British but merely resident here?

You do wonder at the culture that prevailed at the BBC. When did it change, I wonder?

An alleged victim of Dave Lee Travis said when she worked at the BBC in the mid-1970s ‘it was common practice to have tongues down your throat, tongues in your ear, bums being squeezed’.

The woman, who claims the veteran DJ pinned her up against a wall and groped her while presenting his Radio 1 show, said she learned to deal with the ‘unwanted attention’ the longer she worked there. She also told jurors at Southwark Crown Court that when she tried to complain about Travis’ alleged behaviour, the corporation ignored her and ‘slammed the door’ in her face.

 

Biased BBC contributor Daniel Pycock writes…

“I’ve written before on this blog about the BBC’s relentless promotion of comprehensive schooling – the worst education system the UK has hitherto had: http://biasedbbc.tv/blog/2013/12/23/the-bbc-on-education-ignore-the-evidence-believe-ofsted/

Now they’re promoting Anthony Seldon’s unworkable reform whereby parents would have to pay £15,000-£20,000 per annum per child to educate their children at “good state schools”. The article at least addresses the fact that selection is by money, rather than ability nowadays. But the lack of criticism is astounding: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-25798659

In what sense it it fair to charge a family already paying in the region of £32,000 (income tax), and more including National Insurance and indirect taxation, £15,000 per-annum for schooling at an arbitrary £80,000 cut-off point? A family that earns £79,999 pays nothing and then you get hit with a de facto tax at £80,000 household income? This is clearly not thought through properly.

That doesn’t stop the BBC however, which is so anti-grammar school and free-school that it literally prints any article in favour of unworkable reforms to save its pet-obsession: comprehensive schools.

P. S. The BBC will not let me comment on the article thus far – wonder why that is…?”

I knew this woman had said the BBC had ignored her complaint about Dave Lee Travis….I assumed it was a complaint made at the original time of the alleged offence….however, incredibly that’s not so….even as Savile’s actions were being publicised the BBC still buried its head in the sand….

From the Telegraph:

Very, very funny today on Today…Justin Webb stunned before a prolonged squealing of indignation whined its way out of him.

They’re talking about racism in the acting business and why Black actors apparently have to go to the US to get work.

Black actor Gary Beadle says that we are in denial….’There is’, he said…Webb interrupts to suggest ‘racism’…Beadle says…’No…more ‘institutional attitudes’ [racism then]…and it’s ‘rampant in the Arts’.’

Which is on one level funny/ironic…because of course it’s the ‘Arts’ mob that is always taking the high  ground on moral issues…when we know they are as bad, if not worse than everyone else….Russell Brand springs to mind for instance.

Then Simon Albury,  diversity co-ordinator for the Arts (to promote, celebrate and share good practice around the diversity agenda) spoke up….he laid into the BBC…

Having walked through the BBC’s news room  ( with the posters of George Bush as Hitler?) , in the middle of London, when London is 40% black and minority ethnic, he saw one Asian who was there merely to bring guests in, otherwise the news room was fully white, behind him was a control booth, in it were 6 white men and 1 white woman….it’s clear, he said, that the broadcasting,  film and creative industries cannot be trusted to deliver (diversity).

Webb lost it then, his beloved BBC under attack and he in turn attacked Albury….hardly able to get the words out he said:  ‘You’re head of the diversity organisation and you’re white…’

The meaning of that was perfectly clear…if you’re white you cannot possibly make a judgement about racial discrimination…because of course being white you must in fact be a racist.

Well…that’s a bit racist in itself….and it begs the question what colour does Justin Webb think he is himself?  Does he have no mirrors in his house?  And yet he quite happily sets up his little kangaroo court day in day out ‘judging’ various things about which he has little real experience.

Albury counters…‘It is ironic you’ve invited me here instead of Trevor Phillips or Lenny Henry’.

Webb…‘Well you needn’t have accepted’.

So there…

Well…perhaps someone has to stand up and make some noise because if you’re Black and complain you may not work in this here BBC town again…..

Patrick Robinson, who has appeared in television series such as Casualty, claimed that he was ostracised by one of the BBC’s executives for almost a decade after he spoke out about the lack of opportunities for black actors.

For the BBC, the consideration of equality and diversity is vital. Strong reach and share, high quality programming and high audience appreciation across all our output are essential to the continued success of the BBC and we recognise diversity as a creative opportunity that enhances the originality and distinctiveness of our output and drives innovation. One of the BBC’s core values is ‘working together’ and to us that’s just as important beyond as well as within the BBC. Working in collaboration with other broadcasters and media sector bodies has helped the CDN establish a clear common vision of what good looks like – in terms of increased diversity on and off screen. The job now is to find practical and creative ways to make that happen and to build on work already undertaken. It will only be by our continuing to work together that we will make the most sustained impact.

Diversity website at the BBC

Oona King was more impressed  by Albury….

Oona King, now Baroness King of Bow, paid tribute to Albury’s championing of diversity in broadcasting, and said that his legacy included being “at the forefront” of the establishment of the industry’s Cultural Diversity Network. “He was persistently coming up with ideas to unlock the unyielding grip white men had on the broadcasting industry,” King recalled. “I love white men, I think they are so great I married one … I think they are wonderful, But I felt they shouldn’t be the only group in charge of TV.”

But is it all to do with ‘race’?

Black actors complain of being stereotyped in the UK…however similar complaints are made by white actors who go to the US:

Oscar-winning actress Dame Helen Mirren has complained about British actors being typecast as villains.

‘‘I think it’s rather unfortunate that the villain in every movie is always British, we’re such an easy target that they can comfortably make the Brits the villains.

Speak to some producers working in US television and they will admit cost is an issue.

Cheap labour

“More value-for-money, that’s really what it is. If they wanted someone experienced and I was American, they’d pay a lot of money – and I’d be better known, I suppose. We’re cheaper.”

English actor James Purefoy, who played Mark Antony in Rome, believes the network of British actors is perceived by American colleagues as cheap labour.

“We are often referred to in Los Angeles as white Mexicans,” he told an audience of British hopefuls at a seminar on how to make it in America.

Then there’s the fact of life as an actor…you’re mostly just ‘resting’…..

As we mentioned in a previous article, it’s a fact that at any one time around 90% of actors are out of work, and only 5% of the remaining ten percent make a living from doing just acting alone.

There’s clearly only a small pool of successful actors and decent jobs out there….only 0.5% of actors can make ‘a living’ purely from acting.

So there’s a massive amount of competition out there treading the boards…so just how far should the special pleading and positive discrimination go?

Though this is a fair question…

As some one new to acting , being an ethnic minority, has been an interesting position.
I look at some of the roles advertised as white, Caucasian( another name used to describe non ethnic minorities) and think does that role need to be for a white Caucasian person?
For instance, a fitness instructor, the advert says must be white, why?

This issue has been making headlines for a while now……..here’s a Guardian article from Feb. 2012:

Why black British actors are heading for the US

This from The Stage in 2011:

‘Talent drain’ warning as black actors head to the US

TV and theatre is suffering from a talent drain of black British actors, with many looking to the US for work because of the lack of opportunities in the UK, leading figures have warned.

Webb’s reaction to criticism of the BBC was classic BBC…an unwillingness to accept it, usually it is either laughed off as ‘ridiculous nonsense’ or, as here, they get very tetchy.

Of course all the more enjoyable to see the self proclaimed ‘great and the good’, BBC included,  pilloried for what the BBC considers the most heinous crime…racism.