Last day of January and a final Open Thread of the month! It’s been a busy month here on Biased BBC to welcome in 2014 and my sincere thanks to all my fellow writers and above all to you, dear reader, for coming here and sharing your thoughts on the BBC.

Mickey Clark on Wake Up To Money woke up to a nightmare.

Normally he blithely ignores everything his guests tell him and continues with his pro-Labour spiel.

Tell him repeatedly that Japan pumped billions into its economy and he will immediately say that Japan of course didn’t stimulate its economy and look what happened….subtext…Osborne should have been using ‘Plan B’ and spent like mad.

Tell him business is picking up and exports are growing positively and he will say of course the recovery is on dodgy ground…any growth is based on unsustainable consumer spending and borrowing.

Tell him employment is rising and it’s a puzzle to him, it just can’t be possible.

Today he got hit straight between the eyes, repeatedly, and forgot to duck. (from 18 mins 10 s)

Price Waterhouse Cooper have released a report into corporate tax and stated to what must be Clark’s great dismay, that the reason the government coffers were a bit light was because of a fall in North Sea Oil revenue….but…but…but…surely it’s because they’re all tax dodgers? the BBC opined….or rather….ahem…aggressive tax planners.

No…PWC said firmly…it’s because of a fall in North Sea Oil production. Choke.

So all the controversy about corporation tax, usually driven by the grandstanding Margaret Hodge (Labour), was mostly baloney.

PWC also said that because of the international nature of business and the difficulty of collecting tax  based on profits from international companies, and the fact that a profits tax distorts investment,  governments are moving to make up the shortfall with labour, property and other taxes as these can’t be off shored….and importantly provide a stable tax income and attractive tax regime for companies wanting to locate here….and which, though paying less corporate tax, as there are more companies the take will eventually go up.

This from 2013:

Corporation tax made up just a third of big companies’ tax bills in 2012, down from half in 2005, according to a report by finance directors from the Hundred Group……..[but] their overall tax payments rose by 19 per cent between 2005 and 2012, they said.

Although the amount of corporation tax paid had fallen by 17 per cent, other tax payments had increased by 58 per cent over the same period.

Andrew Bonfield, chairman of the tax committee of the Hundred Group, said the changes reflected the policy of successive governments looking for stable tax revenues and economic growth.

“We’re in the middle of a well trailed programme for reducing the rate of corporation tax while other business taxes, such as employer’s national insurance contributions and irrecoverable VAT, have risen,” he said. “These other taxes tend to be easier to collect and less volatile since they’re not dependent on profits.”

The intense public interest in corporate tax, fuelled by accusations by MPs about the tax planning undertaken by multinationals such as Amazon, Google and Starbucks, was at times ill-informed and risked sending a negative message that would undermine the government’s efforts to attract business to the UK, the committee said in its report.

…and the uptick in National insurance tax revenue shows employment figures are being confirmed and wages outstrip inflation…at least in the top 100 companies.

Another BBC myth falls….two in fact right there.

And another….Ian Steely fund manager at J.P. Morgan Asset Management also undermined one of Clark’s cherished ‘truths’…..

China is trying to control its economy and stop it overheating…..by reining in exports and encouraging domestic consumer spending…..must be a bit of a shock to Clark who thinks domestic consumer spending is not a sensible policy…only exports can boost GDP.

Mark Goldring, Oxfam’s chief exec…..Jewish?

If so bit of an irony all considered….Perhaps he should boycott himself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxq4ziu-wrI

The BBC’s report on Oxfam getting dumped by its star face is pretty light on the important facts:

Scarlett Johansson quits Oxfam role over SodaStream row

This is how it wraps up:

The company’s chief executive, Daniel Birnbaum, said his factory was “a model for peace”.

“We’re very proud to be here and contribute to the co-existence and hopefully the peace in this region,” he told Reuters news agency.

However, away from the factory, Reuters quoted one unnamed Palestinian employee as saying “there’s a lot of racism” at work.

“Most of the managers are Israeli, and West Bank employees feel they can’t ask for pay rises or more benefits because they can be fired and easily replaced,” he added.

Really? A racist factory?  Any facts to back that up?  Any BBC reporter on the ground?  Or is it just random anti-Israeli abuse?

Funny how one of the world’s biggest news gathering media corporations can miss this:

Arab SodaStream workers applaud their CEO

The Forward went to the SodaStream factory in Mishor Adumim and spoke to the CEO, Daniel Birnbaum.

He shows that he is far more pro-Palestinian than all of the “pro-Palestinian activists” combined.
[T]hough he wouldn’t have opened the factory at its current site, Birnbaum said that its presence here is now a reality, and he won’t bow to political pressure to close it — even though the company is about to open a huge new plant in the Negev, within Israel’s internationally-recognized boundaries, which will replicate all functions of the West Bank plant, and dwarf it.

The reason for staying is loyalty to approximately 500 Palestinians who are among the plant’s 1,300 employees, Birnbaum claimed. While other employees could relocate on the other side of the Green Line if the plant moved, the West Bank Palestinian workers could not, and would suffer financially, he argued.

“We will not throw our employees under the bus to promote anyone’s political agenda,” he said, adding that he “just can’t see how it would help the cause of the Palestinians if we fired them.”

“We are making history for the Palestinian people and the Israeli people,” he told them in Hebrew, followed by a translator who rendered his comments into Arabic. Birnbaum reassured the workers about their jobs and said he wanted to bring “more and more hands” into the factory as SodaStream grows.

The Palestinians applauded these comments. But then Birnbaum added with a flourish: “Scarlett Johannson would be proud of you!” And at the sound of Johannson’s name — even before the translation — applause among the assembly of mostly male, 30-something Palestinian workers burst out again, palpably louder.

During discussions between a Forward reporter and about a half-dozen of these Palestinian employees, conducted out of earshot of Israeli managers, none complained of labor abuses, or of receiving pay below the Israeli minimum wage. Asked about the calls by anti-occupation activists to boycott SodaStream, one spoke about the dearth of jobs in the Palestinian Authority economy.

So who cares more about Palestinian Arabs – SodaStream or the Israel haters?

Nothing like a bit of hypocrisy from Oxfam…guess money talks……

Sainsbury’s recycling centres across the country receive the highest volume of donations for Oxfam in the UK beyond its own shops.

Some more hypocrisy from the Guardian and an Indian Marxist:

Vijay Prashad…an Indian….a Marxist….what does he have to say about the Indian Caste system?  What does he say about the way India occupies and terrorises Kashmir if you believe Pakistan?

What does he make of ‘Pakistan’….a piece of India stolen and occupied by Muslims having driven out the Hindus and Sikhs and in which no Christian or Amahdiya Muslim can feel safe?

How about the Pakistan that funds its proxy army in Afghanistan…the Taliban..the same Taliban that is killing Afghans and Allied troops? The Paskistan that essentially occupied Afghanistan and stripped it of its industry and wealth?

How about the Pakistan that has hundreds of terrorist training camps churning out terrorists who head off to India or Kashmir to do their worst with the blessing of Pakistani Intelligence?

Boycott Pakistan?  Or India?  Life is complicated eh?

Never mind the murderous Palestinian Hamas and Fatah organisations.

Oh so different a couple of years ago when the Guardian was happy to take a upbeat look at Soda Stream……..

The 1980s DIY drinks machine has been given a revamp by green designer Yves Béhar. He tells us why eco is the only way.

Ironically, the situation is the opposite in Britain: London’s design scene is thriving, but there’s little manufacturing in the UK to benefit from all that talent. SodaStream, a British invention and for decades a British-owned brand, is only getting its eco-crusading revamp now it’s been acquired by an Israeli private equity group.

If more designers thought like Béhar, perhaps they’d be allowed to fix big problems, too.

DB has already picked up on the Scarlett Johansson story and I see you have all been commenting on it. There was one additional element to the story that irritated me and it is this bit..from the BBC report…

“Actress Scarlett Johansson has quit as an ambassador for Oxfam amid a row over her support for an Israeli company that operates in the occupied West Bank.”

WHERE? Do they mean Judea/Samaria? How can Israel “occupy” it’s own land, exactly? I can understand Palestinians using such language but for the BBC to parrot it is surely indicative of bias.

The BBC then adds…

The settlements are considered illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this.

It’s not just Israel that “disputes” this “consideration”, BBC.

Scarlett Johansson’s admirable decision to sever ties with Oxfam over its criticism of her adverts for Israeli company SodaStream has led one BBC World Service journalist to declare his shame at owning one of the products:

I'm not proud of this. pic.twitter.com/emztKNII5D

— Roland Hughes (@hughesroland) January 30, 2014

Yeeucch.

Update. Tweet deleted. Here’s the screengrab for posterity:

You gotta just love this:

That must bug the hell out of all those liberal bleeding hearts  ensconced in the bowels of the BBC plotting the revolution….or just another trendy arts programme (with climate change propaganda subtly threaded through it).

Top Gear if Roger Harrabin was editing

The Redneck (yes even James May…under that long hair he’s got a red neck) petrol heads bulldozer the lefty propaganda that the BBC fills 90% of airtime with.

Top Gear if Mark Easton was editor…how to smuggle Romanians into the UK

You have to ask if Top Gear is what the People want why does the BBC hand new presenter Laura Kuenssberg a £200,000-a-year deal on a  show with only 600,000 viewers?

And give Paxo £800,000?  Is he interested anymore?  Are we that interested in him?

More Top Gear less Snoozenight!

As picked up by George R in an Open Thread…

Newsnight’s new presenter has been offered a £200,000-a-year contract to lure her away from ITV, it has emerged. Laura Kuenssberg, a BBC veteran who is currently the business editor at ITV, is set to become Newsnight’s chief correspondent next month. It was today reported that she would be earning a salary of £200,000 to appear on the programme, whose average audience has slipped in recent years to just 600,000 viewers.

From Our Own Correspondent rolls on in its own inimical style.

FOOC had a little report on the Holocaust and education in Israel…it started off as if it was just a human interest story bringing us the lives of Israelis and the meaning perhaps of the Holocaust and how it still touches their lives….much as the BBC brings us the  heartwarming or heartstring plucking tales from Palestinians or asylum seekers.

You soon realised that was not to be here…as soon as the BBC stated that there was a ‘row’ over the Holocaust education you knew what had attracted the BBC’s attention to this story.

The BBC gleefully tells  us that Holocaust education in Israel is traumatising children.

Those Jews eh!

But hold the frontpage…..there is actually, for once, a good news story on the BBC about Israel….

Start-up nation

Rory Cellan-Jones on Israel’s new wave of tech innovators

I’m in Israel for four days, visiting what’s been called the “start-up nation” to film a piece which will be shown on BBC World in mid February. But along the way I’m going to give some random first impressions of what I’ve seen on my travels.

Will be interesting to see the overall tone of the finished programme.

And finally from FOOC we have Chris Bockman in Toulouse who discovers that the municipal bathhouse has become a virtual community centre.

Bockman manages to slip in a ‘fact’ that it is now the ‘working poor’ who use the public showers now as they are too poor to own a home.

I’m sure France is awash with ‘working poor’ living in their cars as he suggests…but then that would be the result of Hollande’s economic policies….as recommended by our very own Ed Miliband.

No coincidence this littlesnippet reminding us of the plight of the poverty stricken working poor came in the week that Jonathan Freedland was banging away about it on his programme on Tuesday and then surprise surprise Miliband raises the subject in PMQs.

Nothing like keeping a narrative running however under the radar the ‘nudges’ might be.

Here you go, a new Open Thread for you to complete!

Here’s the BBC’s take on the economy:

We’ve got some really good growth….but it’s based on Services….which means ‘consumer spending’ the BBC tells us…which, as consumers have no money (cost of living crisis!) and no savings, must be funded by borrowing…which is unsustainable…therefore the recovery is built on sand….it’s the wrong sort of growth!

Trouble is…’Services’ doesn’t just consist of Retail…Services are an industry in their own right…We were told they don’t produce anything today by a BBC ‘expert’ journo….which of course is bollocks….what would you call software (Microsoft), art, music, media, education, mechanics, designers, architects….even journalists?  They all produce a product….and apart from that, ‘Services’ must service something…presumably at the request of somebody who needs them…..like ‘Industry’ which produces the physical products….which might suggest those industries are also picking up.

And as for ‘Retail’…well it has to sell something…therefore it has to have a product…one made in a factory, designed by someone, transported by a man in a lorry, put on the shelves by shop staff…and as for the money to buy it…who says it comes from borrowing?…where is the BBC’s proof?  So far it seems just a statement of ‘fact’ based purely on wishful thinking (on Mickey Clark’s part) and speculation.

Never mind that retail isn’t booming to any great extent….we heard that people are still being very careful with their money and doing their research for the best prices before buying…doesn’t sound like an irresponsible rush to bankruptcy does it?

Curiously the BBC (and Labour) ignore the businesses that say, and have been saying for a longtime now, that in fact they are doing very well thankyou and they think the future looks bright.

Phone in after phone in on the BBC businesses say they are doing well….I haven’t heard a  negative one yet.

And what of that great employment puzzle that the BBC always raised to cast doubt on the ever rising employment figures (as well as dismissing them as part time, temporary, or low grade)?  You know, the BBC says….it is just inexplicable that employment is going up in a such a terrible recession.

They did speculate momentarily that it could be that the economy was in fact doing much better than the figures suggested…but they laughed that off.

The answer they decided was that industry was unproductive, underperforming.

But that raises the question, yes employers might want to keep on skilled staff on lower wages (which of course means they are still productive…as costs go down), but why would they employ more if they were already so unproductive with underemployed staff?

The answer of course, if the BBC had cared to ask, is that many businesses were doing well and so not only kept on staff but employed more…and new businesses started up also employing more people.

Today we heard of a website design company that started up in 2009, right at the heart of the bust…..it initially employed 4 people…so that’s 4 to start with…it now employs 13.

How many more of these small companies stared up and succeeded…must be many out there providing those ‘mysterious’ jobs?

The BBC didn’t bother seeking out the answer because it didn’t suit the narrative that the employment figures, and the economic success that suggested was all smoke and mirrors about to collapse as Plan A and Austerity ‘kills the patient’ as Evan Davis (amongst others at the BBC) kept telling us it would.

What really amuses me is that Micky Clark on Wake Up To Money bangs on relentlessly that this is a recovery based on low interest rates and easy credit funding an unsustainable consumer boom and a housing bubble….which he tells us  ‘is what led to the recession in the first place’….you can question his analysis of the present growth but he ain’t wrong about the cause of Labour’s ‘Great Recession’….and it wasn’t the fabled Cable’s ‘Casino Investment Banks’…it was retail banks (like RSB and Northern Rock) lending out too much money and doling out cheap mortgages to people who couldn’t afford them, here and in the US, who laid the foundations for the bust.

…the truth is out there then……but strange he never mentions who was responsible for all that cheap credit and slack regulation of the financial services.