‘ …a sobering and disturbing tale, and a reminder that intelligence and a lifelong devotion to “truth” is no protection whatever against believing that the most brutal, stupid, dangerous and unethical ideology is the greatest achievement of mankind.’  Philosophy’s shameful love

Three examples of where the BBC reports something in a different way depending on what ‘narrative’ it is trying to push…..

Firstly….

The BBC’s Matt McGrath was quick to try an exploit a report from the GWPF and turn it to his advantage….despite, when you read it, there being little in its contents that bare much resemblance to claims made in McGrath’s imaginative report.

McGrath preferring to massage the truth in favour of his own ideological prejudices has by comparison completely ignored another report by the GWPF and Michael Gove’s response.

The Daily Mail does report events:

Heads are breaking the law if they preach eco agenda, warns Gove: Education Secretary’s ‘concern’ at report that accuses ‘activist’ teachers

Plans to curb wind turbines onshore will push up electricity bills

Secondly:

When energy firms put up their prices they made a claim that the green levy was a major consideration and burden on them…this was of course pooh pooed by those with vested interests in maintaining the momentum of the green agenda by making fossil fuels more expensive, artificially loading them with extra taxes to make renewables seem cheap….but of course they have to hide the amount of subsidy the renewables get to make that possible.

Helpfully the BBC has long ignored or downplayed the enormous subsidies going to windfarms and other green renewable energy generators.  More often than not fossil fuel or nuclear are pictured as vastly more expensive, not to mention dangerous.

How strange then that the BBC, in the shape of Matt McGrath, is now very concerned about the effect that restricting the building of windfarms will have on energy prices….

Plans to restrict wind farms to seas around Britain will need much larger subsidies from consumers, experts say.

So….not interested in the vast costs of directly funding windfarms when they are being built but suddenly is interested when windfarms aren’t being built…then, oddly, not subsidising them is going to cost us more.

Harrabin joins in the chorus of propaganda for onshore:

Journalism or green lobbying?

Roger Harrabin has a theory...and it is only a theory because he offers no proof (who needs proof when you are on a crusade?)…..Pickles has banned windfarms because of the right wing press…..

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles has staged a minor coup over coalition energy policy.

Conservative newspapers have been demanding a cap on onshore wind farms, but the Lib Dems have refused to agree…..the Liberal Democrats, accused him of playing politics….

However even McGrath doesn’t come up with that fantasy (and the BBC itself has frequently blamed ‘rightwing Tory backbenchers’ for this policy change)……

Newspaper reports suggest that the Conservative Party will include a pledge to limit onshore turbines in next year’s election manifesto.

Long unpopular among some Conservative MPs from rural constituencies, onshore wind turbines appear to have incurred the wrath of the Prime Minister as well.

Which paper does McGrath link to there?…er…the right wing Guardian….

And what does the Guardian say?:

The south-west is home to a large number of onshore windfarms and marginal Tory-Lib Dem seats.

 Asked by the Western Morning News whether plans to curb wind farms would feature in his party’s manifesto, Shapps said: “The wind is moving in a clear direction here.”

Ah…so marginal Tory seats….in other words Tory MPs working the maths out for themsleves unaided by a rabid right wing Press….ban windfarms and get more votes.

Presumably the Western Morning News is not an example of that rabid right wing Press…and yet it is asking questions about a ‘cap’.

Just another example of Harrabin confusing his personal prejudice with news and journalism.

Here Harrabin is more interested in the politics than the facts:

A third example of the BBC’s hypocrisy and the tortured manipulation of the facts to fit their agenda….

China has long been held up as the poster child of the green renewables initiative, despite building a coal power station every week.

China is the new Go-Green Model

We have been told that such developing nations must be allowed to generate massive amounts of CO2 in order that they can industrialise…it’s only fair that they be allowed to catch up with the West.

What’s odd about that is of course that we are frequently told that we have ‘x’ number of months to save the planet…cut CO2 or we will fry.

100 months to save the world

How does that work….a desperate and dangerous time when belching out CO2 is destroying the planet…..and yet China et al are to be allowed to pump out …CO2.

Here’s the latest from the IPCC….

[The IPCC] warns that governments are set to crash through the global CO2 safety threshold by 2030. Humans have tripled CO2 emissions since 1970, it says – and emissions have been accelerating rather than slowing.

Sounds apocalyptic doesn’t it?  And yet…China is the Green’s poster boy for renewables…

…why?  Because to justify allowing China to generate all that CO2 the apologists have to find something to excuse that ‘polluting’ of the planet…..and it is polluting apparently….Harrabin is quite firm in that belief:

[Harrabin should really stop Tweeting]

But back in the UK or the West, the fingers point at, for example, our vehicle use and how polluting that is…….when people suggest China has vastly more vehicles the point is made that that’s OK because when you look at it as cars per head of population China has far fewer cars than Western countries…not more ‘in absolute terms’….so that’s OK.

or is it?

The report, seen by BBC News, warns that transport will become the biggest source of CO2 emissions unless politicians act firmly.

Act firmly…but let China et al have what they want.

Contrast the approach when a climate change advocate is trying to extol the virtues and the capacity of wind energy in China….suddenly the relatively tiny wind generated energy shouldn’t be compared ‘per head’ so to speak, but in absolute terms…and then it is permissible to  compare it to Europe’s own generation capacity…which of course is allegedly smaller…so good for China…….

A more fundamental question is the likely contribution of wind power to China’s insatiable demand for energy.

The most recent figures, for 2012, show that wind only generated 2% of the country’s electricity. Coal, the largest contributor, generated 75%.

However, since China’s total generation is more than that of all European Union countries combined, wind’s percentage is large in absolute terms.

So…hurray…China is leading the world in green renewable energy…er…in absolute terms…not in comparison to the polluting, dirty, filthy fossil fuel energy it actually produces…but never mind ignore that when convenient.

And then maybe not even in ‘absolute terms’….. in the comments to the BBC report someone begs to differ and suggests China is not as productive as the BBC claims:

84.

Roberto Lacal
9th January 2014 – 20:59

Well, hasn’t the BBC been swooning at the visits by Sinn Fein leader Martin McGuinness to a few events with Her Majesty this past week? And the BBC now even comes out with the line that McGuinness WAS indeed  a “former IRA commander”. The curious bit is this; these world class journalists NEVER think to ask just what did he command when he was in a senior position with this terror group. How odd. Almost as if….

It’s not that long ago since Comrade Ed Miliband was pushing the Co-Op bank as the template for all banks. Naturally time has proven him to be disastrously wrong and this morning comes the news that the Co-op Bank has lost £1.3 billion. It has also paid its CEO £2.9m pay package and £1.2m bonus.  And yet, had you tuned into the TODAY programme on BBC Radio 4 this morning just after 7am. you would have heard a surreal attempt to play this catastrophic state of affairs down. Evan Davies (I think) repeated the idea that this scale of loss “had been pretty much as expected” and that the CEO’s massive payout can’t be attacked because he was not in charge when the losses were made. It was an incredible sanitisation of Miliband’s preferred banking model which contrasts so strongly with how the BBC deal with banks such as Barclays. Bias? You can bank on it.

Good Morning everyone. Friday arrives and with it this new OPEN THREAD for your use. Detail the bias here please!

Been looking at Jo Nova’s site and read her thankyou to the likes of Roger Harrabin for their part in her success after winning the ‘Bloggies’ Lifetime Achievement award:

She said:

I’d like to thank especially, the Mainstream Media, without which I would have hardly any traffic. I dedicate this win today to the science journalists in the ABC, BBC, CBC, CBS or CNN, and to Roger Harrabin, Andy Revkin and George Monbiot — all of whom make it so easy for skeptical blogs to flourish. Their promotion of logical fallacies, one-sided reports, and rank name-calling paves the way, en masse for hundreds of thousands of disappointed, thoughtful, inquisitive readers to hunt online for something better.

If science journalists were good scientists or good journalists skeptical blogs would not be one of the largest single categories on the world wide web.

No need to add any more to that really except a reminder that it was climate sceptic websites that pretty much swept the board……

Best European Weblog: Tallbloke’s Talkshop tallbloke.wordpress.com—
The Weblog Awards (@Bloggies) March 31, 2014

Best Canadian Weblog: Small Dead Animals smalldeadanimals.com—
The Weblog Awards (@Bloggies) March 31, 2014

Best Weblog About Politics: The Global Warming Policy Foundation thegwpf.org—
The Weblog Awards (@Bloggies) March 31, 2014

Best Topical Weblog: Climate Audit climateaudit.org—
The Weblog Awards (@Bloggies) March 31, 2014

Best Group or Community Weblog: Watts Up With That? wattsupwiththat.com—
The Weblog Awards (@Bloggies) March 31, 2014

Lifetime Achivement: JoNova joannenova.com.au—
The Weblog Awards (@Bloggies) March 31, 2014

Weblog of the Year: Watts Up With That? wattsupwiththat.com See you next year!—
The Weblog Awards (@Bloggies) March 31, 2014

 

 

More evidence of the baleful effect of the BBC upon our world……using research gathered by the BBC politicians are out to ban the humble baked bean from the world.

Yet another attack on the working man’s pleasure by the champagne socialists of the BBC liberali….whilst it’s left to the ‘out of touch’ Tories to support the bingo playing, beer drinking, baked bean feasting working man.

A hereditary peer has asked the government if it takes into account flatulence caused by baked beans in its climate-change calculations.

Labour’s Lord Simon said: “In a programme some months ago on the BBC it was stated that this country has the largest production of baked beans and the largest consumption of baked beans in the world.”

To laughter from peers, he added: “Could the noble baroness say whether this affects the calculation of global warming by the government as a result of the smelly emission resulting there from?”

They’ve hounded out of existence the populist News of the World, they’re trying to ban page three, they want to ban your motors, whatever next?  The TV?

Oh…er…maybe not.

Have no fear bean munchers….science has come to the rescue…..utilising the gaseous virtues of the baked bean to drive your vehicle….so saving not just the baked bean but the car as well from the menace of the green meanies after your beanies…..

Time for a new one…floor is yours….

via Bishop Hill

The GWPF has done a report examining the teaching of climate in schools…..

The report also describes how activist teachers try to make children become the footsoldiers of the green movement, encouraging them to harass their schoolmates and pester their parents to bring about “behaviour change”.

The use of fear of climate change to alter children’s behaviour is also highlighted.

The report quotes one child as saying:

“I worry about [global warming] because I don’t want to die.”

Michael Gove has responded….Perhaps the sentiments expressed here by Gove concerning teaching about the climate in schools might also apply to the BBC’s campaigning coverage of climate:

“The Secretary of State read this report with concern. Ministers are clear that the new national curriculum must equip young people with the core knowledge they need to understand the weather, climate, the earth’s atmosphere, physical geography and the interaction between nature and the environment. 

“That means in both science and geography, pupils must learn the facts and processes which underpin public discussion of climate change. They must be equipped with the scientific knowledge to make their own judgments about political responses. They must not be directed towards a particular campaigning agenda.

“Schools should not teach that a particular political or ideological point of view is right – indeed it is against the law for them to do so. Great care should be exercised to make sure information provided to students is scientifically rigorous. It is important that any material used in the classroom is rooted in science, not driven by the aims of a campaign.”

The ‘useful idiots’ at the BBC might like to take note….even as they ignore what Gove has said and refuse to broadcast it (?)…just as the BBC’s ‘Science journalists’ have with comments by James Lovelock (leaving it to their political journalist colleague, Paxman, to interview him):

“It sounds good to try to save the planet, but in reality we are not thinking of saving Gaia, we are thinking of saving Earth for us, or for our nation.

“The idea of ‘saving the planet’ is a foolish extravagance of romantic Northern ideologues and probably much beyond our ability.

No….nothing on the BBC yet……odd…as they’re usually biting at the bit to report Gove’s words and the reactions to them….and of course no sign of any report about the GWPF’s research.

Very odd as Harrabin is usually so quick to jump on anyone who doesn’t toe the party line on the consensus…here implying Paterson is not one of ‘us’….& why does Harrabin think he needs a ‘science briefing’?:

Those wicked words of Owen Paterson (on Question Time):

“Well I’m sitting like a rose between two thorns here and I have to take practical decisions – erm – the climate’s always been changing – er – Peter mentioned the Arctic and I think in the Holocene the Arctic melted completely and you can see there were beaches there – when Greenland was occupied, you know, people growing crops – we then had a little ice age, we had a middle age warming – the climate’s been going up and down – but the real question which I think everyone’s trying to address is – is this influenced by manmade activity in recent years and James is actually correct – the climate has not changed – the temperature has not changed in the last seventeen years and what I think we’ve got to be careful of is that there is almost certainly – bound to be – some influence by manmade activity but I think we’ve just got to be rational (audience laughter)  – rational people – and make sure the measures that we take to counter it don’t actually cause more damage – and I think we’re about to get -“

No. we can’t have someone who thinks for himself…..

Oh no…not everyone in the Media is onboard……must be a sceptical conspiracy….

Hates Booker….

Harrabin wants you to die to prove AGW?

So ‘good news’ for Harrabin?

Good job we’ve got Harrabin to look after the planet for us:

Yes…‘pity about the climate’….that’s of course assuming the ‘science’ is correct….an assumption Harrabin embraces with deep joy…..so lucky to have the BBC as a platform from which he has…‘spent much of the last two decades of my journalistic life warning about the potential dangers of climate change’.

As opposed to merely reporting climate change…..

Ian Hislop has a new BBC programme (tonight BBC2 21:00)….Ian Hislop’s Olden Days….

Ian Hislop’s Olden Days, The Power of the Past in Britain, explores a cultural history of Britain’s idealised past and our fondness for yesterday.

You can see why the BBC likes that…..destroying the ‘myths’ that surround the Nation…you’re not really who you think…..you’re not as good as you think…your national identity is a fraud conjured up by devious politicians and right wing orators.

Cue Evan Davis on Today chatting to Hislop……apparently Michael Gove should listen to the programme…he might learn something about the foolishness of those who hark back to some golden age in the old days and try to exploit the myths we construct of our past today.

Yes …never look back…there’s nothing good there:

Maria Miller has resigned.

The various factions are lining up to exploit it, or downplay it, for their own political ends.  The BBC is not above such things.

Humphrys was having  a bash at Gove this morning laying out the case against Cameron…..he’s out of touch and his judgment is flawed…it’s ok to be compassionate and to defend your people but you have to take hard decisions in the best interest of the country.

Nick Robinson told us that what the politicians got wrong was that they concentrated on the wrong thing.  They should have ignored the conclusions of the Parliamentary committee that cleared Miller and instead taken account of the enormous public anger and sacked her.

So populist mob rule then?  The BBC usually decries anyone taking account of the Great Unwashed.   And is there ‘enormous public anger’ or is this really something whipped up by the newspapers, as Robinson admits, because of Leveson?

Humphrys said about politicians in regard to this case…‘You sit in judgement on each other and you’re going to protect each other…that’s patently wrong.’

You can judge for yourself what the Parliamentary Committee said:

Mrs Miller and her husband bought their house in London in January 1996. Her parents and two brothers came to live with them at that time as part of a single family unit. By 2005 the family unit comprised Mr and Mrs Miller, their three children and Mrs Miller’s parents.When Mrs Miller was selected as the candidate for Basingstoke in 2003, she rented a property in that area. When she was elected in 2005 she declared her Basingstoke home as her main home and her home in London as her second home against which she claimed Additional Costs Allowances (ACA) for the running costs.

Mrs Miller’s claims were significantly below the total costs of either home, which supports the judgment that parliamentary allowances were not used to cover her parents’ living costs.

We accept Mrs Miller’s contention that her overclaim in 2008–09 was inadvertent and caused by the rapid reduction in interest rates.
We have already recommended that Mrs Miller repay the £5,800 which she has identified as an overclaim. She should also apologise by personal statement on the floor of the House for her attitude to the Commissioner’s inquiries.

The Telegraph selectively reported this exchange as ‘threatening them with Leveson’.….but black out the relevant bits that put that ‘threat’ in context…that Miller’s father had just come out of hospital after an operation when he was dorrstepped by tyhe Telegraph reporter…….
JH: I should just flag up as well, while you’re on it that when she doorstepped him, she got Maria’s father, who’s just had a [removed] and come out of [removed]. And Maria has obviously been having quite a lot of editors’ meetings around Leveson at the moment. So I am just going to flag up that connection for you to think about.
HW: I’m not meant to knock on people’s doors?
JH: Knock on the doors of people when they’ve just come out of [removed] and had [removed]. Yeah. I would suggest that was probably a good thing.

They again miss out the relevant bits in their fuller report:
How Culture Secretary tried to bully MP watchdog

In a phone call, Miss Hindley then spoke to a Telegraph reporter and said: “Maria has obviously been having quite a lot of editors’ meetings around Leveson at the moment. So I am just going to flag up that connection for you to think about.” She added that the reporter should have “spoken to people a little higher up your organisation”.
The Telegraph has redacted personal details about Mrs Miller’s father from the transcript of the conversation with Miss Hindley.

Puts the BBC in  a difficult position..do they support the Telegraph against a Tory….or condemn the Telegraph for doorstepping a sick man?….imagine if it had been the Daily Mail ‘hounding’ an elderly man who had just come out of hopsital.  Wasn’t that the reasoning behind ‘Leveson’  as always explained to us by BBC presenters and guests….to protect us from the disgraceful Tabloids harassing vulnerable private citizens?

Perhaps the BBC did have such thoughts (08:14)…Evan Davis sounding like he had sympathies with Miller….‘You can see it from both sides’

He goes on to look at the ‘Press and politicians’…..suggesting MPs have come around to Miller’s side…they don’t like the Press’s approach.

Maybe not.

Labour, the Leveson cheerleader for press regulation, hypocritically claims:

Ms Eagle, the shadow Commons leader, said: “The government seems to want to threaten the press with statutory underpinning to control the news agenda.”

But anyway…today’s conclusions by the BBC……politicians are….

 ‘out of touch…ignores the public anger…sits on judgement of themselves…fails to take hard and necessary decisons out of a mistaken compassion.’

That’s the BBC isn’t it?  That’s just as  ‘patently wrong’.

The BBC compassionately refuses to publish the truth about immigration or Islam or Europe because to do so, it feels, would be damaging to the overall cohesion of the country…to raise difficult questions would undermine the myth the BBC has woven about the benefits such things bring us….and worst of all would lead to a swing to the right of voters.

The BBC censors and shapes the news to downplay the downsides of certain policies and emphasises, or exaggerates, or invents, the benefits.

Isn’t it time the BBC’s self-regulation was put an end to and the BBC Trust consigned to the dustbin?

I wonder if the BBC notes the hypocrisy of Labour’s position?……..not so far…….

Labour is grandstanding and demanding ‘reform of the system’…MPs shouldn’t regulate each other…….Bit late I might suggest:

Peter Oborne in the Mail in 2009 claims:

Despite that cover-up by establishment stooges, Ms Smith is guilty of thievery (and I dare her to sue me)

Yet how on earth does she get away with her thievery?

The first answer is the collusion of the Parliamentary authorities. Sadly, the Commons Department of Finance and Administration, to which Ms Smith submitted her claim, is notorious for allowing MPs to fiddle their expenses.

It is worth remembering that this watchdog never once queried the submissions from Tory MPs Derek Conway and Michael Trend, who stole tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money through blatantly corrupt claims. It was thanks only to whistleblowers that both men were eventually exposed.

The second reason for Ms Smith’s survival is the wholehearted complicity of the Conservative Party and the LibDems. Not a single MP raised Ms Smith’s cheating when she answered Home Office Questions.

So…… just a reminder….because no one at the BBC, or in the Labour Party, mentions this almost exact parrallel for some reason……Jacqui Smith was cleared and merely ordered to apologise after pocketing £116,000…she was never sacked….taking 6 months to ‘step down’ in a reshuffle…….

Jacqui Smith expenses claims total £157,631
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith claimed £22,948 in 2007/08 in taxpayer-funded allowances for her second home, official figures have shown.

Gordon Brown: ‘Let Jacqui Smith get on with her job as Home Secretary’
Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, has appealed for Jacqui Smith to be allowed to get on with her work as Home Secretary, after she apologised for claiming the cost of pornographic movies on her parliamentary expenses.