Here you go, a middle of the week Open Thread! Enjoy!

Not so long ago the BBC was accused of being Miliband’s Moutpiece:

BBC accused of becoming Ed Miliband’s mouthpiece

The BBC is facing calls for an inquiry into the extensive coverage it has given to Ed Miliband’s dispute with a newspaper.

Now it looks like they have managed to avoid publicising another dent in his reputation:

From the Mail….

Ouch! Ed Miliband is left off list of Britain’s best-connected men but his brother and spin doctor are IN

The Guardian reported it:

Ed Miliband fails to make UK’s 100 most connected – but his brother does

Rupert Murdoch, David Beckham and David Miliband on list of ‘influencers and socialites’ which also excludes Nick Clegg

And look…even the the Gloucester Citizen reports GQ’s list:

Prince Charles and Stephen Fry listed in GQ’s 100 Most Connected Men in the UK

Not the BBC though…despite Tony Hall being on it.

Wonder why they didn’t want to publish this bit of fun and games that dismisses Miliband as a bit of a non-entity?

Just been listening to a bit of a royalist love-in on 5Live as Charlie makes a good impression with the boat people of Somerset-Under-Water….and the BBC ‘Royal’ correspondent.

The BBC had no problem with his highly political comments…in fact they give them the headline on the website:

Somerset flood delay a ‘tragedy’, says Prince Charles

How times change when it suits…normally if Charlie interferes in the political process by writing letters expressing his opinions there are cries of outrage…not so here when he’s slating the Coalition….and promoting climate change….suddenly the ‘non-political’ Prince is a valued commentator to whom Government must respond…..

Asked to respond to the Prince’s comments, David Cameron’s official spokesman said: “The prime minister has repeatedly said… that the situation that a number of communities in the Somerset area find themselves in is unacceptable.

As said…not always so….  

Prince Charles is the voice of Mel Phillips, not the people

From Chelsea barracks to education, the Prince of Wales’s abuse of position cries out for constitutional action.

Way back in 2012 we learn from the BBC that the Prince’s comments must be kept secret or he would  “forfeit his position of political neutrality” and would as such “be seriously damaging to his role as a future monarch”.

Remember a couple of weeks ago when we heard this:

What the BBC doesn’t report is often as telling as what and how it reports other news stories.

It does seem that if for instance you are Muslim, or someone positioned to influence government policy on climate change, you are pretty safe from critical BBC investigation.

Andrew Gilligan has spent a long time investigating and reporting on the extremely dodgy happenings in Tower Hamlets where Muslim extremists look to have the whip hand…and a £1 billion budget to spend on their favourite prejudices.

The BBC downplayed and often ignored totally all such serious events….had the council been run by, oh say a UKIP mayor, you can guarantee the BBC would have been in Tower Hamlets turning the place upside down looking for dirt.

In order not to give viewers the impression that any Muslim could in any way be associated with criminal or unseemly behaviour, and thereby give rise to the possibility that people might then associate all Muslims with that kind of behaviour, the BBC censors the news and edits out the uncomfortable bits in the interests of community cohesion….ala Rochdale before the **** hit the fan.

In a similar way the BBC has long ignored the copious evidence gathered by Guido on Tim Yeo, now the de-selected Tim Yeo.

Yeo is of course the chair of the highly influential  Energy and Climate Change Committee which informs and guides government policy on climate change…and of course Yeo is fully on board the AGW bandwagon, as well as having numerous, and highly lucrative, green industry business interests, and so the BBC has looked to protect his position and not expose him to any charges that might get him removed as chairman of that committee and thereby lose their green champion.

News, just not all the news.

There again the BBC isn’t too keen on accountability and openness in its own affairs:

Former BBC executive given £680,000 pay off says ‘I did a big job’

Good how Mark Thompson won’t admit he knew about Savile and now won’t admit he knew the IT disaster was on the cards.

Maybe all those big payoffs were ‘hush’ money…just don’t spill the beans!

Man has been warming the planet by puffing out CO2….since the 50’s…before that it was Mother Nature….apparently.

However these two graphs from the Met. Office are interesting:

This shows the UK annual sunshine….and you can make a direct relationship between sunshine and apparent global warming time frames…..and a leveling off at the end of the 90’s….

This one showing the UK summer sunshine is perhaps even more clear…the rise in sunshine from the end of the 70’s to the distinct drop off of summer sunshine at the end of the 90’s:

Are the oceans sucking up the missing heat as Harrabin (English graduate) insists…or is the heat just missing because the sun ain’t shining?

No doubt the answer will be…yes the sun has an effect but man has made it worse.

Oops…more language problems at the BBC:

From the Independent:

Unfortunately the BBC News’ subtitle system didn’t understand the memo quite right, and instead declared this the ‘year of the whores,’ too much the embarrassment of the channel.

“Welcome to the year of the whores. People around the globe celebrate,” read the subtitles.

Peter Hitchens shows the BBC’s strange double standards:

The BBC just loves swearing – until it gets a dose of its own @!X*! medicine

The BBC have refused  to accept a complaint about bad language transmitted on national radio – because the complainer’s letter used exactly the same words that they had used on air.

They told Colin Harrow that his letter’s tone and language were ‘unacceptably abusive or offensive’.
In other words, the BBC are ready to transmit words into our homes which their staff are not prepared to read.

The programme involved, a Radio 4 play called Paradigm, was broadcast on Tuesday, January 21 at 2.15 pm, long before any sort of watershed.

No warning of bad language was given. An 80-year-old spinster, or a small child, could have been exposed without notice to a dialogue including the words p***, s*** (lavatory expressions), s*** (a sexual expression), b******s, b****r , b*****d, and some other crudities I’ll omit.

Mr Harrow thought he would treat the Corporation as they had treated him. He opened his letter with the same words and a similar tone (he did not use asterisks, but I have).

‘This afternoon’s play was sh***. It p***ed me off. The b*****d who wrote it needs sh****ing. Perhaps the b****r should be kicked in the testicles while stark b****** naked.’

He added: ‘I hope whoever reads this  is not offended by the language used so far, but then if they work for the BBC why should they be?

‘After all, every swearword and obscenity was used, some several times over, in this “afternoon” play, so I guess the BBC regards them as perfectly acceptable, including, I’m sure, in letters of complaint.’

The metropolitan sophisticates of the Corporation (in my experience well used to every rude word in the language and then some) drew up their skirts like Victorian maiden aunts, and primly rejected the complaint, saying they felt ‘unable to circulate it more widely to our colleagues’.

‘When handling your complaint,’ they continued piously, ‘we will treat you courteously and with respect. We expect you to show equal courtesy  and respect towards our staff and reserve the right to discontinue correspondence if you do not.’

The OFSTED chair, Labour’s Baroness Sally Morgan, has been relieved of her post….but stays on until the Autumn (Though personally I would now sack her as she clearly is at odds with the government)

She is complaining bitterly that this is a Tory Party coup to clear out non-Tory supporters from government quangos……she is Labour…but in the interview on Today this morning said it wasn’t about Labour people being ousted, and anyway the government is also part LibDem…so why does she complain she has been party politically ‘cleansed’?

The BBC has made hay with this all day…running with it as its headline story on every news bulletin immediately after the interview. (The Today interview is available halfway down this BBC report)

This was the headline on the Frontpage for much of the day:

No 10 ousting non-Tories from posts

Now there was absolutely no proof given, or asked for by Naughtie (Labour supporter), that this was happening….just a vague comment that ‘there’s a lot of talk about this…no really!’.

What was strange was that this ‘revelation’ didn’t seem to be a surprise to Naughtie who was well informed about the ins and outs of the system to appoint staff to quangos….maybe he is just brilliant and has this information tucked away in his head.

…or perhaps he had prior notice this subject would come up and came prepared.

It does look like the BBC were tipped the wink about this and ran with it whilst avoiding actually looking for any confirmation of the claims…..Labour have planted a story and have had a days worth of anti-Tory headlines courtesy of the BBC.

Only now, early evening, are we getting a truer picture, but of course the damage is done, and the legend will become fact on the leftwing blogs and the BBC hope, will lurk in the back of more sensible people and colour their thinking however subconsciously….drip drip drip.

Fraser Nelson in 2012 said this:

Gordon Brown’s secret army could defeat the Coalition’s welfare and education reforms

Britain’s charities and quangos are now stuffed to the gunwales with Labour placemen

In the article he tells that under the Tories it is Labour who have had the lion’s share of appointments:

Figures out yesterday show that 77 per cent of politically active quango appointees last year were Labour supporters. Not even Gordon Brown dared top up his government-in-exile at such a rate.

No such story from the BBC.

And Nelson reprises his article today in the Spectator:

Sally Morgan is wrong: quangos are not stuffed with Tories

Public Appointments by political allegiance (Red being Labour…black neutral))

Shows that far from packing in Tories it is neutral appointees being given many positions whilst Labourites still rule the roost.

Even some of Labour’s own people aren’t impressed by OFSTED:

Streamline Target Culture and Reform Ofsted

Education has become too politicised……..Ofsted’s current tactics and staffing ensures an outdated, unsupportive view in many cases and a large stress in the best cases.

Yet another Labour story run by an accommodating BBC.

Perhaps one public body the Tories should ‘cleanse’ is the leftwing BBC.

One big yawn from the BBC over the large scale anti-terror police operation to arrest diplomat’s son James Sutcliffe….no sign of their having reported it at all……

Thankfully there’s always the Daily Mail:

Police swooped on British diplomat’s son ‘after he signed for neighbour’s package while they were out’

• Scotland Yard had feared that parcel contained deadly poison Abrin

Turns out he was completely innocent.

So symptomatic of the police’s oppression of the white, middle classes.

Whereas we had endless BBC coverage when two Muslims were arrested in similar circumstances:

Muslims protest over terror raid

Around 100 people have protested about an anti-terror raid in east London a week ago, claiming it was symptomatic of oppression of the Islamic community.

Wonder what the difference is for the BBC between the two operations.