Nelson Mandela has died…but don’t worry…he has apparently been reincarnated as Gordon Brown.

That was certainly the impression I got when Brown turned up on Victoria Derbyshire’s show (10:20) telling us how grateful he was to Nelson Mandela for helping him to save the world.

Incredible how the BBC can unearth the shy and retiring Gordon Brown when it wants to….it seems remarkably reluctant to seek him out and ask him about those 13 years of cooking the books.

The BBC has of course taken to carpet bombing us with reminiscences about Mandela…even Sheila Fogarty cracked and got caught up in the euphoria…saying our best hope is that some of Mandela’s character and values will rub off on us.

Most embarrassing was Evan Davis who gushed, giggled and fawned his way through Today.

I did laugh when he told us that politics was very tribal and that Mandela’s forgiveness and reconciliation should be a lesson for us all (08:36) …..Davis said he wondered why people find it so difficult to learn that lesson or follow the example of Nelson Mandela…it’s not difficult he informed us.

This from an organisation that takes every chance it can to spread hatred for Margaret Thatcher…even today the opportunity is not missed.

Vicotria Derbyshire asked Brown ‘Did Britain get it right in the 80’s?‘…meaning of course was Thatcher’s policy towards South Africa the right one.  No guesses what Brown said.  But why just the 80’s?  Apartheid didn’t just blossom in 1979 with the election of Thatcher….though I’m certain BBC history will say it did….Apartheid was operating for as long as whites were in South Africa in different forms….and it was probably operated by the Zulus before them…if you weren’t a Zulu perhaps you got a spear through you…they didn’t build an empire by being cuddly and forgiving…and the Zulus of course co-operated with the S.A regime in suppressing the ANC.

In the early hours we heard from a priest in Glasgow (05:20)….which Mandela visited in 1991….he asked Mandela what he thought of Mrs Thatcher…I was hoping, the priest said, to be told she was a terrible woman…but Mandela didn’t say that at all.

A curious paradox…….the BBC always supports negotiations rather than force or sanctions against a nation…see Iran for the latest example……and the BBC has spent the day praising Mandela’s ‘forgiving nature’ and his ability to build reconciliation……but was Thatcher not applying those very principles to South Africa…engaging positively with the regime and working to end Apartheid through diplomacy and negotiation?   The BBC does not see it that way at all for some reason.

Norman Tebbit who lived through those times in close up says:

The policy of the Thatcher government was a success.

‘The result was an overwhelmingly peaceful transition of power in which the final initiative for the handover came not from foreigners but from native South Africans – and Afrikaner South Africans, at that.’

Even the Guardian had to accept Thatcher played an important role in ending Apartheid:

Thatcher played a pivotal role in southern Africa. As Britain’s new prime minister in 1979 she was persuaded by Commonwealth leaders at their meeting in Lusaka, where she famously danced with President Kenneth Kaunda, to try to end the war in Rhodesia – now Zimbabwe. That led to the Lancaster House conference and an election in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe which was won overwhelmingly by someone she despised – Robert Mugabe.From that she was persuaded to try to deal with apartheid in South Africa.

I  [Journalist Richard Dowden] was briefed off-the-record by her foreign affairs adviser on several occasions, but when he told me that she had called on the then president, PW Botha, to release Nelson Mandela, I found it difficult to believe. I did not report it as I could not source it. But it was true. In a letter to Botha in October 1985 she wrote: “I continue to believe, as I have said to you before, that the release of Nelson Mandela would have more impact than almost any single action you could undertake.”

When Botha stepped down after a stroke in 1989, he was replaced by FW de Klerk, who met Thatcher at Downing Street in June. I was among a group of journalists waiting outside No 10 with the promise that he would give a press conference straight after. We watched him leave then ran up Whitehall to the South African embassy where he had promised to speak. He did not turn up. We were told later that he had been too shocked by Thatcher’s vehemence.

Mandela was released on 11 February 1990.

When he came to London, the ANC central committee insisted – against his wishes – that he did not meet Thatcher. After he did finally meet her later that year he thanked her for helping to end apartheid and announced this at a press conference soon after. Senior ANC officials spluttered with rage.

And in the Telegraph:

Margaret Thatcher’s vital role in ending apartheid

Desmond Tutu said Mandela was a gift from God.

And for the BBC it does seem that Mandela is now a religion…..as even Boris Johnson said today…it was a kind of ‘Magic’.

The spell is as powerful as ever.

Here you go, amongst the wailing and gnashing of teeth at the BBC concerning St Mandela, a new thread to complete.

Interesting listening to the aftermath of Osborne’s budget speech on the BBC…you’d hardly know that Ball’s got a pasting or that Labour had been soundly trounced.

You’d have no inkling that Osborne’s budget was based on a solid recovery and gave help to all levels of society….no inkling that under Labour 7.2% of the economy was destroyed.

Some key phrases from the OBR report upon which the budget is based:

In 2018-19, we expect the underlying balance to move into surplus for the first time in 18 years.

There is a roughly 5 per cent chance that the economy will shrink in 2014 and a similar chance it will grow by more than 5 per cent.

We  expect quarterly GDP growth to slow into 2014, gradually strengthening thereafter as productivity picks up and real earnings growth provides the foundation for a stronger and more sustained upswing. This recovery in productivity growth is perhaps the most important judgement in our economy forecast.

Note that ‘This recovery in productivity growth is perhaps the most important judgement in our economy forecast.‘…because the BBC doesn’t look at that….it just tells us that the recovery is a ‘false recovery based on consumer spending and borrowing’...but the OBR says that whilst there will be a slow down in 2014 after that the economy will grow based on productivity gains.

That is not something the BBC seems to want to advertise.

Here Nick Robinson and Robert Peston are carping, negative and critical of Osborne’s measures…for example the decision not to raise the car fuel duty…Imagine what they could do with £22bn – that, the chancellor revealed, is the cumulative cost of the ever-popular cancellation of planned rises at petrol pumps.

Ironic coming from Robinson…the same person who, when at ITV, took Labour to task for suggesting that the Tories would ‘cut‘ the NHS by £35 bn when the truth was they just wouldn’t match Labour’s proposed spending rise but would keep the budget at the then same level….but now Robinson plays the same game….categorising a future non-rise in income as a spending cut.

Here are some of the BBC’s key pointers for critiques of the Coalition that seem to be the editorial backbone to most BBC analyses:

First...Use the Labour narrative (contrast with how they talk of terrorism or the security wall in Israel)…Plan B is credible….and when proven not…go with the new one…the ‘Cost of living crisis‘ is real…and caused by the government’s policies….no one has ever been ‘poor’ before May 2010.

Second….Actually let’s not look back to Labour times...let’s talk about now…in other words let’s not blame Labour for the mess we’re in now.

Third…’Austerity’ is the real cause of our problems….and it isn’t necessary….‘Austerity’ is a purely ideological imposition….the Coalition is on a ‘mission to shrink the government beyond responsible economic stewardship’  That was the BBC’s Dominic Laurie…who seems to have stepped into Paul Mason’s loafers and taken on the mantle of advocate for big government, nationalisation and State intervention.

Fourth….Every government policy that is seen to benefit anybody is ‘electioneering‘ or ‘crowd pleasing populism’…whilst Miliband’s ‘price freeze’ was socially responsible policy making.

Fifth…..the recovery is a ‘false recovery’…based on consumer debt, the spending of savings and borrowing….‘BBC Political Editor Nick Robinson said the government was worried economic growth might not continue as it was mainly based on consumer spending’, (but don’t suggest going back to look at Labour’s record……after all wasn’t that the exact recipe for the leveraging up of the financial crash? Rule 1 applies…let’s not talk about Labour.)  It is remarkable how the BBC manages to ignore all those businesses who say they are doing a roaring trade and go on to paint a picture of doom and gloom.

The OBR does say consumer spending has boosted the growth, but here it explains a major factor in that spending….’Some forms of credit growth have picked up, in particular car finance, which has supported strong growth in car purchases and contributed to the unexpected strength of private consumption.’

Now it was only a few weeks ago that the BBC themselves looked at car buying and concluded that the rise in buying was due to more innovative and cheaper finance packages that gave customers more flexibility at a cheaper price…..I have to assume most people will have looked at their budgets and decided they can manage such deals….unlike the BBC who has decided that they are being reckless and spendthrift…based on what evidence they don’t say.

The OBR says that growth is coming from  increasing productivity, though still too low, but a productivity that will take over as the real driver of growth towards the end of next year….its most important judgement….and one the BBC ignores.

Remarkably you can hear all those points in one little interview on 5Live  (13:20) with the government’s Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Sajid Javid.…who held his own against three hostile BBC inquisitors.

Here is the Telegraph’s initial reaction…entirely different tone to that of the negative BBC:

The boot is on the other foot. Labour MPs now know what it was like for the Tories to have to sit through year after year of Gordon Brown economic triumphalism. For most of Labour’s time in power Budgets and Autumn Statements – or Pre-Budget Reports as Mr Brown rebranded the latter – were an ordeal for the Conservatives. He would rattle off great economic good news and a succession of giveaways, while they just sat there powerless to object. To this day watching Labour fritter away the golden economic recovery they inherited from John Major still rankles. Today, for the first time, George Osborne had a script he wanted to deliver, about economic success and measures that help voters and businesses. Perhaps the most telling moment, the one that caused a collective gasp, was when he revealed the updated figures for what he called the ‘Great Recession’ and a ‘calamity’: at the height of the crisis and on Labour’s watch GDP contracted by a jaw-dropping 7.2pc.

Here was a catalogue of smart, well-judged measures that MPs can deploy on the doorstep as evidence of what the Government is doing to – as Mr Osborne said – get the country moving again. These delighted his own side and left Labour looking as if they now realise how wrong the Ed Balls economic strategy is turning out to be.

His statement also completes a remarkable political recovery for the Chancellor. The economy is the only thing that matters. But it should be noted that a year ago he was in deep trouble. The economy was going against him, his reputation was damaged by the omnishambles budget and he was in danger of becoming more unpopular with the public than is normally bearable for even the most thick-skinned politician. The moment when the crowd booed him as he presented medals at the paralympics was a personal low-point. To his credit, he never faltered, or tried to win easy popularity by trying to doctor his image. Now, he can bask in the plaudits he deserves for placing a bet and seeing it pay of. As he pointed out, there is still much work to be done. But for the moment at least he has an inkling of being a Chancellor who is master of all he surveys.

95 year old man dies after long illness. BBC goes into full on Saint Mandela mode with Mark Mardell calling him “a secular saint”. It’s been amazing watching the sanitisation of Mandela’s life with the very notion that he supported terrorism verboten. As I watch Newsnight he is being compared to Lincoln.

This is going to make Diana’s death look like The Man Who Never Was. There’ll be at least a month of enforced national mourning, including the public stoning of anybody wearing a tie that isn’t black. A one-off tax to pay for the erection of gilded statues of the great man in every London Borough.

The BBC will disappear up their own backside. Mandela is lucky he’s going to miss it.

Here you go, middle of the week and time for a new Open thread! Share the bias as you see it!

A new week of bias from the State broadcaster to monitor! Off you go…tell us about the BIAS.

Is the BBC just doing PR for Labour politicians with sagging reputations?

Alistair Campbell was resurrected by the BBC in the public sphere…as noted before, an investment well made as he now defends the BBC.

Brown and his disastrous reign has been conveniently written out of history by the BBC.

Miliband has Desert Island Discs put at his service to pimp his geeky Marxist image as he lags so far behind in the personal polls.

And now the BBC gives space on its front page for this tosh:

Ed Balls not a nightmare at home, says wife Yvette Cooper

Shadow chancellor Ed Balls is “lovely” at home and does “all the cooking”, his wife and fellow Labour politician Yvette Cooper has told the BBC.

In a leaked email published by the Mail on Sunday last month, one of party leader Ed Miliband’s aides described Mr Balls as a “nightmare”.

Prime Minister David Cameron recently joked in the Commons he could have told Mr Miliband that “three years ago”.

But shadow home secretary Ms Cooper said attacks on her husband were wrong.

Any doubt that these ‘ex-managers’ from the BBC…

22 October, 2013 | By Jake Kanter

Yesterday the BBC published a story from unnamed sources that the government had asked energy firms to freeze their prices.

This was untrue…and yet the BBC kept reporting it as fact whilst at the same time admitting the Government had denied the story.

And they are still reporting it as fact.

If you have been listening to the radio you may have heard the frequent advert trumpeting 5Live’s ‘excellence’  (09:50:30) based on that report:

‘The Government has asked the Big Six energy firms not to put up electricity and gas bills until the middle of 2015 unless there is a major jump in wholesale prices.  Shadow energy secretary Caroline Flint is with us in the studio….’

“Energy companies you know, don’t buy energy today for tomorrow, they buy it years in advance, actually, whereas wholesale prices have gone down in recent years and in some recent years flat lined,  we as customers haven’t benefited.

We think it’s important to freeze prices because people have been overcharged but importantly we need to reform the way the market works.”

Call me old fashioned but when a story is concocted by the BBC, and only the BBC, from unnamed (and still unnamed) sources on the day that the Labour Party is launching its price freeze pledge, a story that makes it look like the government is adopting Labour’s policy, and the story is vigorously denied by the Government, and common sense would say the story was untrue, then you have to ask why the BBC has decided to select a clip reporting something that is untrue as being true and has then also added to that a soundbite from a Labour spokesperson outlining Labour’s policies.

It sounds remarkably more like a Labour Party political broadcast than a trail for the BBC…though possibly always hard to tell the difference, the News Quiz today having a relentless barrage of anti-Right jokes and not a single anti-Left one, oddly enough.

The fact that the story has basically vanished from the news after a day when the BBC blitzed us with reports, news bulletins and ‘analysis’ about this says a lot about how solid any evidence for it was…and the intentions behind the strategy.

Is this the future of ‘news’ on the BBC until the election?  A storm of false, anti-government reports whipped up using baseless ‘evidence’ and speculation from unnamed sources, and all maligning the government whilst timed conveniently to damage the government precisely when it also does the most good for Labour?