You have to laugh at the sheer cynicism of the BBC. This morning we awoke to the news that official figures show the UK’s economic growth in 2013 was the strongest since 2007, the year before the financial crisis. Instantly, the BBC produced an economist who was able to tell us that whilst the UK IS experiencing economic growth, it is mostly in London and the south of England. Ah, that pesky growth, discriminating against our friends in the North. The BBC increasingly sounds like an echo chamber for Ed Balls and his cliched mantra that WHATEVER the growth is does not resolve his “cost of living crisis”. Nor can it – since that is a political invention to replace his clapped out “Plan B” narrative.

Anyone catch Mishal Husain climate scaremongering on Today this morning just after 7.10am? The difficulties affecting the Somerset Levels are apparently part of “extreme weather” we are now experiencing and an “expert” was on hand to confirm this was undoubtedly linked to “climate change.” After the Today AGW propaganda fest, there was another BBC Radio 4 programme called “The Long View’ which looked at the Big Flood of 1953. Michael Fish was on hand to confirm that this was caused by climate change and that with global warming and rising sea levels (his words, not mine) we will be lucky if we do not face further and more frequent events. The truth is that the BBC still shills for AGW even though the facts do not support it. For the comrades at the BBC, it is a matter of faith.

Rainbows only come out in the rain…UKIP maybe onto something:

Evan Davis played this, admittedly very funny, spoof of a shipping forecast (from about 1:26):

Andrew Neil, God bless his little heart, allowed Farage a response…also very funny:

This morning the BBC were trumpeting on the radio some research by a think tank called ‘Centre For Cities’ that said London was growing much faster than other UK cities as the much vaunted ‘Recovery’ left them behind as economic also-rans…presumably hinting they were being ignored or abandoned by the Government.

The BBC said it was an independent think tank, but admitted that it had been set up by Labour peer Lord Sainsbury…the man who donated nearly £20 million to Labour.

Apparently…. Centre for Cities was launched in March 2005 as part of IPPR and became independent in November 2007.

So independent of the IPPR now…Labour’s very own think tank?

The Chief Executive of Centre for Cities is……

Alexandra Jones

Chief Executive

Alexandra worked as a private secretary for the Permanent Secretary at the former Department for Education and Skills and as a researcher at the Institute for Public Policy Research.

What’s odd, apart from the ‘independent’ label is that after trumpeting this ‘research’ early on in the day, it being the lead story on the news bulletins, it suddenly vanished….almost as if someone responsible had come on shift and pulled the story as  headline news….due to it being a Labour Party stunt?

There is no doubt London is massive compared to other regions but this story has been knocking around for a long time now….so why is it being pushed once again…the thought that the Coalition’s ‘Recovery’ is leaving other regions behind?  Will Miliband be announcing a new policy on cities in the next few days?

Who knows…at least it seems to have been pulled by the BBC as a lead story…or as a story at all in fact on the radio….after being bombarding us with it early on it vanished.

The story seems to ignore some other truths about ‘the Regions’…the streets may not be paved with  gold but things are moving:

Record growth for business activity

Business activity rose at a record rate in the West Midlands in December according to the latest purchasing managers report for Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking. West Midlands private sector companies reported increases for the eighth month in a row with the rate of expansion the strongest in the 16-year-old survey’s history.

This is from Manchester which they tell us is doomed:

It’s double joy for regional growth

10 Jan 2014 05:59

So why is the Centre for Cities claiming, and the BBC reporting this:

Manchester ‘underperforming’

The Now Show was a proper lefty rightwing-bashfest on Saturday laying into the rich and privileged:

Council house comic buys £2m mansion… but John Bishop says: ‘I will never forget where I am from’

You have to laugh.

Toby Young at the Telegraph spotted this and wasn’t impressed:

BBC comedian says Cameron ‘wants your kids to die’

Perhaps Hound is trying to compete with his fellow NHAP member Marcus Chown who is :

NHA Party executive member is the most influential tweeter about David Cameron

Our own executive committee member Marcus Chown has been named  the “most influential tweeter about David Cameron” by academics at Imperial College who’ve created a new  index for  ranking tweeters.

“I am just pleased to be getting the message out that David Cameron is dismantling our NHS while lying that he isn’t.”

Rufus compounds the alarmist language with a bit of incitement to violent revolution….

Interesting that Hound opts for the National Health Action Party…..a single issue party that ensures he doesn’t have to think very much and come up with any tricky policies for all those other issues…such as the economy, or education, or welfare….which is why the money can’t all be spent on the NHS…despite the vast, vast sums that are already.

Seems that Rufus has some way to go before competing fully with Chown in the Twittersphere as others are also less than impressed with Rufus:

Oh dear…still not top billing even though shit always floats to the top apparently….that’s a joke Rufus….smile…

Ta

Rufus Hound, less better known as Robert James Blair Simpson…educated by the £5,930 a-term Frensham Heights……the same school that Domino Harvey, Bounty Hunter, went to….

She gets my vote..and yes that’s a real photo not a pseud actor/comedian…Rufus not so much.

Ruf likes to think of himself as one of the ‘people’…. not a privately educated, self indulgent, over privileged, over paid, loudmouth playing at politics ….he’s just a chav really…no really…him an’ Owen hang out all the time…baby….

As said ‘The 100 Worst People on Twitter’ aren’t fans……

‘….the grand posturing, ill-judged and out-of-sync opinions, doing a corporate gig to present an award to G4S, deciding to call out the members of a fucking forum, proudly declaring his Lib Dem voting intentions in 2010, getting booed by Keith Lemon – it all adds up to what should’ve been seen as a string of embarrassing failures by a deeply unlikable man, even by comedian standards. As it is, he’ll collect a bigger pay cheque to present something even more low-brow, whilst turning up for an overacted bit-part in the occasional drama to soothe his ego, and there’s nothing you or I can do about it. If we get the television presenters we deserve, then the rapture is fully underway.’

These are not of course the opinions of management.

Rufus has delusions of grandeur…

Trouble is Henry V isn’t what the People need, it’s the BBC, the Voice of the People….but it’s failed them in their hour of need….some are very concerned it has abandoned their cause…apparently…..

Marcus Chown being a supporter of, a worker for, the NHAP….their ‘Twitter Lead’…whatever that is…presumably twitter propagandist.

It’s that right wing, Tory supporting BBC again….good of them to allow so many left wing comedians to dominate the airwaves though.

Well folks, a new week dawns. And the BBC is meticulous as ever in making sure that EVERY Conservative announcement is balanced with a Labour statement. Hence Cameron’s “bonfire of regulations” for small business is balanced by Chukas “let’ set up a new quango”. Anyhoo, the day beckons me and I bid you adieu and leave this new open thread for you to complete!

Via ‘Is the BBC biased’:

BBC  Dressing to the Left

In my 12 years with BBC News, I worked for many of the people who, for the past quarter century, have decided what the BBC broadcasts. Three of them went on to become Director-General. Almost without exception, they were decent, honest and fair, thoroughly convinced of their own political even-handedness. So why have they apparently been incapable of recognising, let alone addressing, the corporation’s rampant left-wing bias?

Unless the Right can think of ways of making the BBC’s feedback loops work effectively, or the BBC spontaneously recognises its responsibilities to license-fee payers who don’t share its equalitarian instincts, Europe’s most significant left-liberal broadcaster will continue – shamelessly – to dress to the left.

That last paragraph gets to the crux of the problem….it’s OK if they’re left wing as long as there are processes in place that prevent that from colouring the BBC’s output with a pinkish tinge…unfortunately any such processes which the BBC might have in place are completely inadequate and ineffective, probably because those overseeing the processes are themselves of the same mindset…..the output is irrevocably left wing, Labour supporting.

You only had to look at Justin Webb’s reaction to criticism of the BBC recently to realise the problem…..they just don’t accept that they are doing anything wrong.

It doesn’t help of course that the BBC Trust is on the inside and sees its job more to protect the BBC than to scrutinise, check and moderate any such tendencies.

As mentioned before we are often told that there is no such thing as the ‘British Identity’…no such thing formed by 2000 years of history, of culture, of traditions, language, industrial and scientific innovation as well as the new political ideas that spring from all that…such as liberty, freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of association, democracy…never mind the humour and way of looking at the world.

The elusive search for Britishness

In the course of the debate about what British identity is, the multicultural argument has been championed particularly vocally and been given prominence, especially by the BBC. The multiculturalist position is one that essentially wishes to reduce British identity to being, by definition, diversity. In other words, that multiculturalism is the very essence of Britishness.

Under this view British identity becomes simply the sum total of a cacophony of a vast host of other often divergent cultures from around the world.

“It always strikes me that the BBC’s output has disproportionate coverage of the cultures and national identities of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

“The one aspect of our national story that people seem to be scared of is a discussion of England and Englishness.

“I think it is born out of a misplaced paranoia and a desire not to offend.

With that in mind here is one to watch from the British Broadcasting Corporation, starts tomorrow:

Liberty

Bettany Hughes examines changing ideas of liberty by allowing a neuroscientist to take control of her brain and by perusing the pornography of the French Revolution.

The Ideas That Make Us is a Radio 4 series which reveals the history of the most influential ideas in the story of civilisation, ideas which continue to affect us all today.

In this ‘archaeology of philosophy’, the award-winning historian and broadcaster Bettany Hughes begins each programme with the first, extant evidence of a single word-idea in Ancient Greek culture and travels both forwards and backwards in time, investigating how these ideas have been moulded by history and have shaped the human experience. In the first programme of this series, Bettany examines changing ideas of liberty with neuroscientist Professor Patrick Haggard, classicist Professor Paul Cartledge, historian Dr. Stephen Pigney and Ruth Porter from the Institute of Economic Affairs.

Other ideas examined in this series are comedy, hospitality, wisdom and peace.

The BBC is so anti-capitalist  it is trying to wipe  out private companies…by taking over the world once more….

From the Telegraph:

Classic FM claims BBC Radio 3 ‘apes’ its output for more listeners

Classic FM claims its rival, BBC Radio 3, has ‘aped’ its successful programmes to help build its audiences

The accusations have been made in written submissions to a Culture, Media and Sport Committee review into the “future of the BBC”, ahead of the government reconsidering the licence fee in 2016.

The commercial station is supported by its parent company Global Radio, which has used a separate submission to claim the BBC has “abandoned” its distinctiveness in order to focus on gaining peak-time audiences, making it “poor value for money”.