Evan Davis was on great form today, lambasting those nasty, capitalist Tory voting types for buying Royal Mail shares, falsely claiming Clegg supports the Guardian over Snowden and now a fine example of wilful blindness.

At 08:21 on the Today programme Davis was talking to Vince Cable and claimed that:

‘It’s odd that politicians grumble about high energy prices when at the same time they are adding to those costs [with their green taxes]’

Funny how I’ve yet to hear him raise that very issue with Ed Miliband, the very man who wrote the law that requires all these green taxes…and who now complains bitterly about high energy prices.

The BBC tell us that when energy company SSE raised prices:

The decision prompted fevered political debate over who to blame for the rise.

Not on the BBC it didn’t…..no finger of blame was pointed in Miliband’s direction…he was given plenty of airtime for his soundbite that it was a ‘scandal…and the government is allowing the energy companies to get away with it.’

Here the BBC quotes Labour without any real attempt to question their claims:
SSE ‘out of touch’ over gas and electricity price rise says Labour

Shadow Welsh Secretary Owen Smith said the rise was “breathtaking,” given the difficulties customers were facing.

Labour leader Ed Miliband, who pledged a price freeze for 20 months if his party wins the next election, described SSE’s price rise as a “scandal”. He accused the UK government of “letting energy companies get away with this”.

In the interview in this report Miliband is asked some obvious questions but is allowed to bat them away with nonsense answers.

He’s asked what if the energy companies put up prices before his price freeze?..he says:

‘If power companies get together and collude that will be illegal.’

Well, yes, but that wasn’t the question….that being…what is he going to do if power companies put up prices..without ‘collusion’?  No answer.

He was allowed to get away with claiming the companies were ‘unreliable witnesses’….and he isn’t?  No self interest here for the Labour leader in grandstanding?

He claimed they had been overcharging for years and now they had to answer for that.

Have they?  Not according to the facts..and this analysis on Guido Fawkes

So Miliband has an easy ride on the BBC Breakfast couch.

Plenty of hypocrisy from the BBC on display there.…but the Guardian tries to outshine them, Polly Toynbee allowing her hatred of Tories and Michael Gove in particular it seems, to overcome what little sense she has (via Guido):

A remarkable headline…one as it’s not true, two Baby P and Hamzah Khans died during the Labour years…and three the sheer hypocrisy of that headline as Toynbee politicises the deaths of these children……

and yet not so long ago when Tories claimed that Mick Philpott’s living arrangements, with several women, numerous children and an income of £60,000 per year from benefits, made the case for welfare reform the Left claimed this was politicising the deaths of the children…when in fact the deaths had no part on the Tory claims…it was the ability to claim benefits for that lifestyle that they were highlighting.
From the Guardian:
George Osborne was accused of a demeaning attempt to use the killing of six children by Mick Philpott to bolster the Conservatives’ case that the welfare state is subsidising inappropriate lifestyles.
In what is turning into a bitter row over welfare reform, Labour accused the chancellor of overstepping the boundary of decency by implying there is a connection between welfare and the crimes committed by Philpott.

Osborne in fact very carefully and deliberately avoided any connection between the deaths of the children and his own point…unlike the Left..who were the ones in fact ‘politicising’ the deaths.

Again where’s the Lefty outrage at the headline?  If you’re a Daily Mail columnist or a Tory it seems you are more ‘accountable’ than if you are a champagne swilling socialist.

Yet more hypocrisy from Labour…and once again the BBC makes no comment on that hypocrisy:

Labour’s Chuka Umunna told us it was Labour’s (13:07) :

‘constitutional and democratic duty to scrutinize what the government does and hold to account the government for its policies.’

So that’ll be why Labour’s Andy Burnham is saying he will sue Jeremy Hunt for questioning his stewardship of the NHS under Labour……so accountable…..
The Health Secretary has been sent a legal letter after taking to Twitter to criticise Mr Burnham, Labour’s former health secretary, over his record in government between 2009 and 2010.
Mr Burnham has acknowledged that suing his counterpart as would be an “extraordinary step”, but said that he is considering it because of the “exceptional circumstances” he has found himself in.
He is demanding that Mr Hunt should remove the comments from the social networking website or face further legal action.

Now Mr Burnham, writing on the Labour List blog, has accused the Conservative party of starting a campaign to “politicise” the failures in the health system after the Francis report.
He said: “What has followed can only be described as an orchestrated smear campaign against the last Government and the integrity of Ministers who served in it.”

Of course Labour aren’t used to being held to account….13 years of disastrous rule goes practically unmentioned by the BBC.

H/T  Bobo

Evan Davis on fine form:(08:10)

‘Well we’ve had a Royal Mail sale but for some it’s a Royal Mail fail as we’re selling off shares in a national asset on the cheap, a way of handing out free money to Conservative voting types who already have enough money to fork out and buy some shares……the market will give us a first indication of whether that account gets out of the starting blocks….’

Yes…let’s have a whip round for those poverty stricken Labour voting types eeking out a living on BBC wages.

Tory’s are beyond the pale….but an Iranian regime which hangs gay people and 16 year old girls from cranes as a way of handing out free warnings to non-conservative Muslim types is worthy of his respect.

 Evan Davis pulled a fast one this morning  (08:23) trying to make it look as if Nick Clegg supported the Guardian’s publication of Snowden’s material….when he clearly does not.

Davis was interviewing Vince Cable about the Royal Mail sell off when he slipped in a question about the Guardian.

Davis asked (abridged) ‘Has the Guardian done the Public a service by its revelations, which it maintains are true, whilst Nick Clegg has suggested we need more control of the surveillance industry, or has the Guardian done enormous harm by its revelations?’

Davis has run Clegg’s statement into his question about the Guardian, a question which suggests that the Guardian was merely revealing the extent of the surveillance possible….and that Clegg therefore supports the Guardian by saying we may need more control of that.

What Davis doesn’t reveal is the true nature of the concerns about the Guardian’s revelations which revealed so much about surveillance techniques that it may allow terrorists to evade surveillance.

Clegg’s real position is that:

So no he doesn’t think the Guardian has done the Public a service.  Evan Davis took his quote out of context to support his own defence of the BBC’s stable mate.

The  BBC may have had comments about that little bit of trickery as later we get this on the web:

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg and his cabinet colleague Vince Cable appear at odds about the Guardian’s disclosure of secret surveillance.
Mr Cable said the newspaper performed a “very considerable public service” by publishing details of documents leaked by Edward Snowden.
But Mr Clegg reaffirmed his belief it was “not good at all” and said the information could “help terrorists”.

Curiously in a sidebar on the same article we get Frank Gardner also defending the Guardian:

Vince Cable is right to draw a distinction between the actions of Edward Snowden and those of the Guardian, because the two often get conflated.

Well…no…there wasn’t an ill-judged conflation as Gardner claims…Snowden stole intelligence data and the Guardian has published it….both obviously intended the same outcome. The Guardian is just as guilty if it published material that is gifting information to terrorists.
Gardner goes on:
[One] side of the argument is that had it not been for the Guardian publishing some of Snowden’s revelations we might never have known the extraordinary extent to which our governments can hoover up private information, something that is prompting some to question whether, in this digital age, the current oversight of Britain’s intelligence agencies is adequate.

So…that’s Evan Davis’ defence of the Guardian, and Gardner’s, and presumably the line of defence as approved by the BBC editorial team…that no one had any idea of the extent of the Intelligence Service’s capabilities and therefore now we know this we can arrange proper oversight of the system….thanks to the Guardian.

Except….we already knew just how  all seeing the spooks are…and have been for hundreds if not thousands of years.

Here is a BBC report from 1999….spot the difference from today’s concerns:

Imagine a global spying network that can eavesdrop on every single phone call, fax or e-mail, anywhere on the planet.
It sounds like science fiction, but it’s true.
Two of the chief protagonists – Britain and America – officially deny its existence. But the BBC has confirmation from the Australian Government that such a network really does exist and politicians on both sides of the Atlantic are calling for an inquiry.
the NSA of conducting a broad “dragnet” of communications, and “invading the privacy of American citizens.”

The Echelon spy system, whose existence has only recently been acknowledged by US officials, is capable of hoovering up millions of phone calls, faxes and emails a minute.

Notice that phrase ‘hoovering up’ again ….nothing changes….and nothing’s really new..so why all the fuss?

The BBC is smoothing over the Guardian’s massive problem…if it is seen to be aiding and abetting terrorists…the end result of which could be carnage on our streets….a different order of scale when compared to the Mail’s ‘The Man who hated Britain’ headline….and yet absolutely no barrage of outrage from the BBC or any on the Left as they blitzed us with over the Mail’s attack on their Marxist hero.

Once again the BBC’s coverage of events has serious consequences…..here allowing the Guardian’s dangerous revelations to go unchallenged, not just that, but Davis went so far as to make a false claim by implication about a senior politician and his views for political gain…..and so continuing the BBC’s playing down of MI5’s ‘scathing condemnation’ of the Guardian’s treachery.

This is what energy company SSE had to say today as it raised prices:

‘Over many years, policymakers themselves have failed to highlight adequately the cost to consumers of the policies they have pursued in government.’

Government has been allowed to hide the costs of those ‘green’ energy policies and the way they makes our fuel bills go ever upward, and the reason is that the BBC has, instead of doing what Humphrys said was the BBC’s role, bringing Power to account, it has done everything it could to support those policies:

The BBC has worked hand in hand with climate scientists.

It’s journalists have taken money from those climate scientists to fund their propaganda.

It has worked hand in hand with climate activists.

It is a climate activist in its own right.

The BBC instead of investigating, challenging and reporting political events surrounding climate change has worked with the politicians to promote their policies.

Even today the BBC continues to muddy the waters and distract attention from the real reasons for price rises and concentrates on inciting a feeling amongst the public that the energy companies are profiteering as they freeze in their homes and old people and the vulnerable fall sick or die from the cold.

We are constantly treated to Miliband’s analysis …that the market is failing and companies ripping us off….and his price freeze is the answer.

Here the BBC tells us that Greg Barker, government Energy Minister, has been ‘defending the energy companies’ against Miliband’s claims and that ‘the more these companies put their bills up the more Ed Miliband’s offer looks attractive’..….so the BBC takes Labour’s narrative…that the Tories are only supporting big companies and abandoning the ‘vulnerable’….and Miliband’s policy is popular.

The BBC must think everyone is a fool…Miliband’s proposals have been roundly condemned by just about everyone…even a previous Labour energy minister.

This is what the BBC tells us Adam Scorer, Director of Consumer Futures says:

“SSE and others who follow need to demonstrate why this rise is justified.”

But in fact his main message was this (11 mins):

‘I have a lot of sympathy with SSE…We are in a high cost energy market and the prices aren’t going to come down any time soon…the only solution is…Government needs to make a real and sustained difference to the cost of energy. Sadly, short term freezes or the exhortation to switch just do not get to the heart of the matter. We need to see Government and regulators pull the right levers.’

So Miliband’s short term price freeze is a crock.

Strange the BBC didn’t quote that.

Just been listening to Labour’s Diane Abbot on Question Time….she claims that the 8% rise in energy price by SSE demonstrates that the energy market is rigged and dysfunctional.

So let’s have a  look at whether the companies are making undue profits, if the market is rigged and dysfunctional…and if so, who is to blame.

The company says it has put prices up because of a rise in wholesale prices…in the main…. it is their first price rise in twelve months….and the profit margin is a mere 5%.

Ofgem is the regulator for the energy market and this is what it has to say about the price of energy:

Facts about wholesale costs
The wholesale price of gas for use this winter is 8 per cent higher than the price of gas for use last winter.
The wholesale price of electricity for use this winter is 13 per cent higher than the price of electricity for use last winter.

We have made the transition from a country self-sufficient in gas to a country dependent on gas imports. This, together with environmental targets and the need to invest in ageing power stations and energy networks, has increased pressure on prices.

Facts about environmental costs
Over the last ten years environmental costs have risen from £10 to over £100.
Compared to 2012, environmental costs have risen by around £10 to £115 of an average annual dual fuel household bill.
If current trends continue, we anticipate environmental costs to increase further over the next 12 months.

Energy bills have risen in recent years for a number of reasons. These include the impact of global energy prices on wholesale energy costs, the increasing cost of meeting the government’s environmental targets and the cost of investing in the pipe and wire networks.

So that’s pretty clear…SSE raises prices 8%…Miliband claims it’s a scandal, the BBC reports his words…but doesn’t report along side that that wholesale prices have risen 8% for gas and 13% for electricity.

The BBC has been broadcasting a doom and gloom scenario for these price rises…it has been broadcasting Miliband’s soundbite all day…‘It’s a scandal and the government is just standing by allowing these companies to rip us off.’

John Pienaar tells us every chance he gets that Ed Miliband is setting the agenda on the ‘cost of living crisis’….no mention that this new line by Labour is because their Plan B strategy failed so miserably.

Is Miliband setting the agenda then?
Didn’t the government raise the tax thresh hold for millions of low paid workers? (Something that rarely gets a mention on the BBC)…and as for energy isn’t the government already working to keep prices low and transparent and improve competition in the market?  So, well ahead of Miliband.

The government tells us:

On 21 June 2013, after two years extensive research, we published detailed rule changes that will deliver a simpler, clearer and fairer energy market.
The reforms will tackle problems of widespread consumer confusion over energy tariffs, poor supplier behaviour and lack of transparency which is stifling competition. This will give consumers the choice they want and simplicity to compare energy tariffs, making it much easier to access the information they need to find the best deal on the market.

There is little genuine effort on the part of the BBC to drill down into the figures and who is to blame.

Here is Guido:
Ed Admitted Cost of Living Would Be Increased By His Policies
Willing to “Lose Six Months of Economic Growth”

Here is Sky News:
Demonising Energy Firms May Be Slightly Unfair

Here is the Telegraph:
Ed Miliband can’t freeze those bills he himself sent through the roof

But look at the BBC and Miliband’s role in all this is missing….the green tax burden is downplayed and the analysis of exactly why prices rise is missing in detail…the BBC mentions wholesale prices and ‘government levies’ as it puts it, but fails to give the detail…such as wholesale has risen 8% and 13% in the last year…kind of an important fact.

They tell us that the green taxes, or government levies or programmes, only make up a small part of a bill….
David Cameron wants to shift the focus of restricting price rises on to green taxes, which make up part of your bill…It’s only a small percentage of what you pay

A small percentage?  The BBC itself tells us that it is up to 11%….and as you can see from Ofgem’s figures that is £115 per year on your bill and set to rise…anything up to a total of£300.

As the green tax is the only thing other than company profit that can be reduced and thereby reduce retail prices those taxes should be taking a far more prominent role in the discussions by the BBC.

Are the markets failing?  Well it makes a nice soundbite….but what is the truth and who is responsible for the markets?

Firstly I fail to see how 6 companies constitutes a lack of competition…amongst a myriad of smaller companies…and it was Labour that reduced the number of big companies from 14 to 6…and bare in mind that National Grid is a monopoly..and its prices have gone up 10%…why is that not a ‘scandal’, why is that not due to lack of competition, why does Miliband not want to freeze their prices?

Clearly it is not a market failure that is driving up prices….and with margins of only 5% the companies don’t have much room for price cuts…..and as they all buy wholesale from the same markets and use the same National Grid infrastructure prices are always going to be similar and therefore comments from Labour about market failure can be seen to be so much hot air.

Who is responsible for regulating the market and what is their role?

Ofgem is the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets.

Our role is to make sure that retail energy markets work in the interests of consumers. We do this by monitoring the market and, where necessary, taking action to strengthen competition or enforce the rules with which suppliers must comply.

Our priority is to protect customers’ interests.  One way in which we do this is through the promotion of effectively functioning competitive markets.

When necessary, we use our powers to monitor and address any anti-competitive behaviour or practices which may affect the market.

So pretty clear…Ofgem regulates the market, tries to ensure ‘value for money’ for the customer and promotes competition within the market.

If the market isn’t working presumably it’s not the market’s fault, because the market is being ‘controlled’ by the state regulator.

It is Ofgem’s fault.

Ofgem also regulates the National Grid network….SSE said that 10% of its cost rise came from the National Grid raising its own prices….this is what Ofgem says:

It is important that National Grid has appropriate commercial incentives to operate the gas NTS in an economic and efficient manner, as they are required to do under the terms of their licence as the System Operator.
To achieve this we work to develop incentive schemes that provide National Grid with an appropriate balance of risk and reward. At the same time, we also try to protect the interests of present and future consumers, who ultimately pay for the costs of system operation.

Listening to the BBC and its own analysis and presentation you’d never know of Ofgem’s large and vital role, you’d never know of the price rises in wholesale gas and electricity and how they relate to SSE’s price rise, you’d never know whether the markets are failing or not and you’d never know that Miliband’s price freeze was an eye-catching highly cynical political ploy…a trick.

It is just curious how the BBC whilst mentioning the bare minimum of facts manages to ignore those facts and still push the idea that the companies are profiteering, that  price freeze is a good idea and that all this has nothing to do with green policies, or Ed Miliband.

Listening to the BBC you might just come away with the idea that the energy companies are ripping everyone off, that capitalism has failed again, and that the only answer is a good dose of socialist state intervention…a solution that the Public apparently finds attractive.

H/T to Chris for linking to this from the Mail:

How the BBC buried the story: MI5 attack on Left-wing paper’s leaks played down

• BBC downplays MI5 chief’s scathing condemnation of The Guardian
• Newsnight editor is former Guardian executive Ian Katz
• ‘They appear to be protecting Left-wing friends’ – Tory MP

The BBC were certainly looking at it throughout today…Though Humphrys (08:10) looked to have finally come down on the side of the Guardian I felt…’and that’s the point…we didn’t know about it until we read it in the Guardian’….and just re-listened….the Guardian’s Henry Porter says it isn’t the Guardian’s fault…it’s the fault of the NSA for having ‘leaked’ the information.

Rusbridger, interviewed on World at One gave a laughable excuse (another one) and was allowed to get away with brushing aside Andrew Parker’s assessment……It causes enormous damage to make public the reach and limits of GCHQ techniques. Such information hands the advantage to the terrorists. It is the gift they need to evade us and strike at will. Unfashionable as it might seem, that is why we must keep secrets secret, and why not doing so causes such harm.

He claimed he was justified in publishing such damaging material because…well, it might be OK for the security services to be gathering so much data now in a democracy…but…if Robert Mugabe were to take over…..

He was claiming that in future these techniques might be abused should we somehow become a dictatorship and Britain turn into a police state.

The logic fails for me on that one…if we turn into a police state what the Guardian thinks will be irrelevant…more so than now….can’t see a British Stasi asking Rusbridger’s permission to carry out surveillance…..and such techniques, with proper oversight…would work to prevent such an eventuality.

He also dodged the main accusation that he has allowed terrorists to analyse the security service’s techniques and technology and thereby adapt their own tactics to avoid detection.

So let’s be clear…Rusbridger admits that there is no abuse now.  The threat is one for a future scenario where we have become a police state.

On the basis of that crystal ball gazing he publishes information that is highly damaging to national interests and aids terrorists putting the public at risk.

The Mail publishes a claim that Marxists are a danger to Britain and the Left goes ballistic, the Guardian publishes information that helps terrorists…..and the BBC is smoothing things over.

The PM woke up to a birthday treat he tells us this morning…the BBC actually reported some good news for the government….despite Austerity public services seem to be carrying on the same if not better in many people’s opinion.

Many people in Britain think the quality of public services overall have been maintained or improved in the past five years despite government cuts, a poll for the BBC suggests.

More of the 1,031 people surveyed feel bin collections, parks and libraries, schools and bus services have improved than those who think they are worse.

The BBC being the BBC it still managed to slip the knife in, continuing:

But the responses indicate people think the quality of elderly care, hospitals, police and road maintenance is lower.

But is that true?

No.

Look at the police…yes 28% think services are worse, and only 15% think things are better…but 43% think things are the same.

So how would you interpret that?  Does that ‘indicate people think the quality of policing is lower’?

Some do…but the vast majority don’t…58% in fact.

The same goes for care for the elderly….22% say it has got worse, 11% better, and 22% the same…..so the majority think things are the same or better not worse.

It’s the same for all the figures except roads which the majority agree have got worse.

That is not the impression you get listening to the news…..all you hear is that some things are perceived to have gotten better but policing, hospitals and care for the elderly are worse.

As these are some of the most important services you may wonder why the BBC puts that negative spin on those particular figures….and of course the public perception of these services must have been effected by the massive negative coverage the BBC has given them for the last 3 years and the effect of the supposed cuts on them.

Mark Easton does admit this:

However, the survey indicates that people who use a particular service are more likely to say it has got better than the general population.  (and those who don’t listen to the BBC rumour service?)

But again listening to the actual news bulletins and you’d have no idea of that qualification.

Always been somewhat surprised how the BBC would comment quite happily about the lack of English players in the premiership and how something should be done to increase the numbers and thence help the England squad…isn’t that just a bit too nationalistic and Little Englander for the great and the good of the BBC?

So when Jack Wilshere said players with 5 years residence shouldn’t be considered English the lack of the usual progressive outrage from the BBC that would normally follow such a remark didn’t surprise….though it seems to be building a head of steam now from other quarters.

Then I heard Mark Pougatch on 5Live Sport  (17:09:30) say:

‘Nevertheless Jack Wilshere is perfectly entitled to his own opinion… Footballers have always been accused of being boring with nothing to say….so if this is what you feel, Jack Wilshere, then say it.’

Is it just me or would they say that to Tommy Robinson?

Curious that they always dismiss the EDL as ‘football hooligans‘…and yet here’s a footballer saying something that goes against every value the self proclaimed progressive left hold dear…..and yet…..

Been listening to the news about the E-Border….I can’t say I know a huge amount about it and had completely forgotten that Labour introduced the scheme in 2003….and despite listening all day it wasn’t until just after 18:00 on 5Live drive that I was reminded of this fact….not by the BBC but by a commentator…until then it was ‘The government’s border scheme’….and therefore their shambles.

Also you may have got the impression that everything was indeed a complete disaster, however yet again it was from a commentator, Tony Smith, a previous boss of the border service, that we got a different picture…Margaret Hodge managing to blame ‘the government‘ moments earlier.

Clearly that is just my personal take on the news as I heard it on the radio and it maybe that on the TV and on the web they go into this in far more depth…but if you’d been listening to the radio you would possibly have taken away a completely false picture of events unless you were lucky enough to catch the interview with Smith.

It is a regular failing of BBC news bulletins on the radio that we seldom get a fully rounded picture of events and strangely often what is missing are the parts of the story that don’t support the suspected BBC world view.