The Spectator asks:

Why can’t we admit we’re scared of Islamism?

The article reveals that an art exhibition examining freedom of expression had to be moved to a different location due to ‘threats’ towards the gallery….

‘Enemies of the exhibition’ had made threats, and it was worried about a ‘potential terrorist attack’

The article continues:

There was no secret about its decision. But not one of the arts correspondents for the broadsheets or BBC covered the threat to an international exhibition featuring the work of dozens of artists. I have argued many times that censorship is at its most effective when no one admits it exists. The first step to freeing yourself from oppressive power is to find the courage to admit that you are afraid. The more people confess to being afraid, the less reason there is to fear and the easier it is to isolate repressive forces.

Such threats to relatively small events are the tip of the iceberg…the massive drive by Muslim nations to silence any criticism at all of Islam is extraordinarily sinister and should be resisted at all costs.

Of course people have to know what is going on.

But they don’t.

There is already seems to be a self imposed silence on this reinvention of the Spanish Inquisition:

The OIC Secretary General appears to be laying the diplomatic groundwork to persuade non-elected bureaucrats at EU headquarters to enact hate-speech legislation that would limit by fiat what 500-million European citizens — including democratically elected politicians — can and cannot say about Islam

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), an influential bloc of 57 Muslim countries, has officially inaugurated a Permanent Observer Mission to the European Union (EU). The primary objective of the OIC, headquartered in Saudi Arabia and funded by Islamic countries around the world, has long been to pressure Europe and the United States into passing laws that would ban “negative stereotyping of Islam.”

I can’t find any references on the BBC to the OIC’s drive to impose Islam upon the World…..as you can see from the Spectator’s article there is already a willingness from Judges in Europe to silence any critic of Islam by labelling such criticism as ‘racist’….

a criminal record for condemning honour killings and clerical misogyny — proving yet again that the interests of women always come last.

Of course the law of untended consequences could come into play.

If criticism of any religion is to be banned then the Koran would have to be banned, and Islam along with it……the hate that spews out of the Koran for non-Muslims must surely raise a few Judicial eyebrows:

‘The unbelievers among the People of the Book and the pagans shall burn for ever in the fire of Hell. They are the vilest of creatures.’  98:6

Believers take neither Jews nor Christians for your friend.  5:51

‘Fight against such of those to whom the scriptures were given as believe in neither God nor the Last Day, who do not forbid what God and His Apostle have forbidden, and do not embrace the true faith, even if they are People of the Book, until they pay tribute out of hand and are utterly subdued.’  9:29

‘Make war on them until idolatry shall cease and God’s religion shall reign supreme.’  8:39

Front page news:

Broadcaster David Dimbleby gets first tattoo aged 75

Not front page news, in fact not news at all on the BBC:

Roma migrants could cause riots in cities, warns Blunkett

British cities could face race riots as an influx of Roma migrants creates “frictions” with local people, David Blunkett warns

The BBC though, does find time and space for more Hacking tales:

Hacking jury hears David Blunkett voicemails

The reliability and predictability of the licence fee has been a huge reason for the News Division’s success.
  MarkDamazer ex R4 Controller

Andrew Marr, BBC journalist recently voted top political reporter by Press Gazette describes “we have become too powerful, too much the interpreters, using our talents as communicators to crowd them (politicians) out. On paper we mock them more than ever before and report them less than ever before. On television and radio, we commentators are edging them out ever more carelessly”.

John Lloyd “you have to ask the question: is it the purpose of the news media to make an impact or to report the news?”.

As our most powerful cultural institution, the BBC is increasingly drawn into fierce debates about politics and morality, as well as its growing dominance of Britain’s media.

The BBC has become a victim of its own incredible success. It has emerged as a hugely powerful player over the last 10 years across national and – increasingly – international media. During this time it has raced to increase its number of TV and radio stations and has managed to establish a dominant position in online news.

Emma Duncan, deputy editor of the Economist, highlighted the specific threat that the BBC’s online news service poses to newspapers: “The Corporation has a fantastic website. That’s hardly surprising since it spends £145m a year of licence-fee payers’ money on it. Britain’s national newspapers put together spend around £100m on their online efforts. If the BBC is allowed to go on dominating online news it will undermine other news providers’ ability to survive on the internet, and thus threaten the diversity of news sources that is crucial to a democracy.

As Emily Bell, Guardian News & Media’s director of digital content, noted last year…[The BBC is] on a path which could … squish dozens of other media businesses, from magazines to daily newspapers, to local radio stations, to rival terrestrial broadcasters. The ecology of some parts of the UK media is now so uncertain and fragile that it can be depleted by a single blow from the end of the BBC’s tail as it rolls over in its sleep.”

As respect for other national institutions (politics, church, traditional family hierarchies) recedes, the BBC has assumed more cultural influence. It has become the place where national debates about moral, political and ethical disputes are increasingly being aired.

So not just the ‘usual suspects’ complaining about the BBC…even the Guardian, and the Economist, recognise the danger of its dominance.

The other media groups realised the growing dominance of the BBC and complained vociferously about the licence fee funded monster:

Media groups unite against BBC

News International, Associated Newspapers and the Telegraph Group have taken the rare step of joining forces to demand that the government curtail the BBC’s “digital empire-building”.

Commercial media groups are worried about the BBC’s digital ambitions, outlined recently in its Creative Future policy.

The submission on the BBC white paper, draft royal charter and agreement is also signed by David Elstein, the chairman of the Commercial Radio Companies Association and David Newell, the director of the Newspaper Society. The group said it had a grave concern about “the extent to which the BBC is being given a public policy directive to build a digital empire”.

Mark Thompson admitted  ‘there’s a big shock coming’...

Delivering the Royal Television Society’s Fleming Memorial Lecture this evening BBC Director-General Mark Thompson will say: “There’s a big shock coming…….The second wave of digital will be far more disruptive than the first and the foundations of traditional media will be swept away, taking us beyond broadcasting. “
“The BBC should no longer think of itself as a broadcaster of TV and radio and some new media on the side. We should aim to deliver public service content to our audiences in whatever media and on whatever device makes sense for them, whether they are at home or on the move. ”

Journalism
A new pan-platform journalism strategy, including mobile devices, is already underway, putting 24/7 news on the web, broadband, TV and radio at its heart for unfolding stories as well as analysis.
Current affairs will be reshaped and BBC News will work with the education sector to get BBC journalism into secondary schools across the country through initiatives like Schools Question Time.

So the BBC wants to spread its journalism into schools…why?

‘…unless the BBC worked harder to reach younger audiences and those that felt increasingly distant more effectively, the BBC could lose a generation forever.’

I guess they just want to keep their stranglehold on what people think…get ’em young and keep ’em.

Which might be one of the reasons why we get headlines like this today:

BBC website is ‘destroying’ local newspapers and harming democracy, warns Home Secretary Theresa May

The BBC is ‘destroying’ local newspapers by using its taxpayer-funded dominance to squeeze out competition, Theresa May has warned.
The Home Secretary condemned the BBC for using the licence fee to fund websites in direct competition with regional and national newspapers.
And she warned that as papers close, fewer sources of news will become ‘dangerous to the health of democratic politics’.

Though nothing new there….from 2006:

Tories attack BBC’s web dominance

The Conservative party will today launch an attack on the BBC, saying the corporation must be stopped from “abusing its privileged position and huge resources to crowd out smaller players” on the internet.

George Osborne saying:

“As new forms of media develop, I believe that the BBC must be very careful about not abusing its privileged position and huge resources to crowd out smaller players.

“I am concerned that in too many of its non-core activities, particularly on the internet, it is stifling the growth of innovative new companies that simply can’t compete with BBC budgets,” he will say, giving video downloading as an example.

“Another example is the BBC’s plan to launch programming for local communities – what it calls ‘ultra local television’. This might sound like a reasonable idea, but it could have a ruinous effect on local newspapers and local radio stations.

“This isn’t in the interests of the British public – who are denied new products and services, and ultimately, it isn’t in the interests of the BBC who need the competition.”

So I suppose the question is ‘Will the government have the bottle to do anything about it?’

Probably not.

unless the BBC worked harder to reach younger audiences and those that felt increasingly distant more effectively, the BBC could lose a generation forever.

The 181,880 people prosecuted last year for not paying for a TV licence, presumably some of the poorest in the country, will be delighted that if they had paid up their money would have gone into Labour Party coffers, or representatives of, and would undoubtedly be put to good use campaigning for the poor and needy:

BBC pays seven times more to Labour MPs, figures show

The corporation paid more than £32,000 in fees to Labour MPs whilst only shelling out £4,650 to their Tory counterparts in the past year

Alan Johnson, the former home secretary, was the biggest earner and was given £15,800 for 51 hours work contributing to radio and television broadcasts.

It means the former postman, who already picks up a £65,000 salary, is earning almost £310 per hour.

That’s £310 per hour.  Basically more than many earn in a week….living standards crisis?

Not in Alan Johnson’s house.

Here you to, let’s start the week with a new Open Thread to populate! Off you go…

Who wants to be a Slumdog waif and stray?…well it seems quite a lot of Indians don’t mind so much despite the best intentions of those who know what is good for them…and you and me.

The BBC has given Miliband a free ride over his ‘Living standard’s crisis‘, pretty much allowing him to get away with murder whilst making headline grabbing claims for policies that even the most ardent fan would admit don’t hold water and are solely intended to grab those headlines and make Miliband look like he is driving the narrative and is a really good, caring guy….come the election and a possible Labour win and they will all be quietly shelved.

Money and higher spending are always the road to happiness….unless the BBC is in a contrary mood and is lecturing us about ‘consumerism’ and wanting too much.

Having to pull in your belt for a bit, spend less on fags and beer, and your lifestyle has been shockingly curtailed by an uncaring Tory government.

Call the UN. Call the special rapporteurs to investigate this breach in your human rights!

Thankfully not everyone has yet fallen for that line of thinking…..the BBC leapt to the defence of India when critics attacked it for spending a billion pounds on its space programme….and in doing so revealed an amusing tale of rebellion and independence from the depths of the Indian slums in From Our Own Correspondent:(about 11:40)

For India, its mission to Mars is an opportunity to come out top of a new Asian space race. Justin Rowlatt examines the question: couldn’t the cash instead have been used to lift many Indians out of poverty?

The ‘Slumdogs’ weren’t interested in the charities’ charity so much….claiming,  literally from  the gutter, that ‘Life’s not that hard’.

The charities couldn’t persuade the children and youths to come off the streets and into their care …they wanted their freedom.

I guess there’s some things money can’t buy.

Strange that the BBC continually gives so much credence to the claims in this country that families on anything up to £70,000 a year benefits are in poverty and are therefore unhappy.

The BBC has often helped to spread the belief that the next generation is going to be poverty stricken whilst the baby Boomer generation live the Dolce Vita.

BBC journalists have gone as far as to ask why the young aren’t out on the streets ‘protesting’…whatever that might mean.

In 2011 Alvin Hall reported in a similar vein:

Alvin Hall: The generation poorer than their parents

Many young people in Britain are set to be in a worse economic position than their parents, but is there any sympathy among older generations and is their cause gaining support from politicians?

“I’m 100% livid, I think that’s the best way of putting it. We’re going to get more angry than we are now.”

Twenty-five-year-old City worker George Lewkowicz is mad about the economy.

He is typical of many young Brits under the age of 30 who have come to realise that their financial prospects are substantially less bright than that of their parents’ generation.

Today, George predicts this disquiet is only set to escalate:

“There is this huge population of older people who have essentially had it all, and my generation are then paying for their retirement.”

When this dawns on people, George argues, “the riots will happen”.

Personally I have yet to see evidence of that ‘poverty’…when the ‘youth’ are carting around £500 phones it kind of makes a mockery of such claims.

The Sunday Times suggests Hall and his kind are blowing smoke up our backsides:

Relax, Boomers, the kids won’t be bust.

The children of today will be far better off than any previous generation, according to one of the country’s leading economists.

Sir Andrew Dilnot, chairman of the Statistics Authority, believes technological advances mean young people have never had it so good and life will continue to improve for several more generations.

What else is interesting is the claim that whilst we maybe materially better off ‘our moral lives have been damaged…….by divorce, separation and lack of responsibility for community’.

And who exactly brought that about?   Those who set out to destroy the family, deny responsibility for our own actions and respect for authority…and the turning over of all responsibility for your own life to the government.

Amongst others it was all those Trotskyist and Marxist revolutionaries who worked for the BBC  in the sixties…..trying to implement all those things that Ralph Miliband was so enamoured of…….as a Marxist.  Even Joan Bakewell admitted she was so minded, suspected by the BBC hierarchy of wanting to overthrow the government.

Dilnot tell us that matters are not actually worse but that expectations have changed…we expect more and more…and who drives those expectations?…..the Media.

No one wants to work in a factory now…they have all seen that getting on the ‘Telly’ and becoming a celebrity is the easy way to fame and fortune without having to grind out a living.

The BBC and the Left continually demand an improvement in living standards as Miliband does now…..and yet where does the money come from for that?  The jobs all go to cheap old China.

Day in day out the BBC gives enormous airtime to any charity that stakes a claim on government spending…always demanding more.

Listening to the BBC report these charities’ claims  over the last two weeks and you would know that poverty is the cause of so much harm…..

Poverty means choosing heating over eating, and not eating causes obesity (no really), and obesity causes a housing shortage as fat people can’t fit into normal houses, and living on the streets causes cancer from the fumes of automobiles,  and cancer patients can’t get into hospital as they’ve all been closed down because they can’t afford the energy price rises, so patients are left in the streets to die…their decaying and rotting bodies giving off gases that cause climate change and doom the planet.

And all because of poverty.

Oliver Twist had nothing on these Charity scroungers….and Dickens nothing on the BBC for spinning a good tale.

Is ‘Falkirk’ the Scottish tragedy that no one at the BBC dare mention any longer in case disaster follows?

Disaster that is for Ed Miliband:

Why Falkirk is a ‘cesspit’ for Ed Miliband

On the 5th November, which seems to be the last time the BBC visited this story, Nick Robinson had this headline:

Falkirk – the row which simply won’t go away

The BBC however does seem to be very keen to make it go away.

Again in the 5th the BBC reports this:

Labour leader Ed Miliband has refused to commit to a fresh inquiry into allegations of vote-rigging by the Unite union in Falkirk.

He insisted he had taken comprehensive action and acted “swiftly and thoroughly” in the case.

and add this:

A Labour spokesman on Monday said the party had re-interviewed an important witness, Lorraine Kane, but she had said nothing to justify reopening the inquiry.

Now that’s just not true…..she said she had not withdrawn her evidence as claimed by Miliband in order to try and end the investigation of Unite’s activities:

On Monday, the Daily Mail revealed that Lorraine Kane, the whistleblower who first alleged she and her family had been signed up as Labour members without their consent, had rejected Unite claims that she had withdrawn her testimony.

Another witness who claimed Labour’s biggest funder was embroiled in vote-rigging is standing by her account – piling more pressure on Ed Miliband to reopen an inquiry into the scandal.

Michelle Hornall is one of several who claimed to have been signed up as Labour members without their knowledge by the union Unite.

For two weeks now there has been revelation after revelation, all pretty damning and highly damaging for Miliband and yet little from the BBC.

Compare the coverage of this with that given by the BBC when Labour claimed the Tory’s Aussie spinner, Lynton Crosby, was influencing policy in favour of his own business interests :

David Cameron’s election strategist has denied Labour claims of a “shocking conflict of interest” over his lobbying firm’s work on behalf of private health companies at the time of NHS reforms.

A relentless barrage of smears came from the BBC about Crosby, slinging enough mud in the hope that some sticks whatever the real truth.

(And contrast that also with the BBC’s complete refusal to cover claims made about Tim Yeo’s green interests)

and nowt on this from the Daily Mail, and front page on the Sunday Times all day :

Now Unite union boss Len McCluskey faces investigation into claims his election included 160,000 ‘phantom’ members on the ballot – including some who had DIED

Even Labour’s own supporters are doing their own investigations and analysis….shame the world’s most powerful broadcaster and news gatherer can’t be bothered…….

UNCUT: The real reason Labour is petrified of re-opening the Falkirk inquiry

It is politically unsustainable for the party to continue insisting all is well when figures as senior as Alistair Darling are calling for the inquiry to be re-opened and news reports related to Labour are increasingly dominated by this one issue.

And on the evidence that has emerged from the cache of over 1000 Ineos mails that were passed to the Sunday Times, the party appears to be wilfully averting its gaze. Ed Miliband was wrong today when he said that no new information had come to light on Falkirk.

Quite apart from whether key witnesses have or have not withdrawn their original complaints, if the Sunday Times e-mails are true there are several other potential rule breaches now in the public domain that merit further examination by the party.

Why would the Labour leadership indulge in such an apparent act political of self-harm by pretending nothing has changed on Falkirk?

The answer is that there is a far greater fear of the consequences for Ed Miliband if the inquiry is re-opened and a civil war with Unite ensues.

Beyond the potential financial cost to the party of withheld union donations, the leader’s office is scared about what will happen at the special conference next year on Ed Miliband’s proposals to reform the union link………

It means that although the majority of CLP delegates are likely to back Ed Miliband’s reforms, almost half are in the left camp and likely oppose the Labour leadership’s plans.

Without Unite or one of the other big unions backing the reform proposals, a crushing defeat at the special conference beckons for Ed Miliband.

This would ignite a media meltdown. It’s difficult to imagine a situation where the weakness of the leader was more viscerally demonstrated than to be defeated in such a manner. The contrast with Tony Blair and the 1995 special conference would be brutal.

This is the nightmare scenario which is scaring the leader’s office and is why they are petrified of re-opening the Falkirk inquiry.

or maybe:

The suggestion being whispered is that Mr Miliband’s refusal to hold another inquiry can be explained by the need to keep Len McCluskey satisfied. Mr McCluskey is furious about the attacks on Unite’s integrity and claims rather implausibly that the whole scandal is a Tory plot. That defence is not particularly credible; there are not many Tories in Falkirk.

“I really hope a deal hasn’t been done,” said a worried Labour MP yesterday. “In which Ed agrees not to reopen the Falkirk inquiry and Unite says it will fund the election campaign. I really hope that isn’t what has happened. But it is starting to look like it.”

The BBC looks like it has closed ranks and is giving Miliband a huge amount of protection from a ‘bad Press’ whilst at the same time headlining every new Labour policy claim such as his latest effort:

Miliband: Ban children’s TV loan ads

Payday loan adverts should be banned during children’s TV shows, in the same way those for junk food are, says Labour leader Ed Miliband.

Astonishing that Paxman is allowed to get away with his political comments, especially as he is one of the BBC’s most senior political interviewers….here he is not talking about a past election but the next one and is expressing what are self-evidently highly political views…

Paxman says that we “ignore the democratic process at our peril” and believes people should vote. However he is also damning about the opportunities on offer when the people of Britain go to the polls to chose the next government.

“At the next election we shall have a choice between the people who’ve given us five years of austerity, the people who left us this mess, and the people who signed public pledges that they wouldn’t raise student fees, and then did so – the most blatant lie in recent political history.

“It won’t be a bombshell if very large numbers of the electorate simply don’t bother to vote. People are sick of the tawdry pretences.”

Yet again he is wrong as he was with Cameron and the WWI commemoration….for which he owes a very public and big apology to Cameron:

Downing Street is demanding a ‘full and public apology’ from the BBC’s Jeremy Paxman for calling  the Prime Minister a ‘complete idiot’ over his plans for the First World  War centenary.

Paxman claims it is ‘a choice between the people who’ve given us five years of austerity, the people who left us this mess‘

But it was being left in ‘this mess’ (nice to see he admits it was Labour wot done it) that made some form of ‘austerity’ inevitable.

It’s not a choice.

The very fact that Paxman agreed with Brand meant he couldn’t interview him properly…as shown in the actual ‘interview’ in which Paxman didn’t bother to challenge Brand in the slightest.

Rather than telling Paxman to pipe down the BBC are going to town on his comments:

Viewpoints: Do MPs agree with Brand and Paxman?

and this:

Jeremy Paxman: Like Russell Brand, I didn’t vote

It does seem they really have lost the plot and forgotten any idea of their public service remit…not to mention the legal requirement to report events impartially.

The BBC (& others) have been enthusiastically hyping the storm in the Phillipines as the strongest in history…then moderated it to ‘one of the most powerful‘….but still giving wind speeds  incorrectly:

The storm made landfall shortly before dawn on Friday, bringing gusts that reached 379km/h (235 mph), according to the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center, with waves as high as 15m (45ft), bringing up to 400mm (15.75 inches) of rain in places.

WUWT gives the figures as reported by the Phillipine Met Agency:

That’ll be 235 KPH….not 235 MPH!

The BBC has now updated that report…still calling it ‘one of the most powerful’:

Typhoon Haiyan – one of the most powerful storms on record to make landfall – swept through six central Philippine islands on Friday.

It brought sustained winds of 235km/h (147mph), with gusts of 275 km/h (170 mph), with waves as high as 15m (45ft), bringing up to 400mm (15.75 inches) of rain in places.

And as for that ‘one of the most powerful’…even that is wrong….

Terrible though this storm was, it only ranks as a Category 4 storm, and it is clear nonsense to suggest that it is “one of the most powerful storms on record to make landfall ”

How is it that the BBC got it so badly wrong?  Even Category 5 storms aren’t that rare….so why the hype?

And why are they still reporting it in such apocalyptic terms relative to its strength?  I note that many reports have ‘world’s strongest storm…of 2013’..…but that certainly wasn’t what was said on the radio,   the ‘of 2013′ was missing….usually having ‘on record’ instead.

Is it just more evidence that the BBC’s environmental journalists are prepared to lie in order to keep pushing the global warming produces ‘extreme weather’ theme?

Many people have died in the storm but should their deaths be used to promote the BBC’s political and environmental agenda just as they used the deaths of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan to campaign against the wars?