Funny old world…the BBC absolutely refused to cover allegations, covered in depth by Guido, that Tim Yeo, as chairman of the climate change committee, was in any way compromised with so many green business interests resting on the decisions and advice of that committee.

Yeo was then put under investigation by fellow MPs concerning other allegations about lobbying (Sunday Times video on Guido)….and today it has been announced he is corruption free.

The BBC are straight in there cheering him on on the frontpage:

MP Yeo cleared by standards watchdog

The BBC reports this:

The paper said he had admitted telling a business associate what to say in evidence to the committee he chaired.

But then gives us this:

But the watchdog said the newspaper had used “subterfuge, misrepresentation and selective quotation” in its report.

The MPs criticised the tactics used by the Sunday Times in approaching Mr Yeo.

“We note the severe damage which is done to public trust by journalism which rests on a basis of subterfuge, misrepresentation and selective quotation,” the report said.

“Media investigations can have a role to play in ensuring high standards of public conduct, but we note that in this case Mr Yeo has broken no rules and the only misrepresentation has been that of the journalists themselves.”

Watch the video and he makes exactly that claim…that he told a business associate what to say in evidence.

Funny the BBC not mention that….nor indeed provide the video.

Funny the BBC not mention this conclusion by the watchdog about his words in that video:

“….they could give the impression of a senior member of the House who has little regard for the rules and can easily find his way round them in order to suit his own purposes.”

..and yet his fellow MPs still cleared him.

Choke.

And these are the guys who the BBC wants to run Press regulation?

Of course what the BBC doesn’t mention are all his massive green industry interests which, without a shadow of a doubt, would compromise his position in the eyes of most onlookers…..though not a matter for this investigation by the standards watchdog.

Will read the Sunday Times with keen interest this week.

I was listening to an item on the Today programme this morning around 6.4oam. It concerns Obama’s request that NO more sanctions are directed the way of Iran whilst John Kerry and co are trying to cut a deal with the Mullahs. The reporter (with an Irish accent?) was plainly anti-Israel and she actually said that Obama’s legacy was as a President who ENDED wars. Syria? Libya? Afghanistan? Netanyahu was presented as intransigent and US jewish people seeking to influence opinion were presented as unhelpful lobbyists! Just a little Israel hatred to start the day… I can’t share the link to it as there is none but perhaps others heard this contemptible item?

Yesterday, the BBC gave huge prominence to a “suggestion” by the Attorney General of Northern Ireland that there should be no prosecutions of any terrorists pre “Good Friday Agreement” It has been almost universally rejected but the interesting aspect is the enthusiasm the BBC had for this immoral idea – an idea which Irish Republicans think may have legs. Today, the BBC via Panorama tonight, suggests that…gasp …British soldiers killed “unarmed civilians” aka IRA terrorists.

What sickens me most about all this is that the BBC  – via our license tax – are helping drive the IRA meme that all sides were as bad as each other and so a general amnesty is the way forward. The sheer immorality of this seems to fly high over BBC heads as they contrive to manipulate public opinion.

I did wonder what Newsnight would make of Milibandism (30 mins) as they had Rafael Behr, the New Statesman’s political editor, on to explain the new political force in the land and the ideas behind it.

What I saw was a slick, well produced party political broadcast….and I’m sure it will be immortalized on You Tube as such…..Behr did manage to get a dig in at Cameron…though sacrificing Brown to do so by saying that next to Thatcher and Blair others like Brown, Major and Cameron are intellectual also-rans……(possibly true)

Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your outlook, what happened next was what could well be the future for Milibandism….a polished presentation followed by a shambolic reality….as indeed admitted by Behr when he said the best thing that could happen to the Tories might be to lose the next election and allow Miliband to win….when the wheels will fall off his bandwagon.

After the film was shown it was back to the studio and Rafael Behr was up against Phil Collins, a speech writer for Blair and now writing for The Times….with Paxman sitting back with a grin on his face letting them set to.

Behr put up a weak defense of ‘Milibandism’, which is odd as he has written a long article in the Staggers about it and produced this lovely film…so had time to think about it and work out a good line…..unfortunately he couldn’t and as mentioned, seemed to doubt Milibandism could even work on the ground….saying he could end up in No. 10 by accident rather than it being his policies winning the vote.

Collins, despite his past associations, put the boot in completely destroying Labour’s, Miliband’s, approach…..saying he had no policies….he said the problem with the Left is that they have no answer to what ‘they’ are for now…..asking ‘What are you for if you don’t have the money to spend?’…..Miliband has no policies on schools, the NHS, crime or welfare…..and he has no policy to reform the State.

Behr himself damns Miliband by replying that Miliband thinks voters aren’t concerned with that…..in other words Miliband is going for shallow, eye catching policies that don’t have any substance rather than committing to the boring, grown up statesmanlike policies that deal with real problems such as the way government actually works and structural problems such as the shape of the NHS and welfare….let’s face it even his own MP’s don’t think he is a man of substance:

So how did Newsnight do? The film was as I said a bit of a classic, and one Labourites will no doubt link to at every chance…however the actual policies of Miliband got a sound kicking from Collins…and by Behr himself ironically as he was battered into submission by Collins.

Paxman didn’t feel the need to intervene…which was fair enough…the discussion seemed pretty comprehensive with only the occasional nudge from him……

However as the film will have a separate life of its own and is so pro-Miliband, and produced by  someone who is so clearly of the ‘Left’,  it was probably an error of judgement for a politically neutral BBC to  air such a one sided film that promoted Miliband and his ideas so slickly.

All good fun…but how often do you hear that type of critical analysis by Collins of Miliband’s ‘policies’ from BBC journos?  What we get from John Pienaar is ‘the boy done good…he’s making the narrative’…but little, if any,  examination of the substance.

The BBC hasn’t been very pro-active in examining Labour’s claims about the so called ‘Living standard’s crisis’ but at least someone is having a go…..and it’s not Tory Central Office…..

Rafael Behr, political editor of the New Statesman examines ‘Milibandism’.…but along the way he mentions this…leading in with a quote from Miliband’s conference speech…..

“For generations in Britain, when the economy grew, the majority got better off. And then somewhere along the way that vital link between the growing wealth of the country and your family finances was broken,” he said.

Average wages began stagnating around 2003, even as the economy looked buoyant in national statistics. For many households, there has been a relative decline in income, which was masked by Treasury tax credits and rising personal debt. Benefits (a substantial portion of which goes to people in work) and credit cards covered up for the systemic failure of our economic model. Those at the top of the income scale were spared the squeeze as the proceeds of growth flowed upwards to a narrow wealthy elite.

So…hang on…..Labour’s new line of attack, now that Plan B has been quietly binned, is the ‘Living standards crisis’…..the ever growing gap between average wages and prices and the highest earners…..caused by the Coalition’s policies.

Doesn’t Behr blow that line of attack apart by saying such a gap began in 2003 under Labour….‘Average wages began stagnating around 2003‘…..hidden by massive state spending and borrowing?

Will the BBC Newsnight team pick up on that as they interview Behr or is it just a PR exercise for the Chosen One?

In which I take seriously the idea that Milibandism is a thing: http://t.co/fJtvzCg2St (Thought experiment continues on Newsnight tonight)

— Rafael Behr (@rafaelbehr) November 20, 2013

The BBC is on board….spreading the word….and the word is ‘Milibandism’.

Another interesting few words from ex-Beeboid Roger Mosey:

I can say what I think now, too, which is cheering after 30-odd years of friendly corralling by BBC minders.

Deviation from past orthodoxy is as welcome to some former colleagues as a cat bringing in a mangled sparrow but there was plenty of support, too, including some from unexpected internal sources. The brickbats seemed to be about the principle of criticising the BBC rather than the argument itself. So let me be clear: I believe wholeheartedly in the BBC. But it’s daft to assume you can only be counted as a supporter if you think the corporation should expand still further or that it should have the whole licence fee for ever.

Sounds familiar….they just hate the criticism…however justified.

What does Robert Peston mean?  And who are these political activists?

The Co-op Group has told me: “Given the serious and wide-ranging allegations, Co-op Group has started a fact-finding process to find any inappropriate behaviour and will take action accordingly.”

And the board has also launched a “root and branch review of the democratic structure of the organisation, because we need to modernise to make sure the interests of all members are properly represented in the oversight of business activities”.

In other words, the new management of Co-op Group is concerned to reform a governance system that allowed a small number of activists in the political wing of Co-op Group to control the group’s commercial activities.

The less than reverend Paul Flowers was a Labour Party politico…..his appointment was fixed by those activists?

Did Labour hijack the Co-op?  Maybe that’s why the Co-op ‘supports’ Labour.

Nice if you can hijack a commercial enterprise and use its funds to pay for your Party’s political campaigning.

Is that not headline news or worth an indepth investigation?  Guess not.

Just like Falkirk, and all the rest of the selection processes that Unite tried to rig….or Miliband’s energy freeze policy, or his apprenticeship scheme, or his living wage……none given the comprehensive stress testing that the BBC gives to the Tory policies.

Guido links to Charles Moore in the Spectator who is less than impressed with the BBC’s coverage of all things Labour…and Peston in particular:

There has naturally been plenty of unfavorable comment on how the Revd Paul Flowers, the ‘crystal Methodist’, was allowed by the Financial Services Authority to become chairman of the Co-op Bank. But the story does not reflect very well on the media either. If you look at Robert Peston’s BBC blog on the subject, for instance, there is a lot of ‘I am told’ and ‘according to the Manchester Evening News’.

Is there no one in the BBC’s enormous staff who could have done a bit of work years ago on the Revd Mr Flowers?

Like Falkirk and Grangemouth (see last week’s Notes), this is a story about the inner working of the Labour movement. It is grimy in its details. It may even require leaving London and going somewhere in the north to discover the facts. I suppose that is too much to ask. But if it had been a story about Tory corruption of a bank, I feel Mr Peston and co would have been in more of a hurry to find out about it.

I put this at the bottom of the last post but thinking about it it deserves its own post.

The BBC has put this headline on its frontpage:

David Cameron follows ‘high-class escorts’ on Twitter

and look….way, way down at the bottom after the BBC has headlined the story:

The site speculated that the Prime Minister – or more likely, an aide – might have been looking for the Carlton Club, a private members club for supporters of the Conservative Party…..’which bills itself as the “oldest and most important of all Conservative clubs”.

So a complete non-story….but too good a chance not to smear the PM on the frontpage of one of the world’s biggest news broadcasters.

What were they thinking?  Is it student rag week at the BBC?

Compare though the curious lack of BBC interest in this from Guido about a Labour MP (Thanks Uncle bup):

Jack Dromey’s Porn Favourites

This is Santiago Rodriguez  preforming a sex act on porn star Daemon Sadi. On the 14 November @blackgaycocks tweeted a link to their “pumped raw and creamed” photoshoot on specialist publication website BigBlackGayCocks.net. Intriguingly this tweet was ‘favourited’ by the Shadow Minister of State for Policing, Labour MP Jack Dromey who is better known as Mr Harriet Harman.

Can’t find any BBC report on this (Got to be one somewhere surely!?)

Student loans to Bulgarians and Romanians frozen

Loans to students from the two countries frozen after “suspicious” surge in the number enrolling at British colleges

Definitely no BBC report on this:

When it comes to Europe, we’ve been mugged

I’m seething. But not half as angry as my constituent.

Her daughter had studied hard and been accepted by a good university. She had just started life as a fresher. Mum was so proud, busying herself with the sort of things that proud mums do when their daughter goes off to university.

No one imagined that that that irksome delay with the Student Loan whatsit was anything to fret about.

Because my constituent, and her family, had lived for a while in Germany, the Student Loan Company wanted more details. How long had she lived in Germany? Was she normally resident here?

Spend two minutes talking to my constituent, and it is perfectly obvious she – and her daughter – are as British as a post box.

But it is ticking the boxes on the application form that counts. And because she had lived in Germany for a short time, her application for a student loan was rejected. Despite a very understanding Vice Chancellor, she has now had to drop out of university.

Try to imagine how that family in Clacton might now feel, when they read that student loans to Bulgarians and Romanians have just been suspended.

However the BBC weren’t always so slow on examining student loan disasters….from 2010:

Firm ‘confident’ no repeat on student loan delays

Boryana Dimitrova, applying from Bulgaria, told the BBC she had had to send an identity document three times before the company managed to locate it – despite it having acknowledged receiving a form sent in the same envelope.

Great that we pay for foreign students, whom many of which no doubt, won’t pay back the loan….but also that the BBC covers up once again the EU free for all….free that is except for you and me who pays for it….and positively seeks out foreign hard luck stories, no doubt to make us think we are all one big happy European family.

The BBC does have time for this though…..a full report on a bit of banter at PMQs:

Cameron’s Commons drugs ‘banter’ angers MP Meacher

The second most important political story on the BBC website!

Oh and this is even more important…on the frontpage:

David Cameron follows ‘high-class escorts’ on Twitter

oh look….way, way down at the bottom after the BBC has headlined the story:

The site speculated that the Prime Minister – or more likely, an aide – might have been looking for the Carlton Club, a private members club for supporters of the Conservative Party…..’which bills itself as the “oldest and most important of all Conservative clubs”.

So another non-story….but too good a chance not to smear the PM on the frontpage of one of the world’s biggest news broadcasters.

The last one’s overflowing so better have a new one of these…..