Category Archives: BBC bias

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.

Tommy for you the war is over….

Or is it? 

Mohammed Shafiq from the Ramadan Foundation,  talking on the BBC seemed to think so, claiming the forces of conservative Islam had won a great victory and had closed down the EDL.

In May a new approach was suggested for the EDL…

It would be interesting to  see the BBC’s reaction if the EDL adopted the ‘Sinn Fein/IRA’ approach and separated the ‘direct action’ protest group from the political…and got themselves some media savvy spokesman with some gravitas and stature….perhaps even a Muslim.

The BBC were always ready to talk to Gerry Adams…going so far as to evade a government ban on broadcasting interviews with the IRA…despite his links to the murderous IRA who tortured, bombed and killed so many.

Today Tommy Robinson and many of the leaders of the EDL left the organisation to take a more sophisticated political approach to combating extremism….and have joined forces, at least initially, with….a Muslim group, Quilliam:

‘Mr Robinson said it was still his aim to “counter Islamist ideology”, although “not with violence but with better, democratic ideas”.’

This move puts Robinson on the road to ‘respectability’…at least as much as he could expect….some will never accept him and his views….whilst of course still leaving the ‘direct action’ of the EDL to keep the issues from disappearing off the radar….and the TV screens.

The academic specialising in extremist groups and Islamophobia, Matthew Goodwin, says (in 2011) supporters of the far right are generally neither irrational nor isolated, and that a far right party without extremist baggage could be electable in Britain

And the EDL outlook has far more support than the BBC will ever admit:

Matthew Goodwin, a leftwing academic has made it his job to study the ‘far Right’ and the ‘Counter Jihad movement’……from his work we can see that 50% of his poll agree that there will be a ‘clash of civilisations’ between white Britons and Muslims…36% disagree.  Further more 52% of Conservatives, 33% of Labour, 18% of UKIP and 24% ‘other’, and only 5% of the BNP agree with the EDL.

So there is a large ground swell of opinion that does think the EDL have something worth saying…Goodwin himself admitting:

‘Their beliefs about the threatening nature of Islam have wider public support.’

When the BBC claim your group and its ideas ‘pollute the rest of the population’ as Sarah Montague claimed and it does hatchet jobs on you as Andrew Neil did in his ‘interview’ with Robinson, questions kindly provided by Islamist Mehdi Hasan, and there is little to no chance of a comparably fair hearing as the BBC gave to far more extremist groups such as the IRA and Muslim groups, you know that a change of approach is vital if the message is to be heard, and not just heard but listened to. 

I haven’t had time to look at a widescale sweep of BBC coverage but what I have heard is mostly to be expected from them.

Victoria Derbyshire must be tearing her hair out having missed the big story…thankfully we had the more level headed Tony Livesey standing in for her who from what I heard was pretty fair….though as per normal for the BBC a single EDL representative was outnumbered by 3 other anti-EDL guests.

One of those guests was the above mentioned Mohammed Shafiq from the Ramadan Foundation.

The Ramadan Foundation might well itself be considered extremist….and yet the BBC frequently seeks out their opinion.  Harry’s Place can shed a little light on their activities.

It is bizarre, if looking for sensible comment,  for the BBC to bring on extremist Muslims to talk about a group that is opposed to them…just what exactly does the BBC think they will say?  Unlikely to be fair and balanced.

But then I guess the BBC know that…..and Shafiq has been doing the rounds of BBC studios all day giving us the benefit of his understanding of events, their meaning and consequences.

One common comment on programmes was that Robinson doesn’t represent the ‘working class’….and does professional media commentator, ‘professional Muslim’, Shafiq, ‘represent’ Muslims…does Ed Miliband represent the working class?

The BBC, along with the Establishment et al, created the EDL.  They denied any commentator a voice if they were critical of Islam…. the only solution left was to take to the streets if they wanted to get their voices heard.

‘We’re English, we’re working class, millions of us out there, we’re not being listened to.’

Then the BBC et al decided to ‘kill the monster’ they had created and set about demonising the EDL….no angels for sure but it was often the UAF who started the violence on EDL marches, and they along with other extremist groups such as the MCB all get a free pass on the BBC and are often invited in for comment….. today we had the UAF on 5Live …no comment on its violence.

It is one of the paradoxes of our time…a group that opposes the extremist ideology that incites homophobia, mysogyny, anti-Semitism, violence against ‘the other’, apartheid and as historian Tom Holland told us, was a no more than divine sanction to plunder and kill the Unbeliever, is demonised and attacked whilst those who endorse and practice this ideology are protected by a government sponsored industry along with copious amounts of Danegeld to keep them quiet and pliant, political appointments based purely on religious convictions, their cultural needs forced upon the rest of the population, and a compliant media that far from being independent of government, as it so often boasts, is working hand in hand with it to spread the message about the Religion of Peace.

Just yesterday we had the BBC broadcasting a major new programme  The Ottomans: Europe’s Muslim Emperors.

I haven’t watched it…but I  could easily have guessed precisely how it would unfold…and luckily for me Craig at ‘Is the BBC biased?‘ has done the footwork….and surprise surprise it is essentially a pro-Muslim propaganda piece:

The programme evidently aimed to fill its viewers with admiration for the dramatic achievements of the ascendant Ottomans and, as might have been expected, gave them a largely positive spin. Pretty much every potential criticism was excused by either Rageh or one of his experts. 

The BBC broadcast an excellent programme on Sunday, Sunday Morning Live, that did raise exactly the same questions that the EDL are asking….unfortunately that seems to be a one off for the BBC…and the conclusions reached will no doubt be rapidly buried and forgotten.

It will be interesting to see how the BBC commentary develops regarding Tommy Robinson….I somehow doubt that anything he has to say on Islam will get a fair hearing…the BBC seem keen to mention the new narrative that he is going to also talk about the danger of ‘Far Right’ extremists as well.

“We [Quilliam] have been able to show that Britain stands together against extremism regardless of political views and hope to continue supporting Tommy and Kevin in their journey to counter Islamism and neo-Nazi extremism.”

If he’s interested in a career in Telly and radio that would be the way to go, a guaranteed platform and pay check from the BBC….just cobble together some ‘Warning from History’ mentioning the Far Right, Golden Dawn and UKIP in the same sentence and you’re away…..the Tristrams will love it.

The Mail suggested that Miliband’s father’s politics were important…their legacy damaging to this country, its democracy, its society.

Today you have an example of why a bit more credence should have been given to what the Mail had to say.

Miliband has had a reshuffle in his shadow cabinet….and out went three Blairites…..all three of whom had been given the ‘blackspot’ by Len McCluskey, Unite’s dinosaur union baron, a year ago calling them and Ed Balls the ‘four horsemen of the austerity apocalypse’.

McCluskey, Miliband’s pay and puppetmaster, gave them their marching orders and Miliband sent them on their way….the Brownite Balls excepted.

Earlier this year McCluskey gave the Ralph Miliband Lecture in which he said some notable things and laid out his political philosophy…..he wanted to follow the vision of Ralph Miliband…..

So let me start on my subject, working-class politics in the contemporary world, with a quote from Ralph Miliband:

“All concepts of politics, of whatever kind, are about conflict──how to contain it, or abolish it.”

So if we are on a march towards “one nation” and ultimately “one world”, it is a road that leads through struggle and conflict.

We are taught to believe that democracy is the cornerstone of a modern civilised society; but our Lords and Masters want to define democracy, limiting us to an ‘X’ on a Ballot Paper every 5 years.

This is not my definition of democracy.

They tell us strike action, civil disobedience, direct action and protest are all somehow unpatriotic.

Our history tells us they are not.

Whatever the upshot of electoral politics, working-class politics must grow and develop, based on the socialist education Ralph Miliband called for.

In the midst of an unending economic crisis, with what Ralph would have called a discredited ruling class at the helm, it is past time for the working class to step forward with its own vision and alternative.

I should even things up  a bit and say that ‘Have I Got News For You’ (17 mins 30 secs) didn’t spend half hour doing a Miliband party broadcast….they did put the boot into Miliband as well….here he is, as they claimed, with his new Boy Band…The World’s Dullest Boyband…..’No Direction’:

And here is the new ruthless, but caring Miliband, putting his own boot in….

That’ll teach the little tyke to say grandad hated Britain!  (and Uncle David would make a great PM)

The Tea Party, like UKIP, is always a source of mocking outraged humour on the BBC, always guaranteed to raise a snigger from presenter or guest.

A comparable negative and insulting characterization of similar groups on the left is completely absent from the BBC…Occupy or the Socialist Worker’s Party or  UK Uncut (well…they’re pretty much the same group in reality) get an unwarranted amount of respect and regard for their opinions…the late Paul Mason an ardent fan of Occupy.

Note a similar sweeping under the carpet of Ralph Miliband’s Marxism  last week despite Unite’s dinosaur Union Baron, Len McCluskey, adopting it as his manifesto for a Brave New World as he strives to reshape the Labour Party to suit his own political vision….back to the future.

Mark Mardell, himself no slouch at denigrating the Tea Party, proves that he could handle a job at the Daily Mail with his latest bit of rabble rousing, crowd pleasing, tabloidesque slam dunk of the Tea Party once again:

The Republicans have been accused of having Tea Party tantrums, they’ve been compared to people who want to burn the house down, suicide bombers, hostage takers and teenage drivers repeatedly taking a blind curve in the rain.

All these images of blackmail and mayhem come about because their strategy has brought the government to the brink of shutdown. What may happen at midnight on Monday is short of Armageddon, but it is not pretty.

Now the normal formula is to raise the hyperbole, get people’s interest and then say…well, you know that’s what people say…but the reality….

But Mardell doesn’t bother with that, he puts the boot in, and keeps putting it in….he leaves you with the idea that the Republicans are setting out to destroy America for no good reason at all….‘It is an argument between those who want to rush to the barricades and go down in a blaze of glory, heroes of the revolution to like-minded Tea Party types, and those who think it is a pointless charge but don’t want to be labelled traitors and cowards.’

Here the lead-in link to a report on the close down in the US is titled ‘Suicide Caucus’…..in the report it continues to cast around the slurs:

The rebellious faction hails from solidly conservative, mostly rural areas across the country. They’ve been called the “weird caucus” by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the “suicide caucus” by Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, in reference to a disregard for their party’s survival. They sometimes refer to themselves as “wacko birds“, adopting as their own the derisive label given to them by Republican Senator John McCain

No negotiation…the Republicans are being unreasonably obstinate….

“The thing that’s different about these Republicans is their unwillingness to bargain,” says Vanderbilt University public policy professor Bruce Oppenheimer.

“I’m not sure if it’s because they lack government experience or they’ve made such strong promises to their constituencies, but they’ve put their feet in cement and can’t or won’t move.”

I wonder if Oppenheimer thinks the same about Obama?…

Mr Obama is refusing to negotiate with the Republicans over the budget issues until they pass a temporary bill to reopen the government.

What’s curious about the BBC coverage is that it seems more intent on throwing around insults, about the Republicans of course, with no similar critical and negative appraisals and brickbats for the Democrats.

A Today programme piece  last week on the shutdown took the view that the Republicans were at fault, there was no deep reflection on the Republican’s reasons given for their ‘stubborn’ refusal to obey Obama…whilst Obama had two speeches aired in the same report, naturally chosen to make him look statesmanlike and responsible, the Republicans intransigent and unreasonable.

However things aren’t quite so simple.  The Republicans have very good reaon to want to delay and spend time examining ‘Obamacare’….apart from the massive expense the legislation was steamrollered through the Houses:

From Cranmer….

US budget ‘shutdown’ – what the pro-Obama BBC won’t explain 

‘….legislation was forced through in the most partisan manner: it received not one single Republican vote. For such a significant cultural and economic change, this is unique. Also unique is the remarkable fact that the Bill was large, complex, and so timetabled that it was physically impossible for any of the legislators to have read it within the time available, and the vast majority still have not. In the current debate, Senator Cruz was able to rebuke Senate Democrat Leader Harry Reid by pointing out that he, unlike Reid, had read it. It is doubtful that many in the UK appreciate this extraordinary breach of duty by the proponents of Obamacare. The then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi delivered the breathtaking response when challenged: “We have to pass this Bill so you can know what’s in it.”

Can you imagine the response of the BBC if Iain Duncan Smith had brought his Welfare Reform Bill to Parliament at 24-hours notice and declared such a thing?’

It seems that many of the American peple didn’t know what they had been signed up for…..many liking the idea until reality hits, and the envelop drops through the letterbox:

“Of course, I want people to have health care,” Vinson said. “I just didn’t realize I would be the one who was going to pay for it personally.”

Cindy Vinson and Tom Waschura are big believers in the Affordable Care Act. They vote independent and are proud to say they helped elect and re-elect President Barack Obama.

Yet, like many other Bay Area residents who pay for their own medical insurance, they were floored last week when they opened their bills: Their policies were being replaced with pricier plans that conform to all the requirements of the new health care law.

Vinson, of San Jose, will pay $1,800 more a year for an individual policy, while Waschura, of Portola Valley, will cough up almost $10,000 more for insurance for his family of four.

Of course it is suggested that many millions will also benefit…..but if the legislation hasn’t been properly scrutinised how can they really know?

This morning on R4 we had a programme which commented on Government and the big projects it likes to put into action in the modern era…..almost inevitably failing….and yet no such caution from the BBC over ‘Obamacare’, one of the biggest such projects probably ever launched by any government.

For the BBC, if you’re a white Republican from Arkansas ‘it’s all just shipping’, you’re history,  Obamacare’s here to stay and the Hispanics flooding over the border will keep you Whiteboys out of office for ever.

There is an old Bedouin saying that once the camel gets his nose in the tent the body will surely follow. 

Sunday Morning Live which asked ‘Are Muslims doing enough to stop the radicalisation of young people?’, was I think pretty groundbreaking for the BBC, at least I have never heard anything quite so open, raising so many contentious and taboo issues.

There were quite a few guests, nearly all Muslim, and there was pretty much a consensus of opinion, Yvonne Ridley aside, on most points.

One issue was that debate is being closed down by conservative Muslims…we all know that as soon as ‘Muslim issues‘ are raised the cry of ‘Islamophobia’ echoes across the Media…they want us to stop talking about Islam.

Which made me laugh because I’d already seen Mehdi Hasan’s response when he heard the question that the programme asked:　

Mehdi Hasan ‏@mehdirhasan 11h BBC Sunday Morning Live question: “Are Muslims doing enough to tackle radicalisation?” #sigh

Such people want to close down debate because they know where the debate might lead…and this one on SML proves the point and why, as Peter Hitchens said on the programme, we must stop talking of ‘Islamophobia’ because there is no such thing, it is perfectly legitimate to disagree with what is a political ideology and not a pathology.

And as for Mehdi Hasan, that rabid self publicist and reactionary Islamist…just why does the BBC keep giving him a platform for his rhetoric?….I know the fireworks are fun, Question Time a case in point, but when there are Muslims like Dr Muhammed al Hussaini available, who presents a grown-ups view of the world, why have the ones who throw their dummies out of the pram and present an extremely unlikeable impression of Islam?

The programme blew apart the BBC’s own narrative when it comes to reporting on Islamic terrorism and presenting programmes about Islam…..which is that the terror is a result of Western foreign policy, that the terrorists are not real Muslims, that we cannot talk about the Koran and its meaning, that Islam is a religion of peace, that the majority of Muslims are not ‘conservative’ verging on fundamental, and that someone with a brown skin cannot be racist.

Here are some of the radical, and usually forbidden thoughts, from the contributors to the programme:　

A core teaching of Islam is that you must give your life for God….Martyrdom.

There is the slow growth of the idea amongst conservative Muslims that you cannot be part of this society, that their allegiance should be to the Umma, the Caliphate.

I have multiple identities, just one of those is being Muslim.

There is a growing political correctness that won’t allow discussion of Islam and what the Koran means….we are not a living in a brutal desert society with tribal blood feuds.

We must promote intellectual freedom and debate about core theology.

The behaviour stemming from the teachings in religious texts (Bible included) is deeply disturbing…promoting violence and genocide.

Mosques and those who run them can be racist, run as cultural clubs that excludes Western or white converts.　

The MCB is extremist and unrepresentative with only 6% of Muslims saying they felt represented by them.　

Communal tension is driven by the doctrines in the Koran itself.

It’s a very clever trick to claim someone who commits some crime isn’t a real Muslim just because they do something bad….this disengages with the problem…and doesn’t allow debate and a solution to the behaviour.　

Stop talking of Islamophobia, there is no such thing, it is perfectly legitimate to disagree with what is a political ideology and not a pathology.

And finally the solution maybe, they say…..

To challenge the narrative.　

Something we have been arguing for on this site for a long time from the BBC…..recognise that Islam can promote violence, that groups like the MCB are extremist and unrepresentative, that claiming any Muslim terrorist is not really a Muslim isn’t any longer credible, that the Koran can drive intolerance and separation between communities…and finally to examine the Koran itself and its true meaning, good and bad….just as they do with the Bible and Christianity.

Whether the outcome of the programme was as intended by the BBC or came as a bit of a shock to them it was a good programme with some very honest contributions.

The camel has his nose in the tent then…..The question is will anyone at the BBC take any notice…and then act upon such valid and challenging arguments and assertions?

Let’s hope the Bedouin were right….but in this case probably not.

Via Bishop Hill

Clive James has had a dig at Brian Cox and the BBC’s climate change coverage:

Clive James: I’m not sure I trust this science rock star

But hey, the smiling Professor (the smile sometimes switches itself on for no reason at all, like a refrigerator door loose on its hinges) might be right, and certainly seems so when backed up by so much institutional power, including the power of the BBC. He might care to remember, though, that two of his predecessors in the Top Beeb Boffin role – Nigel Calder and David Bellamy – have never been allowed back on the air since they failed to join the chorus about the dangers of global warming. For now, however, he is in tune with the times: safe, as it were, for as long as disaster threatens.

One of the BBC’s other new blue eyed boys, Jim Al Khalili is upset:

Jim Al-Khalili ‏@jimalkhalili 5h  Shame his clever prose wasted on drivel “@SLSingh: Sad to see Clive James buying into climate contrarians’ propgnda

‘Contrarians’?  ‘Propaganda’?   Impartiality in his DNA then….er…What’s this DNA  thingy then Jimbo?….I’d ask you what ‘Impartiality’ was…but you obviously don’t know.

The Spanish Inquisition is alive and well, and the sun revolves around the earth.

Good to see a BBC science presenter so open to inquiry and questioning of the ‘science’, a curious mind.