More than a century ago, British engineers and their African and Indian labourers spent five years carving a railway through what would become Kenya in a bid to open up East Africa’s interior.

Not everyone was convinced and the radical MP Henry Labouchere denounced it memorably:

“Where it is going, nobody knows, what is the use of it, none can conjecture … It is clearly naught but a lunatic line.”

When the HS2 train was first announced it seemed that the BBC were all in favour if it….perhaps the thought of keeping their London pads whilst commuting up to Salford swayed their initial opinions.

Of late I get the impression that they take a more measured approach to the scheme, if anything a more sceptical tone overall.

It would be nice to have some figures though and some deeper analysis of the costs and benefits of HS2…for instance I have heard a lot recently about the government’s new claim that the train will bring in £15 billion per year…and will pay for itself in no time at all.

What’s missing is any scrutiny of those claims….at least when I’ve been listening…just how do those figures stand up to close inspection?  The BBC is keen to ‘do the maths’ when it feels the need….say over immigration or crime stats.

On such a controversial and highly expensive project, in an industry renowned for never making  a profit and high public subsidies even though privatised, I would expect a far more rigorous and detailed approach from the BBC.

Just for some light enterainment here is a story from the Telegraph about the last ‘Lunatic Express’ built by Britain in Africa (and of course ‘massively over budget’) and now being rebuilt by China for £3.2 billion….and that includes the price of a couple of hydro-electric schemes and other infrastructure development projects:

China moves in to rebuild Kenya’s lunatic line

The Chinese are exploiting the rift between Britain and Kenya to revamp a delapidated colonial railway nework, reports Mike Pflanz

Stephaine Flanders said this about George Osborne’s recent speech about the state of the economy:

“The chancellor isn’t declaring victory on the recovery just yet – he’s too careful for that. But he is declaring victory over Ed Balls”

The BBC report on the speech opened with these words:

The UK economy is “turning a corner”, Chancellor George Osborne has said in a speech in London.

Mr Osborne cited “tentative signs of a balanced, broad based and sustainable recovery”, but stressed it was still the “early stages” and “plenty of risks” remained.

Mr Osborne said that recent months – which have seen more upbeat reports on the economy – had “decisively ended” questions about his economic policy.

From that you can infer that Osborne didn’t say that the economic crisis is over, merely that the economy has started to recover, it is still a long term project and that many risks remain…but that the one solid conclusion you can draw is that his ‘Plan A’ has worked.

Osborne tells us that industry and productivity are being supported and encouraged for long term sustainable development and growth:

‘…as I said right at the start, in the long term, the only sustainable way to raise living standards is to raise productivity by tackling the underlying structural weaknesses in our economy that were exposed by the crisis……..

Our corporate tax system is now amongst the most competitive in the world, with companies that left the UK now bringing investment back home.

A new industrial strategy is finally providing the long term stability and leadership that is needed in so many sectors such as aerospace, automotive, agri-tech and bio-science.

And British science is scaling new heights with its budget protected for the future and rising capital investment in new facilities.’

All of which makes you wonder what speech John Humphrys was listening to as a basis for challenging Vince Cable who in a recent statement said pretty much the same things as Osborne but Humphrys interpreted the comments as an attack on Osborne.

Cable said this:

‘We can’t rest on our laurels. The kind of growth we want won’t simply emerge of its own volition. In fact, I see a number of dangers. One is complacency, generated by a few quarters of good economic data….It isn’t difficult to see evidence of confidence returning, and there are positive trends in production. Taken together with success stories like the car industry and export growth in emerging markets, we have the beginnings of a recovery story.

‘But there are risks, not least the housing market getting out of control. Recovery will not be meaningful until we see strong and sustained business investment.’

He said we are at the beginning of a recovery, so did Osborne, he said there are many risks still, so did Osborne, he said we shouldn’t take things for granted and become complacent….so did Osborne….

‘So the evidence suggests tentative signs of a balanced, broad based and sustainable recovery, but we cannot take this for granted.’

So why did Humphrys say  (08:11) this speech was ‘Not a message that George Osborne would want to hear…you’re  raining on his parade’?

Cable replied that Osborne had ‘Got the tone exactly right’  and that the comment about complacency was in regard to some in the Media especially.

Humphrys then questioned the ‘Recovery will not be meaningful until we see strong and sustained business investment’  comment suggesting that this meant the recovery was not a recovery in reality.

But Osborne said the same thing….the recovery is showing tentative signs of starting…and many risks remain….it is a long term programme to get the econoimy back in shape….and includes measures to help industry improve…just as Cable suggests.

Failing to make much headway with taht line of attack Humphrys then switched tack and tried to suggest this was a political stance, electioneering in effect, by Cable to put clear blue water between the Conservatives and the LibDems.

But if  Cable’s comments were in support of Osborne, which they were, that isn’t a correct analysis.

Humphrys seemed  to be working all too hard to make something out of Cable’s speech that wasn’t there and when he couldn’t succeed at that he tried a different approach…..which also didn’t hold water.

Altogether a waste of everyone’s time and yet another example of Humphrys believing the hype about his skill as an interviewer…those days are long gone in my opinion.

You can see from Flanders intepretation of Osborne’s speech that even she saw exactly what he menat….why couldn’t Humphrys?

A shame Humphrys didn’t feel the need to tackle Cable on his hypocrisy on housing, it could have been amush more prodcutive 5 minutes.

Cable has been praised on the BBC for his warnings about a ‘housing bubble’ being possibly caused by Osborne’s incentive schemes however just last year Cable said this in a speech about delivering growth whilst reducing the deficit:

There are now some interesting ideas out there for government guarantees that could trigger a significant volume of housing investment, replicating the recovery model of the 1930s and leading hopefully to a virtuous circle of new building lending to increased affordability and also increased private demand……

And like in the 1930s, there is no reason in principle why such innovative thinking should not be applied at a local level instead. There are already examples: some councils, Eastleigh, for example, use prudential borrowing powers – at negligible interest rates – to invest in projects with a commercial return.

So one year ago government schemes to encourage the housing market were a grand idea….what has changed?

Osborne says in reply to Cable’s self serving warning:

Some claim that Help to Buy will boost demand but not supply, but again the evidence suggests otherwise.

Not only are the government’s planning reforms already increasing the flow of new planning permissions, but the lack of mortgage availability at higher loan to value ratios has itself been one of the biggest factors holding back the supply of new housing.

That’s why a report last week by former MPC member Charles Goodhart, now at Morgan Stanley, estimated that Help to Buy could increase housing starts by more than 30% between 2012 and 2015.

Morning all! Here’s a much needed new OPEN Thread to detail the bias! Did you watch Question Time last night? Another deplorable 60 minutes of Coalition bashing and leftist celebration. Over to you!

As the BBC shoots itself in the foot again and again, pressure is mounting with questions about its governance, structure and funding being asked…again and again.

This from the Spectator:

How to save the BBC? Privatise it

A reckoning is long overdue. The BBC may not know the value of money, but those prosecuted for not paying its fines certainly do. Many of them struggle to make ends meet and would not dream of paying £145.50 for BBC services that they could happily go without. Sky now produces some of the best arts coverage in Britain. The market for drama is now global, and British living rooms are filled with American (and even Danish) DVD box sets.

The BBC can easily compete in such a market, its programmes have a global appeal. It could easily find people willing to pay to watch or listen. But if it wants to be tax-funded, it should restrict itself to a public service remit and focus on reducing the license fee — and the fancy salaries must go for good.

‘Is the BBC biased’ has come up with the ‘real politik’ analysis of just when the BBC will be privatised:

When Hell freezes over

The BBC is relentless and continues to push the AGW agenda, in fact pushing it harder now that global warming has ‘stalled’ (and the BBC’s impartiality review of their coverage of climate is over)….can’t have anyone getting complacent and thinking it’s nothing to worry about children!

Once again they roll out the old trick of inviting someone on to be interviewed about their work knowing full well that the real intention is to get around to a particular subject.

‘Today’ frequently invited on guests, musicians, artists and writers, to talk about their work but it was rare to never that somehow the interview didn’t end up with a denunciation of George Bush and the war in Iraq.

In a similar vein the BBC frequently invite scientists onto the ‘Life Scientific’ to talk about their speciality only to end up with  strongly worded support for the AGW lobby.

 The latest programme was no different when the BBC invited scientist Mike Benton onto the ‘Life Scientific’ to talk about dinosaurs and all that but the whole programme seemed designed around that one theme…climate change.

Presenter Jim Al Khalili didn’t waste any time and made the introductions saying:

It’s a sobering thought that just a few degrees rise in global temperature led to mass extinction that wiped out nearly all life on the planet.

He later repeated this and ensured we got the message and then connected it to climate change today asking if it is a likely scenario that could be repeated if we don’t change our ways:

It sounds terrifying that just an initial few degrees rise in temperature can trigger further global changes that can lead to the wiping out of all life…is this something that we should be worried about with the current changes in our climate?

Did you get that?  Just a few degrees in temperature rise and all life will be extinguished.

We’re on a knife edge and the slightest change in the level of CO2 and a resulting tiny rise in temperature will have a snowball effect (?) that could drive us over that edge..to extinction.

Something must be done!

Mike Benton, though a ‘dinosaur scientist’, seems more concerned with climate these days and seems to have reinvented himself as a climate change advocate:

Benton, M.J. Presidential Address 2007: The end-Permian mass extinction events on land in Russia. Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association Volume 119, Issue 2, 2008, Pages 119-136

Conclusion: If the runaway greenhouse model is correct and explains perhaps the biggest crisis on Earth in the last 500 Ma, it is a model worth exploring further. It appears to represent a breakdown in global environmental mechanisms, where normal systems that would equilibrate atmospheric gases and temperatures took hundreds of thousands of years to come into play. Models for ancient extinction events affect the current debate about global warming and its possible medium-term consequences. Some scientists and politicians look to the sky for approaching asteroids that will wipe out humanity. Perhaps we should also consider how much global warming can be sustained and at what level the runaway greenhouse comes into play.

You have to smile at the BBC’s continued adoration of Obama. President Narcissus and his aide Kerry have been utterly ouflanked by Putin and Assad in recent days and yet the BBC is doing all it can to suggest that Obama and Putin are on the same page. Obama cheerleaders like Mardell have struggled to keep their hero’s halo gleaming but his tortuous efforts to win over Congress to military action seem to causing Mardell some anxiety. Perhaps the biggest irony of all is that if Obama does still launch his missile strike, the primary benefactors will be the Al Queda “rebels”. Given today’s date, 9/11, one wonders if even the BBC see the irony in THAT?

Time for a new on-time Open Thread. Seen bias? Report it here please!

Excellent article here from Stephen Pollard on the BBC. Give it a read!

And now it’s global COOLING! Record return of Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60% in a year

No mention of the huge rise in ice at the Arctic from the BBC, usually so keen to tell us that ice is melting there…but they have switched their attention to the Antarctic where they have 3 reports on the same story…..of course because they can relate to us a story of rising sea levels and a doom laden scenario for the future:

UK scientists to probe Pine Island Glacier

NEW 7 hours agoA group of scientists are about to embark on a mission to one the remotest places on earth – the Pine Island Glacier in Antarctica.

UK team to study mighty Pine Island Glacier

NEW 7 hours agoA team of British scientists is about to begin a six-year effort to try to understand the changes occurring in Antarctica’s huge Pine Island Glacier.

UK scientists to probe Pine Island Glacier

Science & Environment / NEW 10 hours ago… in velocity in recent decades. Its contribution to sea level rise is now greater than any other glacier on the planet. The British Antarctic Survey-led… 

On Thursday the BBC had a Green energy day and energy secretary Ed Davey made an appearance on 5Live to give us his take on all things green.

What did he have to say?

Wind farms only get paid when they produce energy.  Now we know that’s not true…they get enormous subsidies to get built, their electricity is subsidised and when they have to be switched off the operator gets paid compensation.

Campbell said nothing to object though.

Nor did he object when Davey told us that renewables offer us reliable sources of energy….for example, tidal or biomass technology.

Note the missing renewable…Wind Turbines….not that Campbell noticed.

So an easy day for Davey to push his green propaganda and sell us this expensive white/green elephant that is going to cost the earth…so to speak.

The BBC doesn’t delve too deeply into the problems with green energy…obviously embracing it enthusiastically on Thursday.

However Der Spiegel does…and frequently….relating the disasters of green energy policies that have been inflicted upon Germany.

The BBC rarely, if ever picks up on these stories from Germany…they don’t paint a pretty picture of green energy success…quite the opposite in fact…which is no doubt why the BBC avoids them:

Germany’s Energy Poverty: How Electricity Became a Luxury Good

Germany’s agressive and reckless expansion of wind and solar power has come with a hefty pricetag for consumers, and the costs often fall disproportionately on the poor.

The BBC still shilling for ‘Big Green’

Last Friday Nicky Campbell was asking if we should ban the Muslim face veil of whatever configuration.

Who did he have on as the ‘pro-Veil’ advocates?

The main one was Mohammed Ansar, Muslim activist….a regular on the BBC and on very friendly terms with Campbell.

Harry’s Place has a short run down on some of Ansar’s activities, along with those of Mohammed Shafiq…from one of the BBC’s other favourite Muslim advocacy groups ‘The Ramadan Foundation’.

And BBC Watch has also taken a look at Ansar.

Ansar is not in favour of ‘integration’ preferring to tell us that we must just accept Muslims and their religion because of their ‘contributions’….er…their contributions in the Muslim ‘Golden Age’..and of course what they can do for us now.

MoAnsar Mohammed Ansar
@holland_tom If slaves are treated justly, with full rights, and no oppression whatsoever… why would anyone object, Tom? July 15, 2012 10 retweets #

Not exactly ‘moderates’.

There was also a caller calling herself ‘Leila’ from London who was given a lot of airtime…she said that she was a ‘revert’ which should have immediately alerted Campbell that she was not an ‘ordinary’ Muslim.

Reverts are Converts to Islam…but named Reverts usually by the extremist groups such as Islam4UK…they like to tell us that everyone is a Muslim but that many have let it slip…so when they ‘convert’ they are really just ‘reverting’ to their natural religion.

Leila said she had been a Muslim for 13 years and had protested at the French Embassy in London in 2011 about the veil ban in France.

Pretty clear that she is closely associated with an extremist Muslim group…but Campbell didn’t pick that up at all.

So Ansar and this ‘Leila’ are  on the BBC representing the ‘Muslim community’.

Funny how the BBC so often tells us that extremists don’t represent the ‘Muslim community’ and are in fact perverting and distorting Islam and its teachings.