Category Archives: BBC bias

Pakistan…The Most Dangerous Country In The World

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“The road to Paris and London lies via the towns of Afghanistan, the Punjab and Bengal”  Trotsky

 

 A politician has woken up to reality:

LIAM FOX explains why Pakistan is the most dangerous country on earth

 

I’m not holding my breath but maybe the BBC will start looking to places in the world other than Israel for bad news stories, perhaps it will stop pandering to the likes of the PSC and other pro-Palestinian propagandists. Perhaps they will call the ‘Barrier’ what it is …a security fence to stop terrorists bombing, shooting and stabbing Jews….

The BBC uses the term ‘barrier’, ‘separation barrier’ or ‘West Bank barrier’ as an acceptable generic description to avoid the political connotations of ‘security fence’ (preferred by the Israeli government) or ‘apartheid wall’ (preferred by the Palestinians). 

 

I would suggest that the BBC not using the correct terminology, which gives the reason for the fence, is highly ‘political’ in itself as this not only hides the Palestinian’s terrorist activities but allows the Palestinians to make political capital out of the image of the ‘Barrier’ as an oppressive imposition upon them, vicitmising them for being Palestinian.

… perhaps the BBC will come round to using the term ‘terrorist’ in relation to such attacks.

The word ‘terrorist’ itself can be a barrier rather than an aid to understanding. We should convey to our audience the full consequences of the act by describing what happened. We should use words which specifically describe the perpetrator such as ‘bomber’, ‘attacker’, ‘gunman’, ‘kidnapper’, ‘insurgent’, and ‘militant’. We should not adopt other people’s language as our own.

 

‘Terrorist’ is a word which has a meaning….and once  again to hide that fact, that such actions are ‘terrorism’, hides the intent behind such attacks…..not to use the word hides the motivation, the politics behind the bloodshed.  Just to have a body count and an interview with a shocked eyewitness and a grieving mother or two means nothing in the big picture.

So no, not a barrier to understanding but a clear pointer to explain events and the reasons behind them.

 

Perhaps it will get round to examining Pakistan in the same light that it shines upon Israel…

The major charge levelled at Israel by those who wish to make it ‘disappear’ is that it is ‘illegitimate’, a creation of the West imposed upon the Arabs.

 

The BBC does little to dispel this…comparison with many countries in the world would find that they too are ‘created’….Germany is a creation, Belgium, Liberia, Sierra Leone, South Africa, …well, every country in fact.

But there is one that was created in the exact same way that Israel was, at the exact same time for the exact same reason….only that country’s reason could be considerd to have far less legitimacy than Israel’s.

That country of course being Pakistan….a Muslim Zion, created to provide a homeland for Muslims.

Which is strange as there were already many ‘Muslim’ countries around the world that they could have gone to live in….but there was no ‘Jewish’ land.

 

For the BBC never to raise the question of Pakistan’s legitimacy whilst at the same time allowing Israel to be demonised and undermined itself raises a few questions.

If one is illegitimate then so is the other.

If using the term ‘security fence’ or ‘terrorism’ is political and to be avoided surely they should avoid the far more political implications of  suggestions that Israel is an ‘illegal’ state….the use of which gives a nod and a wink to the ‘terrorists’, sorry, militants, the brave resisters,  fighting to take back ‘their land’.

BBC Management Implodes

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The Government has waited a long time  but it looks like it will  take the opportunity to wield the knife and cut off the BBC’s head…the head that always looks the other way when difficult questions are asked of it.

Ther Sunday Times reports that they plan to hand regulation of the BBC to Ofcom  removing the BBC Trust from its double headed position of being both champion and regulator of the BBC.

A ‘senior source’ at the DCMS said ‘It is clear that the Trust, which is both cheerleader for the BBC and its regulator, does not work.  There are contradictions.’

‘Nobody could be left with any confidence in this governance structure.  It is just jaw dropping.’

 

Labour’s Ben Bradshaw also wants Ofcom to take over from the Trust which may bode well for such an eventuality happening.

 

It is perhaps an irony that it is ‘Money’ that has brought the BBC low….never mind the bias…just like Al Capone the BBC is untouchable for its real crimes but gets caught with its fingers in the till.

The BBC that lectures us so primly about the greed of  the Bankers, that sternly upbraids us for consumerism, that hectors us about saving the planet whilst flying to work.

I’d quote something from the Bible but no one at the BBC would get the reference…perhaps Giles Fraser could translate…then again perhaps not.

For the BBC troopers on the frontline bombarding us with its left wing, liberal cluster bombs not much will change….at least in their minds.

 

However that may change, though slowly, if Ofcom takes a more independent and rigorous view of the BBC’s coverage and forces change at the BBC with rulings that do challenge its imposition of its particular world view upon us all. 

 

Syria Crisis Raises Question of Mark Mardell’s Bias And Accuracy

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As the President of the United States continues to fail in drumming up international support for bombing Syria, and the failure to win now-vital Congressional approval looms on the horizon, the BBC’s Mark Mardell is having a crisis of faith in which he reveals personal bias on the US, war, and the President. He also makes serious factual errors which reveal either his incompetence as a journalist or that a deep personal bias has clouded his judgment.

Syria crisis raises question of US role in the world

Right away, Mardell spells out his dilemma.

The president is clearing his desk, going all-out to persuade for a vote that he has said is vital for America’s credibility.

It is also a critical moment for American perception of itself as a power in the world. But in the details of the debate over Syria, the biggest questions and the larger picture are in danger of being lost.

In essence, it’s whether the world needs a super cop. And whether the US should simply assume that role.

I laughed out loud at this point. A little more than two years ago, back when the President was dithering deliberating over whether or not to send some humanitarian missiles at Libya, Mardell was engaged in contemplation of what he believed was the President’s internal personal struggle:

  • The tug between not wanting to be the world’s policeman and being the only guy with the gun and the muscle to stop a murder.

  • The whole-hearted desire to act in concert with other countries, and the realisation that implies going along with stuff they want to do and you don’t. (Being dragged into a war by the French, imagine.)

  • Not wanting to be out front when many world structures are designed in the expectation that like it or not, America will lead.

  • Intellectual appreciation that the ghost of Western colonialism is a powerful spirit never exorcised, and frustration that an untainted liberal interventionism hasn’t grown in other countries.

It took a long time for Mr Obama to decide to take action, and the route he has taken, a genuine commitment to acting with other nations with the US in the lead, has made for the appearance of more muddle. Now it is time for clarity.

How’s that working out now, Mark? Guess who demanded action first, and who’s our only ally now. Remember when Mardell was worried that the President had accidentally painted Himself into a corner with that “red line” business”? Just the other day, the President, like a child being asked who scribbled with crayons on the wall, told the world, “I didn’t didn’t set a red line: the world set a red line.”  Now Mardell seems to have happily forgotten about his original concern and dutifully shifted blame away from Him. Trapped In A World He Never Made.

The BBC’s top analyst of US affairs has been consistent in his anti-war stance, his defense of the President, and in placing blame anywhere except on Him. Most recently, we saw Mardell in Ohio, reporting about a couple of town hall meetings held by a Congressman, where he found a way to blame George Bush, sort of. Hyper-partisan, intransigent Republicans currently in Washington also shared the blame. Any lack of trust in the President Himself seemed non-existent.

Notice that Mardell portrays Rep. Johnson as having been “unimpressed” by the Administration’s secret intelligence briefing simply because neither the President nor Vice President were there. He says that Johnson merely “had to wait a while to find out” about what the situation was with the chemical weapons, and solid evidence of an actual war plan. Mardell plays his skepticism as personal pettiness, not as a perhaps sincere objection based on legitimately reached opinion. In fact, here’s what Johnson actually said in a public statement, which Mardell would have been given:

“Given how important this Congressional briefing was for the President to make his case for taking military action in Syria, I was surprised that neither he, nor the Vice President, nor any cabinet level official was in attendance.  The decision on whether or not to commit American troops and risk American lives when the United States is not directly threatened is a difficult one, and the President has the heavy burden of convincing the Congress and the American people of its merits. I left this afternoon’s briefing with more questions and concerns than I had when I arrived.”

Sure, he was surprised that nobody of any importance was there. But this appears to be a case where the President and His Administration demonstrated the contempt in which they hold Congress. This wasn’t a snub just at Johnson, it was a snub at all of them. And the bit I’ve bolded is rather important, don’t you think? And it’s not just Johnson who came away skeptical. Congress didn’t actually get satisfactory answers, and even top Democrats say so. Why would Mardell censor that piece of information? No wonder the President is now “clearing His desk”, as Mardell put it today.

Back to the Top Cop thing. Mardell goes on to explain what he sees as the two justifications being used for dropping a few bombs on Syria.

The first is national interest. Mr Obama says Syria does not pose an immediate threat to the US, but its willingness to use chemical weapons threatens its allies and bases in the region.

Less frequently his administration has suggested such weapons could fall into the hands of terrorists who could use them against America.

It is pretty obvious, the bigger the world power the more its vital interests may be harmed by something happening a long way away. If the whole Middle East is in uproar, it might not make a whole heap of difference to Paraguay or Latvia.

The argument for national interest is pretty clear. The desire to intervene for what you might call ‘moral reasons’, is far more murky.

Much of this is fair enough. It doesn’t take a genius to grasp the concepts. But why are moral reasons more murky? Because China and Russia don’t agree. No, really.

Mr Obama and even more forcefully Secretary of State John Kerry have said that the world can’t stand aside and witness such suffering. Particularly not when it breaches, if not international law, then international norms.

It is noticeable that it is senior politicians in the US, France and the UK who are keen on this argument of liberal interventionism. It is not just Russia that won’t go along with it. China won’t either.

On a recent trip there, I became convinced that this is fairly genuine. Academics and ordinary people find it baffling that America wants to impose its values on the rest of the world.

China forcefully repeats that it wants the denuclearisation of its ally North Korea. But it is reluctant to force the issue.

So we’re supposed to question Western moral values in this case because China is baffled by US imperialism? Oh, my goodness. On what other issues are we now supposed to back off now, Mark? Looks like he’s suffering from a little going native syndrome having spent a few weeks in China working on that documentary of his on how deeply entwined our national interests are and how China’s awesomeness may very well rescue the US economy (coming next Tuedsay on Radio 4 – can’t wait!).

Pardon me as I wipe the tears of laughter and dismay out of my eye. Mardell’s also saying that we could be wrong because we haven’t heard particularly loud demands to stop Assad from Brazil, Nigeria, or Japan, either. Well, Mugabe has been pretty silent, too. That’s me convinced. Are we in the world of adult, serious political discussion, or in the proverbial university bar? Hold that thought for later, actually.

So, we’ve gone from the President “accidentally” boxing Himself into a corner and being forced to act to save face, to Him blaming the world for boxing Him into a corner and being forced to act because of our high moral values, to questioning those moral values because they don’t come from Sweden. No, seriously:

I once put it to Tony Blair that the Iraq war might have been more credible if the call for action had come from Sweden. He made the obvious point: “Well, they couldn’t do it, could they?”

Now here’s where Mardell reveals his true bias on the larger issue:

Which makes me wonder about that old saying, “to a hammer, every problem is a nail”. In this case, you have to wonder why the hammer was forged in the first place.

Mardell’s not really old enough to be a child of the ’60s, but he sure is acting like the dippiest of hippies here. Why is there war, mommy? For heaven’s sake, Mark, why not quit the BBC and go to the nearest military base and start putting flowers in rifle barrels. How can anyone take this man seriously at this point?

Speaking of the ’60s, some people here may remember this little journey down the rabbit hole when Mardell was holding session at the BBC College of Journalism. His first reaction on landing in the US after being assigned to replace Justin Webb was, “What happened to the ’60s”? His real bias is on display here. In an attempt to explain himself, he continues:

The British developed their military to defend a globe-spanning empire. The US developed its military might to intervene in Europe and then to challenge the USSR.

The absence of the original purpose has not eliminated an instinct to intervene.

Maybe the word “imperialism” makes you think of arguments “that it is all about oil” or crude land grabs.

But those Victorian imperialists really did think they were bringing civilisation and Christianity, order and the rule of law to people who couldn’t climb to such dizzying heights on their own.

America’s belief in its own mission is more universal and not driven by racism, but there is a similar zealous enthusiasm to remake the rest of the world in its image.

No, there isn’t. This is pure anti-American drivel. And notice how this is suddenly about “America” again. Seems like every time the President does something Mardell or the BBC doesn’t like, He’s not mentioned, and it’s all about “America” as a whole acting unseemly. Is the President not involved? Wasn’t He elected to cure us of this demon? Nobody ‘s making Him do this. In any case, is that what we were doing when Clinton bombed the Serbs? How about when we removed Manuel Noriega from power? Grenada? Nobody in their right mind thought we were going to make Afghanistan into a modern, Western society. Dumbing down such complex situations and issues is silly, and betrays an ideological bias. Disagreeing with policy isn’t the same thing as demonizing it, but that’s what he’s doing here. Having Mark Mardell report on the US is like having St. Mark report on the Pharisees.

Of course, stopping the horror of chemical weapons is not the same as introducing democracy at the point of a gun.

But it raises the same question of who has the authority to make the judgment that norms have been violated, and who deals out the punishment.

Oh, does it now? I don’t know about people here, but I question the wisdom of listening to Russia and China and Nigeria on the issues of human rights. So, who has the authority?

The UN is meant to be the body that can order global cops into action. But the US says the Security Council is broken, because of the Russian veto.

You mean the Security Council which includes such moral heavyweights as Azerbaijan and Pakistan?  The UN which for a while had Libya as the Chair of their Human Rights Council? With Venezuela and Qatar as members? These people are supposed to set moral standards for us all?

While the Russian action does look cynical, it is a bit like a prosecutor saying the jury system doesn’t work because he didn’t get a conviction.

You mean like so many Beeboids said after the Zimmerman verdict?

Or indeed, if David Cameron said parliament didn’t work because of the “no” vote.

Or indeed, if Mark Mardell said Congress didn’t work because they wouldn’t vote for something the President wanted.

President Obama understands how it looks to the rest of the world if the US goes it alone.

But, I thought…..

Mardell again:

It is why he was so reluctant to take the lead over Libya, why he was so slow to develop a Syria strategy.

No, it isn’t. This is where Mardell reveals not only his bias about the President, but even more of his own personal political beliefs. The President took so long to develop a strategy, and has been flailing around ever since He got caught up in His own smart-ass rhetoric, because He and His advisers actually had one all along – only it turned out to be completely, tragically, absurdly wrong.

Remarks by Ambassador Samantha Power, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, on Syria at the Center for American Progress, Washington D.C.

You all remember Samantha Power, right? She’s the President’s former foreign policy adviser who blamed the Jewish Lobby for criticism about His policies, then had to resign when she called Hillary Clinton “a monster” in an interview. After working for George Soros for a while, she was brought back into the fold and is now our voice at Mardell’s voice of morality, the UN. Here’s what she had to say to the far-Left Center for American Progress recently:

We worked with the UN to create a group of inspectors and then worked for more than six months to get them access to the country, on the logic that perhaps the presence of an investigative team in the country might deter future attacks. Or if not, at a minimum, we thought perhaps a shared evidentiary base could convince Russia or Iran – itself a victim of Saddam Hussein’s monstrous chemical weapons attacks in 1987-1988 – to cast loose a regime that was gassing its people. We expanded and accelerated our assistance to the Syrian opposition.

In other words, the President and his super-smart advisers are, just like Mardell, as naive as your average angry student debating world affairs in the university bar. This is just about the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. And remember that last line about stepping up the help for the rebels for later.

Now we see that Mardell has been accidentally right, but wrong all along. The President wasn’t taking so long to develop a military strategy because He was worried about what the world would think. He was taking so long because He was working on another scheme entirely and never expected to need one. And then He thought He could get away with it, because He usually faces no consequences for anything. Just like He thought He could get away with that “red line” statement. How can Mardell not know this? He’s supposed to have been following the President’s every move closely, considering it all deeply and dutifully, researching, talking with experts, getting insider info. How can he have blown this so badly? Especially since this kind of naive negotiation is exactly the kind of thing he supports.

His bias has been driving his analysis. As I’ve maintained from the beginning, the President doesn’t have much interest or deep understanding of realpolitik and international affairs at this level. His ambitions and concerns have always been about domestic policies, domestic transformation. All these foreign issues are nuisances, distractions, things which should be delegated to various minions and apparatchiks. Where He does have opinions, they don’t seem to be very profound. And so we see here that the people doing it for Him share the most naive, ignorant views possible, and have accomplished precious little.

Why do you think we have less allies now after four years of Hillary Clinton as Sec. of State? And here’s another unasked, never mind unanswered question: If so much of the opposition to this war is due to Iraq fatigue, what about Libya? Why was Libya okay and now suddenly everyone is tired of war? That was even (illegal) regime change, he didn’t use unapproved weapons, and this is supposed to be some “proportional” limited bombing campaign.

What does “proportional” mean, anyway? Mardell isn’t interested. All he cares about is how the President looks now, and how He’ll look next week. It seems that the BBC’s North America editor’s job is not to really inform you properly about US issues, or about how the country works or what’s really going on, but how things affect the President. That’s why I often refer to him as the BBC’s US President editor.

Mardell’s journalism over the last five years has shown that his personal political ideology is very close to that of the President. This war campaign – as well as the one against Libya – is the only issue on which Mardell doesn’t approve. So he works to shift blame away from the President at every opportunity. And now he’s not only trying to analyze the situation around Him, he’s trying to figure out what the President can do to be successful. Is that really what the BBC is paying him to do?

Now about what Amb. Power said about accelerating assistance to the Syrian rebels. It’s really starting to look like this is all smoke and mirrors. As is obvious to everyone except Mardell by now, it’s impossible to think that a limited strike on a few military facilities will be the end of it. The President claims He’s not taking sides in the Syrian civil war here. He’s been very clear that this is about sending a message about killing lots of people in an unapproved method. I bet Ghaddafi’s ghost is wondering why the hell all this Iraq fatigue didn’t set in when it was his turn in the spotlight. But I digress.

Doing any real damage to Assad’s military capability is a de facto game changer in the civil war. It’s simply not credible to say that the military installations supposedly used to launch a rocket with a chemical warhead have no other purpose. I don’t mean specifically the rockets themselves which may already be armed with them, I’m talking about the larger picture. It’s impossible to believe that there can be some sort of surgical strikes so accurate that only the chemical weapons and a couple of rocket launchers will be hit. Any attack will limit Assad’s military capability, period, and it’s outrageous that we’re expected to believe that it won’t, and that any military action the US takes won’t affect – or isn’t meant to affect – the civil war. Of course it will.

Where’s Mardell’s astute analysis about that? He’s still caught up in the emotional world of teenage existential angst to notice. I’m trying not to take a position here about the rights or wrongs about taking sides or stopping Assad or regime change or what we should do next. I have opinions, obviously, but that’s not what this is about. This is about Mardell’s personal opinions coloring all his reporting and analysis in a way that makes his journalism unworthy of trusting or given much credence at all.

He’s not wondering about any of what I’ve just mentioned because he’s still stuck in his belief that The Obamessiah really is concerned only about chemical weapons, and truly doesn’t want to force regime change. We can see from Power’s speech that this simply isn’t true, that the US really is working to increase the chances of his downfall. So the President is essentially lying, Sec. of State Kerry is lying, and any BBC journalist who says the President doesn’t want to is either lying or just seriously deluded.

It’s either that, or the President and His entire Administration are a bunch of idiots and shouldn’t be trusted to run a nursery. Take your pick. In the end, this is a massive failure of BBC journalism. At your expense.

PS: Still no mention of His Nobel Prize for Peace. Come on, Mark, even Sweden has called Him on it.

BBC AT WAR – WITH ITSELF.

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You would need a heart of stone NOT to chuckle at this;

Lord Patten faced demands to quit or be sacked last night as civil war tore through the BBC. The chairman of the BBC Trust was given an ultimatum after being accused of ‘fundamentally misleading’ Parliament over the scandal of excessive pay-offs to Corporation fat cats. But the defiant former Conservative Party chairman said he had ‘no concerns’ about the allegations made by former director general Mark Thompson.

What fun watching them tear themselves apart. It’s not just Patten that needs to go though – it is the entire rotten corrupt smug self indulgent empire of the BBC.

John McCain -the BBC’s much loved Republican

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It’s almost touching to watch how the BBC does all it can to present Sen John McCain as the standard bearer for the GOP. McCain, the guy who likes to play poker on his phone during important debates on Syria, the guy who thinks those who chant Allahu Akhbar are no different to those who attend Church and give thanks to God, is very much the hero of the hour for the BBC as Obama uses him to try and manipulate GOP opinion. It is remarkable to watch the BBC slant its coverage to put Obama in the best light possible with the teensy weensy detail that 91% of Americans oppose military action conveniently passed over. Can you imagine the OUTCRY from the BBC during the Bush years had 91% of the public opposed HIS military policy?

Makers And Shakers

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 Oborne in the Telegraph lays into the BBC:

Television launched a direct, head-on attack on our traditional institutions (Parliament, monarchy, Army, Church), diminishing them, and then occupied the public space they were forced to vacate. Concepts such as truth, honour, duty, self-deprecation and service were mocked and replaced by a mixture of sensationalism and the cult of celebrity. Only a very few institutions, of which the most successful was probably the Armed Forces, managed to resist.

 

Earlier today I was listening to a couple of people with their finger on the pulse…..one being James Brown, one of the founders of Loaded magazine.

Sorry…on R4 somewhere today but can’t remember when.

Biggest load of tosh spoken for a long time.

Apparently the 90’s changed British politics forever…that was the era when politicians were sidelined  and the new social and cultural movements made the running defining what politics would be….Tony Blair and New Labour not being politically influential or definitive in any way.

Presumably Brown has never heard of the Sixties and the cultural, social and political revolution that entailed…see Oborne above…nor indeed Punk, Rap, immigration or American movies, clothes and fast food, the Vietnam War etc etc etc….

 

Always fed up when we get these cultural commentators on…..always talk bilge interpreting history not as it happened but through their own personal prism….not just from their own perspective, their own place in the actual events,  but reshaping memories and history to suit their beliefs and values.

 

 

 

Those ‘Nasty’ Tories

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The BBC has started a 10 part series on the history of the Conservative movement:

The changing face of British conservatism

You might think ‘Oh yeah,,,I know what that’ll be like’….but reading the article based upon it the programme may give a far more rounded view of the Tories than you might expect.

 Or that’s the impression I got on first read…on a second reading I think perhaps it is no more than an ‘Occupy’ tract against Capitalism, trade, progress, work and the Establishment.

For instance:

Thomas Carlyle set himself up as the great enemy of the newly dominant idea of utilitarianism.

This preached that people should be managed on the basis that they liked pleasure and shied away from pain.

So you should never pay someone more in “poor relief” than the lowest wage.

Life seemed to be governed by a “cash nexus” of contracts and transactions.

And in this Carlyle saw the death of the old, more caring, Christian society.

 

Hmmm…isn’t that just what Occupy and Giles Fraser preach now on the BBC?  The argument about ‘poor relief,’ ie welfare, being too high compared to wages is of course very current politically…are the BBC trying a bit too hard to influence thinking however modestly?

 

And how about this:

‘….this brings us to a character who sums up the spirit of this series: Lord George Bentinck.

Here was an MP who was so keen on horse riding that he turned up to the Commons covered in mud, and didn’t bother speaking for his first eight years in Parliament.

But when Free Trade loomed, he reared up out of his apathy and joined Disraeli to defend the old social systems.

 

A ‘Tory’ MP who never bothered to speak for 8 years in Parliament and then only to defend the status quo…he ‘sums up the spirit of this series’?

Really?… what does that mean?  All Tory MPs are lazy reactionaries defending privilege and advantage?

Strange that it is a Labour MP that has rarely appeared in Parliament for over 3 years…Gordon Brown…remember him?

 

 

Or how about this:

In 1864, when the merchants of Bradford invited him to advise them on the design of a prestigious new building, he gave them a fiery lecture on how they should stop worshipping “the goddess of getting-on” and rediscover old traditions of artisanship and social harmony.

 

Ah yes…can’t have anyone getting on can we….wanting to improve their quality of life…or as the BBC calls it the evil of  ‘consumerism’.

 

or how about this:

John Arthur Roebuck revived an old Tory idea – that class hierarchies could best be maintained by letting each class enjoy their own pleasures

 

Ah yes, the Tories are a class apart….out of touch with the workers.

 

Then there was Enoch Powell and Mary Whitehouse…and finally, the nail in the coffin…the final programme on …….drum roll….Maggie!

Can’t imagine what that will be like.

 

The BBC Titter Feed

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1.  You have to laugh….Mickey Clark on Wake Up To Money…surely he’s a London cabby dragged in off the street to fill the diversity quota.

The OECD has predicted British growth will outpace the US, Japan and the Euro giants.

Mickey Clark’s thought…‘My surprise is that the OECD thinks they wouldn’t…I mean the US, Japan and Europe, they’re all struggling…if we can’t beat them it’s time to pack up and go home!’

 

From a bloke, in an organisation, that has been telling us for 4 years that US economic policy is leading the way…we should do what they do…stimulate to accumulate…whilst our economy is being killed by Austerity.

He might be surprised…but it isn’t the surprise he says it is.

 

 

2. My own surprise was to hear the BBC define the Resolution Foundation as ‘left leaning’….both on the radio and in print…no surprise though that the Resolution Foundation is once again on the BBC…one of the fixtures there along with the IPPR and the New Economic Foundation.

Sarah Montague was chatting to Labour’s Rachel Reeves this morning about the Resolution Foundation’s latest claims about low wages….Reeves will be talking at the Foundation’s shindig later on….and conveniently it seems the Foundation is pushing that Miliband’s last great whiz…’predistribution’…remember that?…renamed the ‘Living Wage’…..nice of the BBC to bring it all together for us…and them.

The ‘Living Wage’….Something that is completely unworkable as proposed by Miliband, except in Labour’s dreams. We already have a ‘living wage’…it’s called a low wage topped up by tax allowances and credits and other benefits ‘redistributed’ from the richer end of society….it’s called Socialism….strange Labour want to throw it out and close down all those small businesses and throw the workers onto the scrap heap.

 

3. That aside they then got onto Labour’s little trouble with the unions…and Reeves said that the vast majority of donations came from individuals….not true…..the Unions provide by far the vast majority of money.

Sarah Montague said nothing….not bad for our most prestigious news programme…informing and educating us.

 

 

What else on the BBC’s Titter feed?

 

4. Oh yeah…the Never Fail Solution if you ever need a  stopgap example of bad BBC journalism …Victoria Derbyshire.

Talking about the police investigation into hacking to Sun journo Chris Pollard who suggested it was way over the top.

Derbyshire jumped in suggesting that such a large investigation reflects the people’s utter revulsion at the hacking of phones of celebrities and people in hospital and other such victims.

What example did she give of a ‘patient’ being hacked?  Gordon Brown…when his son’s medical condition was revealed by the Sun….though we know Brown was lying through his teeth about that…just part of his ‘war’ against Murdoch.

Why does the BBC push this lie?  Brown did nothing when he was Chancellor and PM, he took no action at all….not a thing….because he knew the truth.

 

5.  Next was Derbyshire again…talking about the economic recovery to a builder…..note that again and again on these phone-ins that they all say ‘confidence is the key’ to recovery…something that the BBC has been undermining for the past 4 years…..the other phrase callers have been using for the last couple of years is ‘Actually we’re doing quite well’…..but the BBC preferred not to dwell on that….preferring to ask ‘how on earth is employment still so high?…it’s a puzzle.’

The caller said that the resurgent housing market was boosting things.  Derbyshire shrieked in the way she does that we’re heading for a ‘BUBBLE’..and all the government schemes are doing is helping people getting into debt with mortgages they can’t afford.

Hmmm…Wasn’t it the BBC’s very own economic guru, Stephanie Flanders, who told us again and again and again that the government should build more houses…that is the solution to creating economic growth?

 

6.  Finally PMQs and John Pienaar who told us ‘We learnt nothing from this’.

 

I thought we learnt quite a lot…or it confirmed quite a lot.

Miliband is hopelessly political and floundering badly on Syria….lying too…he had all the things he demanded from Cameron….including waiting for the UN and a second vote before any military action was taken….so suggesting that he voted against ‘a rush to war’ is rubbish…not something Pienaar points out.

Cameron is a fool with an innate ability to put his foot in his mouth…with terrible political judgement. (still believe he would have won a majority in 2010 if he hadn’t reneged on the promise of an EU referendum….thereby revealing himself to be the usual untrustworthy politician that he is…and he’s learnt nothing…still looking to slip out of any commitment to a vote)

Ironically whilst Putin, strongly against military action in Syria, tells us that he may back it if the UN does, Cameron, who supports military action has now decided that Britian will never  back it, under any circumstances.

Cameron defiantly tells us that we must press our point in every forum…our point being the utter revulsion we have for the use of chemical weapons.  Assad will be quacking in his boots.

What’s he going to do to help the rebels?  He’s going to support their demands for a democratic Syria.  And?  Well….er….not sure how exactly.

What’s he going to do to support those countries inundated with Syrian refugees like Jordan and Lebanon?  Well….He’s spending a lot of money on embassies in those countries…and on diplomatic niceties.

 

 

7.  Pienaar tells us Cameron doesn’t want another vote because he would lose.

Is that correct?

He lost by 13 votes last time…..if all the Tories who didn’t turn up turn up for a  second vote, if Miliband backs a new and improved Motion backed by stronger evidence, if a few MPs change their minds, as many have already intimated, it is likely Cameron would win.

 

If news stories had to be conveyed to us in 140 characters or less do you thnk we would be any the less wiser than we are after a day of relentless BBC indepth analysis and reporting?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Al Qaeda Has Us In Their sights

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Back in November 2012 we had a visit from someone calling themselves ‘Soothsayer’ (allegedly posing as BBC man Raffi Berg)…apparently he is an Israeli subversive who has infiltrated the BBC to push the Zonist agenda…and we’ve been helping him out as Sue at the ‘pro-Israeli’ ‘Is the BBC biased’ site relates.

 And now we’ve been rumbled and so has Raffi:

According to Electronic Intifada, the emails were originally posted onto the Zionist website Biased BBC on 21 November 2012 by a user going by the name “soothsayer”. They were reposted on another pro-Israeli website, Is the BBC biased?, on 13 April this year.

 

Good to know that we were wrong about Purnell and Co…not Labour lackeys…..they are, like us,  ‘Zionist Pimps.’….not only that but ‘notorious’ to boot….

 

Berg is not the only Israel pimp working at the BBC. Others include the notorious Zionist James Purnell, who in February this year was put in charge of BBC policy and strategy, and the head of BBC News, James Harding.

Raffi Berg is relatively junior compared to Purnell and Harding, the audacity and blatantness with which he is trying to shape the BBC News website’s coverage of the Palestine-Israel conflict is a cause for grave concern and should be urgently investigated by an independent authority.

 

Yes indeed….Guess that’s just another case of BBC bias then that we’re happy to pass along.

 

 

Small world…remember Mike Berry from Cardiff University who just recently was telling us that the BBC is in fact ‘right wing’?

He gets an admiring  mention from this anti-Zionist rabble above:

Seven years ago the BBC’s governing body commissioned an independent report which concluded that BBC coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “does not consistently constitute a full and fair account of the conflict but rather, in important respects, presents an incomplete and in that sense misleading picture”. The reasons for this have long been the subject of serious academic studies, the best known of which is Greg Philo’s and Mike Berry’s More Bad News from Israel.

 

 

Might just be that academic Mike Berry is the cuckoo in the BBC nest and not old Raffi.