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.

Just heard 5Live Sport tell us that Britain is a multicultural country now and so shouldn’t we be going out looking for more players who are a little less white in those communities….to improve our team.

I know the BBC are trained to be  ‘colour blind’…hadn’t realised just how effective that training must be.

Though not sure what race Rooney is…might even be ‘Human’.

On a different but related subject always wonder how the BBC think it is OK to talk of an ‘English Quota’ in the Premier league, and how they don’t see how close they are to the BNP’s outlook on life even if limited to the football pitch.

How is it ‘acceptable’ for the BBC to chat away about the detrimental effects of ‘immigrant’ players on the skill, development and success of the England team and yet UKIP can’t say similar things about the effects of immigrants upon British workers and their prospects without being called ‘racist bigots’?

Ed Balls was always in favour of Plan A, in fact he always thought that Osborne was not going far enough fast enough.

Well..Flanders hasn’t quite pushed that lie yet but it can’t be long judging by the way she is spinning for Balls right now.

She told us on 5Live Drive at 18:45 that Osborne claims Plan A has proven to be successful.

Flanders thinks not claiming:

‘We’ll never be able to say if there was a better way to improve living standards.’

This is the journo who repeatedly peddled Balls’ Plan B and constantly suggested that we take advantage of low interest rates and borrow more and whilst we’re at it…build more houses on the government’s dollar.

She has spent the last three years telling us that there is a better way.

She also claimed that it is a weak point in Osborne’s claims that in fact Austerity had slowed….so maybe in fact it was Plan B lite.

But of course borrowing went up in reaction to the unexpected crash in Europe…the borrowing was a reaction to that and the subsequent effects on our own economy….therefore Austerity was till going ahead full steam but adjusted for new circumstances which knocked that economy.

Thompson and Co seem to have no idea that there is anything wrong with paying people up to twice their contractual dues…apparently that is ‘saving the BBC money’.

Hodge has just been on 5Live and she says that the governance structures, management and the Trust, are unaccountable and refuse to take responsibility….the structure will need to change.

The Trust should have been more foreward looking, and been proactive in looking for problems rather than reacting to them as they arise and then apologising when it all goes wrong.

There is an elite group up at the top who are out of touch.

Funny how clear sighted the MPs can be when looking at governance but there is no such clear  insight about the actual content of the BBC’s output….the BBC’s news is produced by an ‘elite group’, one which believes its own values and beliefs are the only ‘acceptable’ ones and shape the news and what can be said on the BBC to reflect that.

Perhaps we need a ‘Royal Commission’ or something similar to independently, away from tame left wing academics at BBC friendly universities, examine the BBC’s coverage of events and the consequences that followed on from that.