We’ve had the Hitler Youth, and of course the Commie version, the Young Pioneers….but now apparently the Nation’s liberal, progressive judicial system  is under threat from ‘Dad’s Waffen SS’…in WWII they defended us from the Nazis now Dad’s Army are the Fascists.

The age limit for jury service may be raised to 75.

Evan Davis’ main concern seemed to be that as we get older we get more right wing….he tells us.

Can’t have that can we…right leaning jurists…they might have to pass judgement on black, Muslim or gay defendants…absolutely no chance of a fair trial!

The Guardian is huffing and puffing about the indignity, the complete unfairness of the stop and search on Glenn Greenwald’s partner, David Miranda.

 ‘Journalism is under threat’….it’s a ‘betrayal of trust and principle.’

Funny how they were completely unconcerned about the arrests of News International journalists…in fact they in effect helped engineer those arrests with the BBC cheerleading all the way…never mind causing the closure of a newspaper and loss of 200  jobs due to Guardian lies.

We should all be worried about the Sun journos’ arrest

by Dan Hodges / 13 Feb 2012 14:51

These things fill up quicker than a BBC’s presenters eyes at the news of the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood, so here’s a new one for you.

Here I am again, continuing the look at the BBC’s internal plumbing and checking out the close ties between some very influential people.  Professor Laurie Taylor is the link to this second post….though he comes later in the piece…first I’ll start with the BBC struggling to create some interesting programmes.

A summary of the links:

iCreate…Patrick Younge…Gary Younge….the RSA….Matthew Taylor…Laurie Taylor……Marxism…the BBC…poverty…Open University.…The IPPR…The Labour Party….and finally James Purnell….IPPR and the Labour Party…not forgetting the BBC itself.

As said it is a very small world in the realm of politics, the media and academia  and it seems the revolving doors are going at it full pelt.

I’m sure there must be a joke there somewhere, about the BBC man, the academic and the Labour politician who went into a pub…but that would have to be told by a right wing comedian…and they don’t exist do they?

‘iCreate’ is the latest innovation from the BBC to look beyond the usual sources of new programming ideas. (Link may not work….but see the one below)

The BBC’s in-house production arm is aiming to harness the creativity of its 2,500 staff after launching a crowdsourcing system for programming ideas.

BBC Productions has unveiled a beta version of an online noticeboard called BBC iCreate, where staff will be encouraged to regularly post suggestions for new shows.

However, as the suggestion below is selected as an example of the new system working it doesn’t look like we can expect anything too groundbreaking:

 Health and safety adviser Christian McNally floated a sitcom idea about single fathers, titled Mr Mum, which is now being made into a 30-minute radio pilot.

The BBC has high hopes……iCreate can deliver TV gold

 And the future is bright….

“We believe we have a wealth of untapped creative talent which BBC iCreate, using Wazoku’s platform customised to our specific needs, can help liberate us to generate some fantastic TV shows.”

The staff themselves though might not be so upbeat: 

Overheard at the BBC

  “…This is not the golden age of new entertainment telly…”

Who was in charge of introducing his new system? Patrick Younge…brother no less of the Guardian’s Gary Younge. Small world at the BBC.

 Patrick Younge, Chief Creative Officer, Vision Productions 

Unfortunately Patrick is leaving his post soon:

Pat Younge is to leave his job as BBC Production’s chief creative officer at the end of the year.

He told in-house programme makers on Thursday that he was resigning because of changes to the structure of BBC Television that affected his role.

Shame for him…it seems to have been a well paid gig:

 Salary and total remuneration: June 2013

 Salary: £248,000
Total remuneration: £255,800

Of course he need not necessarily be cut from the same cloth as his brother Gary…but the two apples didn’t fall too far apart off the tree I suspect looking at his CV: 

Previously, Pat spent two years as Commissioning Editor for Multicultural Programmes at Channel 4, where his programme credits included: Untold, the black history season; Soul Nation, Trevor Nelson’s history of British soul music; Love In Leeds, a pop documentary series and An Indian Affair, a revisionist history of Britain’s relationship with India.

Pat has also worked at the BBC as a Series Producer in Current Affairs. His credits include: the award-winning series Black Britain, which he both co-created and series produced; and BBC One series Here And Now, of which he was series producer.

Will those BBC workers get paid for their additional input over and above their ‘day job’….well maybe, maybe not…payment is merely an ‘option available’….

 pat younge | 14-Dec-2012 0:31 am

As regards the payment issue its worth remembering many of those who will participate want the creative experience and opportunity for their idea to be heard and discussed. Those who are creatively active and whose ideas do well will be noticed, and who knows what creative opportunities could come their way. There are well recognised dangers of putting money front and centre in initiatives like this, especially where you are trying to promote collaboration. Check this great video from the RSA http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Du6XAPnuFjJc , but we do have financial options available to us if merited. PY

So that’s Pat Younge and iCreate….but look at Younge’s comment…he mentions the RSA …..the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce

“The RSA has been at the centre of the debate of our age: what’s wrong with global capitalism and how to fix it.”
Robert Peston, BBC Business Editor

The RSA is a charity seeking to encourage business in a sustainable way and ‘responsible capitalism’….reducing poverty and caring for the environment.

It is of course, inevitably given such a brief, left leaning.

Perhaps not surprising when the Chief Executive is Matthew Taylor:

Matthew Taylor became Chief Executive of the RSA in November 2006. Prior to this appointment, he was Chief Adviser on Political Strategy to the Prime Minister

Taylor is the only son of the sociologist and broadcaster Professor Laurie Taylor who was a member of the Trotskyist International Socialists

Laurie Taylor is divorced from his third wife (whom he married in December 1988 in Camden), radio producer Cathie Mahoney who works on Loose Ends on BBC Radio 4.

Matthew Taylor and his stepmother, Cathie, have had directorships of the Institute for Public Policy Research.

Ahh…Laurie Taylor, is Matthew’s father…and works for the BBC and is probably slightly more than ‘left leaning‘ and does all those programmes about poverty….his stepmother also works for the BBC and both Matthew and she have worked for the lefty IPPR.

Not only that but Matthew himself works for the BBC on occasion…. ‘I am making [a programme] for Radio 4 on city regions and economic strategy.’

Update: thanks to Bodo in the comments for bringing this to my attention…Guido Fawkes has in the past had a close look at what Matthew Taylor was doing with the RSA and he didn’t like it:

Matthew Taylor is Ruining the RSA

Political Matthew Taylor Risks RSA’s Charitable Status

Taylor responds:

I don’t want to do anything to undermine the political neutrality of the RSA and incur the wrath not just of the likes of Guido Fawkes but, much more importantly, our Fellows. 

Here’s an insight into his thinking…he can‘t seem to help giving Labour a little praise:

 Powerful work from NIESR shows that underemployment can go up even as unemployment goes down. And, as the controversy raging over zero hours contracts reminds us, millions of people in the UK are working to take home a few quid a week more than they would be receiving on benefits (and that’s not because benefits are generous).

Criticising Government policy in one paragraph and praising it in the other is not simply a sign of my inconsistency it reflects a strange dualism. While at national level the economic debate feels polarised, predictable and short-termist, and while certain ministers continue ritually to trash local authorities, key parts of the Coalition (the Cabinet Office, the Treasury and BIS) are working pretty effectively with predominantly Labour councils to start to develop ambitious local economic strategies. Similarly, while the list of newly created peers might seem to emphasise the way national business interests line up with the Conservatives, at the city region/LEP level Labour Councils and the private sector are trying hard to work together to develop and pursue economic revival.

It is perhaps unfortunate but probably not the ‘rule’ that the first thing I came across on the RSA site was this video of ‘Radical sociologist [Marxist] David Harvey asking: is it time to look beyond capitalism towards a new social order that would allow us to live within a system that really could be responsible, just, and humane?’

　 The Crises of Capitalism

 or try this for a taste of what the RSA also serves up:

Why do we keep on trying to cut our way out of this slump? Are our governments simply waging an ideological crusade in spite of all the contrary economic evidence?

European governments have succeeded in presenting government spending as profligacy that has destroyed the economy. The current policy of swingeing budget cuts –austerity- is presented as the only way to get us out of this mess.

But where did all that debt really come from? Not from an orgy of government spending, but as the direct result of bailing out, recapitalizing, and adding liquidity to the broken banking system. Private debt has now been rechristened as government debt, while those responsible for generating it placed the blame on the state, and the burden on the taxpayer.

Isn’t that straight out of  Labour’s handbook?

How influential is the RSA?:

Why work with the RSA?

“The RSA has played a crucial role in the debate around responsible capitalism in the UK. It’s influential and informed voice has set an important challenge to all businesses – how to act responsibly towards the communities they serve and the people they employ. Thought leadership of this kind is invaluable and I recommend the RSA to all businesses searching for innovative ideas around organisational development.”
Ian Cheshire, CEO, Kingfisher

“The RSA is without doubt one of the most influential and exciting influences on British public policy. The combination of a stellar public events programme, allied with a brilliant research agenda and a constant willingness to engage with pressing policy questions, means that the RSA is playing a pivotal role in shaping policymaking across the political spectrum.”         Rohan Silva, Senior Policy Advisor (to Tories), Number 10 Downing Street

So pretty influential then….playing a ‘pivotal role in shaping policy making’….not only that but helping to shape the way the BBC works…and maybe thinks?

I’m sure the RSA as an organisation is completely neutral despite having a Labour man at the helm.

Speaking of which as I looked up Patrick Younge I had a look at James Purnell’s details at the BBC.

Rather oddly the BBC, as when it reported the mass deaths at Stafford hospital, fails to mention Labour by name in Purnell’s biography, only obliquely referring to it….

He left the BBC to be Special Adviser on the Knowledge Economy, including Internet and broadcasting policy, to Tony Blair after he became Prime Minister.

He was elected Member of Parliament for Stalybridge and Hyde, before becoming Secretary of State for Culture and then for Work and Pensions. He resigned from the government in June 2009, and stood down from Parliament at the 2010 Election.

And when you look up Purnell’s register of personal interests he mentions the IPPR (Has lots to talk about with Matthew Taylor then…apart from both working variously at the BBC) and ‘Citizens UK’…both organisations from which he has stepped down….however he fails to mention that he was a member of the Labour Party and only stepped down because of his new BBC job.

Why is he so coy about that and not the others?

Why is it that the words ‘Labour Party’ seem so difficult to say in certain circumstances where it might prove awkward or embarrassing?

It is astonishing how closely entwined all these people are…all powerful and influential, and all of a similar mindset…..and the hub of it all being the BBC which provides a far reaching and significant platform for their ideas to be disseminated from.

The BBC is keeping itself busy, time waits for no man but if you can rewrite history it doesn’t really matter does it?

The BBC last night had another go at polishing the turd that was Degsy Hatton, expelled from the Labour Party for belonging to the ‘Revolutionary Socialist League’…or Militant Tendency as it had renamed itself….also known as ‘’The Loony Left’…with some justification.

Laurie Taylor (More of whom later) oversaw proceedings on ‘Thinking Allowed’ whilst Diana Frost from Liverpool University helped to delve into the sewers to seek out the truth:

In an environment of mass unemployment in which Liverpool felt abandoned by an indifferent government, the council resolved to join others across the land in refusing to set a budget that would hurt the poorest. It was at first wildly popular, but the scene soon became set for a battle between the city and central government that would shape the future of Liverpool.

Once again Thatcher becomes the villain of the piece nobly resisted by the champions of the poor and downtrodden…Hatton and his Marxist Marauders.

If that wasn’t enough we get a rose tinted look back at the working class, a noble breed, from Paul O’Grady, Lily Savage as you may also know him,  who asks… 

Whatever happened to the working class? In episode one of a two-part series for BBC One, Paul O’Grady goes on a very personal journey through the history of the British working class to find out how work shaped our communities and what happened when those iconic jobs disappeared

I took one look at the picture of O’Grady dressed as a miner and dismissed this as likely to be the usual anti-Thatcher polemic, maybe with a few jokes from our Lil.

Matt Rudd in the Sunday Times suggested it was more in line with Monty Python’s version of history than say Sir Alan Bullock’s, a rose tinted, nostalgic look back at the working man and woman….life were tough in t’old days lad!

Charles Moore in the Telegraph gives a more robust analysis and it looks like my initial misgivings were correct:

A sentimental view of the working classes

The employers of servants were cruel (“Her Upstairs was never satisfied”). The history of the 1930s was presented solely in terms of the Jarrow March of 1936, when in fact unemployment had been falling for three years. We learnt about the heroic trade union movement, and that the coal miners (“the backbone of British industry”) were the greatest. In the 1970s, we were told, “all the members thought as one”. Then along came “Thatcher” who was “ready to take on the working class”. That was “the beginning of the end”.

Looking up O’Grady on Wikipedia later, I found that he is a classic Left-wing luvvie. Obviously, the BBC would never dream of letting loose a Right-wing entertainer of similar working-class origins on a big programme like this.

Well that’s O’Grady and his version of history…but who else has a finger in this pie?

The BBC,  as is often the case, teams up with the Open University in a link with this programme (Check out Harrabin and Dr Joe Smith the climate change advocate and Open University lecturer)…which brings you into the wonderful world of class war and anti-cuts rhetoric.

OU on the BBC: Paul O’Grady’s Working Britain

With links to all sorts of enlightening information, brought to us by the likes of Marxist Dr Jason Toynbee (No relation I believe) and of course the BBC’s own Laurie Taylor….once, still? a Trotskyist member of International Socialist and the irrepressible Owen Jones…and we know what he thinks….because he’s read all the books and regurgitates it ad nauseum so often on the BBC….and not forgetting Professor Kath Woodward who tells us ‘I work on feminist theories and embodiment most recently in the field of sport, especially boxing and have published widely on sex gender, inequalities and the politics of sport
I teach undergraduate and post graduate interdisciplinary social sciences, sociology and supervise PhD students on a range of related topics-diversity, race and gender inequalities, often within the empirical field of sport.’

And then there’s Dr Tracy Kildrick who gives us this:

The riots: poverty cannot be ignored

The sociological discipline has, in large part, been defined by those prepared to take risks and work alongside the poorest and the most marginalised in society.

Politicians of all persuasions have tried hard to divorce the riots from any discussion about the current spending cuts. The problems of poverty did not go away under the previous government, but things were slowly improving for those on the lowest incomes. Much of this progress is now in danger of being swept away as those at the bottom face the greatest threat from the cuts instigated by those at the top. Research shows that relative poverty is set to rise over the coming period, making those already poor very vulnerable indeed. Welfare reform is targeting many of the most vulnerable in society, including those on sickness benefits. Cuts in public services are likely to affect the poorest most as they often have little choice but to rely on these services.

Can’t imagine what the conclusions drawn might be from that lot.

This might give us an idea though from Woodward and Taylor:

The poor are other people: Perceptions of poverty on Teesside

The very helpful sociologists have come to do missionary work amongst the poor…only the poor don’t know they’re poor….they only realise it when the kindly sociologists point this out to them….

…and of course, the sociologists tell us, this is why the ‘working class’  support the Coalition’s Dickensian welfare reforms…they just don’t know how poverty stricken they are…they don’t know what’s good for them….and naturally the sociologists can’t find hide nor hair of the scroungers and skivers, the not so disabled disability claimants, the undeserving poor….all a government manufactured PR myth to allow them to victimise and target the poorest in society..

Anyway you get the idea…..academics, in the realm of sociology, hardly likely to be a hot bed of Tea Party reactionaries.

The BBC knows who its friends are.

Laurie Taylor is the link to the next post in which he pops up again. It is a small world when you start probing around inside the belly of the beast.

A new week AND  a new thread for you to detail the bias! Off you go….

The BBC has become the new priesthood according to Ed West.  

Here Ed West, the deputy editor of the Catholic Herald and commentator in the Telegraph, tell us he believes the BBC is biased against the Church and why the power of the BBC is damaging to Society (via Is the BBC biased? )

I love the BBC, I grew up with it. I love its comedy, its documentary making and all those great programmes. It’s a great British institution.

I feel it’s very much part of our culture and forms our national culture.

My problem with it and why I say it’s not a friend of the Church is simply that it does have a liberal bias, I don’t think most people there would even deny that.

But the main problem is the size of it, the power it has over British society.

It’s not just that it might view the Church sceptically, although it does, but that it’s almost a Church in itself.

It has the same moral authority that the Church once would have had, it’s almost setting the moral agenda in the way that the Church of England once did and once again people with personal views are considered outside of communion with Society.

The BBC supports equality and diversity, these sort of views that good liberal people are supposed to have.

The BBC considers it is intrinsically good to mock and be hostile to the Catholic Church but also to suburban, middle class people, Ulster Unionists, Israelis and various other groups, but there are other groups that automatically can’t be mocked such as the NHS or the UN for example and the Church very much falls into the former category.

It matters because the BBC has such an influence on wider society.

The general view amongst the British population who are asked what comes to mind when they think of the Catholic Church mostly have ideas based on sexuality.

The BBC is very effective at spreading certain ideas such as the Catholic Church is culpable for spreading HIV …..the BBC is a particularly powerful disseminator of this sort of idea of religion.

The BBC is once again attacking, undermining Christian beliefs and teachings.

It has consistently produced programmes that mock or demonise Christians, undermine the Church as an institution and denounces the Bible as a doctored, fraudulent piece of propaganda.

In ‘The Prophets’ on R4 it has examined five prophets. Here I look at one programme which examines ‘Isaiah’ who is a major prophet upon whose prophecies rests the basis of Christianity…the prediction of the ‘Messiah’.

Firstly you must realise that Isaiah isn’t a real person, probably, says the BBC….and if he isn’t real how can his prophecies be real? And if his prophecies are not real how can Jesus, the Messiah as predicted in those prophecies, be real?

In other words the whole basis of Christianity is set upon a lie.

Isaiah gave permission, gave rise to the idea of the Messiah…..

And the BBC tells us….listen to the tone of voice particularly here…..with such an expectation it is hardly a surprise that some group of Jews would say to themselves ‘this is the Man’.

‘Some group of Jews’ eh? Interesting phrase.

Not long ago Melvyn Bragg had a pop at the Prophets…telling us that the Bible is made up, doctored, written after the events ‘prophesised’ had occurred, to ‘confirm’ prophecies rather than to record them and that there was a ‘conscious fabrication of Christ’.

He had on Muslim Mona Saddiqui…who only spoke to praise Mohammed and the Koran…telling us the Koran couldn’t possibly be a fake…as Mohammed couldn’t write…therefore it must be the Word of God, a true miracle…..not only that but that we would all be Muslims if only Mohammed had been so prophesised as was Jesus in the Bible….nothing like a bit of Muslim propaganda on the BBC.

This is presumably why Bragg feels so readily able to criticise Christianity:

“Do I believe in the fundamental tenants of what makes Christianity, that there is a God who cares about every one of us? I’m afraid not. Resurrection? I’m afraid not. And so on.”

Ironically, if his own programmes about Christianity weren’t contradiction enough, in the same speech he states:

“What I really resent is their (atheists’) attack on the Christian ways and particularly the Christian history. Dismissing the ‘sky Gods’ – how dare they? That was the best people could do at that time.”

I guess that once inside the bowels of the BBC with all those eyes upon you your principles go out the window.

In contrast he BBC has stated that it refuses to examine Islam in the same manner because Muslims are a minority in this country who must be above criticism because they would feel victimised and alienated by such a process.

You can pretty much dismiss that argument. The reality is that when Islam is criticised various threats are made by the Muslim ’community’…..not restricted to violent extremists….Lord Ahmed’s threat to march on Parliament with ten thousand Muslims springs to mind, as does his alleged bounty on Obama and Bush….and the BBC is intimidated into silence.

The BBC’s stance on Islam is contradicted by their approach to reporting Buddhism…in which they happily denounce Buddhism as a ‘religion of violence’.

Just how many Buddhists are there in the UK? Are they not also going to be ‘victimised and alienated’ by the BBC‘s aggressive criticism of their religion? I imagine the BBC feels that there is little threat that any employee will be beheaded by the followers of this religion despite it being one that, the BBC tells us, is a ‘religion of violence’.

It is more than apparent that one religion gets far more favourable treatment from the BBC than any other.

Here we go, use this to detail the bias. Warning, I will be on BBC Sunday Morning Live tomorrow morning at 10am.

Some links that provide an interesting perspective on the BBC:

Thanks to George R for this link:

Why does the BBC sneer about Britain’s recovery but go crazy if Euroland’s corpse so much as twitches?

This from the Telegraph illustrates the lack of knowledge about student loans….something that the BBC has done little to dispel…..its journalists often encouraging the idea that the loans are a massive weight around the necks of any potential student…putting them off from applying to university ….disproven by recent record applications.

Here is Paul Mason’s take on student loans:

A whole generation of young people has seen economic promises cancelled:
they will work probably until their late sixties, come out of university with
lifetime-crippling debts.

Martin Lewis thinks different…as do students now as they realise they have been lied to by the likes of Paul Mason:

Martin Lewis: Time to stop calling student loans a loan

There is this from Janet Daley in the Telegraph:

The BBC says anyone who accuses it of bias – is biased

Well that’s is one way of countering the criticism that your news presentation is biased against arguments from Right-of-centre think tanks. You just smear the Right-of-centre think tank that points it out as being politically motivated and biased against you.

Of course Daley is right the BBC fixes the game in its favour.

It carries out numerous internal reviews of its own journalism….

They frequently state that yes, we have been biased, in the past, but that has been sorted…we are now as impartial and balanced in our reporting as it is possible to be….impartiality is in our DNA.

The Balen Report, which seems destined never to see the light of day as it probably reveals that BBC journalists have sided with the Palestinians and helped foster an atmosphere of anti-Semitism around the world.

Of course they did publish a report which remarkably found them to be biased in favour of Israel:

One important feature of this is the failure to convey adequately the disparity in the Israeli and Palestinian experience, reflecting the fact that one side is in control and the other lives under occupation. Although this asymmetry does not necessarily bear on the relative merits of the two sides, it is so marked and important that coverage should succeed in this if in nothing else.

Then there is its review of its science coverage…carried out by Professor Steve Jones who is practically an employee of the BBC and who admitted his career was saved by the BBC.

Strangely he thought the BBC wasn’t biased…or rather wasn’t biased enough against climate change sceptics.

Then there was the shelved investigation into Saville…something it seems that Mark Thompson is still somewhat sensitive about and reluctant to chat about.

And then there is the BBC’s use of accountancy firm KPMG to investigate BBC severance pay offs to senior executives….a firm with which the BBC has a close working relationship….being the BBC’s own auditors but also a company that provides consultancy for the BBC, and has even presented the business news on the BBC.

So possibly not all that independent and critical when it comes to reviewing BBC performance.

I’m sure many of you can think of many more examples of the BBC covering its own tracks and doing what it can to hide evidence of bias or wrong doing.

Greg Dyke admitted in an interview with Garry Richardson that the BBC ‘had all the money and if you have all the money you’ve got a lot of power.’

Shame there seems to be a lack of responsibiltiy and accountability that usually goes with power.