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.

George Osborne made his ‘State of the Economy’ speech today telling us that things were looking up and Plan A had given Balls a kick in the Plan B’s.

I heard Flanders explaining it all away today….explaining to us how Balls would react…how did she know?…..preparing the ground for Balls to roll out his own sorry excuses for his own shambolic performance no doubt.

She wrote it all up in an article which Guido has looked at:

New Plan B: Re-write History 

I guess you don’t need to look for any right wing comedians for the BBC to employ when the left do the job of satirising themselves so well.

Chris Huhne, adulterer, speed freak, arm twister, liar and convicted criminal has been given free run of the BBC to peddle some conspiracy theories he cooked up whilst he had a bit of time on his hands in chokey…namely that Rupert Murdoch had a contract out on him.

The BBC of course are happy to go along with this even though they know it is complete tripe…as long as Murdoch’s name is trashed even if slanderously by association and indirect fire.

He appeared on the Today programme which ‘Is the BBC biased’ has fisked beautifully but Victoria Derbyshire also gave his delusions some prime time on her show. (10:15)

The question is why?  Huhne writes a self pitying piece in the Guardian blaming Murdoch for his downfall and the BBC goes overboard giving credence to his claims.

 Derbyshire brought in Evan Harris, fellow Lib Dem and one of the movers and shakers of ‘Hacked Off’…not exactly an uninterested party…..but he in fact didn’t support Huhne…though not exactly supportive of Murdoch.

No one from Murdoch’s side, or any neutral commentator appeared…all we got was a ‘Bizarre and nothing to do with us’ from News International read out at the end.

What about those claims that it was Murdoch on a man hunt?  Was it the Times or the News of the World that did for honest Huhne?

Derbyshire played a recording of a  phone call between Huhne and his wife….which paper was mentioned as having run the story by Huhne’s wife?

The Daily Mail

So not the Times or the Screws.

 As Guido reveals….Murdoch cunningly got the affair story and the picture into the News of the World’s bitter rival the Sunday People, then got the Sunday Times’ rival Mail on Sunday to first make the running on the speeding points story after forcing Huhne to pervert the course of justice. He is delusional if he thinks this was a Murdoch-press conspiracy.

Yet again good journalism from Derbyshire…obviously hasn’t listened to the tape before hand or she thought ‘We’ll wing it and hope no one notices’.

Why does the BBC give prime time to someone with such a clearly barking idea and who is carrying out his own personal vendetta against Murdoch….in the hope that blaming Murdoch, who he believes is now a devil incarnate in the Public’s mind (Not), will somehow exonerate him.

To be fair to Derbyshire she read out some texts or emails at the end…Huhne is on a loser if he thinks this will gain him any credibility or sympathy…..

‘Tears of sympathy?…no tears of laughter’

‘Not decent, honest or moral’

‘Vile man’

Shame that BBC News didn’t get the message…it kept repeating Huhne’s claims and his attack on Murdoch.

Nothing like slinging mud…or getting someone else to do it for you.

Morning all. I’m broken hearted to read that political giant Sarah Teather is to stand down and was pleased to hear BBC Today run a glowing political obituary for the hamster faced one. It appears one of her “proudest” moments was getting a “British” constituent out of Guantanamo Bay. She will be missed…!! Anyhow, here is a brand new and one time OPEN THREAD for you all to enjoy. Now off you go ..detail the bias!

When all is gloom and your left wing soul is weary, you can rely upon Harriet Harman to sent out some upbeat insubstantial drivel and the BBC to treat it as if it were the wisdom of Solomon. Yesterday, Hattie was pointing out that Miliband had nothing to apologise for over the utter debacle of Falkirk. That was a gem given that Miliband and those who advise him were bang to rights following the “investigation” into the allegation of Unison fixing the by-election selection process. Today, Hattie is off to tell the gathering of her paymasters in Bournemouth that “Labour is on their side”. Well, of COURSE Labour is “on their side” since Labour is a fully owned subsidiary of the Trade Unions, and Miliband is where he is because of the votes from the Union barons. As time goes on, and Miliband is exposed as a dithering lightweight, this is tough one for the BBC. It reminds me of Michael Foot days. You KNOW the BBC are backing Labour but you know that the own goals being scored by Miliband may yet end up giving us a Conservative led coalition again in 2015.

Suggest you get some popcorn in for Mark Thompson’s appearance in front of the Public Accounts Committee today! Given the verbals between him and Patten, given Lucy Adams poor memory (cough) and given that this is presided over by BBC heroine Margaret “millionaire” Hodge, this should prove a brain melter for the comrades.

The BBC have come up with a clever ploy, a new line to change the way we look at the overstretched and under pressure services in A&E.

Previously the overstretch was due to too many patients… immigration and GPs not providing the proper service being to blame for too many people coming to A&E, many unnecessarily.

That of course placed the blame at Labour’s door on both counts…immigration and their reforms of the GP contracts.

The BBC has changed the rules of the game and decided that the root cause of the problem is not too many patients but too few staff…and therefore the blame can be shifted elsewhere.

Much as the Left have decided that the problem in the housing market is not too many immigrants flooding into the country and occupying the housing stock at the expense of the natives…no, the problem is too few houses….answer…build more houses…not sure who pays for them though…or indeed where they will be built…the 250,000 a year that we need.

A&E departments understaffed by nearly 10%, BBC survey suggests

Of course the new BBC line, ‘too few staff”,  tries to place the blame at the Government’s door…and we hear the Unions and Labour politicians telling us that NHS budgets are being cut or that resources are swapped away from where they are really needed.

But wait….half way through the article we get this:

More than three-quarters (79%) cited increased attendances at A&E as the reason for increased pressure, while 74% blamed inappropriate attendances at A&E where patients could have been treated by primary care services or by calling NHS 111.

In other words nothing has changed…the cause of overstretch is still the same…too many patients, and too many attending when they shouldn’t, GPs shirking their responsibilities,  not too few staff….not the cutting of staff or resources…there has always been a staff shortage at A&E…it has never been a popular place to work….so why the big headline…is it ‘news’ or just Labour scare mongering?

The BBC once again taking their narrative from the Labour press release?

Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham “Labour has been warning all year about the intense pressure on Accident and Emergency departments…..What I’m saying to the government is they must urgently get a grip on the underlying causes of this pressure and particularly ensure that all hospitals in England have enough staff to provide safe care.”

Remember Stafford Hospital?…a major cause being staff shortages…Under Labour…

On Monday, the Inquiry heard evidence from a member of staff who worked on the Emergency Assessment Unit (EAU) 

Witness B told the Inquiry that in 2004, when the unit was opened, it had nearly 50 beds and staffing levels were adequate. The Inquiry was told that this changed in 2007 when the number of nurses was cut. As a result, witness B became responsible for 15 patients with high care needs as opposed to a previous maximum of nine. 

The witness told the Inquiry that the unit became known as “Beirut” throughout the hospital. She said that the low staffing levels made the unit dangerous from a safety perspective.

or this:

• May 2006 – Peer review of critical children’s services and A&E department raises serious safety concerns

The peer review report highlighted the same concerns as an earlier review in 2002.

It described A&E as being “vulnerable” and warned there was “insufficient senior medical cover in A&E”, with two consultants and an associate specialist working a one-in-three rota.

The report also found “insufficient nursing staff”, with no nurse available to triage patients.

“It is self-evident there are not enough nurses and those few that are available are run ragged.”

Of course the BBC when reporting the Mid Staffs scandal tried to avoid mentioning ‘Labour’ at all in relation to this in any articles…..referring instead to the ‘minister for health’ or ‘the government’.

Selina Scott takes a great big running kick at the ‘golden balls’ of the ‘sexually corrupt’ BBC where the ‘often Oxbridge- educated powerful male elite behave in a predatory way towards attractive and ambitious women seeking to move up the Corporation’s greasy pole.’

Scott notices something that is the major problem when trying to reform the BBC and eliminate its bias:

 I wish Lord Hall success in his restructuring.

But the BBC has always been like a giant worm – no matter how much you cut off, it reforms in its old image.

As long as the BBC continues to recruit from the same ‘gene pool’ nothing will change….the sheer mass of likeminded people securely ensconced in their liberal bubble means any new incomer will soon find he or she has to ‘fit in’ or be ‘suspect’ and sidelined in one way or another.

In themselves the financial wrong doings and sexual politics have little to do with blatant bias but such goings on and the financial chicanery all makes it much more difficult for those working in the BBC to do their jobs and of course smacks of hypocrisy.

Every time they raise the question of financial misdemeanours or sexual misconduct of say politicians or businessmen the seemingly endless revelations from inside the Corporation will be thrown back in their faces.

For instance Rob Wilson, Tory MP on the same page lays into the BBC:

Snouts-in-the-trough bosses are just middle class benefit scroungers

The public deserves answers as to who was responsible, but more importantly, the public and the BBC’s hard-working, talented staff deserve strong and principled leadership.

It has long been a fear of some (and hope of others), that a Conservative Government would privatise the BBC.

That isn’t going to happen, but the BBC needs to stop trying to emulate the worst excesses of the private sector as seen in the City and return to its public service remit.

“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’.