You would need a heart of stone not to laugh at the collective mindmelt the BBC finds itself in as its former hero, Obama, is accused by Merkel and Hollande of outrageous invasion of privacy via telephone spying. Can you imagine the BBC anger had this revelation came out has Bush been President? But it’s President Narcissus in the White House so the BBC has to be nuanced and so it tries to keep Obama and the NSA well apart, even though the buck clearly stops on his desk. In a sense this is a non-story since nations have spied on each other throughout history, but the BBC likes to take a pro-European position on most issues but this one is a tad tricky for them.

Folks, I am reminded that the Common’s Select Committee on CMS announced on 22 October that it is to hold an enquiry into the future of the BBC. The deadline for written submission is 6 December. Anyone seeking to make a submission should note that they have until the 6th December to address the future of the BBC.

Here we go with a new and on-time Open Thread. Off you go…!

In his first tweet in over a year BBC religious affairs correspondent Robert Pigott seems to think that a parody article about Sarah Palin at the Daily Currant is real:

Sarah Palin is reported as claiming that Jesus Celebrated Easter, telling his apostles how to "convert homosexuals". http://t.co/5UmjiePasB

— Robert Pigott (@PigottRobert) October 24, 2013

He’s in good moronic company – Piers Morgan fell for it too (and then pretended he knew all along it was fake).

It’s not the first time a BBC journalist has been duped by a bit of lame satire that fits newsroom groupthink prejudice about US conservatives. BBC Brazil had to apologise when its lefty US correspondent Lucas Mendes wrote an article about a Texan GOP senator without realising the original information was a parody.

And in the all-too-likely event Pigott claims he knew the Palin article was a parody, why choose this as the topic of his first tweet since September 2012?

Sorry this is a tad later but off you go…

Will in the comments notes this from the Telegraph:

Anyone heard of ‘Ovo Energy’?

Probably not.

Which raises the question why would the BBC give them a nice little spot on its UK News page and ‘report’ their comments without challenge?

In this post I noted that energy minister, Ed Davey, had said:

‘Rising gas prices have been the cause of rising energy bills at the moment.’

Thoughtful in the comments linked to a BBC ‘report’ saying:

Wholesale energy prices ‘not going up’, says Ovo Energy

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24606614

Stephen Fitzpatrick, MD and founder of Ovo Energy, said he had not seen wholesale prices rise for about two years.

“If they’re buying more expensive gas, more expensive electricity, in a large part we think this is because they’re selling it to themselves”.

The BBC’s write up is short and based purely on what ‘Ovo’ said.

However in the actual interview the BBC interviewer stated that ‘independent sources say that wholesale prices have gone up 8%.’

Question….Why is that counter point not in the write up?

Ofgem…the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets…so presumably they know what they are talking about, said this:

Facts about wholesale costs

• Wholesale costs are the biggest component of the average bill, as shown in the pie chart above.
• Over the last ten years, wholesale electricity costs have risen by around 140 per cent and gas costs by 240 per cent.
• In the last year, wholesale costs have risen by around £10 to £610 of an average annual dual fuel household bill.
• The wholesale price of gas for use this winter is 8 per cent higher than the price of gas for use last winter.
• The wholesale price of electricity for use this winter is 13 per cent higher than the price of electricity for use last winter.

Gas 8% higher than last year.

Electricity 13% higher than last year.

And yet the BBC allow Ovo to claim there has been no rise in 2 years.

Which is odd really because a quick perusal of their own website tells us this:

Now I don’t know about you but as I read that it tells me that wholesale prices for both gas and electricity have gone up in the last twelve months.

So when Stephen Fitzpatrick, MD and founder of Ovo Energy, said he had not seen wholesale prices rise for about two years he was lying.

Perhaps he forgot his company’s little boast:

‘We try our best to be open and honest with our customers, so we thought you may be interested to see what the prices actually are on the wholesale market.’

The cost of gas has risen by 240 per cent over the last ten years, according to Ofgem, acting as the main driver of rising energy bills.

This graph shows that in 2011 prices were under 60 and are now nearer 70 pence per therm:

So just why did the BBC, despite knowing wholesale prices have gone up allow him to get away with that and give his company a prime spot on their website?

As the company claims it is ‘greener’ than most, using more renewable energy, is it possible that the BBC were giving it a little nudge in the Public’s consciousness?…maybe the BBC pension plan has invested in this little company…who knows.

It certainly fits in with the BBC’s own agenda…helping out the ‘little guy’ against Big Business and it can’t hurt that Ovo is just that little bit greener.

This from the Energy and Climate Change Committee might also help judge why prices have risen…..

The main driver behind energy price rises has been wholesale gas and electricity costs, but
network charges, energy and climate change policies, and company costs and profits also
contribute. In future, DECC estimates that its energy and climate change policies will add 33% to the average electricity price paid by UK households in 2020, in addition to any potential wholesale price rises.

DECC suggested that the main drivers of recent increases are: wholesale energy costs,
estimated to have contributed at least 60% of the increase in household energy bills between 2010-2012; network costs, supplier operating costs and profit margins, estimated to have contributed around 25% of the increase; and the costs of energy and climate change policies, estimated to have contributed around 15% of the increase.11 Energy supply companies argued that the majority of the costs which had contributed to energy price rises are outside their control.

In its recent report, Estimated impacts of energy and climate change policies on energy
prices and bills bills, DECC reported that the average gas prices paid by UK households in 2012/13 were 5% higher due to Government energy efficiency policies such as the Energy Company Obligation (ECO) (see table 10 10). They claimed that the estimated impact of  policies on household gas prices was expected to remain broadly unchanged to 2020.

The average electricity price paid by UK households in 2012/13 were 17% higher due to Government energy efficiency policies and the added cost of  supporting renewable energy.

In the future, DECC estimated that the impact of these policies on the electricity price could increase to 33% in 2020 (in addition 20 to any potential wholesale price rises).

Bit of a sea change at the BBC…at least in parts.

There must have been an official memo come down from on high that demanded a more honest and open exploration of the issues surrounding immigration.

The BBC has had a few looks at David Goodhart’s book ‘The British Dream’, we have had a programme from Victoria Derbyshire that didn’t seek to hide the true reasons for many immigrants coming to the UK specifically, and now Stephanie Flanders has kicked over the traces and really undermined the long cherished shibboleths of the pro-immigration lobby.

Undoubtedly hearts and minds in the BBC won’t change no matter what directives they receive from the bosses…and so the question is can this open and honest approach filter through to the shop floor and not just be limited to specific programmes?….if presenters still label those who want to control and limit immigration as ‘racist’ and allow guests such as Diane Abbot to come on shouting ‘xenophobia’ then the effect of any official BBC approach is negated.

Start The Week  had on Paul Collier who has written a book, ‘Exodus’,  examining the effects of immigration, not just on Britain but on the countries from which the immigrants come, and neither country seems to benefit long term from mass immigration.

The points he makes are all ones that have been obvious for a long time now and which have been made again and again by those who were critical of mass, uncontrolled immigration….it is essentially a massive experiment which has failed…..and one which politicians, with the help of a compliant Media (The BBC), have forced upon the British population regardless of their concerns and beliefs.

Some of the major points raised by Paul Collier:

1.  The least integrated an immigrant community is with the host nation the more immigrants it attracts…because they realise they will feel ‘at home’ ….getting all the benefits of the civilised, wealthy host nation whilst not having to integrate and compromise on language, culture or religion…in other words you get a mini-Pakistan or mini-Somalia.

2. It is not just an economic issue as the pro-immigration lobby try to claim….for a start the economic benefits are disputed, and are at best minimally beneficial…and any such benefit is short term and trivial.

It is the long term effects that are important, the effects on society itself…..too much diversity is dangerous….it lowers trust, there’s a lack of co-operation between groups, and no mutual regard….as well as other costs such as overcrowding, crime, housing, access to schools and the NHS.

And the result is conflict.

3.  As more and more immigrants enter the country it is turned upside down and the things that made the country attractive to the immigrants are lost…..eventually the economy breaks down as well as the social fabric as the shared sense of nation and mutual regard are broken down.

4. If you have open borders you can’t have a welfare state.

5.  Using net migration figures is a politician’s, and the BBC’s, favourite and misleading con trick….a net migration figure of zero means only that the same number of people have left a nation as entered…the sum total of the population might still be the same…but the identity of the population could completely have altered.

6.  A sense of Nation is the glue that holds it all together.

7.  Students and asylum seekers should go back to their homelands as soon as their studies or the conflict they escaped from is over…to help rebuild their own country.

8.  It is usually the more educated and wealthier who escape from conflicts…and therefore this drains a country of the innovative and clever people it needs to rebuild.

9.  The politicians have been deliberately failing to address the obvious problems and are completely out of touch with the Public’s concerns.

As said above it is all very well for the BBC to do the occasional programme like this one that examines and admits the most difficult problems about immigration but will there be a follow up to see if these ‘truths’ are reflected in reporting or in the way that presenters deal with the subject on their own programmes?

If not is it just a tick box exercise designed to say ‘Look we’ve done X amount of programmes on immigration…therefore we’re balanced and impartial’?

If the culture, the hearts and minds, the overall Institutional pro-immigration stance, remains unchanged, that wouldn’t be true.

Couple of interesting comments that went completely unremarked…and considering the huge political fuss about energy companies raising prices you might have thought they were somewhat noteworthy.

Ed Davey, energy minister, on Today (08:16) stated that:

‘Rising gas prices have been the cause of rising energy bills at the moment.’

Cameron when talking about the nuclear power station deal and pricing said that it was cheaper than all other non-carbon sources……ie wind farms and solar. (No link)

So….rising bills are in fact caused by wholesale prices and not greedy energy firms…according to the energy minister (and Ofgem confirmed prices have risen 8%)

…and for all the fuss over the price of the nuclear power in 2023 it is still cheaper than wind or solar.

As I said….might just have been two very relevant statements…but the BBC seems to have completely missed them.

Yet another religious wind bag (apologies to anyone who actually likes religious windbaggery).

Even a Labour man looks askance at the new Archbishop of Canterbury as he does a bit of pious grandstanding on behalf of the Labour Party (and is always given a headline or two on the Beeb)….without any solutions to the problems he raises it might be added.

Dan Hodges cocks a snook:

The C of E used to be the Tory party at prayer. Now Justin Welby is Polly Toynbee in a cassock

Amid all the excitement of over the cull of the Blairites and the promotion of this week’s Next Leader of the Labour Party, Tristram Hunt, one major shadow cabinet appointment was overlooked: the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Justin Welby is the new shadow minister for Moral Indignation. And it’s a wide-ranging brief. Over the weekend he intervened on energy policy, attacking the Big Six power companies. “Having spent years on a low income as a clergyman I know what it is like when your household budget is blown apart by a significant extra fuel bill and your anxiety levels become very high,” he said.