Going on a seven day hunger strike in support of Gitmo resident Shaker Aamer is perhaps accidental comedy genius from alleged comedian Frankie Boyle. I was reading this BBC report on Frankie’s “Bobby Sands” moment. All this classic elements are in it; It says he is a UK resident but minimises the fact he is a Saudi national. You have to wade through paragraphs of dirge to get to the bit where we are told WHY he is detained in Gitmo.  The US says he led a unit of Taliban fighters against Nato troops and had met Osama Bin Laden. BBC are then quick to insert that “But Mr Aamer has always said he was in Afghanistan with his family doing charity work.”  As you do. Aamer is the new Binyam Mohammed and I am sure you will recall how the BBC lionised him. If you recall, Binyam was another unfortunate Muslim who was captured by US forces having  travelled to Taliban controlled Afghanistan, around the same time as Shaker Aamer and just prior to the invasion, in order to … clear his drug addled head and experience a Muslim country first hand. I guess these unlucky Muslims must be thankful the BBC are so keen to believe what they allege and give Frankie the publicity he graves. Let’s hope Boyle can make the 7th day.

Yup, I see how bulging with comments Monday’s thread is so here’s a new one for you.  Enjoy filling it!

Andrew Neil, that well known climate scientist, has stirred up a hornet’s nest by daring to question government policy on climate…based as it is on ever increasing temperatures….but there are obvious doubts about that now due to the long hiatus in rising temperatures:

The Sunday Politics interview with Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Davey on July 14 provoked widespread reaction in the twittersphere and elsewhere, which was only to be expected given the interview was about the latest developments in global warming and the implications for government policy.

The main purpose of the interview was to establish if the government thought the recent and continuing pause in global temperatures meant it should re-think its policies in response to global warming.

This is a vital policy issue since the strategy of this government and the previous Labour government to decarbonise the economy involves multi-billion pound spending decisions, paid for by consumers and taxpayers, which might not have been taken (at least to the same degree or with the same haste) if global warming was not quite the imminent threat it has been depicted.

Our focus was on a global temperature plateau which could be a challenge to the forecasts of climate models which have determined government policy. The plateau could continue for the foreseeable future or melt away as temperatures resume their upward trajectory.

What was possibly even more interesting was this:

It might also be argued that challenging interviews on matters in which there is an overwhelming consensus in Westminster – but not necessarily among voters who pay for both the licence fee and the government’s energy policies – is a particularly legitimate purpose of public-service broadcasting.

So it is the job of public-service broadcasters to challenge the overwhelming consensus?

You could have fooled me and many others who thought the BBC had decided that the science was ‘settled’ and that no more questions needed to be asked…full ahead with green taxes and hair shirts.

I guess when you take money from organisations that promote man made global warming your journalism might be compromised.

And the fact that BBC journalists have few scientific qualifications between them and yet feel compelled to denounce ‘mere bloggers’ as unqualified to comment on climate change…many of whom are actually far  more scientifically qualified that the BBC journalists.

From Staite Communications:

 Having worked in political communications in the UK for nearly 9 years I know the process and it is very clear. The Labour Party are using two newspapers, supported by the BBC, to try and get a scalp which will weaken the Prime Minister.

A piece of information is dressed up as a ‘leak’ by the attack unit at Labour HQ. Interesting to note that editors love leaks. Leaks make the information more ‘sexy’ than if it had just come across the desk of the journalist via a press release.  As I’ve already said, this information is not a ‘leak’ but a presentation given openly to a group of cross-party MPs over three years ago.

This information is then farmed out to journalists at Labour’s two favourite newspapers, The Guardian and/or The Mirror. Once it becomes a front page story – a splash – then that is enough for a call to go in to the BBC newsroom to suggest that maybe they too should be covering this story. If it is a splash in The Guardian the BBC is far more likely to run it as the Corporation buys far more of this newspaper than any other. Voila – a ‘leak’ created in Labour HQ has become a political ‘row’ in three easy steps.

This is an update to the previous post on the BBC’s smear campaign against the Tories’ political advisor, Lynton Crosby.

The Guardian published an article claiming Crosby’s firm was somehow involved in trying to ‘exploit’ the NHS reforms and was giving advice to potential ‘profiteers’ on how to do that.  The BBC have happily leapt aboard that bandwagon without any fact checking…it seems they may regret that.

Perhaps one day they will do their own investigative journalism and not rely on ‘leaks’ from those with vested interests.

Guido has pointed out a very inconvenient fact about the story:

“Crosby Presentation” Organised By Labour Lobbyist
Labour MPs Attended Event Held in Commons

 The Guardian claims that the “leaked” presentation was made by CTF to private healthcare profiteers, it was actually organised by the lobbying firm Westminster Advisers for MPs – who were all given copies. Making it more of a handout than a leak. Westminster Advisers is headed by Dominic Church, a wealthy Labour supporter and a former Hammersmith and Fulham councillor for the party.

Guido notes that the Guardian has cut out slides from a slide show by Crosby’s firm …but renumbered the pages so that nobody would notice….why?

Perhaps this slide might show why:

Guido tells us that The Guardian have corrected their story after he pointed out these facts:

The Guardian has done a follow up which largely corrects the record after Guido pointed out the factual errors in their healthcare lobbying story from this morning. Namely that they had got the target audience completely wrong and that the firm organising the event wasn’t Tory leaning CTF, it was in fact Labour leaning lobbyists Westminster Advisers. A statement issued by Mark Detre from Westminster Advisers confirms the accuracy of Guido’s version of events:

“Crosby Textor Fullbrook provided research and advice into public attitudes on healthcare to H5. H5 is a predecessor to the Association of Independent Healthcare Organisations and they did that in 2010 and 2011. The arrangement between CTF and H5 ended in mid 2011. AIHO is a new organisation formed in March 2013 and has no relationship with CTF.”

 

 

But it seems that the BBC are still behind the times and running the old anti-Tory smear version on their front page with this qualification:

Crosby Textor said: “This so-called leaked document is a presentation of research given to scores of Labour, Liberal Democrat and Conservative MPs at the House of Commons by H5 almost three years ago, full copies of which were widely circulated at the time.

 

No mention that it was actually presented by a Labour friendly lobby group and not Crosby’s firm who merely did the research.

The BBC may have done a bit of a stealth edit:

This was from the original article this evening when I posted this latest piece at 18:47:

David Cameron faces fresh questions about his election strategist Lynton Crosby after it emerged his lobbying firm advised private health companies at the time of NHS reforms.

 [This is the original but taken from another site…..this was the report that was on the BBC website until late this evening when it was changed to the below]

And this is the new one…time stamped 14:59 (No link to old version…Wayback When Machine itself gets redirected to latest version):

David Cameron’s election strategist has denied Labour claims of a “shocking conflict of interest” over his lobbying firm’s work on behalf of private health companies at the time of NHS reforms.

The new version is quite different to the original but still makes no mention that it was a Labour leaning group that actually made the presentation….and is still stating this:

Lynton Crosby’s company told its client how to exploit perceived “failings” in the NHS in 2010, based on an opinion poll, the Guardian reported.

The economy may be picking up…not just a mere point here and there but some serious uplift maybe in the offing.

GDP figures will be released on Thursday….even the Guardian recognises this could be significant:

Something big happens this Thursday. As events go, the publication of a thin booklet of provisional numbers may sound about as dramatic as the shipping forecast. But the release of the GDP initial estimate for the second quarter of this year will have a huge impact.

The newspapers reported the stirring of strong growth of ‘green shoots’.

The Times did, the Telegraph did….twice:

UK economy showing “green shoots” as growth thought to double

British economy has turned a corner, senior Tories claim

Even the Guardian commented on it ….twice also..though only to throw cold water on the idea of course:

Economy: politics of the recovery

Ignore the hype: Britain’s ‘recovery’ is a fantasy that hides our weakness

Only the BBC has chosen to ignore this ‘good news story’….the Guardian’s ‘huge impact’ dismissed as unimportant.

Remember when the BBC thought GDP figures would show a ‘triple dip’….they were talking about it non stop days befoe the announcement…only to be disappointed…..though why the BBC continued to push the idea of a ‘triple dip’ recession is beyond me…as they already knew that there had been no ‘double dip’ recession….so how could you have a third?

It is all too obvious that the BBC has yet again decided to fix the narrative…hiding the good news whilst highlighting potential bad news……even if it might turn out to be good news in the end…a long run of negative stories even if eventually proven false can lay some useful groundwork in casting doubt and confusion into people’s minds.

Journalists working under the sway of thuggish dictators are usually thought of as the puppet voices of oppression and repression.….the news they produce mere propaganda…the legend being that there’s no news in the truth and no truth in the news….

…..but compared to BBC journalists they are in fact paragons of virtue…they at least are forced to compromise their journalistic ethics  and ideals such as they might be…the BBC journalists make that choice for themselves….they make a conscious decision to promote one political party with the sole aim of denying a platform for any opponents of their chosen ideology.

Many BBC journalists are morally and professionally corrupt distorting and exploiting the democratic process to rig elections…or so they hope usng the BBC and its privileged position, authority and credibility as their personal soapbox.

For a long time the BBC ignored the Unite scandal where the Union was identified as having attempted to fix who became many of Labour’s parliamentary candidates.  The  BBC pushed Labour’s own narrative that this was a few rogue officials in one location whereas we know from documents and Labour’s own websites that this was Union policy, that it was adopted widely and that the Labour Party knew and approved of it….Miliband himself is implicated in this…..he is now lying when he claimed to be ‘cleaning up’ the mess….one that he already knew of…but did nothing about….until challenged….the BBC have never questioned Miliband’s stance or credibility over this.

Whilst the BBC ignored the Unite story they instantly moved on the story about Lynton Crosby, the Tory’s election advisor….of course this was a story generated by Labour….so once again the BBC do news by ‘press release’. 

The story is clearly just counter fire run out to take the wind out of the sails of the Unite story….not that the BBC were ever interested in that anyway….note that the latest about Unite’s new political director, Jennie Formby, who was yet another of McCluskey’s in house girlfriends and who has a child by him, has been totally ignored by the BBC….despite her being on Labour’s NEC as well.

Whilst the Public has absolutely no interest in Crosby the BBC keep up the narrative and keep the story alive hoping it will catch fire and see the sacking of Crosby whom they see as far too successful and a threat to Labour.

The last story on the Today programme this morning  (0855) was a classic example of that, a manufactured point of interest….designed purely as an excuse to enable the BBC to keep the  Crosby/Cameron lobbying narrative simmering and in the public eye….

‘The prime minister has deflected questions about whether he has discussed the issue of tobacco packaging with the Tory strategist Lynton Crosby. The BBC’s Michael Cockerell, and Sheila Gunn, political press secretary to former prime minister John Major, examine whether politicians should answer questions more openly.’

They couldn’t get him to say ‘Yes it’s all true…Crosby runs Tory policy in the interests of his commercial clients.’ so they make up a spurious talking point to suggest that Cameron is hiding this ‘fact’….the BBC knows it is true…therefore when the PM denies it he must be lying!

The BBC stoop even lower with this latest concoction by the Guardian (Now re-edited by the BBC to reflect a new truth as found by Guido…see later post…BBC Smears and Lies)…reporting what Crosby did in his own business when not employed by any political party…..reporting it as if there was some connection to Tory health policy…..despite as said Crosby not being in their employ at the time….

David Cameron faces fresh questions about his election strategist Lynton Crosby after it emerged his lobbying firm advised private health companies at the time of NHS reforms.

As to those ‘fresh questions’…once again a Labour Party press release.

It must be great when a political party has its own multi billion pound media empire disseminating its propaganda for it.

I wonder just how the BBC’s support for the Labour Party will be taken into account when considerations of Party funding are raised….it must be worth a ‘pretty penny’.

It’s almost as IF the BBC wants us to feel a little sorry for Michael Abebolajo. The Mail reports;

Prison officers have reacted with fury to claims from Woolwich murder suspect Michael Adebolajo that he was ‘assaulted’ while in prison.  The man accused of hacking to death Fusilier Lee Rigby in the street was involved in a violent incident in Belmarsh high security jail last week in which he lost two teeth. In an interview with BBC News over the weekend, Adebolajo’s brother Jeremiah claimed warders in the prison ‘took offence’ when the remand prisoner refused to obey an instruction and then ‘smashed his head against a window’. The BBC also reported the claim – denied by Prison Service officials – that the murder suspect had been denied medical treatment.

It amuses me that whilst the BBC struggles to actually assignate the label “terrorist” to the likes of Al Queda, or the IRA, or Hezbollah, or pick your terrorist gang here, it IS able to call its own DALEKS terrorists! So in a fantasy world, it can attribute moral value but NOT in reality!!

A Biased-BBC reader points out that the BBC seems to have missed this story about one of Morsi’s Ministers being filmed beating an 11 year old boy.  Considering all the coverage which  the BBC gave to a story (used to demonise Israel) about a young Palestinian boy detained for throwing rocks at Jews, one would at least expect this story of authentic child abuse to be reported by the BBC’s vigilant journalists.

I was listening to the Today programme around 6.45am and caught a remarkably sneering piece by the BBC on how the Conservatives cannot be trusted on tax. The comment that really made my ears prick up was “It takes independent bodies like the Resolution Fundation to tell us how things really are” before going on to play a clip of Osborne saying NO tax increases before the 2010 election and then announcing an increase in VAT shortly thereafter. Mention was made of Brown doing something similar in 2000, but sadly no clip was available.  My beef with this is that a/The Resolution Foundation is a body with an activist left wing pro Labour agenda and so cannot possibly be seen as impartial and b/Perhaps the utter mess of the public finances created by labour which Osborne inherited may have contributed to hid decision to raise our VAT to EU average???