It is always apparent that any programme that uses audience participation either in a phone in or like Question Time, actually imports an audience, is vulnerable to those people who under cover of being someone unaffiliated with any agenda are in fact political, big business, religious or other activists or lobbyists peddling their own interests.

With that in mind it should be encumbent on the likes of the BBC to weed out such people if possible….and failing that, they  ensure that any guests they have onto any show are there to provide informed comment unadulterated by their politics, comment which informs and educates the listener without them being sandbagged by partisan voices masquerading as the honest truth.

This Friday Nicky Campbell was discussing Jeremy Hunt’s comments that he could not guarantee that all NHS hospitals were completely safe.

Who did Campbell have on as his prime speaker?

Dr John Ashton….the same Dr John Ashton who says ‘ it is a basic human right to belong to a political party but insists his concerns about the bill are based on professional, not personal or political opinion.

He said: “I have always been open about the fact that I have been a member of the Labour party since I was 17. For me it is my values and in my blood.” ‘

The same Dr John Ashton who strongly opposes the Government’s health service reforms:

A LIVERPOOL doctor said it was “outrageous” he had been summoned to a disciplinary hearing for criticising the Health Bill.

Campbell didn’t bother to reveal that link to Labour or his views on the health reforms.

But such links might explain the views he did express on  the show:

Private sector values corrode and corrupt public service ethics that were part of the NHS since its inception…the solidarity of the NHS has been torn apart and the workforce alienated.

He believes that Jeremy Hunt is trying to privatise the NHS by the backdoor and that when a caller suggested that Hunt’s comment about not guaranteeing the safety of NHS hospitals  was a deliberate policy to undermine the NHS and give him an excuse to privatise it, Ashton said he ‘absolutely agreed with that’.

Funny old world…when Labour were getting a lot of flak for Stafford they were keen to claim that the ‘vicitms’ of that regime were being ‘forgotten’…now all they want to talk about is the politics and the blame that can be piled onto the Tories if possible.

Shame the BBC gives a platform to someone who is so obviously completely opposed to this government in every way when they present him as a impartial commenter…..all the worse on a ‘phone-in’ when we know that many callers are not the disinterested parties that they claim to be and so we need a credible, informed and balanced voice…something that the BBC in this case so obviously failed to provide.

Just how much work does the BBC put into researching any subject in preparation for an interview?  When interviewing someone about a report that criticises the interviewee severely it might be well to read that report and test what the interviewee claims against what that report actually says.

On the Today programme today Jill Finney, former deputy chief executive of the Care Quality Commission claimed that:

‘As soon as Grant Thornton were appointed to this inquiry the first thing I did was to advise them of the existence of this report and I made it available to them and urgerd them to read it.’

Grant Thornton says different, it says the fact that there had been an internal report and that it had been ‘hidden’ was unknown to them for a long time:

During the course of our enquiries it was brought to our attention by an internal CQC source that in the latter part of 2011, during the period of “Gold Command” and other activity that culminated in CQC launching its Investigation into UHMB, an internal review of regulatory decision making and activity had been conducted by Mr J, a senior CQC individual. The source commented that a report had been produced (the “Mr J report”) but that it had not been disseminated or circulated within CQC, despite the fact that it was understood by the source that one of the main purposes of the review was to identify lessons to be learnt from the regulation of UHMB.

6.2 Hitherto we had not been advised of an internal review having been conducted along the lines described to us, which we considered unusual given there appeared to be a clear parallel with the work we had been instructed to do.

We raised the issue with Mr G who indicated some recollection of a report prepared by Mr J. He advised that he did not have a copy of the report but would make enquires and suggested Mr F, another senior CQC individual, might have a copy.

6.4 On 18 September 2012, Mr G emailed us a copy of a report entitled: “Summary of the internal review of the regulatory decisions and activity at UHMB” and advised that this was the Mr J report418

.

Finney claimed that the CQC did not address the report’s concerns because it actually praised the CQC and the CQC could see that that conclusion was obviously wrong….they were not trying to hide anything.

Again Grant Thornton seems to differ on that  conclusion:

Having considered the report’s findings and explicit criticisms, we recognised the potential parallel with the Whistleblower’s concerns and therefore sought to determine why its existence had not been drawn to our attention earlier. We were not convinced by the explanation that the report was poorly written and unfit for disclosure and, in any event, its substance was, in our view, of key relevance to our investigation.

When I read the report by Grant Thornton those passages stood out immediately….shame the world’s finest news broadcaster doesn’t have the time to research it’s interview subjects and dig out the relevant material that might actually make an interview worthwhile and enlightening if it actually can challenge what an interviewee claims.

Finney claimed that the CQC was going to rewrite the internal report….did the BBC ask her where then is the rewritten report?  No. 

What was the point of the interview other than an opportunity for Finney to deny any fault on her part?

The BBC’s top story all day has been the alleged police attempt to smear the Lawrence family.

Listening to their reporting you would have the impression that this was ‘fact’…the police had been investigated and the allegation found proven.

As always the BBC seem all too ready to attack the police when they get the chance…evidence of wrong doing, or the lack of, not being much of an impediment to the BBC’s very own prosecution, judgement and sentencing process.

The BBC are not so interested in reports of racism, homophobia, violence, political subversion and intentions to impose an Islamic state upon the UK as well as the foreign powers funding such intrigues.

The Lawrence story was originated by the Guardian and Channel 4’s Dispatches programme.

The BBC weren’t so quick to report, in fact ignored, other Dispatches programmes such as:

Undercover Mosque in which we heard things like this:

Abu Usamah: Verily Allah going to bring a group of people that he loves and they love him, these people will who will be soft and kind to the believers and they will be rough and tough against the kuffaar, they will fight in the cause of Allah.    

I encourage all of you to be from amongst them, to begin to cultivate ourselves for the time that is fast approaching where the tables are going to turn and the Muslims are going to be in the position of being uppermost in strength, and when that happens, people won’t get killed – unjustly.

Abu Usamah: Do you practise homosexuality with men?  Take that homosexual man and throw him off the mountain.

Abu Usamah: Allah has created the woman deficient.    

Green Lane preacher: If she doesn’t wear hijab, we hit her.

We want to have children and offer them as soldiers defending Islam. Teach them this, there is nothing more beloved to me than wanting to die as a mujahid, put in their soft tender hearts the zeal of jihad and the love of martyrdom.

Or indeed this Dispatches programme which looks at ‘Britain’s Islamic Republic’:

Tonight on Dispatches, how a fundamentalist Muslim group has secretly infiltrated the Labour party – and the broader political system.

JIM FITZPATRICK MP: They are acting almost as an entryist organization, placing people within political parties.

How it wants an Islamic state, or caliphate.  And how it wants to live by sharia law in the UK.

AZAD ALI, Islamic Forum of Europe (undercover footage): Democracy, if it means that, you know, at the expense of not implementing the sharia, of course no one agrees with that.

The BBC, happy to undermine the police on the slightests hint of wrong doing but not to report on a phenomenon that undermines a whole society and culture….where the evidence is laid out on a plate for them to see.

What is a subtext to both reports is the influence of foreign players on Muslims in this country and their politics…the influence of Saudi Arabia flooding the UK with money as well as the business and social connections that the Saudis have with the ‘elite’ in this country…one reason no one will touch this subject.  The Islamic Forum of Europe has its links to other Muslim supremacist organisations and is itself working hard towards that goal:

A quotation from original IFE documents has helped still those complaints about “defamation” and “vindictiveness”. Such as, for instance, the transcript of a 2009 recruit training course where the organisation tells its new members: “Our goal is not simply to invite people and give da’wah [call to the faith]. Our goal is to create the True Believer, to then mobilise those believers into an organised force for change who will carry out da’wah, hisbah [enforcement of Islamic law] and jihad [struggle]. This will lead to social change and iqamatud-Deen [an Islamic social, economic and political order].”

Or the leaflet where the IFE tells us that it is dedicated to changing the “very infrastructure of society, its institutions, its culture, its political order and its creed … from ignorance to Islam.” Or the document where the IFE says it “strives for the establishment of a global [my italics] society, the Khilafah … comprised of individuals who live by the principles of … the Shari’ah.”

Time for a new one….

The BBC seems to be up to its old tricks as it fails to mention ‘Labour government’ in relation to yet another health scandal from the time of the last Labour government.

Not only failing to mention Labour and its failures in charge of the NHS but actually facilitating their attack on the present government.

Labour has picked up on a small phrase in the report by Grant Thornton on the CQC that said that the deleting of the internal report by the CQC ‘may constitute a broader and on-going cover-up.’

Victoria Derbyshire talks to Labour MP John Woodcock (11:20)  who turns things very political…saying it is a most shocking allegation about the deletion of  an internal report….he claims the report makes out that there are ‘strong grounds to believe that there is a broader and ongoing coverup’.

That is misleading as the report doesn’t say ‘strong grounds to believe’…it says this (para 1.117):

‘The report addressed many of the same issues the Whistleblower was to raise and the alleged decision to suppress it (very shortly before the Whistleblower submitted their own questions) may constitute a broader and on-going cover-up.’

That’s ‘may’ indicate a broader and on-going cover-up…..the cover-up being by the CQC itself.

Derbyshire encourages Woodcock…‘Can you explain this ongoing cover-up and what it means?’

Woodcock does then read out the paragraph in full and states:  ‘It is hard to exaggerate the seriousness of that charge…ministers need to make clear who in the Department of Health was aware of these allegations, including if Ministers themselves knew.’

Woodcock is trying to draw in and implicate the government in the cover-up…despite the report saying most of the CQC itself didn’t know of the internal report and no where implicates the government….and all with the help of Derbyshire who hasn’t read the report herself and doesn’t bother questioning or challenging Woodcock’s claims or statements.

Here the BBC acknowledges ‘political decisions’ in the process but fails to say whose political decisions:

‘There are structural problems. When the CQC was created it took on the responsibility of the three regulators plus a new licensing regime but with a third less funds.

Unsurprisingly, the number of inspections it was carrying out soon started dropping.

What is more, the inspection regime it was told to follow relied on a large amount of self-assessment by trusts.

These were political decisions that had unintended consequences.

Here the BBC shows Jeremy Hunt giving an apology….again no mention of Labour by the BBC…and they miss out a later, important comment by Hunt:

The Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has apologised to families affected by a series of baby deaths at a Cumbria Hospital after a report said that England’s healthcare regulator may have covered up knowledge of its own failings.

This is the comment by Hunt later in his appearance in Parliament:

When it comes to accountability, the right hon. Gentleman needs to explain to the House why the former head of the CQC, Barbara Young, said in her evidence to the Francis inquiry:

“We were under more pressure…when Andy Burnham became minister, from the politics.”

Is it the case that the head of the CQC felt under pressure not to speak out about care issues?

Tory MP, David Morris also remarked on this in the same parliamentary debate and in the ‘conservative home’ blog:

‘The former Chair of the CQC, Baroness Young, has made very serious allegations that ministers “leaned on” her to “tone down” criticism of NHS organisations. She claims that “there was huge government pressure, because the government hated the idea that a regulator would criticise it”. Damningly, she revealed that this political pressure peaked under current Shadow Health Secretary’s Andy Burnham’s tenure as Secretary of State. This is the man who turned down 81 separate requests for a public inquiry into the Mid Staffs scandal, and has attacked the current Health Secretary time and again for exposing and confronting “coasting hospitals”.’

This is what Baroness Young had to say about Labour’s attempted political interference in health care regulation:

Page 74-75

Q. Did you come under any government pressure to tone down the wording of reports?

A. In a way it was the other way round. The reason the government didn’t like tough reports was because they were running the services that were being reported upon, and so we used to fight tooth and nail to be as robust as possible, and to be as open as — and independent. I was absolutely determined that we were not going to be a regulator who was subject to the government being able to muzzle it or to infringe its independence, or to prevent it from doing a good job on behalf of the public and patients, which is what we were there for.

So had the government tried to tone things down, I would not have accepted that, quite frankly. And I don’t recall us changing a report at any stage, while I was there, as a result of government pressure.　

There was huge government pressure, because the government hated the idea that — that a regulator would criticise it by dint of criticising one of the hospitals or one of the services that it was responsible for. And that was part of the problem of the nature of the Care Quality Commission, when it was established, and that was it was regulating — it was one of the few regulators in British public life that regulates something that is directly run by the government, and that was always going to be a real problem.

And on page 80 she noted the conflict of interest in the government being both provider and regulator:

So the health service got it both ways — they — they — they could run as providers but at the same time they could advise the guy who was making decisions ultimately about the shape and nature of regulation. And so it did feel like a bit living in an episode of “The Thick of It”

Labour once again are being let off the hook by the BBC…it conspicuously failed to connect Labour to the Mid-Staffs scandal and seems to be doing something similar here…what’s being forgotten is the real cause of all the fuss..the actual failure of the Morecambe Bay hospital under Labour….and what looks like the systemic failure of the NHS as Grant Thornton suggests.

The CQC, like Gordon Brown’s ‘FSA’, was ‘too big to succeed’ having been  created by the merger of three other regulatory bodies to become an unwieldy and disjointed beast.

Labour’s part in that is of little interest to the BBC, nor are the comments by Baroness Young about attempted political interference to reduce the effect of CQC reports…surely more than a little bit relevant in the present circumstances.

Woodcock has had a good run over the last couple of days given free rein to air his conspiracy theories unopposed….the BBC not bothering to put anyone up against him to challenge his claims.

Thirteen years of a Labour government..and you’d hardly know if you only listened to the BBC.

BBC spent £28m of licence-fee payers’ money gagging 500 staff

The BBC has used licence fee payers’ money to buy the silence of more than 500 staff with payouts of up to £500,000 each

Never mind the £300,000 spent concealing the inconvenient findings of the Balen Report….which reporters would have received pay offs along with their P45s if that had been published?

There’s an ongoing furore over the ever more bloated international aid budget whilst things at home are austerity stricken.

Perhaps Cameron might have a change of heart and start repatriating some of that money to help the homegrown refugees that the BBC has discovered roaming British cities. ( 9 minutes in)

Yes that’s right, British refugees.

The BBC tells us that Birmingham has  ‘increasing numbers of refugees from the South East, Newham in particular’ caused by a housing shortage in London.

That’s the South East of England not South East Asia.

The cause?   The Government cap on welfare and lack of house building.

No mention of immigrants causing the housing shortage …despite the majority of the ‘refugees’ on the BBC’s piece being, er, immigrants.

‘Refugees’ was repeated a few times so no mistake, no slip of the tongue…an obviously deliberate choice of words…..wonder why the BBC editorial meeting decided on that highly emotive form of wording?

An unfortunate irony that Derbyshire’s programme was followed immediately by Sheila Fogarty’s which had genuine refugees from the Syrian war telling their stories.  Having to move from London to Birmingham just doesn’t compare somehow…unless you work for the BBC and have a political point to make I suppose.

 I suppose I could just put up this heading from an article on the BBC’s website and let you work the rest out for yourself….

Criminal tendencies

The psychopathic traits that make some prime ministers great

…but you might have been confused by that ‘great’…you would have thought…BBC….doing an article on psychopathic Prime Ministers….it’s got to be Thatcher…but they wouldn’t call her ‘great’…so maybe not…it couldn’t be Brown, he was a psychopath…but very, very far from ‘great.’…and the BBC refuse to mention him if at all possible anyway.

As they say…always go with your first instinct:

Churchill, Thatcher and their psychopathic tendencies?

Of all the Prime Ministers in all of British history….the BBC picks the two it most hates, both Tories…both representing everything about the world and Britain that the lefties of the BBC despise.

Apparently Thatcher and Churchill share traits with some of the most ‘dangerous, violent members of society‘…the criminal psychopath.

…But wait..it’s not all bad…you need to be a psychopath to be successful…you need to be able to take hard decisions and not care about the consequences for other people….that’s what makes a good PM.

All kind of a backhanded compliment from the BBC…they just couldn’t resist calling Thatcher a psychopath but had to dress it up a bit to make it ‘acceptable’ excusing it as a serious academic piece of work.

Did you know that Thatcher didn’t want to be liked or loved…she wasn’t kind, caring or cuddly….though that wasn’t at all the impression I got from all the biographical stuff that came out after her death…and Churchill seems the most unlikely psychopath enjoying the good things in life way too much to be so ruthlessly focussed and uncaring.

Personally I think the word ‘psychobabble’ was invented to explain stories just like this….though ‘load of old bollocks’ might have done just as well.

Good old BBC….never misses a trick.

Former BBC presenter Robin Page has uncovered a blatant piece of agenda-driven editing in a recent edition of the BBC’s Countryfile:

The woman talking about hedgehogs to John Craven was the excellent Rebecca Willers from the Shepreth Wildlife Park – she too was featured in my last Diary. On the programme she attributed hedgehog decline to road kills and loss of hedgerows, and then it was clear to me that she had been edited. I know that Rebecca believes badgers are serious predators of hedgehogs as she would not let the CRT put hedgehogs on Lark Rise Farm because of the local badgers.

I telephoned her. “Yes,” Rebecca said: “I mentioned that predation by badgers was an important factor in hedgehog decline several times and it was edited out.” So there we have it – Countryfile changing the story to avoid the facts, or so it seems.

Is it just coincidence that this editorial decision by Countryfile was helpful to those activists opposed to badger culls? I doubt it.

(h/t the BBC’s David Gregory-Kumar)

‘It will be vital to challenge apologists for terrorism.’     Prevent Programme

Margaret Hodge said this in 2010:

‘We need to have an honest conversation about what’s going on in our working class communities. The very mention of immigration causes controversy and the whole debate is often seen through the prism of racism.

‘The result is parties like the BNP tap into people’s frustrations and that’s why we’ve seen a rise in support for them.

The BBC refuses to talk fully and openly about race, religion or immigration….which is why you get the rise of the EDL…which the BBC then campaigns against….an organisation that in effect they helped create.

When Tommy Robinson was interviewed on the Today programme the Left had a moment of anguished horror….someone whose views they disagree with had been allowed onto the radio…the Left’s ‘house radio’ at that….the BBC.

Mehdi Hasan was so outraged he penned a quick note in the Huffington Post advising the BBC where they went wrong.

He even went so far as to formulate some questions that the BBC could have asked Tommy Robinson.

Someone at the BBC read his advice and decided to run with it. They decided to bring the unsuspecting Tommy Robinson back onto the airwaves and subject him to a vitriolic show trial, designed to attack him personally and assassinate his character and reputation.

Andrew Neil was given the task of skewering the upstart EDL ‘racist thug‘….the questions Neil asked coming almost word for word from the pen of Hasan with no pretence at an attempt to debate or engage in an intellectual argument…it was an out and out exercise in abuse and mud slinging to blacken Robinson’s name….and all done to appease the BBC‘s left wing censors and Islamist propagandists.

As Brian Sewell said about the BBC’s output:

We deserve better. It’s patronising rubbish.  The BBC clearly think it’s good to have programmes presented by people with no knowledge or experience.  There’s no debate, no critical discourse or differing viewpoints.

Of course that’s a bit of an exaggeration…there are ‘differing viewpoints’ on the BBC…you just have to make sure that your viewpoint is within the BBC’s acceptable bounds for discussion….should you have views that the BBC finds unacceptable you find yourself in the position of Tommy Robinson in the EDL getting rail roaded by Andrew Neil.

EDL motivation

What did Neil start off with?:

Neil tells us that: ‘The EDL is motivated by hostility to all Muslims.’

Really? Who said? Why not let Robinson speak for himself before you put words in his mouth? Is he hostile to Muslims or to Islam the ideology?

Tommy Robinson’s name

Neil, in a breath taking example of investigative journalism goes on to ‘reveal’ Robinson’s real name…or that of his long lost father, telling him…

‘We did find your birth certificate….you changed your name because it concealed for some time your BNP past….you were hiding your BNP membership.’

Extraordinary bit of detective work by the BBC…no?

But doesn’t everyone know that ‘Tommy Robinson’ is an alias by now?

Did Lennon adopt the name ‘Tommy Robinson’ to ‘hide his BNP past’…and did that ‘conceal it for some time’?

In August 2009 the EDL was set up…in June 2010 ‘Searchlight’ had an article which revealed Lennon’s real name and previous membership of the BNP:

Searchlight Magazine June 2010

by Nick Lowles and Simon Cressy | Wednesday, 23 June 2010

Searchlight can exclusively reveal that the leader of the English Defence League is a former British National Party member who has served 12 months’ imprisonment for assaulting an off-duty police officer.

Self-proclaimed EDL leader Tommy Robinson is really Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, from Bedford.

Robinson said he changed his name firstly to ‘Lennon’ because he had no contact with his birth father…and used the name ’Tommy Robinson’ for the EDL because of threats to his life….he had only been in the BNP for one year and left when he realised they were not what he had believed originally.

Andrew Neil ignored all the explanations and carried on insisting the name change was to hide his BNP past.

You’re a violent man

Neil then brought up a video where Robinson was heard to say if there is anymore violence by Muslims against British people they would ‘feel the full force of the EDL’

Neil insisted that this meant that the EDL was going to inflict violence upon Muslims.

Robinson insisted that he meant the full force of democratic law.

Neil refused to accept that saying:

‘Force’ is a threat of violence in any language…’they’ knew you were talking about violence.

Really?…that’ll be news to the UK Energy Minister:

‘Oil executives caught fixing the price of petrol will face the ‘full force’ of the law, Energy Secretary Ed Davey vowed today as calls grew for those responsible to be jailed.’

Neil goes on to make some slanderous allegations which had little basis in truth or evidence…..

‘I would suggest that you are not interested in democratic politics…it is just street thuggery. It’s the politics of the street you’re interested in which is the hallmark of extremism, Fascism and Communism throughout the ages.

As many people in this country are frightened of you and the EDL as they are of the extremists.

Mehdi Hasan Says: ‘You’re quite a violent man, aren’t you?’

Andrew Neil parrots Hasan:

‘You are a violent man making violent threats.

Let’s add this up…you are a violent man with a violent record, you are a former member of the BNP, you and others threaten Muslims with violence, EDL demonstrations are menacing and intimidating.’

Help For Heroes doesn’t want anything to do with the EDL

Neil claimed that…

‘The fact is that ordinary people don’t want anything to do with you…the EDL is using the death of Lee Rugby to carry out attacks.’

Unfortunately research by the BBC’s own favourite academic, Matthew Goodwin, says that at least 40% of Tory voters and 33% of Labour voters agree with the EDL…not only that but 50% of people believe that there will be a war between white British people and Muslims.

Andrew Neil made another spurious, and wrong, point….that the charity ‘Help for Heroes’ didn’t want anything to do with them and nor did British soldiers..due to ‘disgust’ at their activities….Neil conveniently forgot this:

The charity said it does not accept donations from any political party…

“It’s the same for any political party, we don’t allow political fundraising. As a charity, we’re non-political.”

Not only that but many British soldiers agree with the EDL…and most intensely dislike and distrust the BBC.

A final point is that Neil  readily accused Robinson of violence and the EDL of various crimes and violent intentions but when Robinson mentions that two Muslims killed Lee Rigby Neil jumped in and said ‘you must say alleged’….really? 

So that was how Andrew Neil treated the EDL’s Tommy Robinson…essentially making up lies about him and his views based on Neil’s own prejudiced interpretation of the facts…ignoring whatever Robinson said….Robinson might as well have not been there…at least for Neil…to those watching a different picture might have emerged.

Contrast that with how Neil talks of G8 protestors and Owen Jones, ironically later in the same show.

Does Neil think that Occupy or the UAF or the G8 protestors are engaged in ‘street thuggery’ the ‘hallmark of extremism, Fascism and Communism’?  No.

Andrew Neil on the G8…’The authorities are bracing themselves for some aggro…protestors plan to make themselves heard…G8 has been accompanied by protest and violence for years.‘’

To Owen Jones he says…’You stand shoulder to shoulder with the protestors’.

Jones says he hopes to stimulate a national and global debate, holding leaders to account….there must be anger at how things are and hope for how things can be.

Neil asks where are the protestors?…it’s not like the good old days when he was a student he says…he wants to know why there aren’t more protestors…people have a right to be furious.　

So here we have Owen Jones…standing ‘shoulder to shoulder’ with violent, anti-establishment protestors and Andrew Neil gives him the red carpet treatment…and wants to know why there aren’t more like him out there on the barricades being ‘furious’.

Curious how the BBC panders to the violent, anarchists seeking to destroy Capitalism whilst the likes of Tommy Robinson are ‘tarred and feathered’ and run out of town.

It was the just same with the London riots, Occupy and the Student protests…all  violent…all excused by the BBC….which fully supported the student protests sending in Victoria Derbyshire to spend the days with them.　

Andrew Neil is happy to be Hasan’s dogsbody but what about Hasan himself? What questions might be asked of this slippery Islamist?

Hasan presents himself, at least in the non-Muslim press and TV, as a ‘progressive’ Muslim…and yet he also states that he is ‘devout’. Are the two statements compatible?

If you are devout you follow the Koran and the strictures of the religion….how can you be ‘progressive’? The Islamic religion is anything but progressive.

Hasan is not all that he seems, the public image  is not the real one, the real Hasan is just below the surface for those who look.

Hasan has a plan…that plan is to further the Islamic cause by ‘capturing’ the media…by flooding the media with positive images of Islam…whether true or not.

He urges his fellow Muslims not to be doctors and engineers but to be journalists and media poppets…in order to ‘ help influence the industry’s coverage of issues such as terrorism and integration.’
… “I see people like myself – who happen to be both a professional journalist and a practising Muslim – as a bridge between the Islamic community and the media, and by extension between Muslims and wider society,” In other words he means to get Muslims into positions of power and influence to push a media assault that presents Islam in a way they want you to see it, but not as it really is.

Mehdi says:

“I grow tired of having to also endure a barrage of lazy stereotypes, inflammatory headlines, disparaging generalisations and often inaccurate and baseless stories.’

I would suggest that Tommy Robinson must feel exactly the same way…only with more justification, after his treatment by the BBC.　

With all that in mind what sort of questions might you ask Hasan?

Perhaps we could start with this one….What is the difference between you, your mindset, Mehdi Hasan, and that of the killers of Lee Rigby who make similar statements about Kafirs to those you did…all based on the Koran?

Adebalajo said, in his speech: “We are not scared of Kufar … my brothers remain in your ranks and do not be scared of these filthy Kufar. They are pigs … Allah says they are worse than cattle.”

The Koran says:

‘Believers, know that the pagans are unclean. Let them not approach the sacred Mosque after this year is ended.’ 9:27

“They are only like cattle – nay, they are even further astray from the Path – even worse than cattle.”  25:44

Mehdi Hasan, the Huffington Post and Guardian and New Statesman contributor was caught on video stating, “The kaffar, the disbelievers, the atheists… the Quran describes the atheists as “cattle”, as cattle of those who grow the crops and do not stop and wonder about this world.”

And in that 2009 speech at the Al Khoei Islamic Centre he also quite openly states:

“The kaffar, the disbelievers, the atheists who remain deaf and stubborn to the teachings of Islam, the rational message of the Quran; they are described in the Quran as, quote, “a people of no intelligence”, Allah describes them as; not of no morality, not as people of no belief – people of “no intelligence” – because they’re incapable of the intellectual effort it requires to shake off those blind prejudices, to shake off those easy assumptions about this world, about the existence of God.”

Are non-Muslims ‘animals’ Mehdi…are they immoral?…you seemed to think so when you said this:

“We know that keeping the moral high-ground is key. Once we lose the moral high-ground we are no different from the rest of the non-Muslims; from the rest of those human beings who live their lives as animals, bending any rule to fulfil any desire.”

As a devout, practising Muslim Mehdi, can you tell us if Islam itself is extreme?:

The Prevent project defines extremism so:

“Extremism is vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs. We also include in our definition of extremism calls for the death of members of our armed forces, whether in this country or overseas.”

There is evidence to indicate that support for terrorism is associated with rejection of a cohesive, integrated, multi-faith society and of parliamentary democracy. Work to deal with radicalisation will depend on developing a sense of belonging to this country and support for our core values.

What does Dr Kalim Siddiqui, director of the Muslim Institute in London think: ‘We are not a pacifist religion. We don’t turn the other cheek. We hit back.’ 

Mehdi you support the Islamist student body FOSIS and Tower Hamlet’s Islamist mayor, Lutfur Rahman, don’t you?:

You were very keen to have the BBC ask Tommy Robinson some searching questions…and yet you utterly failed to do the same for the Islamist mayor of Tower Hamlets:

Mr Hasan unfortunately declined to put to Lutfur any of the detailed evidence assembled by Channel 4, the Telegraph and this blog about his close links with people who very much don’t believe in a secular Britain, set out here. Nor was he rude enough to mention the filmed evidence of Lutfur’s vote-rigging in Tower Hamlets which we obtained. Instead he asked largely general questions and was content to accept Lutfur’s denials without further challenge.

What, Mehdi, do you think of the IFE, an Islamic extremist group, which believes in turning Britain into a sharia state under Islamic law?

‘Mehdi Hasan has form on defending the IFE – in a debate with me on Sky News last summer, he denied that they were an Islamist organisation.’

Do you support the UAF?:

Scores of young Asian men chased the group back to Harrow and Wealdstone station, leading to a stand-off with police who had formed a protective ring around the men who had been chased.

As hundreds of UAF supporters spilled out into Station Road, pandemonium broke out as protesters, some armed with sticks, rampaged up the road and began attacking riot police, throwing stick, rocks, glass bottles, and firecrackers.

What do you think of the UAF’s Vice chairman the Islamist extremist Azad Ali?

Isn’t it true that ‘Unfortunately, UAF’s counter-demonstrations often seem to cause as much, if not more, trouble than those by the EDL and BNP.’

Last weekend, Tony Brett, a Liberal Democrat councillor in Oxford and the city’s deputy lord mayor, found what he called a “disgraceful rabble” of people climbing on the city’s main war memorial — squashing, he said, the flowers that mourners had placed there, then trying to remove half of them altogether and “jeering” other visitors as they paid their respects.

That day, the memorial was supposed to be the scene of a wreath-laying by the far-Right, racist English Defence League. But none of the people laying flowers and being jeered bore any kind of EDL insignia and none of the wreaths had any kind of card or message from the group.

Neither Mr Brett, nor a local newspaper reporter on the scene, saw any sign of any EDL presence.

All the aggro, Mr Brett said — he called it the “hate” — came from the self-appointed opponents of bigotry, a group called Unite Against Fascism (UAF).

You claimed that Cameron doesn’t know the difference between Islam and Islamism so what is Islamism Mehdi…is it extremism…or is it the devout practise of Islam?

You support the Iranian nuclear programme….do you support the Iranian regime?

Is Islamic terrorism cultural or religious?:

Gentleman in audience – “The root cause of terrorism is bad teachings in religious schools.”

Mehdi – “Rubbish”

Mehdi – “Terrorism is not a cultural problem, terrorism is a political problem”.

Douglas – “And it’s a religious problem as well”

Mehdi – “In your view Douglas it’s a religious problem”.

Douglas – “I’m perfectly willing to talk about foreign policy as would David Cameron be, but you cannot pretend that there is no religious component to the terrorism because there is ”

Mehdi – “I thought you said it was cultural. Culture and religion is not the same thing”.

Dimbleby – “Mehdi, you’re saying there is no religious component?”

Mehdi – “I’m saying there is a religious component; I’m saying there’s not a CULTURAL component”.

Do you support Ken Livingstone despite his comments about Jews and his support for Qaradawi?

Mehdi, what do you think of these statements?

‘Mr Blair, the former prime minister, used a column in the Mail on Sunday to call on the Government to “be honest” and admit that there is a widespread problem with the religion.

In a major intervention following the murder of soldier Lee Rigby, Mr Blair said “the seeds of future fanaticism and terror” were being sown and that children in the UK and abroad must be educated about the place of religion in society.’

[This] is not the province of a few extremists. It has at its heart a view about religion and about the interaction between religion and politics that is not compatible with pluralistic, liberal, open-minded societies.’

And…..　

A significant section of young Muslims have already rejected the cultural values and norms of the society in which they live. It is their rejection of European societies that motivates people to search for alternatives.

It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that what we need is not rhetoric about the forces of radicalisation, but a more scrupulous attention to what constitutes a way of life worth defending.

I don’t suppose the BBC will ever get round to asking Hasan those questions or the leaders of the UAF any similarly rigorous questions to those that they asked Tommy Robinson.

I guess some things are best left unsaid for the BBC.