Category Archives: BBC bias

The BBC, together with the Telegraph entrapped MP Patrick Mercer, and managed to get him to sign up to what he thought was an agreement with some lobbyists…he would get some money for asking some questions for them in Parliament.

A lot of effort obviously went into the scheme and they got the result they wanted….an MP apparently willing to compromise his position for money.

The BBC didn’t seem so keen to investigate Tim Yeo even when Guido had done all the foot work making allegations of a conflict of interest between Yeo’s position as Chair of the Commons Energy and Climate Change Select Committee and his business interests in ‘green’ industry…Guido claiming:

A serious contender for villain of the year has to be Tim Yeo. The conflicted chairman of the Energy and Climate Change select committee has time and time again flown the green flag this year, insisting that it is mere coincidence he makes over £100,000-a-year from his own renewable energy investments. Just because a conflict of interest is declared, it is still a conflict of interest…

Yeo was forced to distance himself from some businesses and to declare the rest.　

But that is a side issue really…one of the biggest conflicts of interest is in fact that of the BBC itself and its coverage, well, promotion, of man made climate change.

The BBC’s coverage and active persuasion has led to enormous changes in the way people see green issues and has helped persuade politicians to adopt a radical green vision for Britain…one that the Sunday Times today (paywalled) says will make Britain’s energy the most expensive in the world….with all that entails…the fuel poverty, deaths from cold weather as people switch off their heating, and the hugely detrimental effect of the massive cost to business and homes.

Ironically perhaps, Tim Yeo is still at the heart of the problems as on Tuesday he will press for even more rigorous pollution reduction targets…ie CO2 reduction…..ensuring it is ‘green’ energy that has to be utilised to meet those targets. 

The BBC knows this…but again makes no comment about his business interests….or indeed of the BBC’s pension interests in green businesses.

The full glorious story of the BBC’s own involvement in ‘secret lobbying’ on behalf of the climate change movement is laid out by James Delingpole in the Telegraph…linking to Bishop Hill and Tony Newbery.

This is Bishop Hill’s submission to the equally compromised BBC Trust review of the BBC’s science coverage carried out by Prof. Steven Jones….a man who is an ardent supporter of the AGW theory and someone who owes his career to the BBC….no conflict of interest there.

This is Delingpole’s article in the Telegraph:

Why the BBC cannot be trusted on ‘Climate Change’: the full story

Thanks to the combined efforts of the great Bishop Hill and the similarly wondrous Tony Newbery at the Harmless Sky blog, we now have the most comprehensive and thoroughly damning account yet of how the BBC became such an important part of a sinister political campaign to promote climate change alarmism. I recommend reading their report in full at either of their sites linked above. But here below are some of the highlights.

It is to Professor Jones (Steve) that Newbery and the Bishop have addressed their submission.

They conclude:

‘It would appear that, through the activities of CMEP [Cambridge Media and Environment Programme – the Harrabin outfit which deserves a blog of its own…] BBC Newsgathering has got very much too close to government, environmental activism, and the climate research community for its reputation for impartiality and accuracy to be preserved with regard to the science of climate change.’

Perhaps it is time someone investigated the BBC’s involvement and conflicts of interest with the green lobby.

Andrew Gilligan in the Telegraph takes a look at the figures that the BBC so readily gave so much airtime to from a project called ’Tell Mama’ that suggested we were looking at a ‘“a wave of attacks, harassment, and hate-filled speech against Muslims … an unprecedented number of incidents”, including “a rise in street harassment of Muslims – unprovoked, opportunistic attacks from strangers as Muslims go about their lives”.

‘The media, especially the BBC, have accepted the claims without question. A presenter on Radio 4’s influential Today programme stated that attacks on Muslims were now “on a very serious scale”.

Talk of a “massive anti-Muslim backlash” has become routine.

Yet the unending “cycle of violence” against Muslims, the unprecedented “wave of attacks” against them from strangers in the street, the “underlying Islamophobia in our society” – all turn out to be yet more things we thought we knew about Woolwich that are not really supported by the evidence.’

Gilligan goes onto look at the figures of claimed ‘Islamophobic’ attacks and concludes it is much exaggerated.

But importantly he also concludes that such exaggeration and the Media propaganda that goes with it, telling of tales of ‘waves of attacks’ against Muslims lead to what the BBC like to call the Muslim community’s ‘sense of endemic fear’…leading to alienation and isolation…and the  radicalisation of some.

‘For some quarters of the Islamophobia industry, it has now become Muslims who are the main victims of the Woolwich horror.

But while some innocent Muslims have of course become victims, the main victim was Drummer Lee Rigby. And in overhyping the backlash, some in the Muslim community are playing right into the hands of his killers.’

Is the BBC also playing right into the hands of the killers and Radical Islamists by ‘overhyping the backlash’?

Having Anjem Choudray on immediately after the killing of Lee Rigby can’t have helped, nor having Abu Nusaybah on  to be interviewed and accepting, and broadcasting relentlessly,  his version of events just before he too was arrested on terrorism charges.

And as noted by DB in the comments: 

BBC Europe producer Piers Scholfield (Green Party supporter) would have us believe that the “backlash” against Muslims in the UK is far worse than the week of rioting that occurred in Sweden:

Piers Scholfield ‏@inglesi 25 May  Violence in #Sweden nothing compared to UK – attacks on Muslims soar – http://m.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/may/25/woolwich-murder-attacks-on-muslims …

Classic right-on spin from a BBC lefty.

A book by Vali Nasr, ‘The Dispensable Nation: American Foreign Policy In Retreat’ has stirred things up in US political circles.

You might have thought this would be right up Mark Mardell’s alley…not fast moving hard news but something that requires a bit of time, insight and analysis to digest and ponder over.

It’s a fascinating and controversial insight into the Obama ‘foreign policy’ by an insider…this is how an opponent of Nasr’s conclusions described the release of the book:

‘Former State Department Advisor Vali Nasr has set Washington abuzz with his gloves-off denunciation of the Obama administration’s conduct of foreign policy, in particular the war in Afghanistan. Rarely does a recently former government official let loose with such an unalloyed vilification of the administration he served — especially when it is still in power.’

Pretty eye catching stuff I’d say…and yet Mardell and the BBC ignored it altogether and the controversy it threw up…..Mardell, as David Preiser on this site has laid out in detail, is pro-Obama and is uncritical of his foreign policy…calling Obama a ‘warrior and a healer’…..Mardell is of the opinion that Obama is not a ditherer as many believe but a patient and wise man.

Vali Nasr disagrees and suggests Obama’s policy is driven more by homeland politics than morality or pragmatism aimed at genuinely sorting out problems overseas:

The Inside Story of How the White House Let Diplomacy Fail in Afghanistan

“My time in the Obama administration turned out to be a deeply disillusioning experience.”

Richard Holbrooke sent Vali Nasr a message.

It said, “Are you up, can you talk?” When I called, he told me that Barack Obama had asked him to serve as envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. He would work out of the State Department, and he wanted me to join his team. “No one knows this yet. Don’t tell anyone. Well, maybe your wife.” (The Washington Post reported his appointment the next day.)

OBAMA HAS EARNED

plaudits for his foreign-policy performance. On his watch, the United States has wound down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it finally killed Osama bin Laden. In tune with the public mood, he has largely kept America out of costly overseas adventures.

But my time in the Obama administration turned out to be a deeply disillusioning experience. The truth is that his administration made it extremely difficult for its own foreign-policy experts to be heard. Both Clinton and Holbrooke, two incredibly dedicated and talented people, had to fight to have their voices count on major foreign-policy initiatives.

Holbrooke knew that Afghanistan was not going to be easy. There were too many players and too many unknowns, and Obama had not given him enough authority (and would give him almost no support) to get the job done. After he took office, the president never met with Holbrooke outside large meetings and never gave him time and heard him out. The president’s White House advisors were dead set against Holbrooke. Some, like Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, were holdovers from George W. Bush’s administration and thought they knew Afghanistan better and did not want to relinquish control to Holbrooke. Others (those closest to the president) wanted to settle scores for Holbrooke’s tenacious campaign support of Clinton (who was herself eyed with suspicion by the Obama insiders); still others begrudged Holbrooke’s storied past and wanted to end his run of success then and there. At times it appeared the White House was more interested in bringing Holbrooke down than getting the policy right.　

The president had a truly disturbing habit of funneling major foreign-policy decisions through a small cabal of relatively inexperienced White House advisors whose turf was strictly politics. Their primary concern was how any action in Afghanistan or the Middle East would play on the nightly news, or which talking point it would give the Republicans.

The Obama administration’s reputation for competence on foreign policy has less to do with its accomplishments in Afghanistan or the Middle East than with how U.S. actions in that region have been reshaped to accommodate partisan political concerns.

It was to court public opinion that Obama first embraced the war in Afghanistan. And when public opinion changed, he was quick to declare victory and call the troops back home. His actions from start to finish were guided by politics, and they played well at home. Abroad, however, the stories the United States tells to justify its on-again, off-again approach do not ring true to friend or foe. They know the truth: America is leaving Afghanistan to its own fate. America is leaving even as the demons of regional chaos that first beckoned it there are once again rising to threaten its security.’

This article seems to back up Nasr claiming that Obama shut out the military Joint Chiefs of Staff when making a vital decision:

‘According to a short story from Politico, the Obama administration deliberately kept the chiefs of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps away from the process that eventually hashed out to the withdrawal strategy.

A number of very smart and influential people have begun to raise questions about the Obama administration’s style, and whether that style is designed to deliberately keep different opinions away from the president’s desk.

The president’s decision to redeploy 34,000 American soldiers from Afghanistan over the coming twelve months seems to follow the path of a White House making a crucially important national security decision without the necessary input from the men who are ultimately responsible for the nation’s military policy—the Joint Chiefs. Why the four most powerful men in the US military bureaucracy were not allowed the opportunity to voice their own opinions about the withdrawal—and why they were not consulted ahead of time once the decision was made—is a mystery that the administration should properly explain.’

I’m not going to argue either way about Obama here but the debate should surely be aired as it is clearly one that is of great interest and possible importance if Obama is shutting out advisors and even his own Chiefs of Staff when making decisions because they might oppose him or offer contrary advice.

Perhaps something that Mardell should have been looking into…rather than doing whatever it is he does…not much recently judging by his Twitter feed….he missed the boat on Benghazi, the tax audit and the phone ‘tapping’ scandals.

These are a couple of articles that should have been on Mardell’s radar and raised a glimmer of interest.

Riots in Turkey about ‘government policy’. 

What could that mean?  Are they about austerity, or immigrants being discriminated against, or police brutality?

No…even the BBC has to admit:

‘Creeping Islamisation’ 

Correspondents say the issue has helped highlight unhappiness among young people towards the government and ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party over what they see as creeping Islamisation.

Are these protestors ‘islamophobic’?  Maybe they’re ‘perverting atheism’…they’re not real secularists!

Will the BBC be issuing dramatic warnings of an anti-Muslim backlash sweeping across the Turkey?

Was there one in this country, you know that one the BBC so fervently reported when ‘Faith Matters’ quickly cobbled together a list of ‘islamophobic attacks’?

Perhaps that was all a bit of a myth, a bit of propaganda helpfully spread by the BBC:

‘When you look a little closer at the figures, it turns out that over 100 of the incidents were little more than ‘general abuse’ aimed at Muslims on the internet, and sometimes on the street. A further 47 consisted of ‘threats of violence’, although how seriously the threats were taken is unclear. And at the more concerning end, there have been 35 ‘minor’ assaults ‘including eggs being thrown’. So far, no one has actually been harmed.

On closer inspection, even the 10 ‘assaults’ on mosques look a little overblown. Seven of the ‘assaults’ consisted of no more than vandalism and a few broken windows, plus a deposit of bacon outside a mosque in Cardiff. There were three attempts at arson, but these were thwarted, and, once again, no one was hurt. Nasty incidents, no doubt, but statistically they are insignificant as indicators of some rise in anti-Muslim feeling.

The exaggeration of the reality of so-called Islamophobia should not be a surprise. Back in 2005, after the 7 July London bombings, countless reports and commentaries warned of an anti-Muslim backlash. After all, this was only to be expected given the racist proclivities of many members of the Sun/Daily Mail-reading classes. Yet when the Crown Prosecution Service published prosecution statistics for 2005-2006, a different picture emerged. There were 43 cases of religiously aggravated crime, 18 of them against Muslims (or ‘perceived’ Muslims), and this actually marked a decline from 23 anti-Muslim crimes in 2004-2005 – the year, that is, prior to the London bombings. As the then Director of Public Prosecutions said at the time: ‘The fears of a large rise in offences appear to be unfounded.’

This is what happens when you have only one hand clapping…applauding its own genius.

The BBC banished the climate sceptics to no man’s land where their voices went unheard whilst climate lobbyists could get  reports altered to suit themselves.

Those supposedly with the best interests of the environment in mind, those with vested interests, those with an eye for an opportunity, the green lobbyists, the charities, the politicians, the scientists, the journalists….joined up in one big conspiracy…

…and they went practically unchallenged as the sceptics and the critics were silenced.   Climate scientists could make their claims unopposed, the green lobbyists could take that science and package it into persuasive presentations and politicians could nod wisely and grandstand as they ‘saved the world’….and pocketed a few bob as well.

They knew what they wanted and were determined to get it whatever the cost in integrity and ethical behaviour…. shameless fixing of the science and the politics…..and able to do so because mainstream media giants like the BBC either stayed quiet or actively participated in conning the Public…not doing their job of challenging received wisdom and holding those in power to account.

Journalists like Richard Black (and here a grudging, very grudging,  admittance that he had failed to report the truth…forced by reader pressure) and Roger Harrabin were never standing on the side lines looking in observing and reporting the news…they were on the inside creating it, fixing the stories, working with the scientists and the green campaigners to silence critics and pressurise governments.

Had the sceptics been allowed a place in the debate perhaps things could be very different….not all opposed the idea of man made climate change…many accepted it, to a degree.  What they did disagree upon were the measures that could be taken….suggesting it maybe better to adapt to the changes rather than try to  prevent them….especially as the causes were not certain.

Now we’ve had a stand still in global temperature rises…everyone’s got an explanation…but the truth is no one can explain it.

Which kind of makes you think they can’t explain the temperature rise either….there’s absolutely no proof that CO2 is the cause….it’s pure conjecture.

Now everyone’s running for cover….it’s lower than expected sensitivity, it’s an unexpected negative feedback with clouds blocking the sun or it’s the oceans suddenly absorbing a lot more heat.

Could all be making fools of themselves once again…if the temperatures start to go up again…but that just confirms…no one knows nothing.

However the consequences…as always, those unintended consequences of their good intentions, are beginning to bite.

We all know that electricity prices are being hiked to pay for a parallel system of  green electricity generation…whilst still maintaining the full capacity of conventional generation.

That’s just one massive cost….and how do you price the lives lost as fuel poverty forces people to turn off their heating in the ever colder winters?

Food prices are ramped up as land is hijacked for biomass growth for conversion to fuel….and it’s the third world that suffers the most….curious for an ethical policy that was always based upon punishing the West’s  guilty and selfish industrial development which was destroying the third world’s environment, we are told.

But the pricing of food out of reach of the poorest is not the only problem with biomass.

Roger Harrabin reports without a glimmer of remorse, a pang of conscience….Forests in the US are being destroyed to feed power stations in the UK to meet our renewable energy commitments…

And it’s not just the trees that are being ravaged by the Greens….a policy ironically opposed by the …er…Greens:

Back Away from Big Biomass

Perhaps if Harrabin and his CMEP  (CMEP seminar 2006)hadn’t worked so hard to exclude the sceptic voices we could have had a more balanced and planned approach with the consequences of various solutions worked through and tested…instead we have a ‘gold rush’, a green gold rush…tearing up the planet to save the planet.

If the BBC is to actively campaign to achieve a particular objective then the BBC should be held responsible, accountable, answerable for its actions when those actions have serious and damaging consequences.

The BBC is supposed to report, inform and educate…not manipulate, deceive and manufacture the news.

The Daily Mail takes a closer look at the BBC’s coverage of what they termed the ‘British Guantanamo’.

Farce of ‘British Guantanamo’: Lawyers (with BBC help) demand 90 Afghans be freed but now say they’re better off IN prison

The BBC teams up with lawyers and the Taliban to fight the British Army. 

Is it any wonder that British forces have such little regard for the BBC?

I still remember with a big grin John Humphrys’ interview with a British Army officer a couple of years back when the officer laid into the BBC for its ever present negative outlook on Afghanistan and the work of the British forces there…if it hadn’t been for Humphrys’ sudden outbreak of indignant huffing and puffing he would have been utterly speechless.

ARRSEpedia’s Official definition of the BBC:

British Broadcasting Corporation

Or Bliar’s Bullshit Conveyor (you can obviously replace Blair with Brown!)

Either way, always the first on top of any news, anywhere, anytime. Once a beacon of sensibility, neutrality and objectivity in an otherwise mad world, ‘Aunty Beeb’ delivered the news in a clipped, brylcreemed, dinner-suited and quintessentially English way. Now hideously politicised by Neu Arbeit and its Leftie cohorts, and staffed by war heroes and liberators like John Simpson and (formerly) Martin Bell.

These typically like to journey to the most dangerous, smelly places on the planet and then whinge to the MoD when the Army doesn’t turn up to save them from the natives with the sharp fruit. They occasionally get slotted, whereupon there is much hand-wringing and inquests as to how the tragedy happened. For happening tragedies read foreign policy… or rather lack of.

Not quite in Neutral

The BBC was extremely surprised (the only people who were) and took it quite hard when they were told they are a biased, liberal bunch of pinkos.  Of course they did F all about it and if anything the Beeb is even more in the pocket of the leftie liberals now than then and so further out of step with the Brit in the street.

Increasingly embarrassing for a supposed quality news source is the promotion of Hamas as something other than terrorists. During recent rocketing of Israel which preceded a major retaliatory raid you would, if you listened only to the beeb, believe that Israel had kicked off for no reason. Giving air time to Muslim groups who scream Nazis to everything and everybody who doesn’t worship Allah simply made them look like they are pandering to militants… THEN they did a complete and unexpected U turn and refused to broadcast a tear jerking demand for money from a collection of charidees intent on paying for Hamas’ next generation of rockets.

As it all goes tits up with its reputation, the BBC is desperate for scoops to show it is still number one. Since the Hutton report, sucking up to labour has become blatant with ministerial interviews turning into party political broadcasts. BBC Political editor Nick Robinson is so up liebors arrse, you cant even see his feet. Its actually embarrassing to see him fawn over labour ministers. Worse still – BBC Business reporter Robert Peston blatantly leaked secret briefs from No 10 which promptly crashed the market. When asked if he had crashed the market he rather arrogantly, and apparently without care in the world, shrugged.

Quite simply the once great Auntie Beeb is now nothing more than a publicly funded (with menaces) Labour party mouthpiece for whatever kneejerk reaction Brown has today.

Two reports about Christianity that hit the BBC cutting room floor:

Leading Anglican bishop: British Churches have ‘capitulated to secularism’ and politically correct lessons that whitewash Islam

I can’t imagine why that was kicked into the long grass by the BBC….a BBC all too keen usually to report the word of the Godly …as long as they are slagging off Bankers and Tories.

Yesterday we had a tsunami of stories about 85 Afghan Taliban…held, for their own safety, by the British.

Nothing about the report that came out of the 100,000 Christians killed every year…yes, that’s 100,000 Christians killed every year….for their faith.

100,000 Christians are killed every year for their faith, says Vatican archbishop as Iran shuts down country’s biggest Pentecostal church and arrests pastor mid-service

The BBC are on the ball as always when it comes to reporting death and destruction in Iraq…the message…‘look at Bush and Blair’s legacy’ (No thought that what is happening in Syria would have happened in Iraq had it been left under Saddam…with almost certainly a regional war bringing in Turkey, Iran and Israel..plus the rest):

Iraq violence: Bomb blasts leave at least 11 dead

Iraq’s reminder of the worst of times

This via Guido:

We know that the BBC lost £100 million on its failed digital media project.

But it’s worse than that.

William Foxton in the Telegraph says:

We may never know the true cost of the BBC’s latest disaster – but it’ll be a lot more than £100 million

 ‘I heard that, over the five years of its life, factoring in staff costs, consulting fees and the money paid to Siemens, the contractors fired for failing to deliver the project by 2009, £150 million had been dumped into DMI. It’s always been the tradition at the BBC to calculate the value of a project in terms of how many licence fees it costs; to put this into context, £150 million is more than a million licence fees wasted.’

He also reveals that an  ‘off the shelf” system would have cost around £1 million…plus a bit more to adapt it.

But here’s the funny BBC logic:

The BBC claims it didn’t lose more than £10 million on the Siemens deal – in its accounts, it says it paid the extra costs of the Siemen’s failure by extra “savings” (cuts) across other departments.

It didn’t lose money because it made cuts elsewhere.  Well done.

Ahh…but…if you, the BBC,  hadn’t lost that money you could have then spent it on programmes and not made those cuts…and sacked all those people.

No digital media system and no extra production…lose/lose all round.

Bit like saying I’ve lost a shoe..but it’s OK…because I’ve cut off one of my legs so I now only need one shoe.

Still, lots of archive material to keep the constant repeats going on the Beeb…if only you can find them now and get them delivered…hope there’s no Tube strikes.

I mentioned this tagged onto the end of the ‘Afghanamo’ post but ‘Emerson v’ in the comments says that when he posted a comment on the BBC site asking who was paying for the legal assistance to some Afghan detainees the comment was deleted so I thought I would highlight it.

Defence Secretary Phillip Hammond said in an interview on the Today programme this morning that Britain was funding the legal defence for Taliban detainees through legal aid.

The BBC  have ignored that…the only comment is a mocking one at the end of one report:

‘The defence secretary was keen to point out the Afghans’ case was being brought “at the expense, of course, of the British taxpayer, because Mr Shiner’s actions are funded by the legal aid system.’

You might have thought that it would have been of some interest especially on the day that Barristers have written to the government complaining that cuts in Legal Aid will “seriously undermine the rule of law” and the ongoing debate about how much money should be sent overseas in development aid whilst massive cuts are made at home.

The BBC are going into overdrive  on the story of some Afghan detainees, held for their own safety and that of British troops, beyond what is claimed to be the legal time limit.

Excited claims of a British Guantanamo are being bandied about….the detainee’s lawyers making sure they hype that line to generate a bit of ‘shock’….the BBC were happy to play along at first…but all mentions of Guantanamo seemed to have been scrubbed from the latest reports…maybe someone had a little word.

I mentioned earlier that perhaps the ‘failure’ of MI5 to pick up the two killers of Lee Rigby may be in part linked to the knowledge that as soon as they do detain someone the BBC and human rights lawyers will blitz them.

When you see the coverage that the BBC is giving to a detention centre in Afghanistan you may think I had a point….already being billed as a mini Guantanamo.

It’s the top story on the web and had been a constant thread throughout the Today programme.

Suspected or known Taliban captives are held by the British…they are supposed to hand them over to the Afghan judicial process but do not because that is prone to using torture and violence….not only that but a bundle of Afghan dollars soon wins the captive’s release and they are back on the battlefield.

So essentially the Afghans were being held by the British to prevent them being abused by the Afghan authorities…and to stop them walking out of prison, picking up a rifle or a bomb and setting off to kill a British soldier.  Controversial.

Evan Davis on the Today programme (about 08:15) had on lawyer Phil Shiner who is acting for 8 detained Afghans…detained because they are believed to be Taliban.

Shiner was allowed to deliver his well rehearsed spiel unchecked.  Davis had no relevant questions challenging anything he claimed.

This is what the web story reports he said, and as also said to Davis:

 “This is a secret facility that’s been used to unlawfully detain or intern up to 85 Afghans that they’ve kept secret, that Parliament doesn’t know about, that courts previously when they have interrogated issues like detention and internment in Afghanistan have never been told about – completely off the radar.”

He also claimed that the British were not doing anything to solve the problem such as setting up a monitored Afghan facility.

You might have thought Davis would have had a bit of research to check his claims before speaking to him…and the web site to delve deeper….but no…it wasn’t until Defence Secretary Phillip Hammond came on that we learned the truth.

Hammond  told us that he had informed Parliament…so no ‘secret‘ facility then……he also revealed that there was an ongoing programme to improve the Afghan judicial system and implement a proper overwatch and judicial process to allow a safe transfer of detainees…he also revealed that Shiner’s firm had actually been involved in legally blocking the transfer of Afghans to the Afghan authorities.

You wonder just what Shiner would have got away with if Hammond hadn’t also been on to correct his misinformation….would Davis have challenged him? 

The web site’s initial report still has the wrong information in it and is still on the front page….claiming Parliament didn’t know of the facility and missing out the essential fact that the UK had been working with the Afghans to introduce a system that would ensure the safety of detainees.

There is a new updated report now headlining…it’s obviously a very important matter for the BBC.

 This reports that the UK is ready to hand over detainees to the Afghans:  ‘The MoD said it had now found a “safe route” for their return’….the BBC claiming: ‘The move came after the BBC was shown documents detailing how 85 suspected insurgents were being held at Camp Bastion, the main British base in Afghanistan.’

Is that the BBC trying to claim the credit?

They do now note that: ‘Mr Hammond said the UK government has been working with its Afghan counterparts to find a safe way to resume transfers of detainees to the Afghan judicial system.’

But then report the opposite: 

“The UK could have trained the Afghan authorities to detain people lawfully with proper standards and making sure they are treated humanely,” Phil Shiner, of Public Interest Lawyers, told the BBC.

“They could have then monitored that, including with ad hoc inspections, to make sure the Afghans were obeying the law. They have chosen not to do so.”

He said the UK was acting in an “entirely unconstitutional” way.

A final point…Hammond revealed that the work of the likes of Phil Shiner was being funded by British legal aid.  I would have thought that was almost as controversial as holding detainees beyond the legal time for their own safety and that of British troops.  Wonder what the Great British Public think of that…funding the legal defence of foreign terrorist suspects in a foreign land whilst Barristers only today have sent a letter to government detailing  how cuts to legal aid will damage the provision of justice.

The BBC don’t think it worth serious comment…mocking Hammond for raising the matter:

T’he defence secretary was keen to point out the Afghans’ case was being brought “at the expense, of course, of the British taxpayer, because Mr Shiner’s actions are funded by the legal aid system”.‘