Labour’s millionairess Margaret Hodge’s family business pays very little tax: The Labour MP has been one of the fiercest critics of tax avoidance by companies such as Starbucks, Google and Amazon. However, she is likely to face questions over the limited tax paid by Stemcor, the steel trading company in which she owns shares and which was founded by her father and is run by her brother.Analysis of Stemcor’s latest accounts show … Continue reading →

  Read the headline to this post…it came from Guido Fawkes before the Newsnight programme was broadcast.  Who knew eh? This if anything, proves absolutely that George Entwistle failed utterly and completely to get a grip of his news team.    Ian Overton editor of the London-based Bureau of Investigation working for Newsnight, claimed : “We’ve got a Newsnight out tonight about a very senior political figure who is a paedophile”. … Continue reading →

Roger Harrabin slides seamlessly into Black’s place:   roger harrabin ‏@RogerHarrabin Asking if climate change caused Sandy is like asking if gravity caused an old house to collapse when it did. Ex NYT http://nyti.ms/TKJPnz   This is amusing too: roger harrabin ‏@RogerHarrabin  DfT consults on plan to increase single carriageway lorry speed from 40 to 45 or 50 “to boost economic growth and cut congestion. Aniol Esteban ‏@aniolesteban  @RogerHarrabin do … Continue reading →

You almost, very, very nearly feel sorry for George Entwistle when you hear him being given the 5th degree on the Today programme this morning. Very nearly but not quite….he is the Director General and yet he was like a rabbit in the headlights, almost clueless.  A pretty poor performance for a man who has reached such heights in management. He seems to lack entirely the necessary political antenna that … Continue reading →

I caught a rather interesting debate on BBC Today @ 7.50am this morning concerning that BBC favourite, Windfarms!  “This week one of the world’s biggest wind turbine manufacturers announced it was cutting 3,000 jobs around the world. Chairman of the UK’s independent Committee on Climate Change Lord Deben and Dr John Constable, Chairman of the Renewable Energy Foundation, discuss the matter.” If you get a chance, give it a listen … Continue reading →

Andrew Marr some time ago presented us with his programme on British History…..The Making of Modern Britain. In the course of this programme we learnt that Darwin’s ideas on the survival of the fittest and the British invention of the concentration camp led to the Nazi ideal of the ‘Aryan Superman’ and the concentration camps in which 6 million Jews were killed…..as the Independent puts it….‘Indeed, it is hard not … Continue reading →

Woman’s Hour  (about 21 mins in) presented us with an interesting guest…Hilary Wainwright editor of …..Red Pepper …. a magazine of political rebellion and dissent, influenced by socialism, feminism and green politics.….who or what is her hero?……’OCCUPY’. Shame the BBC didn’t tell us exactly what Red Pepper represents…..unlike all those ‘right wing’ think tanks or pressure groups they always find time to so label making sure that you are in … Continue reading →

Interesting article here on the BBC and how it has handled Savile and now McAlpine. Worse still, just as this scandal began to die down, Newsnight has embroiled itself in a sexual abuse scandal. Last week the show ran a segment that featured allegations that a well-known Conservative British politician had been a part of notorious pedophile network that operated in Wales in the 1970s. The segment didn’t name the politician … Continue reading →

The BBC could, and perhaps definitely should, be in big trouble.  They went into battle against the Conservative Party armed with what they hoped would be something that would deliver the killer blow to not only the Tories’ reputation but even perhaps Lady Thatcher’s. Throughout the day starting from their most prestigious news programme, Today, they have been pushing a line that ‘the Internet’ is to blame for the libelling … Continue reading →