This perfectly illustrates the bubble BBC journos live in as the People’s Republic of Islington inhabitant Daniel Sandford seeks a bit of love and sympathy for his problems…imposed by his Labour council based upon the green climate change agenda as promoted and championed by his own employer….not a lot of love forthcoming in the comments…lol…

Islington’s new diesel surcharge means that when there is no space in residents bays on our street we have to pay almost £5 to park for 23 mins. This is parking we have already paid for.remember.

— Daniel Sandford (@BBCDanielS) February 5, 2018

Then again he doesn’t get a lot of love for this daft comment either…considering it was a BBC programme that was the catalyst for Osborne’s radicalisation as told by the police…[H/T Guest Who]

Though of course the most recently convicted terrorist, Darren Osborne, was a keen Tommy Robinson follower https://t.co/gQxWcCiJ5t

— Daniel Sandford (@BBCDanielS) February 5, 2018

In a world of his own.

Sir David Attenborough on Donald Trump: ‘We could shoot him. It’s not a bad idea’

What alternative do we have? Do we have any control or influence over the American elections?’ the naturalist says before joking about an alternative solution.

Thanks to Jerry Owen in the comments for reminding us of Attenborough’s incitement to kill Trump…and of course Attenborough’s not alone as we’ve noted before.

The BBC’s Paul Wood, who concentrates on Trump and Russia, asks in the Spectator…thus putting a firewall between his speculation and the BBC…

Will Donald Trump be assassinated, ousted in a coup or just impeached?

Let’s not forget that BBC virulent anti-Trump rhetoric almost certainly played a part in the actual attempted shooting of Trump by a British man and that a Republican congressman was attacked and shot in an attempted politically motivated murder.

Why refresh our memories about this toxic, extremely polarised, menacing anti-Trump liberal narrative?  Why?  Because Andrew Marr is once again treating us to his version of history, the Marr Book of Alternate Facts, as he reveals that Trump is a ‘bad man’ and that the Right are to blame for the polarisation and breakdown of US politics and democracy.

Marr is a bit of a star when it comes to history….history is apparently a moveable feast and what’s on the menu can be changed to suit your own tastes.  Here’s his view on the Boer war and the British Empire…and its consequences…

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 to avoid the conclusion (watching Marr) that the British Empire was simply a dummy run for the Third Reich, and that, had they known what was coming, many of our grandparents might merely have concluded that “Adolf went a bit too far”.’

No different of course to the standard BBC narrative about the British Empire.

Marr had a trial run airing his views in the Evening Standard not so long ago attacking Social Media [as directed by the BBC whose interests, commercail and political, lie in demonising and reining in social media] as the source of all that is wrong in society today, suggesting that it will lead to civil war and the rise of a new Hitler in Britain. He finished off with a pompous and arrogant bit of advice to Trump…‘Got that Donald?’….and a hint of where he gets his own thinking confirmed by the liberal echo chamber that resounds to anti-Trump conpipracies and rhetoric…

And it’s dangerous. In a new book about Trump’s America, two political scientists from Harvard, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, discuss “How Democracies Die”. In it they emphasise the importance of not just political rules but how we behave. These “soft guard rails” include mutual toleration or “the understanding that competing parties accept one another as legitimate rivals”. Got that, Donald?

So yes, we need basic civility and some mutual respect even when we disagree. This is going to be a difficult year. The last thing we need is a spitting arms race of abuse. History, as so often, tells us why.

Today in the Sunday Times Marr expands and expounds on the narrative he touched on above as he critiques [lol…not in the slightest does he ‘critique’] the book he mentions above….Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt’s “How Democracies Die”.  This book is targeted squarely at Trump and accuses him of being a dictator who will kill American democracy.  Marr’s analysis is in fact one long nod of agreement with everything they say….Trump is a bad man and the Republicans are white supremacists who want to make America white again.  The whole premise of Marr’s diatribe is highly one-sided, blinkered, extremely partisan and wrong.

Marr admits that the two authors are ‘anti-Trump politics professors at Harvard’ and yet he fully accepts everything they say as the one version of truth that is true and ominously warns that ‘democracy is in danger’ and that ‘Britain could learn a lot from this study’.…’study’?…..he means of course very partisan, one-sided polemic.

He tells us that they ask if a modern American President could destroy American democracy and then lays out the criteria they used to judge Trump by…naturally this is window dressing for they used no criteria other than their own hatred of Trump and Republicans.

He tells us that every democracy needs ‘gatekeepers’ who can identify the anti-democrats and tyrants before they can establish themselves in the system and take it over.  What are the criteria they use to identify these anti-democrats?

Do they reject, or have a weak commitment to, the democratic rules of the game?

Do they deny the legitimacy of their opponents?

Do they tolerate, or even encourage, the use of violence?

Are they ready to curtail the civil liberties of opponents, including the media?

Marr tells us ‘They find Trump guilty on every count’.  Really? Evidence?  He certainly denies Clinton’s legitimacy to be President but that is run of the mill politics and quite possiby fully jusitified….the other three accusations are based upon the author’s own prejudices aganst Trump.

The problem with Marr’s approach is that it is entirely from the liberal’s very prejudiced and blinkered viewpoint…as said he claims the Republicans are a racist white supremacist party and it is they who created the dangerous politics of ‘identity’.  He has correctly identified ‘identity politics’ as at the heart of the problem but not who created that problem.  It is pretty much orthodox thinking that the Left abandoned the working class and class war when they realised that capitalism had dragged the poor out of poverty and had given them lives far, far better than anything they had known before and that they were just as likely to vote for Right-wing parties as Left.  What to do?  The Left decided that the battle to derail the West would continue with new soldiers….recruited from the various ethnic, religious, gender minority groups that could be exploited by apealing to their own self-interests and buying them with promises that the Left would put them first.  This is the old ‘divide and rule’ game that pits Black against White and Muslim against Christian and Straight against Gay.  A very dangerous game and one the BBC itself plays to the full….ironically in contradiction of its charter requirement to maintain a civil and cohesive society.

The lefty New Statesman claims  that Marr is ‘a transformative political editor for the BBC and possesses an original and free-thinking take on the issues of the day.’

Nothing could be further from the truth.  Marr peddles liberal/left orthodox ‘cure-all’ commentary like a doctor mechanically pushing anti-biotics…without intelligent consideration and without thought for the consequences.  Nothing original or free-thinking about Marr…nor is he a challenging interviewer for those of similar mindset to him…such as just about any Labour politician or anti-Trump polemicist.

Let’s go back and consider those four criteria Marr’s new friends put forward as a way of identifying anti-democratic tyrants who are a ‘danger to democracy’.  Do not all the criteria in fact define the Left’s approach to political discourse and indeed, defines the BBC’s own approach?

First…Do they reject, or have a weak commitment to, the democratic rules of the game?

The Left/BBC have no respect for democracy….witness their attempts to ignore and overturn the Brexit referendum result by any means possible, the cover up of the surge of hate and intimidation against Leave voters and instead reporting solely that it was Leave voters who were guilty of spreading racist hate across the UK, or the cover up of the violence and intimidation by Corbyn’s Brown Shirts as they try to cleanse his party of opponents by undemocratic means.  You can see a recent example of the Remain hate and violence in this report from Guido of a Tory Brexit supporting MP being attacked.

Second….Do they deny the legitimacy of their opponents?

Where to begin here…the Left/BBC have a long track record in demonising anyone who has views and opinions that are different from their own…Enoch Powell was just the start and acted as a template for all other actions to counter those who opposed mass immigration.  The liberal use of the slur ‘racist’ was used to shut down such people and has continued to this day….Farage, Tommy Robinson and Trump are the most prominent victims but it is a widespread tactic that is used on anyone to spread fear and self-censorship on the subject of immigration or Islam.  The BBC has also used similar tactics to try and silence the people who voice concern about the climate change narrative…they are lunatics, or deniers, or people who hate children or they shouldn’t be allowed to speak because they are not scientists…..never mind that BBC journalists are not scientists and indeed the politicians who make critical and expensive decisions based upon the science are not themselves scientists.

Leave voters also felt the firm smack of the BBC’s Stalinist counter-punch as it mobilised its pro-EU propaganda machine and derided them as ignorant and uneducated little Englanders, denouncing them as racists who had ‘made Britain a nastier and more racist place’.  The message being….Leave voters were too thick and bigoted to be allowed to vote.  Delegitimising them?  Just a bit.

The BBC that relentlessly portrays Farage and Leave voters as ‘far-right’, fascists or even Nazis and warns that Brexit is taking us back to the ‘thirties’…in other words to an era when the Nazis were in power and 6 million Jews were murdered by them.  No attempt to draw genuine comparisons between what Corbyn’s supporters are doing with the rise of Hitler and the rise across the world of socilaist utopias in which millions upon millions of people were slaughtered by those socialists or reduced to poverty and misery in police states.

Third….Do they tolerate, or even encourage, the use of violence?

Well we’ve seen the prevalent, casual incitement to kill Trump from the liberal/left, including those at the BBC, attacks on Tommy Robinson are celebrated and the use of violence by the street thugs of UAF are tolerated and indeed whitewashed from the news….the EDL was always to blame for violence despite it being almost 100% the UAF who started it….for the cameras of course.

The BBC covered up Corbyn’s support for terrorism during the election and went so far as to champion his claim that he was against it after the Manchester bomb went off.  The BBC was itself guilty of giving support to the IRA cause as of course Corbyn was, not to mention its cheerleading for Islamist extremists…who apparently should be seen as the new Churchills, Ghandis and Mandelas.  The BBC that gives publicity to anti-Semitic terror groups and suggests that Jews in Europe are legitimate targets because of what Israel does in Gaza [all bad of course].

So  the BBC clearly tolerates and encourages violence.

Fourth….Are they ready to curtail the civil liberties of opponents, including the media?

The BBC that has tried remorselessly to shut down the Murdoch media and is even now generating an anti-Social Media narrative intended to rein that in?  The BBC that has demonised those whose opinions it does not like and tries to silence them and force them off all platforms for voicing their opinions and views?  The BBC that consistently attacks the Right-Wing press, the Mail in particular?  The attempt by the Corbynistas to silence the Mail by intimidating its advertisers?    The BBC that refuses to consider complaints against it in any meaningful way instead being immediately defensive, dismissive and obstructive…thus curtailing your legitimate attempts to get any redress or force the BBC to change its ways.

The BBC is guilty of all four charges…thus we must conclude, using Marr’s own criteria, that the BBC is a danger to democracy.  A conclusion you may have reached a long time ago if you have been reading this site and others like it for any length of time.

Always knew that would come in handy one day.

The BBC’s science editor, and climate change campaigner, studied English [and claims non-scientists shouldn’t be allowed to comment on climate change], and its politics correspondent, Chris Mason, studied Geography and Broadcasting….kind of figures….what did Nick Robinson study….ethics, morality and honesty in broadcasting?

Somebody’s not a fan of Chris Mason….

First texter to #bbcqt Extra Time. Good evening… (I studied geography too) pic.twitter.com/TI4mMb3Qhu

— Chris Mason (@ChrisMasonBBC) January 18, 2018

And yes Mason really did study geography….ironically from a newspaper called the ‘Craven Herald’…..

After leaving school, Chris studied geography at Christ’s College, Cambridge, before going on to do a postgraduate diploma in broadcast journalism at City University.

Quality of life or untold riches due to mass immigration?

The BBC wants you to believe that we can have a thriving economy only if we keep importing millions upon millions of cheap workers.  They tell us that the benefits are enormous.  Are they?  Are there in fact any benefits?  The best figure they can come up with is the economy may increase by 50p per immigrant…so great value….never mind the massive housing problem created, the NHS in crisis, schools overflowing, the roads chocablock, infrastructure such as water under huge pressure, the prisons in meltdown and the police and legal system unable to cope with the extra demands….add to that terrorism and attempts to undermine British society by immigrant communities and it all adds up to a potent mix that tells us mass immigration is an extremist ideology with very dangerous consequences for us all the only ones who benefit are the fat-cat bosses who leech off the cheap imported labour and the liberal/left extremist ideologues who want to destory the West and to ethnically cleanse Europe of white people.

Here is an article that suggests the wonderful picture that the BBC et al paint of mass immigration is not true…

While it may come in many guises, Ponzi demography is essentially a pyramid scheme that attempts to make more money for some by adding on more and more people through population growth.

While more visible in industrialized economies, particularly in Australia, Canada and the United States, Ponzi demography also operates in developing countries. The underlying strategy of Ponzi demography is to privatize the profits and socialize the costs incurred from increased population growth.

As has been noted by Nobel laureate economists Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen as well as many others, current economic yardsticks such as gross domestic product (GDP) focus on material consumption and do not include quality-of-life factors.

Standard measures of GDP do not reflect, for example, the degradation of the environment, the depreciation of natural resources or declines in individuals’ quality of life.

According to Ponzi demography, population growth — through natural increase and immigration — means more people leading to increased demands for goods and services, more material consumption, more borrowing, more on credit and of course more profits. Everything seems fantastic for a while — but like all Ponzi schemes, Ponzi demography is unsustainable.

When the bubble eventually bursts and the economy sours, the scheme spirals downward with higher unemployment, depressed wages, falling incomes, more people sinking into debt, more homeless families — and more men, women and children on public assistance.

That is the stage when the advocates of Ponzi demography — notably enterprises in construction, manufacturing, finance, agriculture and food processing — consolidate their excess profits and gains. That leaves the general public to pick up the tab for the mounting costs from increased population growth (e.g., education, health, housing and basic public services).

Among its primary tactics, Ponzi demography exploits the fear of population decline and aging. Without a young and growing population, we are forewarned of becoming a nation facing financial ruin and a loss of national power.

Due to population aging, government-run pensions and healthcare systems will become increasingly insolvent, according to advocates of Ponzi demography, thereby crippling the economy, undermining societal well-being and threatening national security.

Low birth rates, especially those below replacement levels, are considered a matter of national concern. Without higher fertility rates and the resulting population growth, the nation, it is claimed, faces a bleak and dreary future.

 

“Economic growth requires population growth” is the basic message that Ponzi demography wants the public to swallow. No mention is made of the additional profits they reap and the extra costs the public bears.

 

Despite its snake-oil allure of “more is better,” Ponzi demography’s advocacy for ever-increasing population growth is ultimately unsustainable. Such persistent growth hampers efforts to improve the quality of life for today’s world population of nearly seven billion people as well as for future generations.

Moving gradually towards population stabilization, while not a panacea for the world’s problems, will make it far easier to address problems such as climate change, environmental degradation, poverty and development, human rights abuses and shortages of water, food and critical natural resources.

The sooner nations reject Ponzi demography and make the needed gradual transition from ever-increasing population growth to population stabilization, the better the prospects for all of humanity and other life on this planet.

Unlike the BBC’s Hijab Hitjob story this is real.  Don’t say we never bring you anything different…..

Designed for US aircrew flying in extreme climates.

 

The BBC said: “Where a presenter or reporter has publicly expressed a view on a particular issue, they would no longer be perceived as an impartial voice, therefore it is right they do not conduct interviews on that issue. This is in keeping with editorial guidelines.”

So the BBC, as we know, has been paying women less than men for the same job, as well of course of only employing younger, good looking women [get your black dresses out girls!], and is now engaged in a nonsense of trying to appear impartial as it takes off air female presenters who have commented in support of Carrie Gracie and the issues around that…maybe they just want to silence those supporters.  Odd how keen the BBC are to ensure impartiality here when it is themselves in the firing line…not so keen on other issues.

Roger Harrabin has admitted he has been ‘campaigning;’ about climate change for 20 years…and yet he is still the BBC’s ‘impartial’ reporter on such issues.  Eddie Mair, who is gay, was assigned to report on the gay marriage issue as it went through parliament [and the BBC broadcast an episode of Mrs Brown’s Boys that was blatantly promoting the issue on the night before the vote], the Muslim Mishal Husain is almost always the one who reports on Muslim ‘issues’ on Today.  I look forward to the time when they can find a BBC reporter who isn’t anti-Trump and can thus be trusted to report honestly and impartially about him….the BBC doesn’t seem at all bothered that they are all freely scornful and abusive towards Trump…and I’m sure if we checked their Twitter feeds that would be quite apparent.

Interesting how free and easy the BBC are with our licence fee money…..prepared to top up wages by the odd 5o grand or so at the shake of a stick…..perhaps if they weren’t paying the men so much to start with it wouldn’t all be such an issue.

Another fine mess the BBC has got itself into.

97% of scientists support the theory [and it is a theory] of man-made climate change…due in the main to CO2.

Except that is bunk based on a lie as we pointed out in 2015…..

No expert on statistics but looking at this I would say the 97% claimed stat for scientific consensus on global warming is a crock….

Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature

‘We analyze the evolution of the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming (AGW) in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, examining 11 944 climate abstracts from 1991–2011 matching the topics ‘global climate change’ or ‘global warming’. We find that 66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW, 32.6% endorsed AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% were uncertain about the cause of global warming. Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming.’

 

So hang on……66.4% expressed no position on the causes of global warming…

but……32.6% endorsed the alarmist position.

And the 97%?

The 97% is 97% of that 32.6%, or least of ‘those who expressed a position’, which definitely counts out the 66.4% who expressed no position and is even more definitely not 97% of  ‘all scientists’…by my reading of that explanation.

So maybe around 33% of the literature openly supports the man-made climate change theory.

We also noted this from the Guardian way back in 2014….the need to promote that ‘consensus’ message…

Why we need to talk about the scientific consensus on climate change

An interesting sequence of events followed the publication of a scientific paper I co-authored in May last year. The paper found a 97% consensus that humans were causing global warming in relevant scientific papers.  [Really?…see above]

So there is still much work to do. Several decades of casting doubt on the consensus has contributed to maintaining the consensus gap. This is why communication experts urge scientists to communicate the 97% consensus. This approach is based on a growing body of evidence underscoring the important role of perceived consensus and the necessity of consensus messaging.

Which is why the Guardian leads its climate change articles with this lie even now….

Interesting choice of main subjects for the Today show’s guest editors….we had Tamara Rojo interviewing George Osborne who took the chance to peddle his views on Brexit, then we had Prince Harry interviewing his dad who wittered on about climate change and then Obama who trashed Trump and social media, then we had Ben Okri on the Rohingya and Grenfell, and tomorrow it must be the turn of Lady Trumpington, the 95-year-old Conservative peer who worked at Bletchley Park during the second world war and wants to explore the legalisation of brothels.

All, except perhaps the last, definitive BBC issues that dominate its broadcasting agenda.  Guess the BBC just got lucky that the people it chose to guest edit the Today show were so onboard with the BBC’s own concerns.  Only surprised that Yemen and immigration didn’t get a look in…maybe they did and I missed it.

Great excitement!!!!……renewable energy production has overtaken coal!!!!!   Wow, you could have knocked me down with a feather as I heard the unbelieveable news from the doleful voice of the BBC’s devout high priest of climate change, Roger Harrabin, as he breathlessly intoned the good news in the manner of a Spanish Inquisition torturer insisting with dread enthusiasm that the earth is flat and that you must believe him and renounce your previous disbelief!

The UK has achieved its greenest year ever in terms of how the nation’s electricity is generated, National Grid figures reveal.

In June, for the first time, wind, nuclear and solar power generated more UK power than gas and coal combined.

Separate findings from power research group MyGridGB show that renewable energy sources provided more power than coal for 90% of 2017, figures up to 12 December show.

British wind farms produced more electricity than coal plants on more than 75% of days this year.

So coal is down and out and renewables are stepping in to take its place?  That’s the BBC message they want you to believe.  Naturally that’s rubbish.

First, coal, after the government forceably cut its use as a fuel for generation, now accounts for a mere 2.9% of our electricity production….so hardly a surprise that renewables have ‘overtaken’ coal…or perhaps more accurately coal has undertaken renewables.  But have renewables surplanted coal as the BBC implies, the BBC pushing solar and wind?  No, gas generation was massively ramped up to fill the hole left by coal.  And of coure there’s nuclear….and the one renewable the BBC fails to hype in its bulletins…the controversial biomass.  And of course after all the headlines about renewables on a surge the BBC quietly admits….

Renewables overall – including wind, solar, biomass and hydropower – beat fossil fuels for only 23 days of the year.

And here’s the reality….solar and wind may have increased slightly but are in no position to replace gas and nuclear…and from the figures renewables may generate a good share of the power but the use is of non-renewable as wind and solar are produced at times when people don’t need power or is not produced due to adverse weather conditions.

Listening to the BBC’s news bulletins today you’d be forgiven for believing that wind and solar were rocketing in use and had replaced coal when the truth is that it is gas that has replaced coal, and nuclear and gas are still the main providers.  The BBC bulks out its sermon with messages from the converted…

Dr Andrew Crossland from MyGridGB and the Durham Energy Institute said: “The government has focused on reducing coal use which now supplies less than 7% of our electricity.

“However, if we continue to use gas at the rate that we do, then Britain will miss carbon targets and be dangerously exposed to supply and price risks in the international gas markets.”

He added that “refreshed government support for low carbon alternatives” is now needed to “avoid price and supply shocks for our heat and electricity supplies”.

Emma Pinchbeck, executive director of Industry body RenewableUK urged onshore wind to be developed across the UK in an “ambitious sector deal with the off shore wind industry” that could help secure a “golden age for renewables” in 2018. 

Hardly impartial…especially the renewable industry demanding the government subsidise a vast programme of onshore wind farm building.

Nothing new in the BBC ‘nudging’ the news to ensure we get the message it wants us to believe…and indeed its reporting from the US about the arctic weather they are having right now is a case in point as the extent and seriousness of the issue was played down by the BBC as half the US was engulfed in an arctic blast and is having record cold temperatures and snowfall.

The BBC almost mentions in passing in a small story yesterday the record cold across the US…

Snow emergency in US city Erie after huge storm

A record-breaking snowfall of more than 60 inches (150 cm) has hit the Pennsylvanian city of Erie over the Christmas period, with even more said to be on the way.

The city has declared a citywide emergency as a result of the storm, which began on Sunday.

New York, northern Ohio and northern Michigan are also heavily hit.

The cause?…

Forecasters say the extreme weather is caused by very cold air passing over the unfrozen Great Lakes.

Hmmm…but that’s not why it is ‘extreme’ is it?  Odd how this is just ‘weather’ and not ‘climate’ whereas record heat would be ‘climate’.

The BBC finally admits the truth in its headline today….but curiously no mention of climate change at all…

Brutal cold spell sets record lows across the US

Bitter cold continues to blanket the northern United States and Canada as forecasters warn that the deep freeze will continue into the start of 2018.

Can’t be long though before they start pumping out the ‘record cold is a product of global warming’ line to go with ‘record heat is a product of global warming.’

The Today show’s [08:55] guest editor, Tamara Rojo, the artistic director and lead principal dancer of the English National Ballet, unwittingly nailed the problem with the BBC on the head as she talked of the way funding of the Arts is done in Europe…nearly 100% coming from government.  Thus she tells us the Arts don’t have to bother with producing anything that the Public want, they are completely out of touch with that Public with little creativity, little care for the audience, producing what they like for the like-minded people that they want as an audience.  This single, guaranteed source of funding not only makes for a very closed off, insular Arts’ world but is open to being politicised, to being propaganda and to the manipulation of the People.

The BBC is in even more of a powerful position in that its funding, though reliant on the government, or perhaps rather Parlaiment, at the end of the day, is not only free from the pressures of having to be raised as the commercial broadcasters have to, ie producing programmes that people want to watch and thus attracting advertising, it is free from government pressure, or free to totally ignore any pressure and complaints….and thus is not only totally unaccountable to the People who pay for it but is also free to attack and undermine any government it sees fit to [Labour sees the BBC as its own party broadcaster and defends it and its privilege regardless of sense], again totally unaccountably…the BBC Trust as was, being reliably onboard when it came to complaints and Ofcom seemingly also unwilling to hold the BBC accountable for its failings….the BBC of course itself famously unwilling to accept criticism however valid and backed by evidence.

Being free from government control is a good thing, but only if the BBC is under proper and effective oversight, and it is not.  It is pretty much unaccountable and free to shape the news, current affairs and entertainment programmes as it likes in order to peddle a world view that those in its very homogenous, insular echo-chamber, populated by like-minded people, all celebrate.  It is free to load its programmes with messages, political, social, historical and economic, that buttress its world view and discredit, undermine and demonise those who it sees as a threat to its world view and dominance…hence Trump and Farage are freely protrayed as racists and Nazis with little to no real debate about their actual views, Brexit is a product of ignorance and bigotry whipped up by Russian propaganda, sceptics of ‘man-made’ climate change are denounced as dangerous lunatics who have to be silenced, social media [ie people being able to circumvent the MSM’s control of information and thought] is dangerous and full of hate, thus it must be controlled [ironically by the government that the BBC insists it itself must be free from].  Of course that is an attempt to maintain the likes of the BBC’s dominance of information and which is why the BBC is so keen for you, or rather for those in government, to be persuaded that there is a new era of fake news, a ‘post truth’ era that needs regulation and control of social media with the added message that it is the BBC that is the only provider of news that can be trusted to be honest and accurate [how many lols do you want for that?].  Journalists of course pre-Trump and Brexit were the most respected and trusted people on earth no?  The Left invented and weaponised the so-called ‘post-truth era’ in order to control the Right wing press and social media broadcasters and writers.

‘Fake news is nothing new, though technology has allowed it to be disseminated further and faster than ever; its prevalence in Britain is unclear; and many of those who bang on about it, from politicians to the mainstream media, have an incentive to inflate the threat.’

The irony is that it is the BBC that is out of control, entirely corrupt as it fills the airwaves with very one-sided propaganda much of which is ‘extremist’ in itself…such as the dangerous promotion of mass immigration of people with very different values and beliefs to our own and uncontrolled, open borders, the cheerleading for Marxist terrorists now hijacking the Labour party, the support for Muslim extremists and ideology, the drive to destroy the reality of British identity and the idea of Britain as a nation with culture, character and history to be proud of, the BBC’s willingness to serve a foreign master, the EU, and to sell out the British people and their interests, peddling pro-Remain messages at every turn, painting Brexit in as black a light as possible…and of course then there’s the BBC’s interesting take on the Middle East, its history and where the  blame lies….just  how much time do you have?

There is very little in the BBC news that you can take on trust and at face value….it, and nearly its other programmes, peddle a message, a ‘liberal’ extremist message that is utterly intolerant of any other views.

As we’ve noted before, the problem isn’t social media, it isn’t some dodgy ‘news’ site in Macedonia, it’s the main-stream news organisations which have an aura of respectability and trust about them which they can exploit to push fake news to people who trust them….even the BBC’s own Amol Rajan has noted this:

Fake news isn’t the big problem in news. The big problem in news is…the news

I’ve written several blogs here about fake news, a phenomenon whose supposed rise has coincided with my time as media editor. Correlation not causation, let me assure you.

In summary: fake news is nothing new, though technology has allowed it to be disseminated further and faster than ever; its prevalence in Britain is unclear; and many of those who bang on about it, from politicians to the mainstream media, have an incentive to inflate the threat.

It’s also a distraction from the real issues, which are the editorial selections and judgements that comprise the news. Getting news right – choosing which stories to cover, and how to cover them – is a constant challenge. No programme editor ever goes to bed thinking “We got everything right today”.

But doing the stories that really matter, and getting them right, is a much bigger challenge to the integrity of news in Britain than the alleged threat from fake news.