Ungrateful B*******s

 

Destroy-Deny-Degrade-Disrupt, living up to his name perhaps, says in the comments that….

‘I don’t rely on Alan to think for me, nor speak for me’

Uhhh…OK…I’ll fold my tent and bugger off to the desert to read the Koran and play with my harem before coming back to separate DDDD from his head….or…..or I could just write a long whinge to the Guardian about how unloved I am and how everybody should be forced by law to appreciate just what a bleeding genius I am…..oh shit, look, someone’s beaten me to it…..the evil right-wing Press have been force feeding children Mein Kampf and it’s just not on you know!….

Line of Duty creator hits back at ‘weak and bullying’ critics of BBC

The creator of Line of Duty, Jed Mercurio, has launched a passionate defence of the BBC before the return of his acclaimed police corruption drama to BBC2 this month.

“I think we all know there’s an anti-BBC agenda in certain areas of the press,” says Mercurio. “Sometimes it’s just boring in its inevitability and then every now and then it really crosses a line. I think comments about The Great British Bake Off – the chocolate mosque comments – really crossed a line and I think that comments about London Spy have crossed a line.

 

Yep…The Mail’s [What not the Mail!!!] Amanda Platell is the voice of the Devil as she disembowels the BBC with her satanic discourse…

Poor Flora wasn’t PC enough for Beeb

When this series of The Great British Bake Off began, the BBC was proud it was the most inclusive, multi-cultural line-up ever.

Now we’re down to the final three, it’s certainly a PC triumph. We are left with Muslim mum Nadiya Hussain, gay doctor Tamal Ray, and New Man Ian Cumming. Poor Flora Shedden never stood a chance. She was far too middle class — and was booted off this week after her chocolate carousel was deemed sub-standard.

Perhaps if she’d made a chocolate mosque, she’d have stood a better chance.

Or she could just be making a salient and truthful observation of fact.

Mercurio attacks the Telegraph for criticising his adaptation of Lady Chatterley’s Lover…and yet the article was in fact praising another BBC programme….

Another week, another classic about illicit spooning at the dawn of the 20th century. Where the BBC’s fresh take on Lady Chatterley’s Lover hollowed out the original and injected its own up-to-date agitprop, The Go-Between (BBC One) kept faith with LP Hartley’s devastating story of love denied. This was what creative fidelity is meant to look like.

So is Mercurio’s whinge more about him and his ‘art’ than defending the BBC?  The Guardian itself admits that Mercurio has chopped and changed the story to heighten the ‘agitprop’….

Mercurio has done that – added bits here, borrowed there, taken plenty away. No doubt people will be cross…….The accident at the mine provides a dramatic opening and is powerful and exciting even on a small screen budget, as well as quickly getting to ideas of injustice and social conflict.

The well known right-wing rag, The New Statesmen, says…

In Mercurio’s hands, the narrative was – quite a rare feat, this – at once clichéd and anachronistic.

How about WalesOnline?…

This offering of Lady Chatterley’s Lover by the BBC seemed intent on trying to avoid offending anyone, but it ends up being offensive in its treatment of the classic novel

Sexy? Not really. Poignant? Nah. Good? Oh no.

Mercurio goes on to say that criticism of his show ‘Cardiac Arrest’ was political…and yet he admits that the programme was ‘a pretty controversial piece’.….

I certainly know that when I did [the 90s medical drama] Cardiac Arrest, which was a pretty controversial piece, there was a lot of negative coverage in the Daily Mail and the Daily Express. The rightwing press really slagged it off and that was a political decision, nothing to do with the artistic quality of the programme.

He quotes nothing from the Mail or the Express to illustrate his claim…and no proof that such negative coverage was ‘political’….. were the left-wing press being ‘political’ in their praise this being the early 90’s and a Tory government in charge of the NHS…wouldn’t the left delight in a production from the BBC that paints the NHS as falling apart?

Only positive, ego stroking criticism in future for the sensitive and clever Mr Mercurio please!

Still, another bit of pro-BBC agitprop to chalk up for Lord Hall Hall’s campaign.

Holy Mo-Lee…I was funny once.

 

 

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The BBC, in its search for edgy, new and original comedians, has turned up someone called Stewart Lee, presumably someone also thought he was a bit ethnic with a name like Lee and booked him having seen him perform…..

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Only joking…he is of course tried and trusted by the Liberal intelligentsia to be a reliable purveyor of right-on comedy to the Guardianista in-crowd since the 90’s…..here he is recently with his little, very little, red book of the Regime’s best jokes…or is that John McDonnell?

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The Shadow Chancellor (pictured) will announce two new fiscal rules. The first will strip all ¿investment¿ spending out of the calculation of the annual deficit, the Government¿s overdraft. The second will require overall debt to be lower as a share of the economy by the end of the Parliament 

 

but where did it all go so wrong Stew?…..

stewart lee family

He’s gone from the bright young thing to that bedraggled tramp shouting abuse at people on the streets.

Steve Martin had some good advice for budding comedians…..

inspirational-comedian-quotes-sl

Still, don’t worry Stewie, the Guardianistas don’t have a sense of humour so not having any jokes isn’t much of a problem for you is it?

The BBC is disinterring the old faithfuls such as Alf Garnett but reconfigured for the modern age…anyone want to bet that the new BBC version will be, snigger snigger, ‘Nigel Farage’?…and keeping Stewart Lee on the books seems to be in line with that policy of keeping the oldies on life support despite the fact he seems to have run out of decent material….never mind this recent series had not one, not two, not three but four writers.

The first episode was on wealth and I gave up after 10 minutes or so….it is slow and torturous with pretend angst whilst naturally still targeting the same old, same old.

The funniest thing he said was ironically a right-wing joke about the pretentious language of the left as he talked of his own artistic ambitions…

‘[I aim] to create a secondary character driven narrative that runs both in tandem with, and in dramatic opposition to, the surface level stand-up.  I want you to laugh in spite of me not because of me…an example of theatrical practise known as Brechtian Alienation….an incredibly high risk performance strategy that few people seem to appreciate… and no-one is equipped to review me..’

In fact it wasn’t really a joke…that is genuinely the effect he seeks to create.  Wonder how that worked out for him.

Moving on from ‘Wealth’ he hits his stride with ‘Islamophobia’ in the second episode.   Clearly he left the house in a rush and forget to bring the jokes along….this set consisted mostly of shouting abuse at the ‘home audience’ of Islamophobes who are just ‘awful people’ and shouting out the names of the guilty ones in the Media who incite such hatred towards Moooslims…the Mail, the Sun, Rupert Murdoch, the Telegraph and of course John Whittingdale.

Lee naturally made no attempt to argue his case [He did admit ‘I’ve done no fucking research’], he would have lost, and instead made what he hoped was a poignant and powerful comparison of Quakers to Muslims and our ‘hypocritical’ attitudes and yet managed instead to make a completely spurious and very weak pointless point.  ….and the irony being that the Quakers decamped to the US and now are derided and sneered at by the BBC as ‘Bible Belt’ right-wing religious fanatics who probably vote for Donald Trump….however, no comedy routine from Lee defending them against the BBC’s anti-Christian crusade…or is that jihad?

He worked up that whole routine in order to finish on the pithy punch-line that we musn’t expect Muslims to integrate and be just like us.  Well no, we don’t expect them to turn into happy-clappy Christians, going to Barmitzvahs, and drinking Stella at the pig roast…the trouble isn’t us…it’s them, to generalise…wanting us, non-Muslims, to integrate with their Muslim culture.

Naturally Lee didn’t dare come up with any jokes critical and satirical about Islam or Muslims…..he’s not a gutless coward he’s just a righteous anti-Establishment lefty as he refuses to comply with BBC corporate orders…..the BBC’s head of religious programming, Aaqil Ahmed, insists on more jokes about Muhammed….so that we can learn more about him and his fantastic religion…

“The day we have people standing up and telling detailed jokes about Muhammad and have the audience understanding that humour, then we will have come a long way in society and we will have a lot more religious literacy about a major world figure.”

Go on Stewie….do it, take a deep breath and be ‘Charlie’….tell the one about Muhammed beheading all the males in a Jewish tribe and enslaving the women and children.

He ended with the line that he was ‘funny once’.….’once’…surely he exaggerates.

Anyway onto the next epsiode….need I tell you?   It’s about ‘Patriotism’ for those who have never watched the BBC or one of Lee’s routines….Mark Easton probably co-wrote this one…..should be a laugh….I joke.

Apparently there are three more episodes….as yet subjects unannounced….feel free to list the possibilities in the comments.

 

 

Thump Trump

 

Listening to the BBC’s report this morning on the left wing thugs who disrupted a Trump rally you were led to believe that this was the fault of Trump’s supporters who were ‘angry’ and somehow it was they who caused the violence…and of course, paradoxically, it is Trump’s ‘racist and violent’ rhetoric, his use of ‘hate speech’ and fostering divison, and that incites a reciprocal response from the opposition.  The BBC of course is only ‘reporting’ the views of those who want to portray Trump as a racist….but do they have to ‘report’ it so often?

The ‘protestors’ were not to blame it seems for violence nor the attack on free speech…just as the Labour Party’s ‘Blackshirts’, the UAF, are never portrayed in their true light as violent, fascist thugs who set out to stir up violence for the cameras at ‘right-wing’ protests.

The Spectator has also noticed the lack of opprobrium for the anti-Trump ‘protestors’…

As lots of conservatives on social media have already said, just imagine if a bunch of violent Trump fans had disrupted a Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton event. They would be called fascists, and the condemnation would be global. Politicians across the world would issue statements expressing concern.

When the same thing happens to a Trump rally, however, the reaction is strangely mute. This unfairness causes resentment which causes Trump to win more votes.

In fact, lots of people who previously might have not voted for Trump will now do so precisely because they don’t want to be told what to do by a bunch of snarling, smug left-liberal millennials. If there was any chance of stopping Donald Trump becoming the Republican nominee, it was shut down last night in Chicago.

The EU referendum is an irrelevance……says BCC

 

Did you hear Dr Adam Marshall, acting director-general of the BCC, on Wake up to money (34 mins) on Friday?  Interesting what he had to say.  He told us that what really concerned his members was the poor state of the global economy, what’s happening in the emerging economies, China, Russia, Brazil, the oil price, inflation and turmoil in financial markets, all of which ‘weigh the heaviest’ on their minds ….the EU referendum is of little consequence by comparison.

Isn’t that fascinating?   Here’s the pro-EU BCC saying that the outcome of the EU referendum has little bearing on our economic future.

Odd for one that he hasn’t immediately been sacked under pressure from No10 but also odd that the BBC didn’t see fit to rebroadcast his views on each and every news bulletin throughout the day as they are wont to do with selected interviews they take a liking to.  Odd how someone in what is now such a high profile position should make such a controversial statement and be ignored by the BBC.

I should give credit where credit is due…the BBC’s Adam Parsons did press Marshall to comment on the departure of his predecessor, John Longworth.

 

 

 

 

Quizzing Quislings

 

We’ve already looked at the BBC’s decision to put on a huge EU referendum debate just two days before the actual vote, concluding that it was likely that the BBC believed that such a circus would benefit the pro-EU campaign persuading, nudging, the ‘don’t knows’ into voting ‘stay’.

David Dimbleby front’s the BBC’s EU coverage and will lead a debate to be held at Wembley Arena just two days before the referendum.

This is pure showbiz from the BBC….there’s absolutely no need to hold such a major debate at such a massive venue and at such a dramatic time. The BBC’s description of the event is possibly more truthful than they intended to  let on….’The corporation’s biggest ever campaign event’.

We know that the vote might be close and the BBC has obviously ‘gamed’ this final debate and come to the conclusion that those crucial few votes may be swung by this debate, the über pro-EU BBC wouldn’t take the risk otherwise….As it is controlled and marshalled by BBC presenters who can define the limits of the debate, set out the arguments and choose the questions it is in their power to finesse their presentation so that it favours, they hope imperceptibly, the pro-EU side.  The audience is supposedly self-selecting, 50-50 pro-EU/pro-Brexit but of course that is all down to the audience’s honesty, how does the BBC select those who ask questions?  Do they pick the inarticulate, the working class, those with ‘extreme’ views about the EU?  How often have we seen that contrast on the BBC when the person giving the narrative that the BBC would seem to support is the educated, articulate, middle class professional and the opposing view is put by someone the BBC wants to portray as an uneducated bigot?

However it seems the ‘Inners’ are also rather doubtful about the debate and  the Times tells us they are out to ‘scupper BBC debate at Wembley’.

They think it will be a ‘circus’ and that the audience will favour the Brexit side.  They would like the venue to change to one more suitable for a serious debate.

What’s interesting is the BBC’s reply…

A senior BBC figure said:  “By going public on briefing against us, they have made it harder, not easier, for us to change position.  The last thing we can be seen to do is concede to one side or another.”

So the BBC would have changed the venue if the pro-EU side had come to them behind closed doors….it’s OK as long as the public don’t see the ‘fix’ going in.

I would suggest that such a debate about the venue be held in the open with both parties…it’s not hard to organise surely?  There would then be no question of the BBC being seen to be conceding to one side or the other and no secret deals being done behind those closed doors which we must now assume go on all the time between the BBC and the politicians…so much for independence, openness and accountability…and trust.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mind your PMQs

 

 

David Cameron in PMQs condemned the fact that Labour had allowed back into its ranks one Gerry Downing…..

“I was completely appalled to see yesterday that the Labour Party have readmitted someone to their party who says that the 9/11 suicide bombers, and I quote, “must never be condemned”, and belongs to an organisation that says “we defend the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq”. These are appalling views and I hope that the Leader of the Opposition will throw this person out of the party rather than welcome him in.”

Guido broke the story originally...

gerrymayday20131

I want to take this opportunity to welcome you back into full membership of the party.

All the Best,

Compliance Administrator

The Labour Party

 

 

Guido aslo notes Downing’s attitude towards Jews:

An unbylined article on Downing’s Socialist Fight website, which Downing himself tweeted, is headlined: “Why Marxists must address the Jewish Question”. The piece speaks for itself:

“The role Zionists have played in the attempted witch-hunt against Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour leadership campaign is glaringly obvious… Since the dawning of the period of neo-liberal capitalism in the 1970s, elements of the Jewish-Zionist bourgeoisie, from Milton Friedman to Henry Kissinger to the pro-Israel ideologues of the War on Terror, have played a vanguard role for the capitalist offensive against the workers.”

 

The BBC completely ignored Cameron’s comments in PMQs and instead glorified in the fact that Corbyn has managed to ask his 100th question…

Jeremy Corbyn poses 100th Prime Minister’s Question

The BBC really knows what is important…..ah but the Labour Party has responded to Cameron and the BBC has had to catch up and report the expulsion of Downing and all without a single acknowledgement that this was a story that they ‘missed’…or did they deliberately ignore it as once again it underlined that the loony left that has captured the Labour Party, something the BBC seems remarkably quiet about as it prefers to concentrate on US politics and attacking Trump?  Note how the BBC report on Downing is actually more a defence of him and his views than anything else.

Let’s look again at Cameron’s comment…

“I was completely appalled to see yesterday that the Labour Party have readmitted someone to their party who says that the 9/11 suicide bombers, and I quote, “must never be condemned”, and belongs to an organisation that says “we defend the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq”. These are appalling views and I hope that the Leader of the Opposition will throw this person out of the party rather than welcome him in.”

Then look at the BBC’s Jim Muir’s ‘explanation’ as to the growth of Islamic fundamentalism….it’s all the West’s fault and although he admits there is an Islamic element to the Jihadi movement it is all based upon an inaccurate interpretation of the Koran, one that no ‘true’ Muslim would ever use……note Muir slips in the usual BBC lies about the Iraq war….

The invasion of Iraq in the spring of 2003 was, it turned out, entirely unjustified on its own chosen grounds – Saddam Hussein’s alleged production of weapons of mass destruction, and his supposed support for international terrorists, neither of which was true. [Curious that the world renowned weapons inspector, David Kelly, said that the government intelligence was accurate and that he believed Saddam Hussein was developing weapons and that he represented a serious threat to the world….but a biased BBC reporter obviously knows better]

IS is also filling a desert left by the collapse of all the political ideologies that have stirred Arab idealists over the decades. [This ‘Jihadi’ narrative is exactly the same one that is wheeled out by the BBC time after time as their own explanation of events….instead of feeding into the Islamist propaganda perhaps the BBC should do its job and actually tell the truth about this narrative…instead Jim Muir reinforces that narrative and justifies terrorism helping to convince more Muslims that the cause is just and they should join ISIS and fight the West]

In this vacuum, IS took up the cause of punishing the West and other outsiders for their actions in the region over the past century:

  • the carve-up by the colonial powers 100 years ago, drawing a border between Iraq and Syria which IS has now erased
  • the creation of Israel under the British mandate for Palestine, and its subsequent unswerving political and financial support by the US
  • Western (and indeed Russian) backing for corrupt and tyrannical Arab regimes
  • the Western invasion and destruction of Iraq on the flimsiest of pretexts, with the death of uncounted thousands of Iraqis
  • the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo prisoner abuse scandals….

The roots of IS also lie in a crisis within Islam.

“Isil is not Islamic,” said President Obama, echoing statements by many western leaders that “IS has nothing to do with Islam”.

It has.

“It is based on Islamic texts that are reinterpreted according to how they see it,” says Ahmad Moussalli, professor of politics at the American University of Beirut. “I don’t say they are not coming out of Islamic tradition, that would be denying facts. But their interpretation is unusual, literal sometimes, very much like the Wahhabis.”

 

The reason the BBC didn’t bother reporting on Downing is because they have sympathy with his views…..including the ones about the Jews…just look at Jeremy Bowen’s latest anti-Israeli screed….ironically he also reported Joe Biden denouncing those who defend the Palestinian terrorism….

Biden criticises failure to denounce Palestinian attacks

“Let me say in no uncertain terms: the United States of America condemns these acts and condemns the failure to condemn these acts,” Mr Biden said.

“The kind of violence we saw yesterday, the failure to condemn it, the rhetoric that incites that violence, the retribution that it generates, has to stop.”

 

Just unfortunate that the likes of Bowen and his underlings don’t agree and continue to incite against the Israelis…

Bowe tells us….’Violence does not come out of the blue. It has a context. Once again, the problem is the unresolved conflict between Palestinians and Jews. It is at the heart of all the violence that shakes this city.’   Of course Bowen’s context is rather one-sided…….I have picked out only the bits that put the Palestinian’s case….erm…that’s pretty much all of the report then…….

Jerusalem knife attacks: Fear and loathing in holy city

Expanding city

Jerusalem has been simmering dangerously for two years or more. The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been asserting what it believes is its national right to build homes for Jewish Israelis wherever it decides they are needed in a city that it calls its undivided, eternal capital.

The government’s backing for the expansion of settlements in the sections of Jerusalem captured during the 1967 war, and classified as occupied territory by most of the rest of the world, has transformed some districts.

Palestinians feel they are being squeezed out of their home. They believe that their territory is being eaten up by Israel’s appetite for land, and loath what they see as a national ideology designed to enforce the dominance of Israel and Judaism.

For almost 50 years, Israel has worked hard to unify West Jerusalem with the occupied east side of the city. Public transport and road systems have been integrated.

Jews have settled alongside areas that were wholly populated by Palestinians, in some cases right in the heart of Palestinian neighbourhoods.

Normal teenager

So why have Palestinians carried out appalling crimes, seemingly random attacks on passers-by simply because they are Israeli Jews? Some of the assailants have been well-educated young people without security records.

When I met Khaled Mahania, the father of 15-year-old Hassan Mahania, who attacked and badly wounded young Israelis in a settlement in East Jerusalem, he is unable to explain.

Hassan was shot dead as he carried out the attack; his 13-year-old cousin and accomplice was run down by a car and badly hurt.

The Israeli government blames the attacks on incitement by political and religious extremists. A video has circulated of a Muslim cleric in Gaza waving a knife and calling on Palestinians to slit the throats of Jews.

Khaled Mahania told me he had not replaced his son’s smartphone since he broke it last year. He had no mobile internet access, and none at home.

Khaled had even thrown out the TV because he believed his children should read and talk to each other. Khaled broke down as he said his son was a typical teenager, not political and certainly no radical.

Many Palestinians have told me they believe the reason for the attacks is that another generation is realising its future prospects will be crippled by the indignities and injustice of the occupation of the Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem.

The last straw has been the widespread belief that Israel is planning to allow Jews more access to the compound of the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, which Palestinians call the Noble Sanctuary and Israelis call the Temple Mount.

Vicious circle

Israel’s use of considerable force in defence of its people also causes anger. The shooting dead of some assailants has been condemned, not least by the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

The Israeli government denies that it plans to change the status quo around the Aqsa Mosque. It maintains that agitators have incited trouble by spreading baseless rumours.

But the perceived threat to the Noble Sanctuary is widely believed by Palestinians, not least because it comes when Israeli settlements in occupied Jerusalem have been expanding.

A big part of the conflict is the military occupation of the Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem, that has lasted for nearly 50 years. It is impossible to ignore the effects of an occupation that is always coercive and can be brutal.

In successive Palestinian generations, it has created hopelessness and hatred. In some cases, that bursts out into murderous anger. Jerusalem this week is crackling with tension and hate, directed by both sides at each other.

 

Biased on behalf of Palestinian terrorism?  Just a bit.  No context that the Muslims, and that is obviously the relevant factor…Muslim Jordan does not get the same treatment that Israel does despite being ‘carved’ out of Palestinian territory just as Israel was… want, and intend, to wipe Israel off the map and have been attacking Israel for over 70 years.  Any reason that the Israelis might want to defend themselves?

The BBC appeases Muslim terrorism and aids and abets it by spreading the Islamist’s anti-Western, anti-Jewish propaganda.

It wasn’t that they weren’t keen to report on Gerry Downing.  They just didn’t see the problem.

 

 

 

 

The Wild Business West

 

 

The BCC’s John Longworth was forced to resign for his comments on Brexit and the BBC has been repeatedly playing a clip of Phil Smith, the managing director of ‘Business West’ and BCC member, making a very aggressive attack on Longworth on the BBC’s PM programme on saturday.(11 mins).  Perhaps this clip should come with a health warning.

Smith is in no way impartial and has already set out his company’s views……

This is Business West’s business manifesto for 2015.….staying in the EU is essential and they don’t even want a referendum….here’s the European Union page….

 

Smith talks continuously of the BCC being neutral and yet we have shown it is anything but that and he clearly isn’t himself.

Guido has been catching a few other BCC members out in their outspoken support for the EU…and yet they haven’t been suspended or ‘sacked’…..

Earlier Guido noted that the British Chambers of Commerce had allowed their Kent chief to publicly endorse the Remain campaign. Now it emerges the chief executive of the Cornwall BCC branch has also signed a letter supporting staying in the EU. Kim Conchie wrote last week that:

“leaving the EU is playing Russian Roulette with the world’s fifth largest economy; it would be a great folly”

Remember, the official BCC line is that they are “a non-partisan organisation” and that senior figures airing personal views will “create confusion regarding the BCC’s neutral stance”. John Longworth lost his job for publicly backing Leave. Yet here are two top BCC spokesmen who have endorsed Remain with no consequences…

 

 

 

BBCEUBCC

 

[The next government must] deliver a new settlement for Britain in Europe –because making the economic opportunities of the European trading bloc work for business, and ensuring clear safeguards for Britain against unwanted further integration, will be critical for our future success.

IF OUR PROPOSALS ARE DELIVERED:

•The UK’s future relationship with the EU will reflect what Chamber members tell us they want to see achieved: a reformed, more competitive, outward-looking EU where certain policies, such as social legislation, are decided at a national level to allow them to better reflect local circumstances and national preferences.

•We will have a future EU that ensures that Member States which have no intention of joining the Euro, such as the UK, will retain their economic independence and their influence over the Single Market.

•A future EU will see liberalisation of international trade as a top priority for the Commission and Member States.

The ‘neutral’  BCC 2014/15

The BBC is giving ex head of the BCC a reasonable hearing….but are not giving the BCC itself a hard time at all in questioning its actions in essentially forcing Longworth out and asking difficult questions about why his comments were so unacceptable all things considered……..

 

The BCC actually highlighted Longworth’s speech before the 2016 conference…if it was so controversial and they knew it was going way beyond his brief why did they not stop him saying it?…..

John Longworth: EU referendum a choice ‘between the devil and the deep blue sea’

Highlights of John Longworth’s keynote speech at the BCC Annual Conference 2016.

At his keynote speech at the British Chambers of Commerce Annual Conference, John Longworth will say:

On Europe:

“As the British Chambers of Commerce, we have declared that we will not campaign, but that we will survey member companies, report their views, and inform the debate…

“Nonetheless, the people of our country now face a choice, between staying in what is essentially an unreformed European Union, with the Eurozone moving off in another direction and with Britain sitting on the margins, or leaving the European Union, with all the near-term uncertainty and disruption that this will cause.

“Undoubtedly a tough choice. You might say, a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea.”

“Business leaders are, of course, by and large driven by economically rational decision making…

“Decision making in business suffers from the pressures of the short term and is naturally focused on the interests of the particular business concerned.

“If I were to ask the business community one thing in this referendum, it would be to look to the long term and the wider interests of the society in which you operate, and make your choice based not on the next financial year, but on what you want for your children and grandchildren.”

 

 

This is a page from their website pre-conference…

Britain and Europe: Stay or Go?

There are only 3 weeks left until the Annual Conference 2016. The exciting programme for the day includes a panel session on ‘Britain and Europe: Stay or Go?’, as well as question and answer sessions with German Finance Minister Dr Wolfgang Schäuble and a senior Cabinet minister.  Ahead of the day, Ashley Shackleton, Head of Public Affairs at the BCC discusses Britain’s relationship with Europe.

The Prime Minister is currently renegotiating the UK’s membership of the EU in advance of a referendum before the end of 2017. The business community welcomes this attempt at reform of the EU and a new settlement for the UK. The British business community will be anxious to see what concrete changes are made before deciding how to vote. In a British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) survey of business leaders in September 2015 – half responded that the content of the Prime Minister’s renegotiation package was likely to affect how they will vote. On 23rd June 2015, the BCC Director General, John Longworth wrote to the Prime Minister on five key priorities for the reform and renegotiation discussions. The success of the Prime Minister’s renegotiation will be judged against the priorities set out in this letter. The full text of the letter can be found here. Whether the UK stays in the EU or not – reform is essential to ensure the economic success and competitiveness of the UK and the EU.

When the time comes for the British people to vote – it is vitally important that the facts are shared, so that a fully informed decision can be made. At the BCC Annual Conference on March 3rd 2016, Lord Stuart Rose, Chairman of Britain Stronger in Europe, John Moynihan from Vote Leave and Dr Gerard Lyons, the Economic advisor to Boris Johnson will debate the arguments of Britain’s membership of the EU and the case for reform. We will also have a unique Q&A sessions with the German Finance Minister Dr Wolfgang Schäuble and a senior cabinet Minister to discuss the question that is so vital for British business – Britain and Europe: Stay or Go?

 

Here is the letter Longworth sent to the PM on behalf of the BCC pre negotiations with the EU…

BCC: businesses will back PM if he secures reform deal in the interests of UK economy

BCC Director General, John Longworth, has sent an open letter to the Prime Minister ahead of the EU leaders’ summit

‘This is a defining moment for our country and for our future prosperity. Businesses understand that you will want to guarantee the sovereignty of the UK and to secure a settlement which takes into account the UK’s economic welfare. If you do that, the tens of thousands of the businesses the BCC represents will be four-square behind you.’

 

So the BCC tells us it is vital for the debate to be informed….and the BCC will back the PM if he gets a good outcome to his negotiations.

And yet when Longworth tries to inform that debate he is ‘sacked’….but no one wanted to sack him when he said in the letter above that  the BCC would support the PM, ‘four-square behind you’, and staying in the EU if the reforms were acceptable.

The BBC reports this…

Nora Senior, president of the British Chamber of Commerce, told the BBC that his comments left the organisation with no option, as he had breached the BCC’s official position of neutrality on the referendum.

She said the BCC was a membership organisation with diverse views and their decision was to maintain a neutral stance on the referendum. Mr Longworth’s comments in his keynote speech at the conference had gone against that.

Her comments are patently untrue in light of the above evidence of the BCC’s position which is hardly neutral….but the BBC delves no further.

This was his speech from last year…

ON BRITAIN’S FUTURE PLACE IN EUROPE:

“My third theme arises from the challenges we face in our relationship with our near neighbours in Europe. Chamber members fundamentally support the Prime Minister’s position – Britain in a reformed Europe.

“I say – a new settlement for Britain in Europe is essential to achieving our economic ambitions – helping our businesses succeed here, at home, and across the world.

So he is advocating we stay in Europe…as long as it is reformed…essentially the position Cameron is in now..and yet no one objected to his pro-EU, not very ‘neutral’, statement last year.  Why not?

 

Why am I asking these questions about the BCC and not the highly resourced BBC?  It is clear that because Longworth is pro-Brexit he has been forced out and that the BCC is ‘institutionally’ pro-EU.

 

 

 

 

 

The quote what I didn’t wrote

Retweeted

Boris Johnson was interrupted 57 times on the Andrew Marr Show today; PM was only intrerrupted 23 times two weeks ago.

 

Andrew Marr when interviewing Boris Johnson (40 mins) misquoted by omission Gerard Lyons, suggesting that he said Brexit would entail a period of dislocation, uncertainty and job loss in the transition…there would be, Marr told us, a period when people lose their jobs using a quote from Lyons to back that up….this is what Lyons actually said….

Leaving the EU will come with transition costs. While the UK public may want quick wins, the most important thing will be stability, a road map for the future and a clear strategic vision. Just as a new government may require one or two full terms to implement its manifesto, likewise it will take a number of years to repatriate powers and laws to our country.

Brexit will be an economic shock. We encounter such events throughout our own lives, when we move house or change jobs. Unless planned for they can be disruptive. That doesn’t mean growth will contract or jobs will be lost, but investment plans may temporarily be put on hold.

Marr then quotes, I paraphrase… ‘Leaving the EU is always worse than the alternative…’….a quote chosen you might suspect to put a very negative spin on Brexit..But that is giving an impression so far from what Lyons thinks about the EU and Brexit it’s untrue…literally untrue…….

This is what he said…

Leaving the EU would be an economic shock. Most, if not all, economic shocks depress economic activity. Thus economic forecasts that focus on, say, a couple of years ahead would tend to show that leaving the EU is always worse than the alternative. In compiling the Europe Report we felt it would be more meaningful to look at the likely impact longer-term, rather than just the initial shock period. Indeed the very fact that this referendum is taking place, four decades after the previous referendum, appears to support the case for a longer-term view.

Why does Marr not quote all the stuff Lyons says in favour of Brexit?   Marr has deliberately plucked out a half a quote in order to back up a false claim that Lyons says Brexit will be worse for the UK….something Lyons clearly does not think…..as his Tweets confirm as he responds to Marr’s piece…..

 

Lyons himself is not impressed with Marr’s misuse of his words…..

 

 

 

Duck Donald

 

Trump isn’t anti-migrant or anti-Muslim…he wants to stop illegal migration and temporarily control Muslim entry to the US until they work out how to deal with the threat of Islamic State infiltrators who aim to kill as many Americans as possible…..many established Hispanics support Trump’s statement as they see the vast numbers of poor Mexicans as a threat to their livelihoods…whilst the Democrats want an open door policy because those vast numbers of poor Mexicans will usually vote Democrat…in the same way that Labour hoped immigrants to the UK would vote Labour.

Many middle-class, non-immigrant Hispanics worry that large-scale migration will undermine their hard-earned status as core Americans, impoverish their neighborhoods, drive up crime, worsen local schools and compete for jobs. Polls show the growing support for conservatives policies as Hispanics families root themselves in America — but the polls also show how the growing number of poor Hispanic immigrants keeps refreshing the Democratic supermajority among Hispanic voters.

The BBC for some reason doesn’t have a bad word to say about Obama rigging the election by importing millions of potential Democrat voters.

Let’s not forget this when the BBC attacks Trump for his comments about controlling Muslim immigration…Obama said……‘we are at war with ISIL’…

After the San Bernardino killings in December 2015, Obama acknowledged in a televised address to the nation that the US was at war, a concession he must have made with some reluctance.

At war?  Who with exactly?  Of what religion are they exactly?  If you’re at war then you have to take measures to control those who may adhere to the enemy’s ideology….the US didn’t just stop Japanese immigration after 1941 they interned all Japanese, even those born in the US.

Obama tries to have his cake and eat it by attacking Trump and then admitting some Muslim communities are radicalised…

 If we’re to succeed in defeating terrorism we must enlist Muslim communities as some of our strongest allies, rather than push them away through suspicion and hate. 

That does not mean denying the fact that an extremist ideology has spread within some Muslim communities.  This is a real problem that Muslims must confront, without excuse.

President Obama ended his address by saying, “Let’s not forget that freedom is more powerful than fear.” What he probably should have added is that freedom, to be more powerful than terror, must be successfully protected.

 

Jim Naughtie, along with the rest of the BBC, really seems to have it in for Donald Trump, or ‘The Donald’ as he calls him in a juvenile attempt to belittle him.

On Wednesday on the Today programme (08:10) the silken tones of Naughtie were put to use to mock and malign Trump but Naughtie also had a further dig later on in the day on The World At One…..as noted by Craig at Is the BBC biased? [need you really ask?]

Here’s Craig’s transcript of what Naughtie claimed Trump said and what he actually said….you might agree that what Naughtie missed out was rather important to the context and meaning…

Here’s a transcription of what listeners heard on The World at One. Would you really have assumed straight way that Donald Trump was talking specifically about Islamic State from this?:

James Naughtie: On international security you hear The Donald in full flow. This isn’t language the State Department would ever use, Nor a plan that any previous American administration would have contemplated. 

Donald Trump: I would bomb the shit out of ’em. I would just bomb those suckers. And, that’s right, I’d blow up the pipes. I’d blow up the refin….I’d blow up every single inch, and there would be nothin’ left. And you know what? You’ll get Exon to come in there and in two months…you ever seen these guys, how good they are, the great oil companies? They’ll rebuild that sucker, brand new. It will be beautiful. And I’d ring it, and I’d take the oil.

For context, here’s a fuller version of what Donald Trump said:

Donald Trump: ISIS is making a tremendous amount of money because they have certain oil camps, right? They have certain areas of oil that they took away. They have some in Syria, some in Iraq. I would bomb the shit out of ’em. I would just bomb those suckers. And, that’s right, I’d blow up the pipes. I’d blow up the refin….I’d blow up every single inch, and there would be nothin’ left. And you know what? You’ll get Exon to come in there and in two months…you ever seen these guys, how good they are, the great oil companies? They’ll rebuild that sucker, brand new. It will be beautiful. And I’d ring it, and I’d take the oil.

 

 

Craig says…

What’s puzzling me here is that what Donald Trump actually said is pretty jaw-dropping, isn’t it? So why would any critic of Donald Trump (especially a BBC one) want – or need – to gild the ‘offensive’ lily any more?

But actually as with much that Trump says there is more than an element of truth to it and his ideas are essentially what most people probably think but don’t articulate in such a forceful manner.

In fact both the British and US government think he’s right as they carry out that exact policy of ‘bombing the shit’ out of IS oil assets…

Austerity bites as Islamic State’s oil income hit by US-led bombing campaign

The US-led bombing campaign against Isil has cut its oil revenues and squeezed its finances to a point where it is cutting fighters’ salaries, according to a new report.

British Jets Strike IS Oil Refinery

Just hours after military action was approved, four British Tornado jets took off from their base in Cyprus to attack Islamic State targets in Syria. The first bombs were dropped on the Omar oil refineries in the east, that it’s believed were used to fund the terror group.

And as for what he said about Mexicans…

“[Mexico] are sending people that have lots of problems, and they are bringing those problems to us. They are bringing drugs, and bringing crime, and their rapists,” the business mogul said.

What did NATO General Breedlove say about immigration into Europe?…

US Gen Philip Breedlove said they were “weaponising” migration to destabilise and undermine the continent.

He also suggested that criminals, extremists and fighters were hiding in the flow of migrants.

Not a peep out of the BBC or the Guardian or all the others who attacked Trump for his comments so vocally.

Why are British prisons so full of foreigners now?  Open the borders and allow anyone to come here unchecked and uncontrolled and what do you expect?  The BBC et al don’t give a damn about the people murdered, the women raped, the thousands of victims of crime who wouldn’t be victims if we had proper border controls….they tried to whitewash Cologne, blame Paris and London on anyone but the people who carried out the attacks, and avoid associating any crime with immigrants….preferring not to mention ethnicity or religion if possible….such as in Rotherham where the BBC’s cover up still continues.