Monthly Archives: March 2016

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.

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.

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.

Ok folks, Friday arrives and here is a new Open Thread to see us off into the wide blue yonder of the weekend! THIS is where you detail the endless bias from the rancid biased BBC. Enjoy 🙂

It’s quite amazing to read the starry-eyed treatment the BBC affords the latest claims from Chairman Mao fan John McDonnell.

Labour insisted that the new rule was not a commitment to spend more money than the present government. Chancellor George Osborne has put in place rules saying that the government will create an overall budget surplus “in normal times”. Labour voted against the rule in Parliament, and Mr McDonnell said any future Labour government wanted to invest more than the Conservatives. Which could mean more borrowing. The Office for Budget Responsibility – the government’s economic watchdog – will be given new powers to “whistle blow” when it believes that the “credibility rule” has been breached. And under the Labour plans it will also report to Parliament rather than the Treasury.

Spot the weasel word from the BBC. Yes. it’s “could”. OF COURSE McDonnell will increase spending – but he redefines that as “investment” in true Marxist fashion.

An eagle eyed reader sent me this!

“Less than 12 hours after first publishing what I would think is a pretty major story, it has now been burried on the bbc news site:

ECB stimulus surprise sends stock markets sliding

The telgraph are leading with it in their business section:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/

and the Times:

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/business/

The BBC will bury any story that shows the EU as anything less than an economic paradise. This suits Mr Cameron very well at this time.

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...

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.

David Dimbleby presents Question Time from Dundee. On the panel: leader of the Scottish Conservatives Ruth Davidson MSP, deputy first minister of Scotland John Swinney MSP, Shadow cabinet secretary for Health & Wellbeing Jenny Marra MSP, Scottish Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie MSP, Scottish Greens MSP Patrick Harvie and Daily Telegraph columnist Tim Stanley.

An enthralling prospect, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Kick off tonight (Thursday) at 22.50

Chat here, register here if necessary.

Time for a new OPEN thread for you to detail the bias. The floor is yours….