Question Time Live Chat

David Dimbleby presents this week’s show from Preston. On the panel are Ukip MP Douglas Carswell, Times columnist Melanie Philips, Conservative Sam Gyimah MP, Anti – English bigot Emily Thornbelly and comedian Russel Kane.
Kick off tonight at 22.50

Chat here, register here if necessary.

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Midweek Open Thread

 

A second referendum?  You’d think, listening to the BBC, that that was a perfectly reasonable and fair way to proceed.  You’d have no idea that it is a highly controversial, anti-democratic, unconstitutional, hugely dishonest and corrupt idea being peddled by pro-Remain politicians as they tour the BBC’s studios and get a warm welcome instead of an absolute roasting for their treachery and betrayal as they seek to ignore and toss out one of the most democratic votes in our history.

The BBC has long been telling us of the massive distrust of politicians and the breakdown of respect for the established order and yet make no comment about the lies, arrogant disregard, corruption and deceit that lie behind these manoeuvres to smash the referendum vote and keep the little people in their place.

Remember when the BBC trumpeted the socialist Occupy as they set about smashing the Establishment?…how different now when the revolution is perceived as a right-wing revolution.

Apparently the disillusionment of the masses can be safely ignored and the narrative that the old world order is in retreat from the forces of anti-politics and new insurgent People’s parties such as UKIP can be dismissed as dangerous talk that rouses and unleashes dark forces.  Want to smash capitalism, lynch the bankers and debag old Etonians, that’s fine…just don’t dare turn your back on the Empire.

The floor’s all yours….

 

S.O.B

 

The BBC want to attack Trump.  Always.  It’s just that they can’t always find anything of substance to use.  So they make it up.

 

What’s so bad about being called a ‘bitch’?

Donald Trump fans have been condemned for calling her one, while some of her supporters have urged her to be more of one. So why is Hillary Clinton so often associated with the word “bitch” – and how offensive is it?

Supporters of Donald Trump have sparked outrage in US media with merchandise attacking Hillary Clinton that many people say uses lewd and demeaning language.

T-shirts saying “Trump that bitch” and badges with similar mottos were found on display at rallies.

The BBC adds…

The shirts are not authorised by Mr Trump’s campaign. But a simple online search reveals a whole range of unofficial items such as bumper stickers displaying the same word in reference to the first female presidential candidate for a major party in the US.

…but they carry on as if Trump personally endorsed and signed every t-shirt and in fact accuse him of…

“whipping up his fans in this kind of blood bath, in a specifically threatening and violent way”.

Allegedly ‘Bitch’ was never really an insult…

Meanwhile Tom Dalzell, a slang expert, believes the taboo around using it now is greater than ever before because there is more of an expectation that women will be treated fairly. Slurs that are specifically directed at certain groups of people are seen as unacceptable, he adds.

“It has come to show hatred in a way it didn’t 30 years ago.”

I guess the term ‘Son of a Bitch’ was not an insult wayback when then?

Bitch, literally meaning a female dog, is a slang pejorative for a person, commonly a woman, who is belligerent, unreasonable, malicious, a control freak, rudely intrusive or aggressive. When applied to a man, bitch is a derogatory term for a subordinate. Its original use as a vulgarism, documented to the fourteenth century.

BBC talks bollocks when it suits.

Odd the BBC doesn’t show a similar concern for the insults targeted at Trump, or indeed for the abuse and hatred aimed at Leave voters.

He has his own Facebook page…..

 

Fuck Donald Trump's profile photo

Fuck Donald Trump@fucdonaldtrump

He may have a Facebook page but he has no father…

Donald Trump is a Bastard.

 

And sweet little Hilary calls him a Nazi…

He’s of ‘German heritage’: Hillary baits fans into calling Trump a Nazi

Hillary Clinton lobbed the video equivalent of a Nazi buzz bomb at Donald Trump on Saturday by making his German heritage a campaign issue.

The 37-second clip decrying Trump’s attacks on federal Judge Gonzalo Curiel’s Mexican heritage was subtle — but fans and foes got the message: Clinton thinks Trump, like the Nazis, hates people based on their race.

“His heritage is German. Heil Trump!” tweeted Trump foe Michael Gilmor‏.

“We can all hear the ‘dog whistle’ — she’s calling ‘Drumpf’ a Nazi because he’s German,” posted James Sweitzer.

 

Funny the things that interest the BBC and the things that don’t.

 

 

“White Trash shouldn’t be allowed to vote!!”

 

The Young are up in arms, disenfranchised (couldn’t be arsed to get out of bed), marginalised, ignored, demeaned and …and…ooohh…it’s soooooo unfair!!!!

Meme

Rather than take to the streets with a Koran in one hand and an AK in the other they’ve taken en masse to modern liberal guerrilla fighter’s weapons of choice, Twitter, Facebook and the dread power of the online petition….but what might be familiar to any Jihadi is the BBC’s support and understanding for their grievances and its determination to press their case for them without much in the way of critical thought or analysis. The Young, we are told, don’t like Brexit and that’s good enough for the BBC…the case rests.

 

 

Good job Twitter, Facebook and Change.org weren’t around in 1975 or else all those youngsters who were denied the vote then would have been savaging the Oldies as now…. but now the old dogs have had their day.  And what about all those bastards who joined the army to fight the Nazis in WWII?  What a load of selfish f*****s eh? The underage who couldn’t join  up might have wanted to surrender if only they’d been given the chance.  We could have had a beautiful EU long ago of it hadn’t been for the British Armys’ killers and murderers who destroyed the dream…..yeah Hitler may have killed 6 million Jews but the motorways, the socialism, the pride and unity across Europe, the smart uniforms, just think…and anyway Hitler only killed the Jews coz of what the Israelis were doing in Gaza…so you know…like…they deserved it…only saying what I heard on the BBC.

Brendan O’Neil talks about the massive drive to overturn the democratic vote (the most democratic vote…far more than any general election), part of which is the loud campiagn by the ‘yoof’ to try and claim they were somehow robbed of their future and therefore, in some shape or form, the vote should be run again…only with the young getting two votes each presumably.

The BBC has been very supportive and has been running through all the possible permutations and excuses for a rerun….if only Angie had got out of bed, if only George had not been out of his skull at Glastonbury, if only Alfie’s mum had let him out to play….the vote could have been so different.

This is all part of the BBC’s own campaign to delegitimise the vote.  The BBC has many angles of attack not least of which of course is the usual omission or downplaying of inconvenient and awkward facts, such as the Obama backtracking on the perils of Brexit and his new found criticism and scepticism about the EU project, as well as a remarkable reluctance to ask questions about the Remain campaign’s astoundingly dishonest and alarmist claims and threats whilst forensically and relentlessly attacking Leave’s claims.  The BBC, along with others, want to make out that the stupid voters were fooled by ‘lies’ and so the vote can be annulled.

Alastair Campbell tweeted: ‘EU law allows customers to withdraw from contract if contract based on lies. LEAVE agenda riddled with them. Lawyers on the case.’

The BBC disgracefully, but as per normal for them, portrays the voters as thick, ignorant and uneducated and not a little bigoted.

The BBC dresses up its own bigotry as ‘research’ which tells us that Leave voters are all a bit thick and uneducated…

Was there a Brexit graduate gap?

Voters without degrees were more likely to back leaving the European Union, figures suggest.

Along with age, class and the part of the UK you live in, graduate status was one of the key factors that influenced whether or not you supported EU membership, election analysts believe.

Andrej handed out leaflets for the Remain campaign. At first, every British-born voter he spoke to told him they were voting Remain. But then all of a sudden, “on Facebook they were saying ‘We’re using pens to vote‘”.

It’s not malice that drives suspicion of foreigners and conspiracy theories, he believes. “Some of the people here are not educated good. They don’t have access to the information in full.”

The BBC may slip in the odd qualifier that things are ‘complicated’ but the message is plain….the less educated you are the more you are likely to vote Leave..and the more likely you are to be fooled by the propaganda…..as the Guardian insists…

A week before the referendum, pollsters working for Britain Stronger in Europe admitted that they were getting extremely worried about Vote Leave’s suggestion that £350m sent to the EU could be diverted to British priorities such as the NHS. Guardian focus groups in Brighton and Knowsley suggested many voters saw the message and believed it.

One woman in Merseyside told the group: “Just think, we could get £20bn back a year and make the country great again.”

The BBC has been making strenuous efforts to attack the £350 million pound claim by Leave and suggest that, as the Guardian does, this led to voters being misled and as they have based their vote upon it…let’s all vote again.  As said though…no such analysis and conclusions about the Remain campaign’s claims.

I noted that Nick Robinson and Sarah Montague both (an editorial decision?  Must be) used the same way of talking about the £350m in interviews on Saturday with Leave representatives along the lines that ‘If you can’t get all that £350m back…’.  It’s a bear trap for Leave that the BBC deliberately set…..because if they say ‘But we won’t get £350m back…’ the BBC leaps in and says ah but your whole campaign was based upon that (when the BBC isn’t alternately, when it suits, claiming the campaign was based on immigration) and you now admit it was a lie.  It has been the BBC that has been claiming Leave said we would get the whole £350m back…..Leave have always qualified their statement by admitting that we get a rebate and that the EU spends some of that money on UK projects…Leave’s point, missed again and again by Humphrys and Co, was that it is the UK government that should choose how to spend that money not an unelected EU bureaucrat.

The BBC has been trying very, very hard to find evidence to ‘prove’ Remain’s biblical claims of doom and disaster are coming true……and yet it is a mere 5 days since the vote and things are bound to be jittery….the more reasoned predictions always said short term the economy would take a moderate tumble but would bounce back possibly stronger.  The BBC opts to report the market and sterling falls as signs of Osborne’s impending doom and ignores that long term things will improve.

One other tactic in the campaign to delegitimise the vote is to claim it has led to attacks on foreigners in the UK…

‘Go back home’ – Bitter backlash post EU referendum

No proof of course that is true but now every racist attack will be so labelled….and yet as we know all too well the BBC relentlessly reported such attacks before the vote.  Many such reports may well be false…the arson at a Halal butchers seems somewhat dubious…not the first time such fires have been set for insurance or to blame ‘racists’ …remember the Darul Uloom school ‘arson’?  Four boys arrested…no names and no convictions?  Why not?  Was the fire set by boys from the school themselves in order to blame the EDL in the wake of the killing of Lee Rigby and to make out that Muslims are the real victims of such murders?

In 2014 Poles were being attacked…in ‘Remain’ country too…

Seven attacks in 10 days as racist gang targets Polish community in east Belfast

The BBC themselves reported that Polish immigrants were the attackers in some hate crimes….

Poles held over Sweden asylum centre attack plot

Cameron of course has joined the bandwagon and made his opportunist speech about ‘hate crimes’ linking the latest attacks to Brexit and yet nowhere do we hear him express any concern for the Leave voters attacked and abused in what are equally ‘hate crimes’.  Why are the police not investigating the ‘Liberal’ terror squads on Twitter and in the streets who vilify Leave voters?

The BBC has done a story on this and yet it’s of lower profile than its mainstream stories about immigrants being attacked and somehow it’s just not really a hate crime.

Jane Kelly in Conservative Woman relates a few more tales…

By 4.40 am on Friday 24th, it was clear that the mass of people in the UK had voted to quit the EU, doing so in a bigger number than have ever voted on any issue in any British ballot before. Surprised and amazed I went for a morning walk with a friend visiting from London. He was wearing a red ‘Leave’ T-shirt, not to be provocative but it was the only thing he’d brought with him to wear. I hadn’t noticed it at all, so I was surprised when a fat youth, wearing an earring and tight shorts shouted at us: ‘You should be ashamed! Ashamed! You have ruined the lives of a whole generation!’

And this…

On BBC-2’s Newsnight that night we were treated to a small forum in which someone with the unlikely name, ‘Paris Lees’  a ‘transgender rights activist,’ who writes on Twitter that ‘it’s time for a revolution of love,’ declared that the Leave campaign had been a load of deliberate lies. She/he railed about old people ruining the future for her generation. Dr David Starkey asked her/him quite logically if she/he would like a cut off point for voting, people over 65 perhaps not being allowed to vote at all, or younger people having two votes?

She/he then turned her/his loving gaze onto Dr David Starkey, discounting his opinion because, she said, he was a ‘privileged, white male.’

Perhaps we should have a cut off point for the terminally stupid and idiotic…perhaps Newsnight should as well…why waste our time with ‘interesting’ morons?  Then again….Paul Mason.

The BBC has a strange logic…it gathers in every single tale of racist attack, pronounces them as the fallout from the Brexit vote and implies that Brexit is therefore a bad thing.

Compare how it reports on crimes by immigrants.  There are thousands of crimes committed by immigrants in the UK ranging from murder and rape to shoplifting and fraud…and yet the BBC does not make any link to ‘immigration’ and certainly does not draw the conclusion that perhaps immigration has some drawbacks and maybe it should be controlled.

Perhaps Mark Easton or Evan Davis would like to explain how open borders was good for the family of Alice Gross…tied up, raped, abused and killed?

Foreigners entering Britain ‘were not routinely checked for convictions at the time Alice Gross’ Latvian killer came to UK’

Alice Gross would almost certainly be alive today if it hadn’t been for the EU’s freedom of movement rule as he wouldn’t have tried to come here.

Mark Easton, who sits on the BBC sofa blithely telling us how immigration is good for us and that it is unstoppable so we’d better get used to it, should be ashamed of himself.

Yelling abuse at a Muslim in a headscarf or raping and murdering a 14 year old girl.  Which is worse?  Depends who does the crime says the BBC.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Atonement

 

 

As the BBC ramps up the scare stories about the post-referendum fallout, incites anger and discontent between generations and shape their ‘news’ so that it paints a picture of disaster brought to us by the ‘lies’ of the Brexit campaign leaders, it manages to somehow avoid talking about the massive exaggerations predicting apocalypse, plague, famine and war….or rather they ignore that hype and instead are busy telling us how brilliantly prescient Goerge Osborne was with his Mystic Meg act, never mind he has shelved his punishing ’emergency budget’ claim…..and a mere 5 days after the vote the BBC is already desperately casting around for horror stories about the ‘Brexit effect’ on ‘your lives and businesses’.

Where are the reports on the pro-Leave thoughts of Mervyn King?  The BBC did interview him and yet you don’t hear his words at all quoted to you by presenters…it’s the usual BBC fail where important and relevant information is picked up by a specialist programme but either doesn’t get disseminated out to the shopfloor or the presenters choose to ignore what is inconvenient to their narrative.

The same with Obama who has now come out with a completely different tone to the one he used previously when threatening to isolate the UK….the BBC gave him top billing and constant coverage of his previous remarks…now he is sidelined to a mere minute or so video story on the sidebar.   What he says goes totally against the grain of the Remain camp and in fact backs Leave as he tells us how the EU isn’t working…..

 

Where is the analysis that the political fallout is due to the Party ‘leaders’ ‘ cowardice and not ‘Brexit’ contagion?….Corbyn failed to live by his principles and Cameron betrayed the nation by jumping ship and leaving it rudderless.  Cameron should ship out completely and Boris should be ‘regent’ and put temporarily in charge to open immediate negotiations with the EU… the situation demands someone rapidly takes political control in order to reduce confusion and uncertainty about what a post-Brexit Britain would look like.  The basic ideas are simple….to continue good business relations with the EU and to deal with the issue of immigration and free movement as well as to maintain cooperation on issues such as health costs for travellers which benefit both sides.   The BBC’s attempt to blame Boris & Co for having no blueprint for Brexit is highly dishonest as it was not Boris’ job to do that, he just led the campaign to vote out, he merely represented the wishes of the voters based upon the broad message of controlling immigration and taking back sovereignty, control of our own politics.  It was really Cameron’s job to prepare for the either scenario of Brexit or Remain…instead he has deliberately put a spanner in the works in order to slow down Brexit and spread chaos and uncertainty in the hope that an excuse can be made to shelve Brexit.

The Telegraph spells it out better than I can whilst the BBC doesn’t even bother to try and question Cameron’s actions and motives…

It was David Cameron’s job to prepare Britain for the possibility of Brexit

Boris Johnson and other leaders of the Leave campaign have been denounced for not having a fully fledged plan for Brexit. But this wilfully misunderstands the purpose of a referendum. David Cameron called the vote, so it is hardly outrageous to suggest he should have made some preparations for what happened if he lost. That, after all, is the Government’s job – not to second-guess the outcome. It was never in the gift of Mr Johnson, Michael Gove et al to instruct Whitehall to make contingency plans, because the official government position was to stay in the EU.

Preparations have clearly been inadequate: it was wrong and short-sighted not to instruct the Civil Service to prepare for a Brexit vote. By definition an In/Out referendum can have one of two results and to ignore the possibility of a Leave victory was complacent in the extreme. Some arrangements were clearly in place, as testified by the swift and reassuring statements from Mark Carney, the Bank of England Governor, and George Osborne, the Chancellor, designed to calm the markets. Unfortunately, one of the reasons they were so spooked was the apocalyptic warnings made during the campaign by the Bank and the Treasury.

BBC’s highly selective reading

 

Boris has written a piece for the Telegraph [but he needs to be out on the stump making loud noises demanding action] in which he lays out his vision for the future.  The BBC’s interpretation of what he said manages to miss out a lot that is inconvenient and selectively quotes parts, in part, and tries to give us the message that Boris is backing away from Brexit and is really carrying on pretty much as normal with the EU…..the title itself is misleading in its emphasis…

Johnson vows EU cooperation after referendum result

Kind of misleading that, suggesting a hand-in-hand approach with the ‘EU’, business as normal, as what Boris actually says, and the BBC later admits is this…

I cannot stress too much that Britain is part of Europe, and always will be. There will still be intense and intensifying European cooperation and partnership in a huge number of fields: the arts, the sciences, the universities, and on improving the environment. EU citizens living in this country will have their rights fully protected, and the same goes for British citizens living in the EU. 

He’s definitely not offering up open borders, political and economic union and subjugation to the ECJ and ECHR.

The BBC tells us he said this…

The leading pro-Leave campaigner said exit supporters must accept the 52-48 result was “not entirely overwhelming”.

That gives the idea that maybe we won’t really get Brexit but just an adjustment of the rules maybe to placate the Remainers…but again that’s not really what Boris meant…

There were more than 16 million who wanted to remain. They are our neighbours, brothers and sisters who did what they passionately believe was right. In a democracy majorities may decide but everyone is of equal value.  We who are part of this narrow majority must do everything we can to reassure the Remainers. We must reach out, we must heal, we must build bridges – because it is clear that some have feelings of dismay, and of loss, and confusion. 

Reassurance…that’s all Boris offers not an under-the-counter ‘EU-lite’ deal for the poor old [or is that ‘young’?] Remainers.

He also tells us that their feelings of loss and confusion are the result of being misled by the Remain campaign…

I believe that this climate of apprehension is understandable, given what people were told during the campaign, but based on a profound misunderstanding about what has really taken place.

…Not see that in the BBC report.

The BBC does tell us this….the only change will be…hmmm…very small…

“The only change – and it will not come in any great rush – is that the UK will extricate itself from the EU’s extraordinary and opaque system of legislation: the vast and growing corpus of law enacted by a European Court of Justice from which there can be no appeal.”

But Boris says a whole lot more…why does the BBC miss out the important bit about immigration and the repatriation of the money we send to the EU?……They were after all two of the major planks of the Leave campaign…..

It goes without saying that we [The UK] are much better together in forging a new and better relationship with the EU – based on free trade and partnership, rather than a federal system. 

The only change – and it will not come in any great rush – is that the UK will extricate itself from the EU’s extraordinary and opaque system of legislation: the vast and growing corpus of law enacted by a European Court of Justice from which there can be no appeal. This will bring not threats, but golden opportunities for this country – to pass laws and set taxes according to the needs of the UK. 

Yes, the Government will be able to take back democratic control of immigration policy, with a balanced and humane points-based system to suit the needs of business and industry. Yes, there will be a substantial sum of money which we will no longer send to Brussels, but which could be used on priorities such as the NHS. Yes, we will be able to do free trade deals with the growth economies of the world in a way that is currently forbidden. 

There is every cause for optimism; a Britain rebooted, reset, renewed and able to engage with the whole world.

The BBC massages Boris’ article to give us the misleading perception that he is backing out of Brexit and any major changes, especially to immigration.  The BBC mischieviously trying to sow dissent, confusion and anger in the Brexit ranks?  No, never!

 

Get a F***ing Grip!!!

 

 

What is Cameron’s gameplan?

He called a referendum knowing full well that he could lose it and when he did he ran for cover and is refusing to take responsibility for his actions allowing the country to fall into wild speculation, fear, bitterness and confusion.

He is allowing the extremists to make all the running from the Scottish National Socialists to the IRA’s mouthpiece, various Neo-Nazi groups and the opportunist anarchists of the Far Left.

For a man who protrayed himself as the head of  ‘One Nation’ it seems that that is only true if  ‘One Nation’ votes his way…otherwise the People can go hang.

Cameron betrayed the trust of the People in the way he ran his intemperate, bullying and abusive campaign and hijacked the government and its resources to back his private campaign, and he has compounded that by the cowardly way he has ducked the responsibility of guiding us through Brexit.

You may suspect that Cameron has chosen this path deliberately, a ploy, by refusing to invoke Article 50 and the Brexit process, to actually ensure chaos does happen in the ‘phoney Brexit’ period and that during the delay enough chaos and economic destruction can be wrought that an excuse can be made to delay Brexit and quietly shelf it.  He probably expects his resignation will lead to a general election (Labour certainly does, hence Hilary Benn’s departure) and once that is over the new government will say ‘EU Referendum…nothing to do with us…its over’.

Call me suspicious, but that’s a very obvious scenario and one that is almost guaranteed to play out.

If Cameron won’t get a grip, and where is Osborne?, then Boris and Co better had, and fast, to reassure the people who voted for them, to reassure the immigrants already here that they are secure, and to settle nerves in the markets and businesses, and to shut down the wild and frantic voices who get more desperate everyday to destroy Brexit.

The BBC of course should , obliged as it is by its Charter, be promoting civil society and cohesion and to do that should be doing much of the reassuring of people itself by putting out the facts and not predicting economic and social apocalypse.

Instead it ferments rebellion and the break up of the UK and incites anger against the older generations.  Instead it sees its job as to report the misery, chaos and confusion it will claim are created by Brexit. Over the next few weeks the BBC will be highlighting every single job loss, every fluctuation in the exchange rate, every share price tumble, every word of concern and every time an East European is abused for being here.  It will build a case to ‘prove’ that Brexit is a never ending disaster and should be stopped.

Neither Cameron nor the BBC come out of this well and you might think it a paradox that for all the warnings about economic doom and disaster they seem intent on actually creating that in order to put the brakes on Brexit.

If Cameron won’t govern and lead the country then Boris had better just take over now and get the ball rolling…take ‘control’.  Wasn’t that the idea?  Ironically even the EU wants a fast Brexit…..they can see the chaos that Cameron’s plan will unleash and clearly think the end does not justify the means…especially as Spain, France and Italy are imploding and other countries want major reforms.

 

ID in the comments provides some evidence that the above may well be true….

Have just been listening to Sir Peter Torry, a former ambassador to Germany pushing the Lammy line on German media. I am beginning to think that some parliamentary attempt may be made to circumvent the Brexit result. The Mandarins and Sir Humphries obviously are as one in their loathing of Brexit.
German journalists are trying to say that the delay in starting the Brexit negotions is a loss of nerve and no one wants to declare it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Open Thread

Looks like time for another of these as the BBC pushes hard for another referendum….we can expect many a lurid tale of apocalypse in the following weeks as the BBC tries to paint a picture of utter disaster and chaos ‘due to Brexit’ and the need for an emergency rethink in the interests of ‘peace and stability’.  The floor is yours.