BY HIS OWN PETARD…

Oz PM Kevin Rudd has been ousted, largely because his popularity had plummeted because he was pursuing insane greenie policies. The centrepiece was a ludicrously high tax on the mining industry, despite the fact that minerals extraction is the current main reason for Australia’s prosperity. He can be seen as one of the first major politicians to have been ousted by his greenie arrogance and lunacy. Every element of his eco-wackery was increasingly unpopular with the electorate. For the BBC, though, the reason for his demise is simple; he bottled out on introducing new CO2 emissions targets. And the mining tax? Well, according to the BBC report, it is only a “super tax on the super rich” (code in BBC terms for being a highly desirable, necessary measure); not a breath of a mention that Australian voters were desperately concerned that Mr Rudd was the architect of a whole suite of legislation the sole purpose of which was to lower living standards in the name of eco-worship.

BRAYNELESS

A truly chilling insight into the BBC mindset is provided by former BBC and Reuters correspondent Mark Brayne, who has now become – rather terrifyingly, given his views – a psychotherapist. In his case, the emphasis is definitely on the first part of the word. This nutjob, who takes the Dr David Gregory/BBC mindset I explored yesterday to its witchfinder-general logical conclusions, fervently believes that those who are sceptical about climate change need psychotherapy, and has written a so-called paper to support his mental fascism. Read it and weep; the insane truly do have the keys to the asylum – broadcast journalism is colonised by dangerous people. This is why the BBC pursues its greenie agenda with such fervour. One quote from this pile of garbage is sufficient to show Mr Brayne’s approach:

…as therapists and as fellow human beings, we must seek to help our two opening clients – Gaia and her children – to work together to understand the threats that face them, and together empower both ourselves and those who govern us to make the choices and changes that might yet avert the worst.

The whole paper is in similar vein. What is even more chilling is that this BBC man of science and mental well-being has been addressing a conference of newsgatherers in Germany about his views. The agenda shows how much world-wide media, as well as the BBC, are lying to us about climate change and are re-doubling their propaganda efforts, despite rising scepticism. Mr Brayne also advises journalists how to deal with stress after they have been exposed to traumatic situations. God help them; I think I’d prefer a spell in a war zone any time.

Update: I’ve now been in full through the agenda of the climate change news conference at which Mark Brayne is speaking. Also there as speakers are other BBC staff: among them, Grace Davies, who is new media editor at the BBC World Service Trust, and Anna Godfrey, who is in charge of research for the Trust. That’s the BBC arm, of course, as I have mentioned before, that specialises in terrifying the developing world with climate change alarmism. As usual, the BBC is at the forefront of international efforts to spread propaganda.

THE ESTEEMED DR GREGORY…

I note that we have had a contribution from Dr David Gregory, who works for the BBC in Birmingham, and who is both a science graduate and reports on the environment. B-BBC readers might also be interested to know that he comes from that same self-smug lefty mindset that treats anyone who dissents from BBC orthodoxy with complete disdain – and responds to anyone who disagrees with that orthdoxy with sarcastic ad hominem attacks and menacing claims that the science proves his stance. Familiar? The background is that Melanie Phillips noted in her blog that David Bellamy (he who has been barred from the BBC since it became plain that he disagreed with their line on global warming) had marshalled evidence to show why warmist claims were wrong in at least some of their detail. None of what he said was based on personality. This is how the esteemed Dr Gregory responded:

…I’m a BBC Environment Correspondent and I have a PhD in Physics. But of course as Ms Phillips points out, qualifications mean nothing in the face of her certainty on this issue. I’ve had a brief correspondence with Ms Phillips before about her interesting approach to climate change science. I look forward to continuing that on her blog. Perhaps it’s worth repeating. I am not told what to report by the BBC and I am not forbidden from reporting certain things. I simply report the science. That’s my job. That’s what I do. What Ms Phillips posts here is illuminating. I mean what is her actual argument? It seems to be based around appeals to “common sense” and what Stephen Colbert calls “truthiness”. Not the truth as such but rather simple facts that are based on a deep seated feeling about what is right. Following your gut feeling rather than your head. I think at worst this is intellectually lazy (after all, what is common sense but the label we give our own prejudice?) but it’s certainly not science. Which is after all, all we have to explain the world around us.

Relax chaps. We can all tell that science reporting is in safe, unbiased, hands at the BBC.

SPEND, SPEND SPEND….

Following Sue’s post yesterday about Christine Bleakley leaving the BBC for ITV, BBC creative director Alan Yentob – a man who has shown notable creativity in personal expense claims – has claimed in the Times (no link, I’m afraid- the Times won’t allow it) that the days of the BBC having “deep pockets” to hire talent are over. Some would say that in itself was a tad disingenuous as the BBC spends £229m a year on such offensive morons as Jonathan Ross, Nicky Campbell and Anne Robinson. But meanwhile, Paul Revoir at the Daily Mail points out the true picture. While the rest of us are forced to tighten our belts in today’s budget, dear old auntie is sending 1,000 staff and spending upwards of £5m in just a week covering the World Cup, Glastonbury and Wimebledon. Among the all-out extravagance, a chap called Dotun Adebayo has presented three of his Up All Night shows from Ghana – 2,000 miles from the world cup action. A total of £12m is being spent on the “totaly overboard” world cup coverage, while 400 BBC boys and girls are going to Glastonbury this year – up from the more modest 292 last year. We don’t know yet whether Mr Yentob himself will be repeating his BBC-paid-for Glastonbury bash of two years ago at his nearby country estate bought with our money. But one thing is for sure. The chill winds of austerity have not yet hit the corridors of the BBC. And “creativity” at the BBC is not about art or programmes; it’s all about spending our cash.

Correction: I’ve made a botch of the figures – 400 are going to Glastonbury, but the 292 refers to those at the world cup not Glastonbury last year. Humble apologies for so maligning the esteemed corporation. But, heck, what’s a hundred or so here or there in BBC accounting?

WHITEWASH!

BBC correspondent Dan Collyns has got form. As I reported back in February, he was caught red-handed making nonsense predictions that the seas round the Galapagos Islands were heating up so fast that they were heading for boiling point. This eco-propagandist, who belongs to greenie alarmist group GRNlive, is at it again, this time reporting that a group of Peruvians have become so brainwashed and deluded as a result of propaganda pushed by lunatics like Mr Collins that they are actually painting bits of the Andes white in the hope that it will help reflect heat and stop glaciers melting. No matter that it’s nonsense to suggest that Andean galciers are melting because of ‘climate change’ (many scientists believe that melting is cyclical and exaggerated by other factors); lay aside, too, that it’s the most stupid idea since Cnut tried to stop the tide coming in (although, actually that story is a myth; the Andes one isn’t). To the the BBC and Mr Collins, it’s all good scare-mongering stuff, so it must be news.

HUMPHRYS: EUROSCEPTIC?

John Humphrys writes for the Daily Mail about the EU and claims – with breathtaking arrogance that oozes from every condescending sentence – that the corporation might have been guilty of not recognising eurosceptics enough. Pardon? Which parallel BBC universe does he live in? He and his cohorts have ignored and poured scorn on euroscepticism for years; they have also made bias by omission (i.e not properly reporting EU affairs so that the public is unaware of what is actually going on)into a fine art.

First, though, in his mock mea culpa, he wheels out the oldest canard in the BBC armoury; that the reporting of the EU by the corporation over the years must have been pretty much balanced because coverage has come under fire from europhiles too. The Wilson report into the BBC’s coverage of the EU (published after an inquiry in 2005, but subsequently totally ignored by smug news executives) comprehensively demolished that line.

Second, he claims disingenuously that it was Margaret Thatcher who signed the Single European Act in 1986, thereby paving the way for “ever closer union”. His point here is clearly ludicrously contrived to suggest that everyone, including Mrs Thatcher, supported the expansion of the EU; thus the BBC was right in giving weight in its coverage towards that process.

What he fails to mention, of course, is the bull elephant in the room; that Margaret Thatcher almost immediately regretted that signing, and it gave birth in subsequent years to the powerful growth of the current eurosceptic movement (in the country at large as well as among the Westminster elite) which the BBC has disgracefully under-reported and ignored (again as pointed out by the Wilson report), while characterising those who dislike the process of integration, as right-wing nutters. Humphrys himself, with his sidekick, the execrable James Naughtie, have been among the ringleaders of those at the BBC who systematically deride and denigrate anyone who dares to express the idea that Britain should leave the EU.

Third, he claims in his preposterous analysis that eurosceptics might finally be proved right by the pressures on the euro triggered by the recent financial problems in Greece. But why on earth has he only woken up to this now? When the euro was launched, almost a decade ago, Today devoted an entire programme to a virtually unqualified eulogy supporting its importance. In the intervening years, the programme has massively under-reported, ignored or ridiculed those who have warned that the vile currency is a Trojan Horse; another wedge designed principally to further more integration and to isolate those who oppose it.

When it comes to the EU, John Humphrys and every man jack of them at the BBC know only how to misrepresent and to grossly insult those who oppose the jackbooted fascists of Brussels; those sinister forces who today, as I write, are engaged in calling for further “economic government” (i.e. more powers). Surprise, surprise, there’s no mention on the BBC website of this latest blatant power grab. Mr Humphrys’ article only serves to underline the corporation’s euro-fanaticism.

BIOFUEL NONSENSE….

Don’t ya just love ’em – the greenies? BBC global warmist alarmist Mark Kinver details here the truly terrifying row between “environmentalists” and the European Commission over biofuels. On the one side, the EU is doing what it does best – creating new layers of lunatic bureaucracy to “certify” that forests cut down for biofuel are not doing ecological harm. They proudly declare that their new laws are the “most stringent” (i.e. most repressive) in the world. Over in the other corner, those “environmentalists” (to the BBC, the most saintly group of people on earth) are yelping that – despite years of pressure to force biofuel production – they now think that cutting down trees by the million to do so is not a good idea. Mr Kinver, of course, reports it all without any attempt at balance. Centre stage in his mincing words are Sebastien Risso of Greenpeace, and – how utterly shameful that this should be the case – the Conservative MEP spokesman, who apparently applauds and supports the EU measures.

Not one squeak, of course, from Mr Kinver about the twin elephants in the room: It was the greenies who caused this idiotic quest for biofuels when we don’t need them, and are now reaping the whirlwind; and that the EU’s role in ploughing on relentless to wreak ecological havoc is beyond parody, but entirely true to form. We are ruled by eurocrats (supported by the Cleggerons)who make Stalin look amateur.

LIKE MINDS

Has anyone being following the terrifying messages being delivered with chilling fanaticism in this year’s annual BBC propaganda-fest, the Reith lectures? Lord Rees of Ludlow regards humankind as a disease or a “fever”. Man-made global warming is an indisputable fact that must be tackled before and above everything else. He talks menacingly about over-population and unsustainability (so did Hitler). He postulates a new cadre of scientists (who think similarly to himself, of course) to control political decisions. He demands that CO2 consumption be rationed throughout the world at much lower levels than that in the west (thereby condemning millions to fuel poverty). He wants Britain to focus away from traditional manufacturing (i.e. that which provides what people actually want) towards green energy (ie on what they don’t want, that doesn’t work, isn’t necessary, and is viable only with massive subsidy).

In short, this is the groupthink and the creed of the BBC; it’s through these talks you can see the true mindset and agenda.

WASHING OVER THEM….

The BBC Sydney correspondent Nick Bryant – a chap who clearly just adores OZ PM Kevin Rudd’s climate lunacy – reports here on the news that islands like Tuvalu are not, after all, in any danger of being flooded by global warming; in fact, according to the latest research, the reverse is true, the islands are actually growing. But this doesn’t deter our Nick from pursuing his alarmist agenda:

But although these islands might not be submerged under the waves in the short-term, it does not mean they will be inhabitable in the long-term, and the scientists believe further rises in sea levels pose a significant danger to the livelihoods of people living in Tuvalu, Kiribati and the Federated States of Micronesia.

Never let the facts get in the way is clearly his motto. He also quotes the locals as saying that despite the facts, they still are going to drown (and, by the way, they need milllions of pounds of aid from the west).

This die-hard approach is hardly surprising, really. The BBC has been at the forefront of reporting that half the world (and Tuvalu in particular) is going to drown for at least a decade; the intro to this piece from David Shukman (in 2008) is typical:

The fragile strips of green that make up the small islands of Tuvalu are incredibly beautiful but also incredibly vulnerable.The group of nine tiny islands in the South Pacific only just break the surface of the ocean – but for how much longer?

How long will it be before eco-activists such as Bryant and Shukman acknowledge that whenever claims about climate change are subjected to scientific analysis, they disintegrate? Don’t hold your breath.

WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN

I am not an unqualified fan of Melanie Phillips; sometimes she seems a tad too rigid and a tad too pious in her pronouncements. But her new book, The World Turned Upside Down, is a fascinating – and riveting – read for all those who wonder where the BBC’s Jew-hating, tree-hugging, anti-religious, industry-bashing, climate change fanatical, lefty-loving mindset comes from. Her central theory is that such causes are now espoused by BBC types because they believe that they are “liberal” – but in reality, the agenda of all of the various trendy “-isms” is authoritarian state control of a type best exmplified by Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia. And very relevant to the current Jew-bashing that is going on, Ms Phillips trenchantly reminds us in the book that in 2009, the BBC Trustees rebuked BBC Middle East “expert” Jeremy Bowen for claiming that the Israeli agenda in the six days war was not to protect itself from Arab aggression, but to finish the unfinished business of 1948 – to capture East Jerusalem. It’s also relevant to Mr Bowen’s latest reports of hate over the past few days that he received only a mild rap over the knuckles for this outrageous claim; clearly, the Trustees’ real agenda was to allow him to carry on regardless.