PROJECT FEAR EVERYDAY

One of the things that most annoys me about the BBC is how it is using the TODAY programme each morning to disseminate “Project Fear” propaganda from Cameron and his pals. This morning we were treated to the Editor of The Economist screeching that the UK could “only” ever hope to obtain a trade deal with the EU similar to that of Norway. It appears the simple economic fact that we are the UK’s single largest export matter has NO significance in terms of trade negotiations if you write for The Economist?

Freedom from information

 

The BBC was very eager to nail the government on its supposed ‘misleading’ figures for death rates in the NHS at weekends [Not so keen to get to the real figures though] with a FOI request.

Strangely the BBC shows a marked reluctance to similarly nail the government when it comes to genuinely dodgy immigration figures that the government admits it won’t reveal because ‘ it might prejudice the outcome of the EU referendum. ‘  Yes we can’t have facts and information relevant to the debate interfering with the debate.

From the Telegraph:

Ministers ‘hiding full scale of EU immigration’

Experts say that while official migration figures suggest just one million EU nationals have come to Britain over past five years, more than two million have registered for national insurance numbers

Hundreds of thousands more EU migrants may have come to Britain than disclosed in official records, experts have warned as ministers were accused of hiding the full scale of immigration.

Official figures published suggested that 257,000 migrants came to Britain last year, with a significant rise in the number of Bulgarians and Romanians.

However over the same period 630,000 EU citizens registered for a national insurance number, which would entitle them to work or claim benefits in Britain.

Jonathan Portes, Principle Research Fellow at the National Institute of economic and social research, has asked the Government for more detail of the national insurance numbers.

However, his request has been rejected on the grounds that it might prejudice the outcome of the EU referendum.

He said: “It is very difficult to understand why there should be this sudden divergence. I do not believe that you can explain this huge discrepancy now by saying these are people only here for a few months then going back. It is massive and it did not used to be this big.

“The Government is hiding this data. They claim it would interfere with the renegotiation. It is genuinely outrageous. Which ever side of the argument you are, on immigration or on the EU, the electorate deserves to have the facts and the data.”

PC PC PC’s

 

Remember the time when diligent BBC reporters would plaster the BBC website with stories of the police dragging ‘innocent’ schoolboys off to be waterboarded?  How times change…not a sign of this tale of a white, non-Muslim boy beng so treated…

Outrage as school calls police after pupil looks at Ukip website in class

Teenager Joe Taylor was flagged up for political extremism by the deputy head after he used a school computer to click on the party’s website. 

The 15-year-old went online earlier this week to research immigration following a classroom discussion on the subject, logging on with his school username. 

But he was stunned when teachers subsequently reported him to the police, claiming he had raised welfare concerns by visiting “politically incorrect websites”. 

Amazingly he was referred to a specialist team whose usual brief is preventing vulnerable youngsters from being groomed and indoctrinated by Islamic State (ISIS) jihadis. 

Rough Injustice

 

 

The BBC has been telling us all day of the rise in rough sleepers and Labour’s outraged reaction.

What the BBC wasn’t telling us in its news bulletins was that 56.7% of rough sleepers are immigrants….

Total non-UK    4,201    56.7%

Only right at the very bottom of its website report does it make any such admission about immigrants…

Where nationalities were available, 43% were from the UK, and 36% from Central and Eastern European countries that joined the EU in 2004 or 2007.

Why is the BBC not so keen for you to know that and isn’t it a bit of a cheek for Labour, who opened the floodgates to attack the government for something Labour’s immigration policy, and of course the EU, is mostly to blame for?

 

 

 

 

Rotherham Rozzers didn’t bother

 

So the police get all the blame for Rotherham?

Yesterday, unfortunately can’t remember when, a BBC reporter admitted that he repeatedly heard tales that the Hussain family were involved in serious crimes but the police were ignoring them. So the police ignored these crimes….what exactly did the intrepid BBC reporter do to expose both the crimes and the police’s inaction?  Nothing obviously.

This wasn’t just a matter of the police ignoring things, the media and local government were also involved and turned a blind eye due to the ‘race factor’.

Why do we not hear the BBC admitting the media were also at fault?

Curiously the report about the convictions has vanished off the BBC’s front, UK and England page despite this being a major story from yesterday….you have to go all the way deep into the website to the regional area of Sheffield and South Yorkshire to find the story now and even there it isn’t prominent.  Almost as if the BBC doesn’t want you to see the conviction of Muslim men for mass rape and abuse….the cover up continues.

 

 

 

The Not So Damning Dame

 

Dame Janet Smith spent three years investigating the BBC and Savile and then allowed what, half an hour or so for journalists to quiz her on her conclusions limiting each one to one question and a supplementary question?  Ridiculous as she strictly regulated what they asked and how long they had to ask it.  Surprised at the journalists who deferred to her and allowed her to get away with it.  She was there to answer questions not to get away with revealing as little as possible whilst strenuously defending her own reputation..

Her conclusion that the BBC, as a corporate body, was blameless as senior managers had no knowledge of Savile’s activities is complete nonsense.  She claims that the hierarchical nature of the BBC meant that such discussions never happened but anyone who has ever worked in any organisation knows that there is huge amounts of contact between the different levels and that ‘gossip’ of such a salacious nature concerning someone as famous as Savile, a person who was a major and important celebrity for the BBC, would have flown around the organisation at speed.

DJS even admits that in 1971 the allegations were in the newspapers but the BBC top brass were so concerned with the reputation of the BBC that they covered them up…how then does she conclude that management knew nothing?

She states that knowledge about Savile was limited to producer level and producers did not have the authority to tackle them…OK say that was true….Savile was carrying out his abuses over many decades so when those producers got promotion and rose up the ranks were they not then in a position to take things further and to take preventative action as they saw he was still employed by the BBC?

DJS said that there was a culture of fear that meant staff would not report Savile’s behaviour for fear of the consequences for their careers.  Surely then that is the responsibility of senior management?  There have been plenty of similar enquiries about other organisations, such as the Police, where the BBC has been happy to point the finger of blame at senior management for not managing such a culture.

As the lawyer for the victims said, this is an expensive whitewash that gives BBC management a clean bill of health when in reality it beggars belief that they could not have known anything.

Liz Dux, from Slater and Gordon, says:

‘All the Savile and Hall victims have ever wanted from this report is truth and accountability. Despite millions having been spent on the inquiry, my clients will feel let down that the truth has still not been unearthed and many will feel it is nothing more than an expensive whitewash’.

On the basis of reading through parts of the report, it’s difficult to disagree with her assessment.

 

Having said all that the BBC itself, at least on the shape of BBC Trust headshed Rona Fairhead, took the blame as she said that ‘No one can doubt the BBC failed the victims and it turned a blind eye.’

 

 

Question Time Live Chat

David Dimbleby presents this week’s show from Poole, Dorset. On the specially reinforced panel: Conservative MP for South West Norfolk, Elizabeth Truss, Telegraph journalist Julia Hartley-Brewer, Guardianista Giles Fraser, creator of Downton Abbey Julian Fellowes, and a very special welcome back to our Thursday nights for the lovely Dianne Abbott, Shadow Secretary for International Development.

Neither of the two local Tory MPs will be appearing for reasons unknown.

Kick off tonight at 22.45

Chat here, register here if necessary.

Circling The Bandwagons

 

On the 22nd of October 2015 the BBC published a report about Jeremy Hunt ‘misleading’ us about the figures for weekend deaths in hospitals.

Strangely this story resurfaced today as the BBC once again delved into the  subject, and curiously it just happened to be Prime Minister’s Questions today with Jeremy Corbyn leading with the BBC’s claim and actually quoting the BBC’s ‘research’.  No questions at all about the EU and the referendum but as Jon Pienaar told us afterwards the British public are apparently more interested in the Junior doctors’ challenge to Jeremy Hunt as the subject is closer to home.  Why is Pienaar making up excuses for Corbyn leading PMQs with a BBC story?

Not saying at all that the BBC and Corbyn have colluded in this although Guido has found a BBC employee who has been feeding Corbyn questions for PMQs.….little ‘Rosie’…who thinks Corbyn is ‘strong and Cameron ‘misleading’…

 

 

Cameron told Corbyn that yes indeed the figure of 6,000 was misleading because the true figure was 11,000….

“Now we’ve had time to go into these figures of more detail, I can tell the House that the Health Secretary was indeed guilty – he was guilty of an understatement,” Mr Cameron said.

“The true figures for excess deaths at the weekend were 11,000, not 6,000.  So perhaps the right honourable gentleman will now withdraw his totally unjustified attack on the Health Secretary?”

What did the BBC choose to report in its news bulletins? (03:02)  They aired Corbyn’s question in full but then oddly didn’t feel the need to give Cameron’s reply to that question instead telling us he said that there were misleadiing figures but they came from the BMA….he did indeed say that but that was not his answer to Corbyn’s question…which was that there are 11,000 deaths at the weekends above what might be expected on weekdays.

But were Hunt and Cameron misleading?

This is what the BMJ article concluded…..

Appropriate support services in hospitals are usually reduced from late Friday through the weekend, leading to disruption on Monday morning. This could go some way towards explaining our finding of a “weekend effect” extending into Friday and Monday.

We have shown a clear association between weekend admission and worse patient outcomes. Our analyses show that an increased proportion of higher risk patients are admitted on Saturday and Sunday, when services inside and outside the hospital are reduced. There is evidence that junior hospital doctors feel clinically exposed during the weekend and that hospital chief executives are concerned about levels of weekend cover. This has led to calls from the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, Medical Education England, the Royal College of Physicians, and the Royal College of Surgeons, for a review of the way services are provided in hospitals at weekend, with a particular focus on urgent care.

So not only do more deaths occur at the weekend as a proportion of patients but the Junior Doctors are extremely concerned about it and the levels of weekend cover and although the report does indeed say that to conclude these deaths are all avoidable would be ‘rash and misleading’ they then said….

From an epidemiological perspective, however, this statistic is “not otherwise ignorable” as a source of information on risk of death and it raises challenging questions about reduced service provision at weekends.

Yes, more patients come into hospital with severe problems at the weekend but that’s ‘more’ only as a proportion of patients as in fact the number who go to hospital at the weekends is considerably lower than on week days….therefore in fact the actual numbers of severe patients is lower than on a weekday.

A higher proportion of patients were admitted to hospital as emergencies on Saturday (635 020/1 261 085; 50%) and Sunday (621 356/952 375; 65%) than on weekdays (3 951 971/13 646 048; 29%).

The study in the BMJ begins with this…

Intuitively, reduced provision of healthcare at weekends adversely affects all of these domains…..

Our previous study of all NHS hospital admissions in England during the financial year 2009-10 indicated that admission at the weekend (Saturday and Sunday) was associated with a significantly increased risk of in-hospital death compared with midweek admission.

Pretty clear where the study is pointing….weekends do result in more deaths due to reduced services.

Why is the BBC being so dishonest about this and misleading the public on what Pienaar thinks is the most important subject politically today?

The study clearly states that 11,000 extra deaths occur at weekends and yet the BBC is blatantly claiming that Cameron and Hunt are doing the ‘misleading’ and have even edited out Cameron’s answer to Corbyn…Here’s the final words from the report…..

Key messages

  • Patients admitted at the weekend are more likely to be in the highest category of risk of death

  • Patients admitted on Saturday or Sunday face an increased likelihood of death even when severity of illness is accounted for

  • An additional risk of death exists for admission on Monday and Friday extending the weekend effect to these two days

  • Around 11 000 more patients die each year within 30 days from admission occurring between Friday and Monday compared with admission on the remaining days of the week

 

The real question is of those 11,000, although the report says it would be ‘rash and misleading’ to think they could be avoidable, just how many of them could be saved with the provision of appropriate services?….clearly many could be saved, the report itself makes that clear, reduced services cause problems at the weekend…but the BBC and Corbyn want to gloss over that whilst they make strawman attacks on Cameron & Co.

The BBC weren’t so concerned about causality in previous reports when it suited them to ignore it when attacking the government on nurse numbers…the BBC used a single study to claim that a fall in nursing numbers led to deaths….but the report they based that claim upon made no such link…..

Implications of the California nurse staffing mandate for other states.

We have tried to minimize this source of potential bias by obtaining reports from nurses in states without legislation and by using in-dependent patient data to validate the better outcomes for California hospitals. Our study is cross sectional and we cannot establish causality in the associations we observe.

The BBC basing its report on a study which admits there was no causality, no baseline and little evidence elsewhere to say that staff, like HCA’s, were detrimental to patient outcomes.

 

Back in 2014 the BBC were happy to ignore reports of 13,000 patient deaths under Labour‘s stewardship of the NHS…..

Labour is accused of operating a ‘Denial Machine’….welll yeahhh…it’s called the BBC.

Professor Sir Brian Jarman, of Imperial College London, worked on a government review which will this week show that 14 hospital trusts have been responsible for up to 13,000 “excess deaths” since 2005.

He accused Labour ministers of presiding over a “denial machine” and ignoring his data on high death rates for a decade.

Sir Brian said: “We felt we were banging against a locked door. They were denying out data even though there was no real reason. At the time there was pressure from Downing Street and pressure from ministers.

“The government was in the position of providing the health service and monitoring it, it was a conflict of interest. Ministers have an electoral interest in getting out good news.”

 

 

 

 

Tartan Terror Hijacks The BBC

 

Lord Hall Hall is weak and foolish.  He surrendered without a fight to George Osborne over the licence fee and the over 75’s, he has surrendered the BBC’s reputation as a broadcaster that we can trust to deliver accurate and impartial news as it now acts as a conduit for Islamist propaganda, and let’s not talk about its climate change reporting, and now he has surrendered to the tyranny of the Tartan Blackshirts of the SNP who have terrorised him into handing over the BBC to their tender mercies and control freakery…that is the ultimate consequence of his latest move as he buckles to SNP pressure…

BBC to introduce ‘Scottish Six’ news programme next year

The BBC intends to replace its flagship UK six o’clock news bulletin with a separate Scottish programme from next year despite viewers expressing opposition.

Senior Corporation insiders confirmed that a so-called ‘Scottish Six’ news programme is on course to start in 2017 despite a “rear-guard action” by some senior figures in London who are opposed to the controversial plan.

The hour-long bulletin between 6pm and 7pm would take the BBC One slots currently filled on weekdays by the UK-wide BBC News at Six and Reporting Scotland.

If the head of the national BBC buckles to SNP pressure just how much more vulnerable is the head of BBC Scotland and the boss of BBC Scotland News?

Hall has long boasted of the BBC’s independence from political pressure and the importance of that….he shows little sign of actually putting that into practise as he succumbs to the SNP’s bully boy tactics…..this is the thin edge of the wedge…how many more thuggish ‘protests’ will now be seen outside BBC premises and how much more inordinate political pressure targeted at the BBC will we see now as they sense the weakness of Hall as he allows the BBC to be used to push ever more political and ideological messages having already pandered to Lenny Henry and to the Muslim pressure groups who demand more positive news about Muslims on the BBC?