Anyone catch this verbal assault on Francis Maude this morning? I note that Evan Davies picks up where he left off the other day insisting that it is wrong to say that public sector pension are "unaffordable". Basically Davies acts as a sounding board for Mark Serwotka and I believe this is a classic beating up of a Conservative. Give it a listen and let me know what you think? Hat-tip to John Horne Tooke in the comments for pointing us to the Twitter account of BBC journalist Jude Machin: BBC favourite Tory in name only Ken Clarke was on the BBC this morning to discuss his alleged u-turn on prison sentencing discounts. To be fair to Clarke, he gave a pretty decent account of himself but the bit that fascinated me was the intro interview with Nick Robinson on Clarke.(Not on the link, alas) Robinson made reference to the "Tory Press" undermining poor Clarke at least three times in a minute or two. Is this the same press that supported Blair for years? Will Nick be also using the term "Labour Press" to describe his soul-mates in the Guardian, Indie, Mirror - in the interests of balance? Evan Davies is running a one man campaign to inform us that maintaining public sector pension provision is both affordable and a moral imperative! Listen to the petulant tone he adopts in this interview with Treasury Minister Justine Greening as he doggedly tries to get her to say that it is wrong to suggest that the gilt-edged public sector pensions are in any way "unaffordable". His semantic point is neither here nor there and yet he made it the main focus of the interview. Greening should have been more direct and simply pointed out that since Labour devastated private sector pension provision (to the complete indifference of the comrades at the BBC) then the public sector must now pay part of the consequences. It is immoral to expect the private sector workers to retire on a pittance in order to ensure that public sector workers - like BBC employees -can continue to enjoy their bloated pension benefits. Whatever happened to we are all in this together, eh? The latest BBC article about the US economic situation is by that well-known economics and business expert, Justin Webb. Yes, he went to the LSE, so must surely be qualified to prescribe a cure for what ails the US. But first, his dishonesty: Our friends at the BBC (you know, the ones who we pay for out of money extracted by force from our pockets and purses) do love to travel in style at our expense but they are not so keen on we ordinary mortals doing the same, especially by road. Hence the doom laden announcement on the BBC website about the opening of the M74 extension in Glasgow. True there were positive quotes from the Scottish Infrastructure Secretary Alex Neil and Glasgow City Council leader, Councillor Gordon Matheson but you can always tell where the BBC love really resides when you see the quotes signing off at the end of any website article. Hi folks! Just to let you know I am back from holidays, suitably refreshed and ready for battle (Oops, is that the wrong sort of language to use, oh well...) Managed to completely avoid the BBC during the past week or so and that was a small but merciful relief. That said, I did watch Sky 24hr News which wasalmost as bad as the BBC. It carries the same smug left of centre analysis of that typifies the BBC - and was cloying about Michele Obama's recent electioneering pilgrimage to meet Saint Nelson in South Africa. Lord knows what the BBC coverage was like but I found Sky presenters lost all objectivity on the issue, hailing her as some sort of modern icon and role-model. Of course the BIG difference is that I have a choice when it comes to Sky. I can choose not to pay for it. Alas the Biased BBC offers me no such freedom, demanding that I pay for the bias it churns out with such monotonous regularity. The point of this blog is not just exposing the hypocritical unprofessional bias that pervades the State Broadcaster - though that is in itself a very useful service. We also exist to help raise awareness that it is WRONG to have a State Broadcaster extort cash from us in order that it can propagandise in ways that many of believe to be utterly wrong. Bias is not the only problem, making us fund it is even worse. Just like the first cuckoo of spring, the first cuckoo has been heard chirruping its approval of the latest flotilla. Yes it’s our old friend Ken Loach, proponent of fighting fascism, supporter of those who fought in the Spanish Civil War and gallant opponent of Mosley’s blackshirts, flaunting his and others’ gullibility in supporting the ridiculous publicity-stunt flotilla, aimed at breaking Israel’s blockade on the importation of weapons for the Islamic extremists in Gaza to use against Israeli civilians. Brace yourselves, because this will probably be the first of many sightings of this brainless creature. He's already famous for getting it spectacularly wrong, so the Today producers might have known that Mr. Loach was likely to squeeze in an advert for those ‘brave’ flotilla freedom fighters a nanosecond before the pips went. Why did they let him?
ATTACK!
>> THURSDAY, JUNE 30, 2011
HALF THE STORY, ALL THE TIME
"I LOVE HIM!"
>> WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 2011
"Obamama"? Urrgh *shiver*. OK, so she's assigned to the 2012 Olympics and isn't covering US politics (and quite clearly can't be allowed to do so - right, Ms Boaden?) However, isn't it interesting that every time a BBC hack expresses a political opinion on Twitter it always seems to come from one direction? Imagine a BBC journalist declaring his or her support for a Republican candidate on Twitter. It would mark them out as a freak. Career suicide. But announcing one's love for Obama? Hey, no big deal, everyone at work's cool with that. The same sort of thing didn't do Anita Anand's career any harm, did it? 
NICK THE KNIFE!
UNAFFORDABLE AND UNTENABLE
The Dishonesty And Political Advocacy Of Justin Webb
>> TUESDAY, JUNE 28, 2011
I should make it clear that my reporting of the United States, in the years I was based there for the BBC, was governed by a sense that too much foreign media coverage of America is negative and jaundiced.
Too much foreign media coverage, eh, Justin? You mean like this? America is often portrayed as an ignorant, unsophisticated sort of place, full of bible bashers and ruled to a dangerous extent by trashy television, superstition and religious bigotry, a place lacking in respect for evidence based knowledge. I know that is how it is portrayed because I have done my bit to paint that picture, and that picture is in many respects a true one.
Who said that? Justin Webb in a 'From Our Own Correspondent' piece for the BBC. So who said this: Some Tea Party folk hate Obama, but the movement is a symptom of something much deeper and more worrying for all Americans: they kinda hate themselves.
Justin Webb, in the Mirror (h/t David Vance of this parish). That was back when Webb and the BBC were pushing the lie that the mass murderer who attempted to kill Rep. Giffords in Tucson was a right-winger whose actions were inspired by the Tea Party. And then there's this gem: Washington correspondent Justin Webb said that the BBC is so biased against America that deputy director general Mark Byford had secretly agreed to help him to 'correct', it in his reports. Webb added that the BBC treated America with scorn and derision and gave it 'no moral weight'.
Foreign media, indeed. Now on to the main point, ol' Justin's political advocacy masquerading as expert analysis. This is a story of debt, delusion and - potentially - disaster. For America and, if you happen to think that American influence is broadly a good thing, for the world. The debt and the delusion are both all-American: $14 trillion (£8.75tn) of debt has been amassed and there is no cogent plan to reduce it.
Denial? No cogent plan? He's talking about the Democrats, most especially the President, who initially refused to cut any spending at all. Only that's not what ol' Justin wants you think. No, so long as he can convince you that it's a bi-partisan denial, he can get away with the dishonesty. BBC Thinks Roads Are Only For BBC Elite - Not For US
"A fraction of this vast sum (£692m) could have delivered major public transport improvements, and to make the city easier to cycle and walk around."
That from Glasgow Green MSP Patrick Harvie plus an equally funereal warble from Stan Blackley described as chief executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland (yes, you’ve got it, FoE, the organisation that's generously funded by EU taxpayers) So, Stan, you won’t be driving your VW Campervan along the M74 any time yet? As someone who regularly drives westward I have often reflected that, if we were in France, there would be a dual carriageway A303 all the way to Exeter and an M30 threading through Devon and Cornwall (one of the poorest counties in England).....but, being a realist, I just know that the Stan Blackleys of the world would have a hotline to the BBC and, within seconds, there would be the second coming of Swampy ordering us all to get on yer bike..HELLO!
First Cuckoo
Thursday, 30 June 2011
The squalid North Korean regime is one that most civilised people hold in contempt, although I note the BBC has never seemed very interested in anything actually being DONE about it, although that is another story. This morning, Today treated us to an item on the appalling conditions that prevail within the prison camps of this failed thugocracy, and very moving too. But how strange that the BBC does not highlight the fact that Nuclear-armed North Korea has just assumed the presidency of a key United Nations disarmament body — despite facing UN Security Council sanctions over its weapons programs. Naturally to associate the wise and all-knowing United Nations with facilitating the notorious North Korean regime might not look too good for the UN-worshipping BBC, so nothing is said. I suppose that is why the BBC also ignored the UN supporting Iran's holding of an international "anti-terrorism" conference — which saw participants declaring that Western powers were the international terrorists.
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