Balls: What A Piece Of Work

Just a short note to record my astonishment at the hypocrisy and arrogance not just of Labour but of a particularly bad Labourist about the roots of the Coalition on that Robinson thing on telly just now. I had thought, foolishly, that Ed Balls was incapable of getting any worse. I was, of course, wrong. Hearing him whine about Labour's negotiations with the Lib Dems after the hung parliament is extraordinary.

I think some cognitive malfunction in his mind, combined with some serious weakness in his character, together mean that he simply is incapable of comprehending what it means to be honest. He just lies all the time, effortlessly, and has no awareness whatsoever that his habitually revised narrative of events is just that: lies - and, what's more, is known to be lies by everyone outside his mind who has seen the evidence - and the truth - laid out, crystal clear, before their very eyes. But it doesn't stop him - oh no! - because it's pathological. He talks, for instance, about this idea that Nick Clegg about-faced on cuts just for leverage in the negotiation process. Not so (read more about that in the Speccy online here). It was a bare-faced lie, on camera, for the film - but Balls didn't care because he doesn't understand what he did. Maybe we should pity him, he's that bad. (Nah.)

Anyway, I could go on but this is, thankfully, all cold water under Westminster bridge. The right - the only - outcome for Britain came to pass, so none of it really matters to anyone other than various breeds of historian and fading BBC journalists like Robinson any more.

Apart from Balls, that is. He wants to a party leader, but his party (no doubt with him - along with Straw and the other usual suspects - the ringleaders) are about to renege genuinely on a manifesto promise for the sake of political expediency with the AV/constituency restructuring Bill. That's genuine, pathetic, grubby opportunism and it's also why I and other people who feel, for the current incarnation of the Labour party, nothing but utter contempt, would very much like to see Balls win. It would be a great day for the nation (the death of Labour).

But remember, always, there was at least one joyous ending to those strange days of uncertainty back in May: forget Balls because his rather more lunatic mentor, Gordon Brown, was gone, gone, gone! at the end of it all. And the nation breathed a heavy, collective sigh of relief because of it.

Now that's what I call "victory". So, what the hell: good luck to the Coalition deal that fashioned that happy outcome, Tory and Lib Dem members both. Hats off to the nationalists, too (a party of which I happily and tactically voted for).

And why not?

Brian Clough: What A Legend

Just watch this video and realise that not only does English football urgently need a man like Brian Clough, British public life generally does too. A sense of fair play, a respect for authority, a deep understanding of genuine priorities - what's really important (like taking the initiative when someone's being an idiot and stopping them!) - and a healthy contempt for the BBC's po-faced, self-important, self-appointed, misplaced, half-baked didacticism. Best man never to have managed England, obviously, and rightfully regarded by those who knew him or supported football clubs he coached as a legend. Wish I'd been one of them!



Marvellous.

My word he would have made a team out of that bunch of overpaid airheads and losers we sent to South Africa. He makes Don Fabio look like precisely what he is, only a half-decent manager, and John Motson look like precisely what he is: a complete idiot.

Where are this nation's Brian Cloughs, with all that flair, individualism and inner steel, when we so desperately need them!

Hunt Declares War On The BBC

Not a moment too soon it actually looks like the BBC's cosy world of unaccountability, an appallingly cavalier attitude to income it does not earn but extorts from the general public for whom it has constantly shown nothing but contempt in recent years, and a severe political bias that has penetrated every level of the organisation over several decades, is about to come to an abrupt end. It certainly looks like Jeremy Hunt, the Conservative culture secretary, has actually been listening to people like me (and there are hundreds of thousands if not millions of people like me) and has bravely, recognising the urgent necessity, decided to be the one to stand up to and take on the monolithic social, economic and cultural parasite that our national broadcaster, in its current form, has become.

If we are to believe what Hunt has told the Daily Telegraph, then the skids really are finally under the BBC closed shop. Furthermore, if its managers refuse to budge on certain issues, including Hunt's very reasonable proposal that there be a significant reduction in the ridiculous licence tax given the Labour-generated current economic climate, then it could, finally, finally, herald the moment when long-overdue and massive reform comes to the creaking, unfit-for-purpose, throwback-Soviet organisation.

The Telegraph reports Hunt as saying, among other things:

There are huge numbers of things that need to be changed at the BBC. They need to demonstrate the very constrained financial situation we are now in

All the concerns I had in opposition about executive salaries and use of licence fee funds for things many people thought were extraordinary or outrageous - that (next year) will be moment when I express them

Now, I know this won't lead to the kind of breaking-up of the corporation I want to see, with the selling off of all but the core radio and TV channels (R4, R2, Five Live, BBC1 and 2), the abolition of the jurassic licence fee (to be replaced by a central grant, charitable status and fundraising powers), but I certainly recognise that this is far more than mere gesture politics at a ripe moment. Hunt means to force the BBC into putting its house in real order, or else.

Never thought I'd see the day. Well done Jeremy Hunt. Let battle commence!

Another Day, Another BBC Online Pro-Labour Report

200K London Superhead? Yer 'avin a larf in't ya?

I know, I know - if you wanted to read about how bad the BBC is, you'd make your way to the first rate "Biased BBC" blog. But I just can't help it, mainly because every day with relentless regularity, the BBC - particularly its online news incarnation - confirms all my suspicions about it. The chief suspicion, of course - that the BBC is institutionally left wing, pro-Labour and viscerally Tory-hating - can hardly be called a 'suspicion' any more since so much evidence to prove this is right beyond any reasonable doubt has been forthcoming over the years. Lame BBC managerial and editorial statements to the contrary have become a joke.

You, as I often do, might be wondering to what lengths the BBC will go in pursuit of its propaganda goals. Well, today we have yet more data to show that "any" is the answer. Consider the farce of Ed Balls' entire education strategy for the past three years, given plummeting literacy and numeracy levels and ever-dumber standards in exams. Consider, for instance, the £10Bn+ that has been frittered away over and above the £30Bn school building and refurbishment programme, now being gallantly corrected by Michael Gove.

Consider also today's extraordinary news that a primary school head teacher has been raking in 200 large a year on the back of, we assume, some half-decent administration of a small school, the consequence of another Balls brainchild, "City Challenge". Jackpot! At least for Mark Elms, that is, who, it seems, is some kind of hyper-teacher, a true saviour capable of healing the educationally sick and giving the word-blind sight. At least I assume that's how good he is otherwise why is he troughing eight times more for running a primary school than a close relative of mine retired on after 35 years of highly distinguished teaching and administration in the secondary sector? No one, but no one, in the education industry is that good.

It seems the BBC's reporter, one Hannah Richardson, disagrees. I'll quote a bit of it, but you will need to read to whole thing to get a taste of just how extraordinarily one-sided it is - and I mean in favour, by implication, not of the teacher in question, but of the brains behind the ridiculously expensive but "prestigious" (according to Richardson - you betcha, girly! Anyone who can syphon off 200k from the government for running a primary school deserves some kind of admiration) "National Leader of Education" programme, Edward BALLS.

For this work, at his 400-pupil school, Mr Elms receives a basic salary of £82,417.This is well within the maximum head teacher pay rate of £109,000 for large inner London state schools.

The bulk of the £200,000 pay package he received last year was for the work he did on the London Challenge and City Challenge project over two years.

These schemes support schools in challenging circumstances and have been very successful in improving education in deprived areas of the country.

Well now, pardon me for complaining, but does this or any of the other half-baked comments she makes in her little piece remotely justify giving one man two hundred grand for running one school, no matter how bad it had become in a Labour-run inner city area. As I said, however, it's important to recognise that that's not the real purpose of this dizzyingly-spun article. The real purpose for this editorially on-message young BBC hackette is to speak out for a very expensive, and highly divisive, Labour schools policy, and therefore, by implication, up for Balls.

Gladly, if the rider at the top of the old Department for Children, Schools and Families, website dedicated to this policy from the incumbents is anything to go by, the "City Challenge" policy Ms Richardson seems to like so much, and Mark Elms obviously loves, is now as defunct and kaput as the failed government that spawned it. It goes:

A new UK Government took office on 11 May. As a result the content on this site may not reflect current Government policy.
All statutory guidance and legislation published on this site continues to reflect the current legal position unless indicated otherwise.
To view the new Department for Education website, please go to http://www.education.gov.uk

I like it! Seems Hannah Richardson was reporting on a dead policy walking, regardless of her motives for doing so.

Time she and the BBC woke up to the fact that Labour is out of office, and that their cosy world of protected political bias is no longer as safe as they might like to believe. Just as Mark Elms can expect no more ridiculous bonuses (or perhaps "bribes" would be a better word) for doing his job in a less than salubrious area of the Smoke, left wing BBC hacks, editors and managers can expect no more sanctuary in a public institution that urgently needs to be given back to the public, or go the way of the "Department for Children, Families, Schools, Pets and Wasting Money", Ed Balls and the entire, trainwreck New Labour Government.

Do you think they get that yet? I don't.

Quote of the Day: The BBC's Contradiction

Rod Liddle in the Speccy has quoted a first class Charles Moore piece to help him emphasise his own refreshing and welcome disdain for the direction the BBC has been taking for the past decade or so, especially as regards its squandering of the licence fee tax on overpaid and highly over-rated "talent". He points out that Moore illustrates the contradiction that lies at the heart of the BBC's funding-spending model and the dishonesty in senior managers' constant attempts to deflect our attention away from it. Liddle writes:

Charles’s diary in the last edition of the magazine put far more succinctly, and clearly, the point I was trying to get at in my blog about the BBC a few items down from this one. I talked about the BBC’s moral cross-subsidisation (which is never publicly admitted by the corporation) and how this is increasingly difficult to justify. Charles puts it better, with this exposition of what lies at the heart of the “endless contradiction” which the BBC exploits

Excellent, sure, but then he goes on to quote Moore:

“When you complain that it is funded in a privileged way, it says that it does things which no one else can do. When you complain that it spends its unique funding on enormous contracts with stars, it says it has to do so in order to behave like its rivals. The truth is that the concept of the star……….is incompatible with the Public Purposes expressed in the Charter of the BBC.”

Brilliantly put. What I know is that the corruption at the centre of the BBC, and its cause has seldom been more eloquently articulated than it is by Moore here, must be challenged and the corporation reformed, broken-up or abolished altogether.

Until then, for instance, more than a quarter of all criminal court actions will continue to be licence fee-tax related. People will continue to go to jail and/or be fined extraordinarily punitive amounts in their tens of thousands simply because, as is often the case, they cannot afford to fund the lifestyle of people like Jonathan Ross.

That is unacceptable, and this government had better do something about it in this parliament or be viewed, at least by this blogger, as a failure.

BBC Still Isn't Learning

Whether it's a typical public sector ingrained sense of entitlement or some quite new and unique phenomenon, the BBC simply isn't learning. Now that Michael Lyons, chairman of the BBC Trust, has been publicly contradicted by a putative inferior in the form of the Director General, Mark Thompson, over the publication of salaries, one can safely assume that the watering down of Lyons' remarks that we heard on Radio 4 this morning will only gather pace. If Lyons doesn't regain control of his underlings pretty quickly it will simply serve to send the clearest of messages to people that the corporation is out of control.

But why has Mark Thompson decided to go down this road of secrecy? He says it's because the BBC needs to be able to compete for the 'best talent' and its being forced to reveal pay levels when other stations don't would lead to their having an unfair advantage.

OK, let's deal with that first then: what utter, dishonest tosh! He and his ilk really do think we're that stupid. The BBC already has a massive 'unfair advantage' in that it can legally extort under penalty of fine and imprisonment a large sum of money from the vast majority of the adult population of Great Britain. And yet the salaries go on secretly increasing and programmes just keep on getting worse and worse. That's not just my opinion, the BBC Trust has just said so too. Let's not hear talk of unfair advantages again then, lest we move on to the BBC's virtual monopoly of radio in this country and its sinister and vastly expensive occupation of vast tracts of cyberspace.

How has this come to pass? Because people like Thompson over the years have transformed the BBC from public service broadcaster, paid for out of a modest appliance licence fee, into some form of parasitical organism which pretends benevolence but in actual fact is gradually sucking the life out of its host. The BBC's host is Britain. You can say whatever you like about the BBC, but if it is positive, then I'm likely to disagree. Why? Well, you want to know the real reason why Thompson doesn't want salaries published? I'll give you a clue: it has nothing to do with paying incredible fortunes for top talent - you know, 'top talent' like Fiona Bruce or Jonathan "Top Ranker" Woss (at least he's gone) - and everything to do with his ever-ballooning salary and the generous salaries of the managerial class that's taken over that organisation. That's how the parasitism incubates itself and then spreads throughout the entire organism. It has managed to reproduce itself, with its eggs usually being transmitted through the crap that comes out of the mouths of public sector managers everywhere, in just about every public body in the nation now.

It happened to the BBC some time ago (perhaps the BBC was the first); it happened to the NHS, another deeply infected body, generally over the last 13 nightmare years of a Labour government. Thompson, like all fakes, is uncertain about whether he's worth the money he pays himself. If he is certain, then he should declare all and stop hiding behind this fatuous argument about 'attracting the best talent' (for one thing, it's not the BBC's job to compete with commercial television, for another, its job is to grow new talent, not hire overpriced old hands). Failing that, Thompson, after these new Telegraph revelations, should resign - or be sacked by the coalition government. New broom and all that.

In the end, the most depressing thing about all this is that, for whatever pathetic reason, since it's now crystal clear the BBC just isn't learning, it must be forced to see the error of its ways with sackings and the genuine threat of 'restructuring'.

Humph. If this interesting David Blackburn take on events 't Beeb is anything to go on, then fat chance!

Israel Will Never Change - And Never Should

It never should, is my point, when its very existence is at stake. Now, I have to be careful what I say here because of my line of work. I can't afford to get too mixed up in the political side of this latest hooha over Israel's security policies and the nefarious activities of spurious 'aid workers' who themselves seemed to think they needed to be armed and travel in division strength to perform best in their capacity as putative angels of mercy. With that in mind, I think I'll stick to the historical dimension. (Possibly - we'll see how it goes ;)

In addition, I have to be careful because some pointless commenter on my last post has said that my writing style (I didn't think I had one) stinks and that I don't know how to punctuate. Now, I don't mind the first meaningless dig - that's about taste - but the second one is patently bollocks. Nobody know's how, to punctuate better than me. they really dont. It felt like I was being told off by Pee Wee Herman. What a weirdo. And all because the twit in question thinks that David Laws isn't a troughing thief who deserved all he got - and more.

Anyway, back to Israel. I would like to make a couple of points about this latest non-story coming out of that part of the world, and they mainly concern the British reaction to it and what history tells us the Israeli reaction to that British reaction will be. There is a prejudice against Israel that runs so deep in this country that it is pretty difficult to quantify. It emanates from several sources and comes in a number of varieties but it all amounts to the same thing: loathing. Powerful political, lobbyist and media blocs in the UK indulge a fairly private agenda that is driven by a desire to kick Israel, and to see Israel kicked, as hard and as often as possible. That Israel's desire to search 10,000 tonnes of 'humanitarian' gear being shipped to terrorist-run Gaza warranted such a vicious reaction from the suspiciously well-armed, boarder-repelling 'aid workers' was very telling to me.

That these terrorist sympathisers' film of the inevitable firefight, as Israeli soldiers sought to defend themselves from what must have felt like a deadly assault, was the footage preferred and shown over and over again on British televisions speaks volumes about the unconscionable bias of Britain's mainstream media, especially (naturally) the BBC. Just imagine if this had been the USA and ATF officers or the US Coast Guard had been violently repelled by a foreign ship's crew and passengers. "Nine dead?" people would say, "Uncle Sam must be going soft in his old age. They were lucky they weren't all shot!" No one would have batted an eyelid.

But oh no. This is the plight of the Palestinians, so we have to bring out the standard, Pavlovian hyperbole and hysteria. The Left, the George Galloways of this world, who hijacked this issue long ago as they do with all issues they think possess the required propaganda potential to further the Marxist cause and the coming dictatorship of the workers, make the worn-out, cliched Israel=USA=Zionist Conspiracy=Great Satan lunatic link and condemn both the Jews and the USA for just about everything in the entire world they can think of (and probably things they can't), while the Establishment blames Israel because that's been official Foreign Office policy since the end of WWII, when Britain was humiliated by the new Israeli state into very kindly buggering off.

Allied - or maybe alloyed - to these unsavoury truths is the role of a highly partisan and blinkered media, whose journalists fall into one of the two above categories: leftwing dogma on Israel (BBC, Channel 4 etc.), or Establishment dogma on Israel (Telegraph, Times and so on). I've ignored the Far Right anti-Jewish dogma because as far as I'm concerned, it's fundamentally so far beneath contempt that it's not worth contemplating seriously. Suffice to say, however, it does complete a rather ugly picture. And then there are the Arabs!

But both the key positions in Britain, Left and Establishment, are equally corrupt when it comes right down to it because both are motivated by the same thing: prejudice. And this grows from shared characteristics of basic dishonesty, ignorance and/or malice. Without fully appreciating the entire history of Israel and Palestine unadorned with propaganda, from the late nineteenth century onwards, for instance,and Britain and America's roles in the creation of the new state post-war - America leading, Britain marginalised - then no possible resolution of the situation is remotely possible today. Furthermore, it would be wise not to forget the events leading up to and during WWII that directly led to the creation of the state in the first place. The Jews certainly haven't. Nor should we because when nutters start talking about wiping Israel off the face of the earth, Israel takes it deadly seriously; she will defend herself, as would we if we were in the same boat. They have every right to do so. They will not just quietly go down to the gas chambers this time around.

Finally, a note about the moderate, objective, professional media voices who always make me think there might be hope for truth in this country, and, therefore, hope for Israel after all. Today, the two Iains, Martin and Dale, deserve a special mention. Their writing on the subject of this unfortunate incident has been right out of the top drawer so far, and both should be commended for showing the rest of UK MSM journo-land what real unbiased reporting and commentary looks like.

(Incidentally, I don't "do" unbiased because this is my blog and these are my thoughts. If you don't like them, or how they are presented or expressed (or punctuated, grrr), then vote with your feet, do, there's a good punter.)

Question Time: So Here We Are Again

Hey guys, unsurprising news: the BBC decide to defy with self-righteous Dimbledonian indignance the reasonable request of the government for a Labour front bencher to be on the QT panel and not, repeat not, the hideous denialist, contaminated, corrosive, bloodstained liar Alistair Campbell. So the BBC, with infantile predictability, nails its colours to the Labour mast once more, and drags the burnt out Campbell monster in anyway.

Not sure I actually need to watch the programme now. The BBC's agenda is pretty clear, with Campbell and Piers Morgan (would you believe) pathetically shoehorned onto on the panel for cheap, student-activist political reasons. Both men are basically worthless in themselves, seeking to justify their failed public existences through some sort of loudmouth hyperidentification with causes about which they have, and never have had, any comprehension. Ignore their lies and ruthless, utterly corrupt, insatiable vanity.

My absolute, incandescent fury at the ongoing hypocrisy of Labour and its nabobs, even in opposition (after they've been brought to democratic book!) and of its corrupt, lightweight mouthpiece that is the BBC, is really the only thing that's keeping this blog going these days.

You know, I think I'm finally starting to get my mojo back, after the deep - and deeply felt - disappointment of no overall majority, a hung parliament and the coalition.

Well, I'm glad about that even if noone else is likely to be :)

Guardian Journalist Praises The Guardian - And The BBC

Nick Davies, a quick bit of Wiki-ing reveals, is a 57 year-old Oxford-educated, Mirror-trained, former Guardian and now a freelance journalist who contributes to the Observer. He wrote a book a few years ago much loved by some of his peers in the professional media called Flat Earth News that basically rubbished 76% of journalism in the United Kingdom and beyond (he was that precise) . I'm not going to plug it. I thought its basic premise was weak (pretending that the underlying purpose of journalism, particularly newspaper journalism, is some sort of crusade for originality and not merely to sell news, recycled or otherwise, is ridiculous and naive). I also thought it was boring and did not finish it.

Anyway, the upshot of his interview this morning on Radio 4 was, simply, that having gratefully been given the chance to plug once more his dated tome, he merely repeated his feeble assertion (now equally dated) that only the Guardian and the BBC do real news. There was no alternative view in the interview, just some American fembot from the Washington Post giving almost exactly the same views, but in 'Murcan. I nearly blew my horn in disgust (see how mad I was?). Aside from the fact that the BBC hasn't broken an original story in, I would say, oh 26 years ( that would have been the Ethiopian famine in 1984), its journalist standards are non-existent. It does not so much report news, vastly over-resourced and over-staffed thanks to its generous taxpayer-funded budget though it is, as filter it through a BBC lens, which itself can be broadly deconstructed into three primary layers: obsessive Political Correctness, social statism and left wing political orthodoxy. There are other layers, such as climate change orthodoxy, but while they are just as significant in how they form the BBC's editorial stance and its recruitment policy, they are secondary ones. And woe betide anyone who does not toe the BBC line, and who has slipped through the recruitment sieve. They will not be working there for long (pack your bags Andrew Gilligan and Jeff Randall. You're fired!). The Guardian is sort of the newsprint arm of the BBC. The less said about it, the better. I'm surprised it doesn't think it's entitled to state funding, just like its TV sister, the Beeb. Perhaps it does!

There are one or two other things to say about the Graun, actually. Compare and contrast, for instance: in 2009, with the expenses scandal, the Daily Telegraph broke the biggest story of the decade bar none. All its many stories - and there were dozens - were sourced from completely original material - the most original you can get as a matter of fact: raw data. The Telegraph's expert, highly professional coverage then rocked parliament to its very foundations, and rightly so, and very nearly brought down a government. It has led to six prosecutions so far, and rising, and the retirement of scores of MPs. This story, which drove the entire news cycle for nearly two months - and still is to a certain degree over a year later - has to all intents and purposes changed the political face and historical direction of the United Kingdom, perhaps forever. It could well have saved parliament from permanent and long-term decline and forced a new government to ring the changes and call time on the last rotten government's (whom the BBC and the Guardian supported) institutional corruption, venality and dishonesty. What the Telegraph achieved there was not just a spectacular piece of classic scoop journalism a la Watergate, complete with their own Deep Throat, they did this country a service on a scale that will not be repeated for a long, long time. I wonder what kind of a dent that put in Nick Davies' bravely unverifiable "statistics".

And now, by comparison, let's ask what the Guardian did in 2009 to further the cause of investigative journalism which, one assumes, is not driven by any political agenda. Ah yes, it tried to get Andy Coulson fired from his new job because of something he wasn't responsible for (a court said) in his old one, glossed over the Damian Green arrest, virtually ignored the other big scandal of last year (Climategate) - or tried to spin it away - and spun around like a headless chicken editorially as it tried to work which loser to back. The BBC did much the same thing, though in its case it's unnecessary to come out and actually back someone or misreport stories it doesn't like. Oh no. It can be far more cunning than that with its spin. Its editors can simply cover what they feel like covering, invite whatever guests they like on talk shows to gloss over distasteful 'badthink' news, ignore political stories that might place the Tories in a favourable light and emphasise ones that might not, and do the reverse for their buddies in the Labour party. They can manipulate public opinion by generating it (do you know how easy it is to splice together four punters in the street saying they agree with something and leave out the four dozen who said they didn't?) and they can be openly hostile or dismissive of anything or any one they don't like (like the Israelis). Simply put, they test the limits of what they think can get away with all the time, everywhere. And believe me, they can get away with a hell of a lot.

I've hardly scratched the surface. But now, I hope, you can at least see why I thought Nick Davies' nonsensical comment on the BBC, about the BBC and the Guardian and journalism generally, was worth a mention. Whatever his journalistic credentials - and he is well-regarded by his colleagues from across the spectrum of the MSM apparently - he is not very honest and he's not at all right.

Still, though, I suppose we can let him off. He was only trying to sell his book, after all.

Moore's Crusade

The treatment of its captive audience by the BBC has long been a total scandal, especially in the area of funding, where its behaviour, especially over the past ten to fifteen years, has become beyond sinister and threatening to the point where it could well be - and probably is - illegal according to international law.

But I had no idea just how big an impact the BBC's licence fee collection army has on the entire legal system until, that is, I started following Charles Moore's protest of disobedience at the handling of the Ross-Brand outrage in 2008. Today, he's written what I imagine will be his last piece on the now-resolved case (which he lost, naturally) in which he reveals some truly chilling facts, especially towards the end, about just how massive a drain on the nation's resources the BBC has become, in every sense:

Perhaps the most extraordinary thing I have discovered over the past 20 months is the vast tide of small-scale human misery which the licence fee causes. In 2008-09, there were 168,800 prosecutions for licence-fee evasion. That is nearly 15 per cent of all prosecutions. Almost all the people charged are poor. The telly is one of their few pleasures, and they tend not to watch the BBC on it. And yet, for want of £142.50, tens of thousands clog up the courts every year.

Yesterday in Hastings, a young single mother was tried for the same offence as mine. She had a baby in a pushchair, and I agreed with the clerk to let her case go first, so that she could get out in time to fetch her other children out of school. I can see no justice and no humour in a situation where people like her are punished, so that people like Ross can get his £6 million.

The BBC is a parasitical organism, draining life out of our culture, our society, our politics and our economy with its PC anti-intellectualism, its decadence, its political bias and its greed.

It's time this particular disease of the body politic was cured.

BBC Over-Exposure of Clegg?

Deja Vu

Today, like every other weekday, began with the usual routine for me: up at around 6.30; ablutions; cup of coffee; quick spin of the hound; 7.30am sharp, Liberal Democrat News conference on three BBC channels....

Hang on. What was that last one again? A Liberal Democrat News Conference. Every damn morning I'm faced not with the latest news about scary ash clouds not damaging 747s at all but still closing down the country, but with Nick "My Dad's Richer Than Dave's Dad" Clegg banging on about hopeless Libdum 'policies' (today it was the turn of the bankers. Vince wasn't there, though. Curious, that). He gets a full half hour of free airtime from the BBC every morning just when most people will be checking out the news, too.

I did what I usually do, seeing as I haven't heard anything fresh, or worthwhile, from the Libdums for months, and switched back to the Murdoch channel. They don't carry it - usually. But shock horror! There he was again! Trotting out his endless, codified claptrap once more, relentlessly. To be fair, though, Sky only aired the first bit (praise the Lord).

But the BBC. Sheesh! They've got a nerve. If you only watched the BBC's news coverage, and only in the mornings, you would be forgiven for thinking the Libdums were the only party in the country. So why is the Beeb blatantly backing the yellows now? Well, not only are they biased, but they're not even that bothered about hiding it any more - perhaps as this latest scandal about a now-suspended BBC 'complaints' manager (and Labour candidate) partly demonstrates. It seems their tiresomely - and tirelessly - left wing editors and managers have finally decided that Labour can't win, so, with brazen cynicism, they're going to try to make sure that if they can't have their beloved party, they'll make it as hard as possible for the Tories to form a government by splitting the vote.

Sound crazy? Just remember who we're dealing with here. They despise the Tories quite a lot more than they despise the Liberals, half of whom are 'social democrats' (socialists) as it is. Whatever the ins and outs of it, and I doubt it's a conspiracy, but it is undoubtedly an attitude, the BBC is now buying into the hung parliament trope (or 'balanced' parliament, as it was referred to on the Today programme by one of the presenters this morning, no doubt in deference to Alex Salmond), and buying in big style.

This only annoys me slightly less than shutting down the entire UK's aviation industry because the Met Office and the EU says we have to. I put the BBC into the same category as those two menaces to a free and productive society.

But before we put all the BBC chiefs up against the wall, can't we just have a little less of the Libdums? Pretty please? It's getting beyond a joke.

Or is there an argument for letting Clegg get overexposed, so everyone can eventually see him for the pseudo-socialist, public school-educated airhead that he really is? And how utterly shallow and confused the party he leads is in reality, too? Interesting conundrum to me, that.

New Day, Same Old Story

Yesterday, we were greeted with the second morning in a row of that nauseating LibDum father and son double act (the Cable and Clegg show) on the BBC. Full coverage of two very dull press conferences. Today, it was the turn of the Marx (as in Karl) brothers: Mandy, Balls & Burnham. The BBC provided them with as much live airtime as they wanted to spread what I can only call, having read (bits of) the Conservative manifesto (it was free!), outright, barefaced, scurrilous, amoral, wickedly misleading lies. From start to finish, you had the three of these strangers to reality, let alone the truth, dishing out scaremongering propaganda that simply wasn't true. None of it. Nada. Not a thing. Labour's dirty tricks are big news for the BBC.

I didn't have time to wait for the Q/A section. Was there one? Or has the BBC finally given up even the pretence of impartiality now and decided to allow any attacks on the Tories, however perfidious and, in this case, outrageously smearing, in some cases personally, to go unchallenged altogether? It's a fair question and the answer to it, if the past two mornings of its coverage are any evidence, is disturbing.

Don't get me started on the Today programme. Suffice to say, its editors appear to be attempting to maintain some kind of 'balance' - by at least allowing a few, you know, Conservatives actually to answer the critics wheeled on, conveyor belt-style to trash policies, especially good ones. But the agenda is crystal clear. Treat the Tories like they've been in power for thirteen years - and treat Labour like the official opposition. Clever. But a nightmare to listen to and watch, a sign of how corrupt and contaminated the BBC really is, and bad news for the Conservative party.

Even I'm beginning to think that the political bias of the BBC, ever-more flagrant, and the hard-nosed commercial agenda of Sky/Murdoch (hung parliaments sell papers and boost viewing figures) is beginning to influence the direction of this general election campaign. If these factors influence the outcome, then the outcome will be meaningless and the country will have been betrayed. That much is at stake so wouldn't it be nice to hear a little more complaining from the big boy bloggers from now on, too? Or don't they care?

If you think I'm exaggerating, just ask yourself this question: where is the BBC's coverage of a Tory press conference? If there isn't any coverage in the next few days, maybe then people will begin to realise what is happening; it's not just tinfoilhattery on my part.

I'm assuming the Tories have planned a few press conferences. They have, haven't they? Well, if they haven't, they damn well should!

Morning Rant: Libdums, Hague on Schools and The BBC (Again)

Dad examines little Nick's report card

It was less than I'd hoped for but no more than I expected. The sight of wall to wall BBC coverage of the father-son Libdum, Clegg-Cable double act droning on and on about bad policies that will never be enacted (thankfully) or attacking other politicians from a position of, well, what? Total, unconvincing inexperience I would say. The sight of those two, with Clegg looking over at his dad every time he needed approval for something he said about banks or tax or bonuses or shares or whatever, was pathetic. The main point, though, is about the BBC (naturally). Why, exactly, has the BBC decided that every Libdum press conference and Q/A session has to be covered without interruption? They are the third party. What is more, this is the second day in a row our senses have been assaulted by the luminous, fried-egg colour wall and this pair of twits. For a third party, they get a heck of a lot of coverage from the Beeb. And none of the scrutiny (Paxman going easy on Clegg, for instance).

A little later, by contrast, I then had the sound of John Humphreys laying into William Hague about the Tories' excellent and intelligent, proven schools policy. Preferring the sound of his own voice to that of his guest's, especially if he's a Conservative, Humphreys repeated a phrase that I am sure I have heard Ed Ballsup, among other Labourists, use before, namely "a counsel of despair". How making it far easier for parents collectively to intervene in the education of their own children, and perhaps set up a legendary new institution for posterity as well, is quite beyond me, I'm afraid. Seems like the state grant they would receive to do it, in addition to the charitable donations and private funding, amounts to an absolute bargain. Everyone's a potential winner, most of all the children.

Yet Humphrey's pushed it for all he was worth, right up until Hague came up with his hilarious put-down that if state control of anything and everything, which is the position Humphreys appeared to have chosen to adopt - the Labour position - was such a perfect thing, then the Soviet Union would have been a spectacular success instead of the mother(land) of all trainwrecks, which clearly rattled the Humph judging by his response, which was blustery and weak.

I think this policy will resonate very widely and even excite a lot of people in this country, especially if people as good as Hague are making the philosophical case for it, but mainly because it's a damn good idea that, as Hague pointed out at the end, has a proven track record of success in the USA.

The Tories are winning the argument on education. The Libdums don't have an education policy. The BBC has just lost it.

BBC Bias

I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed how out of control the BBC has become. Last night's Newsnight and this morning's Today programme were so unashamedly, dispicably, outrageously pro-Labour that it's difficult to imagine how they could have been any more biased without having "this is a party political broadcast on behalf of the Labour party" at the beginning.

The brilliant Biased BBC blog has the full story.

Mark Thompson talks about 'impartiality'. Either he has no idea what the word means, in which case he is stupid - and should be fired by a new Tory government. Or he knows what it means, in which case he's a stinking liar - and should be fired by a new Tory government. Or he has no control over the company the Labour party employed him to head, in which case he's incompetent - and should be fired by a new Tory government.

When he's gone, Cameron can set about breaking up the entire, thieving corporate edifice, too.

Shouldn't be difficult; it's rotten to its contaminated core, and has been for years.

False Alarm?

Guido has just posted one of his all-headline-and-no-meat teasers with a story that I suppose might be true, but which, sadly, after the last one (which was about two weeks ago or so, if memory serves), surely isn't.

"BBC Source: BBC News Team on "Red Alert" for election call," trumpets Guido.

All I can say is, I hope he's bloody well right this time. But past experience of ditherer McDoom should tell us that this is just another false alarm sounded by The Party to keep its propaganda arm, the Bolshevik Broadcasting Corporation, on its collectivised pinkies.

I suppose we'll just have to wait and see. But if we have to wait, say, three months to see, then Guido should know that he certainly won't be able to count this one as an "exclusive".

But, you know, more power to him for sticking his neck out - I guess.

==Update 21.38==
This could be a little sliver of evidence in support of Guido's assertion. Bishop Hill has blogged about the general election's possible imminence, though in the context of the climate change scam, naturally. In his own update, however, he says:

Richard Drake in the comments notes that yesterday, after taking evidence from Sir John Beddington, Select Committee chairman Phil Willis bid the scientist "farewell" in the following terms:

"This is likely, Professor Beddington, to be the last time we have the pleasure of you before our Committee. Could we thank you very strongly indeed for all the work you have done with our Committee and indeed your predecessors."

Given that Sir John is due to appear in front of the committee on Monday to give evidence on the CRU affair, it does rather look as if our suspicions may be correct.

Curiouser and curiouser. Maybe Guido's right after all.

Massive Rise in AGW Scepticism - BBC Poll

The poll is pretty darned conclusive in that it clearly demonstrates one thing, people are certainly not as stupid as the AGW fanatics, many of whom inhabit the government (surprise surprise), seem to believe. But they are all, government, Opposition and alarmist scientists and their minority of sheeple supporters, in denial about the scale of the collapse of their propaganda campaign and their ongoing and increasingly desperate attempts to mislead people over the impact of human activity on the giant, chaotic, barely comprehended system that is what is (perhaps inaccurately) branded "global" climate.

To that end, and as anyone who watches a few hours of TV a day will know, government spending on AGW propaganda has been increased massively, with ridiculous claims about virtually every aspect of our lives' impact on the environment pushed down our throats, at our own expense, during virtually every commercial break. That they cite as their source on each of the stupid, expensive adverts "UK government" hardly fills anyone with confidence - quite the opposite, in fact, if this poll is anything to go by. The Climategate liars work for the UK government, and people know that. But this doesn't seem to be getting through to the government, or its tame, politicised geeks:

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs' (Defra) chief scientific adviser, Professor Bob Watson, called the findings "very disappointing".

"The fact that there has been a very significant drop in the number of people that believe that we humans are changing the Earth's climate is serious," he told BBC News.

"Action is urgently needed," Professor Watson warned.

"We need the public to understand that climate change is serious so they will change their habits and help us move towards a low carbon economy."

That the vast majority of us (about 74%, by implication) don't believe the alarmist line peddled by people like blobby-voiced Miliband Minor and this Bob Watson twit is "disappointing" to them is a sign of how arrogant and patronising these agenda-driven loudmouth politicians and pseudo-scientists really are. But, remember, there's also a sinister, underlying anti-democratic tone here which can only mean trouble.

So keep on "disappointing" them, folks; keep on exercising your right to demand the truth.

Hat tip: Plato Says

Lies, Cuts and Party Politicals

We've just been treated to a ten minute, free Party Political Broadcast on behalf of the Labour party, shown simultaneously on the BBC and Sky News. In it, the man who by-now people everywhere must be thinking is the prime minister, Lord Mandelson, accused the Tories, among other things, of having economic policies that were in "disarray" were "unravelling" and were "confused". We all know that this is a fine example of the familiar Mandelson mendacity technique: strike out at your opponents by accusing them of suffering from your own weaknesses. Just to be clear, it is Labour's economic policies that have been "confused", have been "unravelling" and have been in "disarray" ever since Brown's mega-bubble was pricked and burst all over him (and us) in 2007. We've been in recession for 18 months, a post-war record, following ten years of debt-fueled growth and now the "signs of recovery" that Mandelson slimed and slithered about are either in areas that have been artificially boosted with deficit spending (will vanish, in other words, when the cash runs out) or simply aren't there. Manufacturing overall kept shrinking in the last quarter, for God's sake. And Mandelson has the barefaced cheek to lecture the Tories on economy. But that's the point, he is that brazen. But he is not unbeatable, even if the Tories are that pathetically scared and/or in awe of him. For one thing, when Mandeson is pinned down on detail, as Ken Clarke proved the other day, or on philosophy and underlying principles, he squirms and looks very dodgy indeed.

But there are two other points to make about this: if Sky and BBC are going to collude with Mandelson and his Labourist media managers in abusing the law of the land over party political broadcasts, then they should face sanctions. If they have merely been duped into covering - live - what they were presumably told would be a policy announcement but then turned out to be an utterly partisan assault on the Opposition (and Cameron personally more than once) and, as such, was a clear breach of rules, then someone needs to be disciplined or fired for being so damned stupid. And Labour need to be brought to book instantly for it. This must be nipped in the bud. The BBC, particularly, is not Labour's personal advertising service. And neither, for that matter, are any other channels. Given the huge surge in government advertising since the New Year, you'd be forgiven for thinking that this Labour government was really a giant, publicly-funded advertising agency, rather than merely a bunch of socialist incompetents desperate to cling on to power, and who will stop at nothing - and break any rule - to do just that.

Speaking of socialist incompetents, that brings me to the second point. David Lammy was on the BBC just after Mandelson had wound up his ten minute Labour party political special. His brazen lies about university cuts were worthy of the lizard lord himself. He talked about 5% cuts - and then decided that wasn't a big enough lie so he then contradicted himself and said that spending on universities was, in fact, still going up in this "growth cycle". There were other, equally awful, exchanges with Lammy accusing the universities (and the media, laughably) of "scaremongering" over the potential loss of 200,000 university places this year, as a direct result of government cuts, claiming, absurdly (175,000 failed to get in last year), that places were going up! He had the usual dig at Major's Tories ("leaky roofs") in spite of the fact that universities were booming by the time he was shown the door - but that's ancient history now.

But Lammy was lying - and I have proof. My own university, for whom I work and in which I study, has had to up its projected level of cuts for this year from 15% to 17.5% as a direct consequence of government policy. It has already fired a number of senior lecturers, suspended building projects, abolished an entire department but must go much further to meet the enforced target. The university must find other ways of meeting these desperately deep spending cuts, though, and one of them is by expanding its private operations and income. It does this by opening its doors even wider to foreign undergraduates. By bringing in more and more and more overseas students (one third of the student body is now foreign, it is thought), however, post A-level British pupils are left at a severe disadvantage. Hence the fears that 200,000 British young people will not be able to find a place this year.

So it's not scaremongering, as liars like Lammy would have you believe, you see. These fears are grounded in harsh reality, a harsh reality of a stealthy squeeze on spending by Labour, which, quite simply, they have lied about and are lying about. So you see, the real, Mandelson-style "choice" is between Labour cutting and then lying about it, and Conservative cutting - but telling the truth about it. Deceit versus honesty; mistrust versus confidence; and, in the end, failure versus success - Labour versus Tory. Simples!

"Now for change"? You bet. And, in point of fact, given the total invisibility of Brown this weekend, it looks like there's already been a change at the top of the Labour party. Mandelson will be the face of the campaign and their chief target will be David Cameron. In which case, Cameron should relax and start smiling again (I used to like him when he smiled). If Labour want to name-check him every other sentence, then who's complaining? It's a sign of real desperation, on Mandelson's part especially, that the best he can do is drone on about his soon-to-end car scheme thing and then wildly claim that David Cameron would wreck the recovery by taking it away (at least, that's what I thought I heard him say).

For sheer bloody nonsense, that one was hard to beat. But then came Lammy...

Guardian Declares War On Journalism

The Guardian's chief political correspondent, Nicholas Watts, has launched a ludicrous attack on Rupert Murdoch on behalf of Peter Mandelson (who else?) that'll appear in tomorrow's edition. There are some extraordinary claims that suggest a distinct and burgeoning paranoia on the part of the Labour Party - (you remember them, the ones that sucked-up to, erm, Rupert Murdoch for 12 years); a familiar, hypocritical stench surrounding Mandelson; and typically ovine support for any old nonsense from his pet newspaper, the good ol' Graun.

However ridiculous the story, though, it's might (ought to) cause one hell of a row, not least with the Tories.

Here are a couple of the more extraordinary claims (supported by zero evidence in the article itself, as far as I can see):

Lord Mandelson declared war on the Murdoch empire today when he accused News Corporation of maintaining an "iron grip" on pay television and warned that the company wants to import rightwing Fox News-style journalism to Britain.

Um, what? I know News International's just announced that it no longer wants people like me nicking their stories (big deal - and fair enough, they don't belong to me, and they're usually naff anyway) but that hardly amounts to an 'iron grip'. As for wanting to 'import rightwing [sic] Fox News-style to Britain', well, no complaints here. It might at least break the monopoly of the biased BBC - and be interesting, to boot. Again, though, Watts doesn't feel the need to substantiate the claim.

In a sign that Murdoch also faces a fight in Britain, Mandelson turned his fire on a joint Tory-News Corp campaign to dismantle the broadcasting regulator, Ofcom.

Again, no substantiation or evidence, just a repetition of an increasingly shrill Mandelson slur about a joint Tory-News Corp 'campaign'. This is the Guardian at its very, very worst in terms of journalistic standards. Have they seen any documents that support Mandelson's bizarre, shrill charges? Of course not. Do they care? Well, if Watts was a genuine journalist he would. But he doesn't so he's not. He's just a mouthpiece for mad Mandy.

But wait, what's this - further into the article? Evidence?

Cameron pledged to dismantle Ofcom during a speech in July devoted to "cutting back the quango state". The Tory leader said: "With a Conservative government, Ofcom as we know it will cease to exist."

James Murdoch, the chief executive of News Corp in Europe and Asia, accused Ofcom in August of imposing an "astonishing" burden of regulation on Sky.

Sorry folks, 'fraid not. For one thing, Cameron made his speech (about quangos) a month before Murdoch Jnr's machinegun assault on anything not Sky (which is sort of his job, after all - to make daddy proud). But still no 'evidence' there. Just more half-baked accusations and the flimsiest of flimsy circumstantial claptrap bordering on a waking dream. And anyway, James Murdoch was right, too! The burden of regulation on broadcasting generally in Britain is outrageous. Oh, unless you're the Beeb of course. Then you can do whatever they like, editorially and financially, despite being funded by a legally enforced tax.

In the end, of course, this is all about Mandelson who, ably served by his tame Guardian journalist, is pushing his ultra-partisan 'Digital Britain' bill, which is actually designed to do just one thing, and its not to secure Britain's digital future (there's no 'we' in Labour). It's to secure the left's control of the BBC from now until doomsday. Well, Pete, doomsday for you could be coming sooner than you think, with or without Murdoch's (junior or senior) help.

As for the Guardian, well, we've long known that its standards of journalism are basically the lowest in the entire legacy press, at least in terms of giving two hoots about even the pretence of impartiality, but this joke article represents an outright declaration of war on the profession itself. No evidence, just mindlessly parroted Mandelsonian smears; no attempt to qualify those claims, just dutifully reinforced prejudices.

I mean, how can it hope to be taken seriously if it keeps on behaving like the BBC? Obviously, we can expect more of this kind of crap as the general election nears, and it should be criticised for precisely what it is: activism and cynicism, not journalism.

The Graun had better remember that the Tories will probably win that election...and that they have long memories.

Sugar Axe

Iain Martin, on his increasingly brilliant new blog for the Wall Street Journal Europe (which, incidentally, is run by another British stalwart of journalism, former Sunday Telegraph editor Patience Wheatcroft), has noted that Lord (nee Suralan) Sugar's showcase for managerial bullying, The Apprentice, has been axed by the Beeb until after the General Election. We will therefore see even less of this executive dinosaur on our screens than first thought, following his inauspicious and bizarre (and typically insulting) outburst against the constituency he was charged with supporting (or, as he prefers, "championing") - small businesses. Oh joy unconfined.

A big businessman with small business mentality himself - he sees all others as rivals, or all rivals as 'other' (it's hard to say) - he was, perhaps, the worst possible appointment for this role Labour could have conceived. Then again, for a while back there Alan Sugar was bafflingly popular. And that's all it took to get him hired by Mr Universally Loathed, Gordon Brown.

Martin writes:

When he joined the U.K. government, and entered the House of Lords thanks to Gordon Brown’s patronage, Lord Sugar seemed completely baffled as to why anyone might think this move had political connotations.

“I don’t see this as a political thing - I know everybody else does,” he said nonchalantly on the Andrew Marr show, shortly after his appointment.

But that’s the thing about taking a seat in the upper house of the legislature. It…tends…to…be…a…political…thing. Especially when you take a job from the government.

“It’s very simple - all I am is an adviser, I’m not a policymaker,” he went on. “I have been loyal to Gordon Brown and the Labour party for quite a while, but I also have my loyalties to the BBC.”

Others were less sanguine, the Conservatives in particular. Shadow culture secretary Jeremy Hunt demanded an inquiry. There was no way, the Tories said, that the Apprentice could be aired in the run-up to or during a general election when Sugar worked for the government.

Well, the BBC has caved in. The next series of the Apprentice is to be delayed until the summer and after the last possible date of next year’s election. The BBC Trust has ruled that there is an “increased risk to impartiality”.

Quite.

I think it's safe to say from this that the BBC has now decided who's going to win that General Election now and is scared shiftless of upsetting them. They should be.

By the way, I have a story about Sugar you might or might not like. In the mid Nineties, my brother worked for a software company with a colleague who had once had the misfortune of working for Sugar's consumer electronics outfit, Amstrad (or "Alan Michael Sugar Trading" for those that don't know). One of Sugar's methods of "personnel management", so my brother was told, involved walking across the shop floor at fairly regular intervals randomly firing people, especially middle managers and techies. No reason given, just the order of the boot. He would then see if the company could survive without them and, if it was found it couldn't, he would have them rehired soon after. One such victim was hired and fired no fewer than three times during his bumpy time with the firm. Sugar's tyrannical behaviour and the understandable fear of his cowed employees who had to put up with his primadonna-ish mood swings and merciless whim add up to one bad work environment - and one shocking boss. Maybe he paid well (I doubt it). Some might be tempted to approve of this stupidity (eccentric tycoon and all that), but he's Labour's small business "champion", for pity's sake. He's doesn't inspire people, he bullies them into submission.

Sure enough, what's now becoming crystal clear is that the way he ran his workplace has been transferred to the way he "champions" small businesses. "Stop moaning," he barks; "Most of these businesses deserve to go under," he moans, etc. His style of brutality might have made him some money in the 80s, but, a talent for making himself money apart, his neanderthal attitudes and fundamental ignorance won't help British private enterprise to be successful during Brown's bust in the noughties and beyond. For that reason, he should be out.

But, hey, you know, what goes around comes around. I think it's called 'karma'. It seems Sugar's saved up a hell of a lot of bad luck. And so has Brown.

Sweet.

BBC Declares New Class War

BBC ad-campaign for Upstairs, Downstairs revival

Aside from being transparently crap for ages, the BBC has always also been populated (some might say infested) by transparently left wing dickheads. Excuse me for being slightly scatological, but it really does get my gander because these dickheads splash out endlessly on their mindless propaganda habit with my money.

Now they're reviving that old, very old, rather dull and self-important London Weekend Television study in Edwardian class politics created by Jean Marsh (whom I have nothing against, even though she's a leftie too), Upstairs, Downstairs. Er, why?

Could it be the army of lefties at the Beeb finally sense that all is lost for their beloved Labour party so it's time to schedule some suitably revivalist claptrap about a class war that ended thirty years ago? Am I being paranoid? I don't think so. They've done it before, after all. Many times. They've got form. And this fits in perfectly with the "Tory toff" narrative the Left have been madly spinning from the day David Cameron decided to sacrifice a comfortable life and clear up the ruins of the British economy and society that will be left behind by the current crop of useless Labourist cretins. The timing couldn't be better - it's due to air mid-2010, presumably after Brown has finally been given the order of the boot.

You know what, I wouldn't care jot one what the Beeb proselytises about if it wasn't doing it all the bloody time and with my bloody money!

I think I know where the EU found its operating model now: the BBC. Pay us all your money - or else you go to jail - and then watch us do what we like with it. Nice work. Perhaps there's a TV series in that...

There's already been a book, after all. It was called Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Grrr.