Tuesday 13 July 2010

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.

8 comments:

  1. Denverthen,
    I really do not understand if you are railing against the BBC, Hannah Richardson, Labour or labour administration policies in this article. Perhaps all 4 ? Unfortunately, your ill-informed and heavily opinionated piece contains too much venomous bile for you to be taken seriously. I suggest that you do a little research and consider facts before laying a finger on the keyboard.
    I would happily tout Mr.Elms as a prime example of a social capitalist - the type of person who takes what is on offer to benefit school children not just in his own school, but in others that he supports. A by-product of his success is that he has been paid less than a banker who adds minimal value to society. Go-figure tory boy!

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  2. The irony of all this is that in the Socialist Utopia she and her ilk desperately seek, she would be treated as mentally ill and incarcerated. Alternatively she would be kept under constant surveillance as a dangerous liberal, and subject to the full force of coercion by the Party machine. Communism is after all merely Socialism further developed.

    As I get older I can only ponder that maybe this belief in Socialism is caused by some great mental ill- health condition as yet unidentified. I say this because the adherents seem unable to grasp even the most basic tennets of economic theory and practice and seem to believe that money just magically grows on trees.

    They seem completely unable to grasp the fact that a Country can only generate wealth by trade, as the Soviets found out pretty quickly.

    Yet another strange and hypocritical irony is that all these Socialist writers, broadcasters and journalists and fellow travellers are almost always self employed and operate extremely tax efficient schemes to minimise their exposure to income tax, whilst at the same time investing in the Stockmarket and housing.

    I recall one famous (for 5 minutes) pop star pleading with everyone in 1997 to vote Labour into power. I was struck by the fact that he himself had taken off to live in Italy in order to take advantage of their very special tax efficient arrangements for such people.

    Very much a case of everyone being equal but some more equal than others.

    I also recall one very verbal BBC broadcaster similarly pleading with the populace to vote in Labour in 1997.

    Unsurprisingly the silence of both of these individuals on Labour's destruction of our Pensions, and our economy has been absolutely deafening by its absence.

    Every one of the Former Soviet States was only too keen to throw off the shackles of the ultimate socialism in the early 1990s and if you talk to anyone from that era, they are flabbergasted that anyone would ever want to voluntarily move to that form of Government.

    Each and every person is by virtue of our genetic make-up pre-disposed towards capitalism and given any opportunity will attempt to better oneself. It is how civilisation has progressed.

    The same traits can be seen in the likes of any of the former Labour Cabinet, in the same way as it can be seen in the various Communist leaders from Stalin onwards. We see it even more ostentatiously in the Trade Unions where the leaders agrandish themselves with large cars, foreign holidays (sorry, fact finding missions), and huge salaries whilst at the same tiome as in most cases, treating their staff worse than even the worst Capitalist would consider acceptable. They really are beyond contempt

    Amazingly, as they sit there eeking out the last few years in penury and poverty, as a result of their Pensions having been destroyed by Labour, there will undoubtedly by a section of the population who would vote Labour back into power given the opportunity !

    I find the sheer scale of lies, distortions and disingenuities being played across the airwaves and TV screens daily to be breathtaking in its scale, and gall. At the same time I find the stench of cant and hypocricy of those involved to be so stomach churning as to be unbearable.

    The Left always kill or incarcerate in mental institutions all Political opponents immediately on seizing power so as to prevent a resurgence in any form of opposition to them and their aims.

    Somehow I feel we shall not see Labour MPs and their idealogical supporters swinging from lamp posts in the UK. I shall refrain from further comment as to whethe ror not we have missed a trick. !

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  3. Anon:
    Amusing little lefty rant. It made me laugh. But your conclusion was feeble:
    "A by-product of his success is that he has been paid less than a banker who adds minimal value to society. Go-figure tory boy!"
    Tory boy I like. As to your assertion, I'm afraid it's incorrect. Without the large tax take from (at least your quaint version of) 'bankers', men like Elms would be paid what he's worth and not what men like Balls can bribe him to stay in a Labour sink hole, 'social capitalist' (huh?) or not.

    I assume you are a Balls fan, Anon. In which case you certainly already are a lost cause. But we already knew that, didn't we?

    Labourist idiot. Enjoy the wilderness. You deserve it.

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  4. Old Timer: You should start a blog!

    I'd enjoy it.

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  5. scrap the beeb7/14/2010 03:10:00 pm

    denver

    Have you noticed that BBCNews 24 no longer cover all of PMQ's since McSnotty was ousted ?
    They leave half way through on some breaking news pretext then their reporter at Westminster slags off Cameron while he's still answering questions.
    The new policy must be to gradually downplay Camerons half hour of PMQ's until the 'dear leader' is reelected and a proper socialist governmant is back in power. Then it's full on importance for PMQ's again

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  6. @scrap the beeb: Scrap the Beeb!

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  7. Mail Reader?
    Express?
    or just right wing?
    Liberal for that matter
    denverthen you need better direction

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  8. "Mail reader?" Nope

    "Express?" Nope

    "or just right wing?" That only depends on your definition of "right wing", doesn't it? (Always does with the socialists - they invented the term).

    "Liberal for that matter"

    About many things, certainly - naturally - and in the truest sense of the term. About other things, like education, I tend to be rather interventionist, actually, though not according to the corrupt, ideologically as opposed to outcome-motivated socialist model.

    "denverthen you need better direction"
    My direction is my own. That's one of the defining tenets of a free society, something that people like you do not understand and therefore can never appreciate.

    That's why my direction shall certainly never be yours. What you need to do is get off your high horse and put your own house in order, mate.

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Any thoughts?