Freedom of speech in South Africa, what the BBC won't report even though it affected their reporter

That is Julius Malema, leader of the ANC's Youth League, expelling a BBC reporter, Jonah Fisher, from a press conference for daring to comment on where Julius Malema lives - "You live in Sandtown"; he raised this point because Malema had just criticised the Movement for Democratic Change for having offices in affluent Sandton. To which Julius Malema replies:

"This is a building of the revolutionary party and you know nothing of the revolution... here you behave or else you jump(?).. can you get security to remove this thing(?)... don't come here with that white tendencies(?)... you are a small boy, you cannot do anything... go out, go out, bastard... you bloody agent... "

So far The Telegraph and The Guardian have covered this story but the BBC seem less keen even though it was one of their journalists that was expelled form the press conference. Somehow I think that if a black BBC journalist had been expelled from an Afrikaaner's press conference and was told "don't come here with that black tendencies" that it would be headline BBC news.

The Guardian have managed to decipher more of Julius Malema's rantings than I could, do take a read of their article. Here's a part that I missed: "You can go out. Rubbish is what you have covered in that trouser. That is rubbish. You are a small boy, you can't do anything.".

Julius Malema seems like he's learnt a lot from his trip to Zimbabwe, mainly how to use paranoia about 'agents' and conspiracies to justify any actions. If I were Jonah Fisher I would worry about what might happen to him, Julius Malema does not like criticism and won't enjoy the publicity this action has brought him.


His Wikipedia entry includes soem interesting facts: 'His school career was undistinguished and he failed two high school grades as well as several subjects in his final secondary school examination. His highest mark attained at school was reported as a "C" for second language English and his lowest marks were published as an "H" (sub 25%) in maths and a "G" (sub 20%) in woodwork, all in the standard grade.'

'In February 2010 Malema came under fire for alleged intervening in government tenders in the Limpopo province; see below. Malema is currently a director in a number of companies that was awarded these tenders. Malema denies these allegations, but is still listed as a director in all these companies. He is especially under fire for his lavish lifestyle, where he drives a number of expensive cars, and lives in a expensive house in Sandton. When questioned about his lavish lifestyle, he blames the allegations on racism in South Africa, and that white people do not want to see black people succeed in SA. When asked about his Mercedes Benz C63 AMG, he says "its nothing compared to what white kids drive on Sundays".

Malema has recently been criticised for not paying any personal taxes nor business taxes for his four registered companies for the two years since his election as the president of the ANCYL. He is apparently being investigated by a senior team within the South African Revenue Service.'

The seventy-eighth weekly "No shit, Sherlock" award

This week's award goes to David Cameron (as reported in The Telegraph) for noticing that 'Labour has made people afraid to discuss immigration for fear of being called racist, according to David Cameron. '

Labour brainwashing tactics and of course using 'racist' as an argument ending killer comment was deliberately planned to stop disagreements with their deliberate policy of mass immigration, so 'Labour has made people afraid to discuss immigration for fear of being called racist' - "No shit, Sherlock" and a bit late to realise this.

Blimey, what happened?

The Today interview with David Cameron was a surprise. Evan Davis pushed but not too much, was politely aggressive but interrupted less than I expected and certainly less than John Humphrys interrupted Gordon Brown in yesterday's equivalent interview.

What struck me was how much better an interviewee David Cameron is than Gordon Brown. David Cameron sounds controlled and engaged, rather than in a temper and dismissive of criticism. There is warmth in David Cameron's voice, maybe too much 'sincerity' but he sounds human and actually reacts to questioning, whereas Gordon Brown just bags on and on and on and on on his chosen line and ignores the actual question.

To sum up, a good interview by Evan Davis and, apart from his jokey "Daily Star" favourite newspaper answer, I think David Cameron came out ahead and I'm not even a great fan of his. I wonder how Gordon Brown would have reacted when asked what his favourite newspaper was?

I have used a new label for this post - 'BBC impartiality', I hope this won't be the only time I can do so in this election campaign, but somehow I think it will feature less than 'BBC bias' and 'BBC/NuLab'.

The Today programme interview today with David Cameron

I shall be listening with great interest to this morning's Radio 4 Today 08:00 interview with David Cameron and comparing it with yesterday's with Gordon Brown. Unfortunately I will be driving and so unable to blog about it until later this morning. I have expectations that the interview will be more confrontational than yesterday's and probably more personal as well, but no doubt Beeb Bias Craig will provide analysis.

Malcolm McLaren R.I.P.

Malcolm McLaren, the godfather of punk, PR genius, impresario, performer, manager of 'punk' and 'pop' groups and of course supreme self-publicist has died at the age of only 64. Malcolm McLaren, the man who supplied or inspired much of the soundtrack of my youth, has died and I will miss his ocasional forays into the modern music business. I will post a more complete tribute tonight or tomorrow but in the meantime...
Sex Pistols live in 1976 - "Anarchy in the UK"

Phil Woolas 'explains'

Today's Daily Politics programme has Phil Woolas explaining to Andrew Neil that 98.5 per cent of the 1.67m new jobs for those of working age created since 1997 have not gone to foreign workers. I am confused...

More interesting is the second set of figures on foreign born workers in the private sector.

Nice try by Phil Woolas to try and make out that those making these claims are in some way racist. Just look at Kevin Maguire's face as he tries to not get involved in any way.

Prime minister Gordon Brown said there will be no rise in the basic rate of 20 per cent tax should Labour win the election

I hear that our 'honest as the day is long' Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has said there will be no rise in the basic rate of 20 per cent tax should Labour win the election. So that means one or more of the following:

* Increases in National Insurance which is Income Tax by another name for most people

* Below inflation increases in personal allowances

* The 20% basic rate will stay but a new 30% rate will be introduced at a lower level and in addition to the 40% rate

* Rises in VAT and applied to currently zero rated items

* Rises in fuel duty

* A new annual tax on the capital element of savings (not the interest, the capital)

* A tax on the sale of main properties (currently tax exempt)

* Rises in any other stealth taxes that Gordon Brown can think of


Yes I am so f**king happy that Gordon Brown has said that there will be no increase in the basic rate of Income Tax, that's really convincing and reassuring.

Mind you since this is the same mendacious c**t that promised us a referendum on the EU Constitution & reneged and that promised an end to boom and bust before leading us into the biggest bust for generations; I wouldn't be too reassured.

Hold on a moment isn't he also the same lying t**t that (alongside Tony Blair) in 2005 promised no increase in Income Tax and promptly increased National Insurance. Looks like he's trying the same trick again.

This is definite 'Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me' time - so get angry and get even by ensuring that Gordon Brown, Peter Mandelson and the rest of the Labour leadership have the smug grins wiped off of their faces on 7 May.

Interesting posts on a Thursday

Busy day so here's a few items that caught my eye and you might find interesting:

1) Burning Our Money has an even more worrying than normal post on UK debt that could stop you from getting a good night's sleep tonight, here's an extract:

'The Bank for International Settlements disagrees. In a recent paper on the international outlook for public debt, they point to the UK as being the worst placed of any major economy.

On current policies, they project that by 2040 government debt interest payments in the UK will have ballooned from their current level under 3% of GDP up to nearly 30% - worse than any other country.

...

Or to put it another way, by 2040 the average family would be paying (in today's money) over £10 grand every year just to pay the government's debt interest bill.

And by 2040, the BIS estimates that our official public sector debt (ie excluding Enron items like public sector pensions) will be a staggering 550% of GDP'

2) Letters from a Tory explains 'The painful reality of 13 years of Labour’s benefits system' and it is a painful read. LFAT explains how

'a scarcely-reported document released yesterday by the Institute for Fiscal Studies gave a devastating assessment of how Labour’s benefits culture has done its bit to drive this country into the ground and tear families apart... On page 18, there is a fairly innocuous-looking table which details the average gains and losses for different people in terms of tax and benefit reforms that have been introduced since 1997. The data and, perhaps more importantly, the messages that these changes send out are deeply troubling and go a long way to explaining how Labour have bred such a disturbing culture of welfare dependency. Here is a summary of what Labour have done to our tax and benefits system in terms of changes to annual income:

* If you are single, you’ve lost out. It’s as simple as that. If you’re single and working, you have seen your income per year drop by 4.6% on average. However, if you’re single and not working, you’ve only seen your income drop by 1.8% a year.
* Lone parents have had money thrown at them by Labour. If you’re a lone parent who works, your income has rocketed by 12.4% under Labour, but if you’re a lone parent who doesn’t work then your income has shot up by 16.1% instead.
* If you’re in a relationship in which neither partner is working and you have no children, your income had dropped slightly by 1.3%. However, if you’re in a relationship in which no-one is working and you have children then fear not, because your income will have increased by a massive 16% under Labour in return for… well… not working and having kids.
* Unfortunately, if you’re in a couple and at least one of you is working then its bad news all around. If one of you is working and you have no children, you’re down 5.3% a year under Labour, and if you have children then you’re down 1.3%. If both partners work and you have children, you’re out of pocket by 3.5% a year, and if you’re in a relationship where you both work and have no children you’re down by 4.7%.
* Pensioners have done quite well out of these changes, with the income of single pensioners up 9.9% a year, but if you’re in a couple then your income is only up 3.2%.
* The average change of income under Labour across all age groups and households is a loss of 0.9% a year.

Something else for Gordon Brown to be tackled on and no doubt something else he will answer with waffle and guff whilst the BBC interviewer looks on adoringly. The thing is that this has not happened by accident it was part of Labour's plan to create a client sate that would vote labour no matter what and they have succeeded.


3) Iain Dale reports that: 'Dragons' Den star James Caan has today backed Tory economic policy' and here's the James Caan press release in full (my emphasis):

'James Caan, champion of entrepreneurship and star of BBC TVs Dragons’ Den, analysed the policies of the Labour and Conservative parties today, in search of solace for small business prior to the General Election.

“Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SME’s) obviously have a huge part to play in the economic recovery and providing employment growth,“ said James Caan. “Currently, all parties are claiming to have prioritized help to SME’s, but that help comes in various policy forms.”

“Labour and the Conservatives seem to be offering alternative policy focuses for economic recovery, and their plans for deficit reduction depend upon the successful impact of their respective policies. I believe that the recovery needs to be business-led, with particular support for SME’s, and the Conservatives are most convincing on this aspect at the moment.”

“Labour have outlined a series of encouraging measures as part of their £2.5bn Growth Package to help small businesses, but Alistair Darling’s budget claimed to be based on the lowest end of Bank of England growth estimates,“ said Caan, “but I am convinced that his growth figures are exaggerated. If this is the case, his borrowing projections also look imprudent.“

Caan states that viable SME’s are continuing to struggle to access the credit that they need, and emphasises that Labour have largely failed to ensure that access over the past year. Moreover, “their plans to ensure that Lloyds and RBS lend to SME’s by setting targets and creating a Credit Adjudicator Service (CAS) are ambiguous“ said Caan. “Their plans to raise National Insurance Contributions will also cost of thousands of jobs.“

Caan believes that the Conservative Party has a stronger focus on business and will also be more successful in reassuring the financial markets.

“The Tories place a different and greater emphasis on making it easier for SME’s to operate, and are willing to actually cut taxes here. Their plan to keep NI at its current level will protect jobs in the private sector, and it will act as an incentive for business.“ he said.

Caan is impressed by George Osborne’s promise to cut the deficit faster than Labour, and to put more emphasis on spending cuts rather than tax rises. “Cutting the deficit will be easier given a stronger business-led recovery.”

“Regardless of who wins the election, market led growth will be crucial, but this needs to be implemented with minimal transitional cost in terms of jobs,“ said Caan. “At the moment, the Tories will be receiving the entrepreneurial vote, and I think that current employees and jobseekers will also welcome the NI relief on employers to employ them.“

James Caan has a good understanding of the needs of small businesses. He has created many millionaires, and has launched his Entrepreneurs’ Business Academy. James Caan has co-chaired the government’s Ethnic Minorities Business Task Force, reporting directly to business secretary Lord Peter Mandelson. '

Peter Mandelson won't be happy, I wonder how he will take revenge?


4) ITV's Tom Bradby explains that 'interviewing Gordon is unlike interviewing any other politician.' and here's part of his reasoning:

'Most encounters with party leaders or MPs form a distinct pattern. We come in. We sit down. We chat pleasantly. We do an interview, which is probing, highbrow or a bit brutal, as circumstances demand. Then we exchange more pleasantries as we shoot a few ‘wide’ shots. And we go away.

End of story.

Simple, huh?

Tony Blair was like this. David Cameron is. So are Alastair Darling, Nick Clegg, George Osborne and just about every other front rank politician I can think of.

Not Gordon.... interviewing him is emotionally complicated.He doesn’t seem to understand that we are here to ask difficult questions and test his arguments by establishing contrary positions. He nearly always tells us we are wrong, both on and off camera, and that we have not done our research. He often gets angry, sometimes sulks and from time to time looks brutally hurt.

I really don’t know what to make of it. It’s not politics as we know it.'

I know what to make of it Tom; Gordon Brown is an evasive, aggressive, obsessive ****.

Gordon Brown, employment and immigration - the truth?

This morning in his interview with John Humphrys on the Today programme (listen here from 18:00 to for the next week) Gordon Brown made some rather odd remarks regarding the amount of jobs his government had created and how many had gone to immigrants. Here's my transcript:

GB: "... we're getting more people back into work and therefore there are savings from people not staying.."
JH (interrupting): "mostly foreigners actually (but there we are)..."
GB (reacting to interruption): "John I think that's a bit unfair"
JH (interrupting): "Well 97% of new jobs going to foreigners"
GB: "That is just simply not the case, there are two and a half million more people in work in this country.."
JH (interrupting): "That's not the point, there are more people in work, but half of them are foreigners, anyway go on..."
GB: Jon I think you are going too far there, because if you look at the numbers of people who've got into work over the past few years; it's young people... the over 50s... more women working... more single parents working..."

So what's the truth of it? The Mail reports claims that

'Figures suggested an extraordinary 98.5 per cent of 1.67million new posts were taken by immigrants.'

The Express reports that:

'Official figures revealed that more than nine out 10 of the 1.7 million jobs added to the economy since 1997 have gone to workers from overseas.

They also showed that nearly 300,000 fewer British-born workers were employed in the private sector than when Labour came to power.'

What we need is for an interviewer to get Gordon Brown in a studio and ask him to accept that whilst 2.5 million jobs might well have been created since 1997, 98% of them have gone to foreigners. Asking Gordon Brown once, twice or even three times in not enough as he will just evade the question. I suggest that someone might need to 'do a Paxman' and keep asking the same question over and over again until the interview ends. Maybe that is why Gordon 'fearty' Brown has refused to be interviewed by Jeremy Paxman in during the general election campaign - Gordon 'Courage' Brown? Don't make me laugh!

The trouble is that this is one of the main problems with Gordon Brown, he does not answer questions and for the good of democracy he needs to be tackled properly on this issue and others.




As an aside, let's look at Hansard's record for Wednesday's PMQs:

'Q7. [325645] Damian Green (Ashford) (Con): The Prime Minister once notoriously promised "British jobs for British workers". Can he confirm that the latest official figures, produced this morning, show that the number of UK-born private sector workers is several hundred thousand lower today than it was in 1997?

The Prime Minister: Net migration to this country has been falling as a result of actions that we have been taking, and it has fallen in the last three years. It is falling because there are more people here locally getting the jobs that are available. The Conservatives should think twice about their policy on quotas for migration, because the very businesses that they are quoting want to be able to bring people into this country to do the jobs that are necessary. We propose the Australian points system on migration. The Conservatives' policy of a quota for immigration, without giving a number, would do great damage to British business.'

Why The Election Means Nothing To The Markets

Harvey Jones on Motley Fool writes an interesting article but it was this line that really caught my eye:

'But the truth is that the speed at which we pay down our debt won't be dictated by Westminster, which now only pretends to be in charge of this country's financial destiny, but by the credit rating agencies and the bond markets. They are the masters now, and will be pulling the strings of Alistair Darling, George Osborne, Vince Cable or whichever puppet Chancellor is nominally in charge of our finances after 6 May.'

A reminder of the BBC's shameless bias at during the 2005 general election

Riehl World View reminds me of this from 2005:

'The BBC is under fire for controversial actions that blur the lines between state sponsored allegedly free media and political speech after it equipped hecklers at a campaign rally for Conservative leader Michael Howard with microphones to repeatedly yell charges which included, "Michael Howard is a liar", "You can't trust the Tories" and "You can only trust Tony Blair".

While the BCC claims this was part of a documentary on political heckling and events of other parties events were also attended, the Telegraph has determined that no events for Liberal Tony Blair have been infiltrated or disrupted.

A spokesman for the BBC has attempted to minimize the controversial event and BBC camera crews were seen focused on the hecklers, causing conservatives to charge the BBC with manufacturing negative news as regards the Conservative Party.

The spokesman was unable to provide details of any other campaign meetings attended by the BBC3 crew. He said that the hecklers had not been paid a fee, but could not say whether they had received expenses.'

Keep an eye on the BBC this general election.

Robert Peston and 'one important counter-argument'

Robert Peston's piece entitled 'National Insurance: Who's got it right?' starts 'Welcome to Reality Check. Today I'm examining the political argument over National Insurance.' but unsurprisingly it editorialises in an unsurprising way:

'There is, however, one important counter-argument, about the nature of the good society.'

Beeb Bias Craig takes Robert Peston to task...

Gordon Brown takes responsibilty, without accepting he was responsible

John Humphrys actually tried to take Gordon Brown to task in his 08:10 interview, a lot of the interview was about Gordon Brown's culpability for the financial crisis in the UK and do listen as Gordon Brown says he takes responsibility without really accepting responsibility. Gordon Brown also refused to explain why the 60+ business leaders were deceived and still claimed that the 2.5 million new jobs are not primarily made up of immigrants - here Migration Watch explains the truth of that statement.

The BBC news bulletin immediately after the interview, of course, summarised the interview from a very positive angle of what Gordon Brown claimed.


As an aside who would you trust on economic matters: Gordon Brown who is sees a 0.4% rise in GDP as a positive sign that we are coming out of recession or Sir Stuart Rose who managed his company to a 5.1% rise in sales in the last quarter.

"We'd just mutter a bit..."

The BBC Radio 4 Today programme this morning had John Humphrys interviewing Chris Patten and others about the built-in anti-Conservative bias in the way constituency boundaries are constituted. John Humphrys ran the discussion as an interesting academic discussion. Somehow I think that if the system favoured the Conservative party and left the Labour party needing proportionally more votes per elected MP than the Conservatives, then the discussion with a Labour greybeard would have had more urgency and claims of unfairness. You see Conservatives (and the Republicans in the US) are meant to just 'suck it up' when they are the victims of unfairness whilst Labour (and the Democrats in the US) moan, whinge, whine and maybe 'man the barricades' in protest.

"Why did he sell the gold... was it a good decision?"

Andrew Slaughter MP (at the moment) 'defending' Gordon Brown's incompetent selling of half of Britain's gold on LBC.

How is this taking £6 billion out of the economy and why does Gordon Brown never answer the question?

Watch Gordon Brown thought of as an economic genius when he obviously doesn't know what he is talking about. What the fuck is he talking about when he says that the Conservative plans to cancel the 1% NI increase will take £6 billion out of the economy? How is that the case? Will the £6 billion just disappear or will it be available to spend by the companies who will not have to pay it? Perhaps the companies will use it to invest in equipment or take on new staff, what does Gordon Brown think will happen to the £6 billion not taken in higher taxation? I get the feeling that Gordon Brown is such a centraliser that he cannot conceive of money being spent other than in the public sector, for what he means is that his public sector will be denied £6 billion, that his carefully constructed client state will be denied yet more money.

To give Nick Robinson some credit he does gently push Gordon Brown as to why he claimed the businessmen had been deceived, but Gordon Brown just doesn't answer. He really seems to think that only he understands what is happening as everyone else has been deceived. In Gordon Brown's mind he really does bestride the world as an economic genius whilst we are all idiots. Gordon Brown really needs to be pressed on this subject again and again and maybe Jeremy Paxman would do that but Gordon Brown has apparently chickened out of a Jeremy Paxman interview; that's Gordon 'fearty' Brown in action again.

Also didn't Tony Blair also promise to serve a full term before the 2005 election?

The truth about Barack Obama's past?

The Examiner reports that:

'In what is being called 'the biggest hustle in human history,' a special investigation has discovered numerous bogus claims on Barack Obama's resume, including the outright lie that he was a 'Constitutional scholar and professor.'

The claim turns out to be false.'

Read the whole article and decide for yourselves...

"When we took our trip to Africa and visited his home country in Kenya"

Was that Michelle Obama admitting that Barack Obama is indeed Kenyan?




Thanks to Theo Spark for the spot.

What Gordon Brown said and what the official transcript says he said

The FT has spotted some very interesting discrepancies between what Gordon Brown said yesterday and what the Labour official transcript says he said. Here's a few examples:

'# Brown forgot to say the headline phrase “the future is ours to win”. His final lines were “It’s a future fair for all, now all of us let’s go to it” but these altered by Labour to “the future is ours to win, now let’s get to it”
# Brown claimed he was from a “middle class” family, but this disappears from the official version
# Brown referred to “our police, our schools and our hospitals” which Labour HQ altered to “your hospitals, your schools, your policing”'

Interesting?

Zimbabwe yesterday, South Africa tomorrow?

The Zimbabwe Mail has some worrying information for South Africans:

'Controversial South African youth leader for the African National Congress has said ANC will follow the example of Zimbabwe's Zanu PF and start to take over white-owned farms by the end of the year.

The comments were made by Julius Malema at a mine 160 kilometers outside Harare in Zimbabwe.

The ANC Youth Wing leader, enthused by rented Zanu PF crowd, said Zimbabwe had led the way in fighting over land and promised to unleash Zimbabwean tactics on South African white farmers.

He encouraged Zimbabweans to also take over white and foreign-owned companies. Malema said the people must embrace liberation and continue to fight against what he called Western imperialism.

He said: "You are not alone. Your struggle is our struggle."

Malema also said he would continue to sing the song: "Kill the Boer," a former ANC chant against the apartheid regime. The song was last week banned in a South African court.

The ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema, shot to fame by expressing his undying support for the South African President, Jacob Zuma, by saying: "We are prepared to take up arms and kill for Zuma."'

South Africa's future as the 'rainbow nation' looks less likely by the day.

The election 'narrative' has been set

The day the election was called gave us all the opportunity to see the 'narrative' and tactics that the Labour/BBC alliance have agreed upon.

All Labour policies are to be accepted as wise and their funding or economic assumptions not questioned. All Labour spokesmen will be allowed to state that Gordon Brown got the big decisions right without being challenged, the same will be true for Vince Cable. All Labour spokesmen will be allowed to make disparaging remarks about George Osborne and claim that he and David Cameron got all major decisions wrong and were alone in the world in proposing cuts. Labour spokesmen will be allowed to conflate reducing the deficit by 50% over four years with reducing debt; two completely different matters but the public should not be reminded of this. All Labour spokesmen will be treated with respect and not interrupted except in extremis. Labour will be allowed the first and last word and in some cases the only words on some matters. The views of ex-Labour bigwigs that Gordon Brown should be re-elected will be treated as major news rather than as obvious and will be covered in full and over and over again. All speeches by Labour chiefs (past and present) will be treated rather as the sermon on the mount and given full coverage.

Lib Dem spokesmen will be allowed to make as many ridiculous claims as they like even to claim that Nick Clegg could become Prime Minister without being challenged too hard. Vince Cable's remarks will be treated as if presented on tablets of stone. A hung parliament will be discussed as if it will be a good and exciting outcome and speculated upon based upon a Uniform National Swing, even though the swing in the marginals will almost certainly be different (Channel 4 News last night covered this point well, the BBC continue to ignore it). Opinion polls will only be mentioned when there is one that is positive for Labour and the commentary that the public should be left with is that the polls are narrowing, even if the gap is actually opening up again (Norman Smith on Radio 4 news yesterday evening was a prime offender).

All Conservative pledges will be treated as unfunded or dangerous to the economic recovery. Any slight difference in emphasis between any two Conservatives will be treated as indicative of a major split (meanwhile any major discrepancies on economic policy between Gordon Brown, Peter Mandelson and Alistair Darling will be ignored). As many as possible interviews with Conservatives will mention Eton, privilege, hunting and Lord Ashcroft. All Conservative spokesman will be treated with a mixture of disdain and disbelief and interrupted as often as possible to ruin their flow and make them sound permanently on the defensive.


So that's the Labour/BBC plan as I see it; any other tricks you have spotted?

An iPad or an ObamaPad?

Which would you choose?

A socialist hypocrite

Funny how being in power has changed socialist apparatchik Maxine Waters's view of political dissent.


Thanks to Moonbattery for the spot.

How much money has Gordon Brown taken from your pension?

In 1997 Gordon Brown is one of his first acts as Chancellor of the Exchequer changed the tax treatment of pension funds. His first Budget removed the tax credit on dividend income and an estimated £5 billion from Britons’ pension funds each year. Do you want to know how much that one act has cost you? The answer should be calculable at Pensions Time Bomb.

Gordon Brown has made poor or evil decisions ever since 1997, so make sure he's kicked out of office come May 6th.


Sourced from "the other blog".

Gordon Brown's totalitarian instincts shine through

"We will renew the contract between the people and those that they are sworn to serve"

From Gordon Brown's speech launching his election campaign. Surely in a democracy the government is meant to serve the people not the other way around; but under Labour who really believes that the UK is a proper democracy?

Is the BBC's Nick Robinson calling Gordon Brown a liar

The BBC's Nick Robinson in his piece today on the calling of the general election writes:

'Image Two: Alistair Darling emerging from the famous black door at Gordon Brown's side. The chancellor the prime minister planned to sack is now seen as a key electoral asset.'

Hold on a moment, didn't Gordon Brown flatly deny that he was ever planning to sack Alistair Darling? Here's the video...
So was Gordon Brown lying at that press conference or is Nick Robinson misleading the public now? It surely has to be one or the other...

The seventy-seventh weekly "No shit, Sherlock" award

This week's winner is Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, who is reported to have said:

"I have to say to you this, that if you judge a government by how it behaves as an employer, this is the worst government in the history of this country"

I disagree with his reasons but it must be true that "this is the worst government in the history of this country". So "No shit, Sherlock"

Johnson Beharry is now a non-person on the BBC

When Johnson Beharry was awarded his Victoria Cross, the highest military decoration which is awarded for valour "in the face of the enemy" to members of the armed forces, his name and details were all over the BBC website. Oddly neww that he refused to shake Gordon Brown's hand at a ceremony has not made it to the BBC website.

If you want to keep an eye on the BBC's 'unbiased' news coverage, keep an eye on this search, until the BBC mention Johnson Beharry's comments at Remembrance Day that:

'he said the Prime Minister was “fidgeting and moving” during the two minute silence.

“I've got head and back injuries that put me back in hospital in a lot of pain quite regularly, so if I could do it there's no reason he couldn't," he said. "It was very rude.

“I was absolutely furious with him. All that was going through my head was to knock him out.

“So on the official line-up that time, I decided I'd get his attention and let him know how I felt.

“When he offered his hand to me I just turned around and walked away. I wanted him to think about his actions and it worked.”'

then I will have to assume that they are irredeemably pro-Labour.

Not really believable

The Guardian quotes the BBC director general, Mark Thompson, as saying that:

'the corporation will "show neither fear nor favour" in how it reports the imminent general election campaign.

Thompson, outlining some of the BBC's plans for its election coverage in a BBC blog, said it was "vital that the BBC is able to provide a strong and independent place where the big debates can take place – free from political or commercial influence".'

Anyone who has spent some time on this blog, at Biased BBC or Beeb Bias Craig will know that claims of BBC impartiality are at best a joke.

The BBC's cheerleading for the Labour party has been obvious for some years now but standby for a ramping up beyond anything you have ever experienced before.

A glimpse inside Number 10 as Gordon 'courage' Brown prepares to visit The Palace

Iain Martin in the Wall Street Journal captures the flavour of the atmosphere in Number 10 as Gordon 'fearty' Brown prepares to go to Buckingham Palace to call the general election. Do read the whole piece, here's an extract:

'GB (getting up and pacing around the horse-shoe shaped hub with his hands over his ears): “Everybody stop shouting! Just let me think. (Another long silence) Look… look… Ed, I’ve been working on some numbers overnight on the Tories national insurance plans, and boy we’ve really got them. Their numbers don’t add up. It’s gonna be just like the old days! Ed, if we can keep going, I know we’re going to get that big breakthrough. I know it, I can feel it. Just a few more days now, then I’ll call the election. I promise.”

Sue Nye (leaving the room in a hurry): “I knew this would happen. I’m going to get Sarah.”

Ed Balls (patiently): “Gordon, you remember how we talked about why there has to be an election every five years? And that it’s almost exactly five years since the last one, and that rather than waiting until the final, final date possible, we’ve all agreed, and you have decided, haven’t you, remember, that it’s best to do this thing on May 6. And everyone out there (points out of the window of Number 10) expects you to go and see the Queen and get her permission and then tell the country it’s election time. Today, now.”

GB: “Can I call Peter? Just for a second?”

Charlie Whelan: “Nope. You’ve had more than enough of Mandelson and his advice. We’ve taken your mobile phone away.”

...

Sarah (quietly): “No. No more delays. (Quickly brightening again). But what did we discuss last night? What did I tell you Gordon?”

GB (looking pleased as punch): “That I’m going to win the election.”

Sarah (nodding patiently, taking his hand and leading him out of the room and down the corridor toward the front door of Number 10): “Of course you are. And why are you going to win Gordon?”

GB: “Because I saved the banks and then I saved the economy. I’m a serious man for serious times, not like him (glowering now)… that Lord… Lord… Lord Snooty Cameron and his pal Osborne… I am serious and I am going to win and still be prime minister and lead this country into a fairer future for another five years. Or maybe even a bit more than that… anyway, until I can hand over to Ed to continue the work of change.”'

Obama's army is on its way

I have blogged previously about Barack Obama's stated plans for a civilian army to match the US armed forces in size. So was interested to see the above video; what Obama wants, Obama gets - for the moment anyway. A 6,000 uniformed and armed 'army' - the Ready Reserve - at the disposal of The President. Now are you scared?

A short piece of Victor Borge magic

Two Michelin stars for the cooking but not much for the spelling

The Gidleigh Park Hotel has a list of Easter treats for its guests' children, including (my emphasis):

'Should you be joining us over the Easter weekend then the children are treated to an Easter egg hunt, with prizes strategically placed in the grounds buy the Easter Bunny!'

Schoolboy error there. Maybe Gidleigh Park need a better proof-reader, maybe not as good a proof-reader as Michael Caines is a chef, but certainly better...

A man of real courage on the man who wrote a book on courage despite having none himself

The Telegraph report that:

'Johnson Beharry, Victoria Cross hero, refuses to shake Gordon Brown's hand.

Johnson Beharry, Britain's highest decorated serving soldier, refused to shake Gordon Brown's hand in a protest during a state ceremony.

The winner of the Victoria Cross said Mr Brown had repeatedly disrespected him, his uniform and the Armed Forces.

The Prime Minister has since written a letter to Lance Corporal Beharry in an attempt to make amends.

But L/Cpl Beharry said it was a personal, rather than political gesture, according to The Sun.

He said that Mr Brown had not looked him or any other servicemen in the eye at a reception in Downing Street in November 2008.

Then in Westminster Abbey during the Remembrance Day service last November he said the Prime Minister was “fidgeting and moving” during the two minute silence.

“I've got head and back injuries that put me back in hospital in a lot of pain quite regularly, so if I could do it there's no reason he couldn't," he said. "It was very rude.

“I was absolutely furious with him. All that was going through my head was to knock him out.

“So on the official line-up that time, I decided I'd get his attention and let him know how I felt.

“When he offered his hand to me I just turned around and walked away. I wanted him to think about his actions and it worked.”

The NCO from the 1st Battalion, Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment said Sarah Brown, the Prime Minister’s wife spotted his snub and wanted to invite him to No 10 to apologise, but no invitation materialised.

L/Cpl Beharry added: "This is nothing to do with the election, or who I want to be PM. My problem is with him personally, Gordon Brown the man." '

Anyone who has seen Gordon Brown at the Cenotaph or anywhere near real soldiers can see how uncomfortable he is. Gordon Brown has starved the frontline armed forces of resources, action that many believe has resulted in the unnecessary deaths of many and serious life-changing injuries to many more.

Thankfully the majority of the British people realise what the truth of the situation is and rate Gordon Brown accordingly. The BBC, who also detest the British military for their generally right of centre views, will no doubt not report this story but maybe someone could raise it with Gordon 'fearty' Brown the next time he is within earshot.

Has Vince Cable really been consistently right on the economy?

If you listen to the BBC you might think that Vince Cable had been right all along and totally consistent in his views on the economy. Of course this is propaganda spread by an organisation desperate to prevent the Conservatives winning the general election. Of course the BBC would prefer a Labour victory but a Labour/Lib Dem alliance is definitely preferable to the 'nasty party' winning. Hence the BBC's boosting of Vince Cable and talk of a hung parliament.

So I was interested today to see that The Sun have turned on Vince Cable:

'LIB DEM deputy leader Vince Cable is today exposed as a hopeless "flip-flopper" who cannot make up his mind on what's best for the economy.

Wobbly Mr Cable - who triumphed with viewers in TV's Ask The Chancellors debate last week - has been caught out making a series of embarrassing U-turns on key policies.

It shatters his image as the wise and cool-headed "recession guru" who voters could trust to put Britain back on course.

Lib Dem Treasury spokesman Mr Cable, 66 - who could still land in the Cabinet if there is a hung Parliament - made these five monster flip-flops:

He slammed the Government in January last year for printing more money in a bid to kick-start the economy. He declared: "This is the Robert Mugabe school of economics."

Nine months later he claimed the plan was RIGHT and said: "There is a Robert Mugabe school but this is not it. If I gave that impression, it clearly was wrong."

Mr Cable said in December 2003, that Britain should not be "panicked" into cutting public spending by the International Monetary Fund.

But last September he claimed: "I argued that there was a problem in relation to asset prices and borrowing...

"I don't think I launched a sustained attack on the IMF."

He said in October 2008: "It is entirely wrong for the Government to stimulate the economy by yet more public spending."

In February last year his message had changed to: "We believe the Government stimulus is right and necessary."

When Mr Cable was asked in 2008 about Gordon Brown's backing for Lloyds TSB's takeover of stricken HBOS, he said: "We have no quarrel with what he did. That seemed the right approach."

Just four months later he said: "It looks increasingly as if Lloyds is being dragged under by the dead weight of HBOS." Mr Cable later admitted: "It's fair to say I did change my position on that issue."

He told the Lib Dem conference in September 2008: "The Government must not compromise the independence of the Bank of England by telling it to slash interest rates."

Only weeks later he said the Chancellor should urge the Governor of the Bank to make "a large cut in interest rates".'

Of course these five flip flops will not affect the BBC's pro-Vince 'narrative' in the slightest, after all there is an election to be affected.

What does John Prescott weigh?

Not a puerile question but one that is becoming quite interesting. Tory Landlord is all over the story that John Prescott claimed on Twitter that 'I'm actually 96 kilos and 72 years of age, for the record'. Well Tory Landlord points out that John Prescott is actually 71, his 72nd birthday not being until 31 May.

Tory Landlord then wonders

'For the non-Europhiles among us, 96 kilos is only just over 15 stone. That does seem a bit unlikely – unless he’s really short – because, let’s be honest, the bloke is fat. I asked around, and the general consensus seems to be that he is probably 5′8″-5′9″ (height, not width). So I helpfully put his details into a BMI calculator. At 96 kilos and 5′8″, his BMI is 32.2; at 5′9″ his BMI’s 31.3. Either way, he’s clinically obese. Shocker..

Now I weigh around 98 kilos and am around 5'9" tall and I look nowhere near the size of John Prescott. I am clearly not svelte and have a paunch and am clinically obese, but I cut nothing like the jowlly figure that John Prescott does. I cannot be sure but I do not believe that if I sat at the opposite end of a see-saw from John Prescott that I would end up other than up in the air.

The Labour government, the Labour party, Tony Blair, Windrush and Data Protection

Greg Hands on Conservative Home have the details of a fascinating story.

Is now the time for David Davis to return to the Conservative front bench?

Will Christopher Grayling's 'gaffe' be the push that David Cameron needs to bring David Davis back to the Conservative front bench for the coming general election battle. Has David Cameron the nerve to bring another Tory big gun back to his team? He took the, arguably, bigger risk and recalled Ken Clarke, so why not David Davis?

Why are there so many happy lady cyclists in Amsterdam?

Thanks to Theo Spark for the spot.

New Scientist and 'global warming' science

Joanne Nova explains New Scientist's problems with science. Do read the whole piece, but here is an extract:

'You might think journalists at a popular science magazine would be able to investigate and reason.

In DenierGate, watch New Scientist closely as it does the unthinkable and tries to defend gross scientific malpractice by saying it’s okay because other people have done other things (that were not related) a little bit wrong and a long time ago. Move along ladies and gentlemen, there’s nothing to see…

The big problem for this formerly good publication is that it has decided already what the answer is to any question on climate change (and the answer could be warm or cold, but it’s always ALARMING). That leaves it clutching for sand-bags to prop up its position as the king-tide sweeps away any journalistic credibility it might have had.

...

spot the appearance of the mythical “HUGE body of evidence”. Can anyone at New Scientist find that one mystery paper with empirical evidence showing that carbon causes major warming? Just ONE? That’s major warming, not minor. And that’s empirical, i.e., by observation, not by simulation.'

Which senior politician's gaffes are newsworthy and which are not

Let's be generous and say that Chris Grayling is what, the fourth most senior Conservative politician - after David Cameron, William Hague and George Osborne - if so then the BBC are quite correct to report his remarks thus:

'A key Conservative has been recorded suggesting people who run bed and breakfasts in their homes should have the right to reject homosexual guests.

But shadow home secretary Chris Grayling said hotels should not be allowed to discriminate in that way.'

This story is the BBC lead political story and the number three story on the News front page.

Oddly, I can see no coverage on the BBC news website of Peter Mandelson - the number two, if not number one Labour politician, the man who has cemented his position at Gordon Brown's right hand by winning full control of Labour's general election campaign team - saying that if Labour wins the general election then Gordon Brown may not serve five years, or four or even three years as Prime Minister. Obviously news that the serving Prime Minister looking for re-election (sorry first election) as Prime Minister may not look to serve a full term is just not newsworthy in the eyes of the BBC, but why?

Top Gear's Stig takes a lap in a 'kit car' version of the Lancia Stratos

So will the BBC report that the opinion polls are moving back in favour of the Conservatives?

Of course not when the votes are moving to Labour then 'the gap is narrowing' becomes the exciting 'narrative' and Poll Tracker moves into a more prominent position. Now the polls are moving back towards the Conservatives I predict that the polls will stop being mentioned and that Poll Tracker, already moved to a less prominent position a week or so ago, will be demoted yet again.

One from 1980

Yellow Magic Orchestra - "Computer Games"

Ah the memories...

Dr Who - thoughts on the new Doctor

New titles rather 'cartoony'

Stephen Moffat messing with children's minds = cracks in walls through which you can hear voices?

"Your Scottish, fry something" - careful, not too much comedy please...

"wibby wobbly timey wimey" the David Tennant line is back...

"Prisoner Zero has escaped" - the original prisoner - The Devil?

He's not coming back in 5 minutes is he?

That's a very short skirt for a policewoman, legs not bad though... Isn't she Amelia Pond?

The corner of your eye...

Bit of thigh in the close ups of The Doctor's face; something for the fathers...

"What, what, what!" bit reminiscent...

"Just believe me for 20 minutes..." Good writing


...

The Pandorica will open...?


0000 Quantum Fast - the word is zero


"What a disappointment you've been..." - a hostage to fortune for the reviewers?

"Silence will fall...!"



Nice look at naked Doctor from Amy Pond, rather lascivious


Hello I'm The Doctor; basically RUN"


RiverSong said "My Doctor, he could open the Tardis with a click of his fingers..." and this Doctor can, will RiverSong be re-appearing in this series? If so it is too soon, should be kept in the backpocket for 5 years or so...


"I'm definitely a madman with a box"


Please stop showing us clips of what is to come, I want surprises...

Dr Who returns with a new Doctor

Tonight leaves me feeling a little trepidous as Matt Smith starts his run as The Doctor. Matt Smith starts his run as the eleventh Doctor in an episode called "The Eleventh Hour".

I am a huge Doctor Who fan and so the start of a new Doctor in the role is a worrying moment. Will I prefer the new Doctor as I did with Tom Baker taking over from Jon Pertwee and David Tennant taking over from Christopher Ecclestone or will it all go horribly wrong as it did when Peter Davison replaced Tom Baker, Colin Baker replaced Peter Davison and let's not get started on Sylvester McCoy?

By 19:30 I will know if I will be a happy NotaSheep or will I have to find something else to do early on a Saturday evening... I will report back.

The Conservatives take all the joy from Labour's 'poster' launch

The Conservatives have taken Labour's back to the 1980s poster and run with it - "Fire up the Quattro, it's time for change".

I also like the Gordon Brown back to the 1970s poster shown below, and please don't let anyone say the car is an Austin Allegro, it is an Austin Maxi...





A lovely comment on Letters From A Tory's article about the poster war, it's from 'Bill Quango MP' and ends with this idea for another anti-Brown poster

'The Terminator.
Brown on the motorcycle in the leather outfit. Half the exoskeleton head peeled away to reveal the metal skull and glowing red eye.
...
“I need your clothes, your boots and your motorcycle. And your pension, your gold, your wages, your house, your savings and your children’s salaries and their children’s earnings too. And when you die I want another 10% of whatever you have left. And then.. I’ll be back… for more.”'

Masterful...

The Boat Race - the verdict of a non-rower but enthusiast

A fine victory for Cambridge due in no small part to having a Tideway experienced cox, Ted Randolph, it makes a real difference in The Boat Race.


A note to The Daily Telegraph, your guide to the race is a sham; who decided that the pubs west of Hammersmith run Blue Anchor, Rutland, Old Ship, Dove when we all know the Dove comes a long way East of the Old Ship. Heaven knows I've spent enough time in both over the years.

Labour's poster competition winner seems an odd choice

The Labour party website proudly declare that 'We've had over 1000 entries to our "Create Labour's next ad" competition...but here's the winner - created by Jacob Quagliozzi from St Albans.'

Oddly I think that the winning entry is rather out of kilter. First it seems to show David Cameron rather cooly perched on an uber-cool Audi Quattro in a Gene 'Ashes to Ashes' Hunt' type pose. Secondly with the way the UK economy is now I think that many would rather like a return to the 1980s, the last decade when the Conservatives had to fix a Labour caused economic mess.

Peter Mandelson at it again

The great dissembler himself, Peter Mandelsom, has his latest pronouncement faithfully reported by the BBC:

'Lord Mandelson has launched a personal attack on the president of Barclays, Bob Diamond, branding him the "unacceptable face" of banking.

The business secretary told the Times that Mr Diamond, head of the bank's investment arm, had taken £63m in salary which could not be "justified".

He said he had made the money by "deal-making and shuffling paper around".'

Of course the facts are somewhat different:

'Barclays said Mr Diamond had a basic salary of £250,000 and dismissed the £63m figure as "total fiction".

A spokesman added that Mr Diamond took no bonus in 2008 and 2009.

BBC business editor Robert Peston said the pay of top business leaders was "ferociously" complicated.

However, he believed Mr Diamond earned £6m last year from a long-term incentive scheme and £27m from selling his stake in a Barclays-owned business which had been sold.'

So who to believe? Peter 'dodgy mortgage application' Mandelson or Robert Peston? When even the loyal Robert Peston can't back Peter Mandelson up then you know something is dodgier than normal is being attempted by the master of the dark arts of spin. What is being attempted by Peter Mandelson is a piece of misdirection, shift the attention from Labour's increasing isolation over the National Insurance increase, with a renewed attack on evil bankers. Maybe Peter Mandelson could answer the following questions: What was Gordon Brown doing to control the evil bankers when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer and the money supply was heading ever higher and the retail money markets were flooded with cheap money? What did Gordon Brown do to stop the banks from offering mortgages at five or six times first salary and twice times second salary? What warnings was Gordon Brown issuing to the banks about their actions at the time?

Tasteful? (update)

Further to this post about Erykah Badu's controversial music video in which she strips naked in public in Dealey Plaza, the site of President John F. Kennedy's assassination, and at the end falls to the ground as if shot. I read on the BBC that 'US neo-soul singer Erykah Badu has been charged with disorderly conduct for stripping naked on a street among pedestrians for her music video shoot.'

Tasteful? It would seem maybe not...

How many climate related 'Gates' ?

A comment at Joanne Nova's excellent site caught my eye:

'Mia Nony:
March 29th, 2010 at 9:53 am

NO, NOT BILL GATES, (although is is funding both the Doomsday Seed Vault and the Sorcerer’s Apprenctice nightmare of mad scientists pursuing radical planetary geoengineering with the fallout of ever more horrific pollution, on the pretext that even the mass deaths this will incur are worth it to save the planet)
How many gates and how much denial can these warmists indulge in before they implode?

ClimateGate – This scandal began the latest round of revelations when thousands of leaked documents from Britain’s East Anglia Climate Research Unit showed systematic suppression and discrediting of climate skeptics’ views and discarding of temperature data, suggesting a bias for making the case for warming. Why do such a thing if, as global warming defenders contend, the “science is settled?”

FOIGate – The British government has since determined someone at East Anglia committed a crime by refusing to release global warming documents sought in 95 Freedom of Information Act requests. The CRU is one of three international agencies compiling global temperature data. If their stuff’s so solid, why the secrecy?

ChinaGate – An investigation by the U.K.’s left-leaning Guardian newspaper found evidence that Chinese weather station measurements not only were seriously flawed, but couldn’t be located. “Where exactly are 42 weather monitoring stations in remote parts of rural China?” the paper asked. The paper’s investigation also couldn’t find corroboration of what Chinese scientists turned over to American scientists, leaving unanswered, “how much of the warming seen in recent decades is due to the local effects of spreading cities, rather than global warming?” The Guardian contends that researchers covered up the missing data for years.

HimalayaGate – An Indian climate official admitted in January that, as lead author of the IPCC’s Asian report, he intentionally exaggerated when claiming Himalayan glaciers would melt away by 2035 in order to prod governments into action. This fraudulent claim was not based on scientific research or peer-reviewed. Instead it was originally advanced by a researcher, since hired by a global warming research organization, who later admitted it was “speculation” lifted from a popular magazine. This political, not scientific, motivation at least got some researcher funded.

PachauriGate – Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chairman who accepted with Al Gore the Nobel Prize for scaring people witless, at first defended the Himalaya melting scenario. Critics, he said, practiced “voodoo science.” After the melting-scam perpetrator ‘fessed up, Pachauri admitted to making a mistake. But, he insisted, we still should trust him.

PachauriGate II – Pachauri also claimed he didn’t know before the 192-nation climate summit meeting in Copenhagen in December that the bogus Himalayan glacier claim was sheer speculation. But the London Times reported that a prominent science journalist said he had pointed out those errors in several e-mails and discussions to Pachauri, who “decided to overlook it.” Stonewalling? Cover up? Pachauri says he was “preoccupied.” Well, no sense spoiling the Copenhagen party, where countries like Pachauri’s India hoped to wrench billions from countries like the United States to combat global warming’s melting glaciers. Now there are calls for Pachauri’s resignation.

SternGate – One excuse for imposing worldwide climate crackdown has been the U.K.’s 2006 Stern Report, an economic doomsday prediction commissioned by the government. Now the U.K. Telegraph reports that quietly after publication “some of these predictions had been watered down because the scientific evidence on which they were based could not be verified.” Among original claims now deleted were that northwest Australia has had stronger typhoons in recent decades, and that southern Australia lost rainfall because of rising ocean temperatures. Exaggerated claims get headlines. Later, news reporters disclose the truth. Why is that?

SternGate II – A researcher now claims the Stern Report misquoted his work to suggest a firm link between global warming and more-frequent and severe floods and hurricanes. Robert Muir-Wood said his original research showed no such link. He accused Stern of “going far beyond what was an acceptable extrapolation of the evidence.” We’re shocked.

AmazonGate – The London Times exposed another shocker: the IPCC claim that global warming will wipe out rain forests was fraudulent, yet advanced as “peer-reveiwed” science. The Times said the assertion actually “was based on an unsubstantiated claim by green campaigners who had little scientific expertise,” “authored by two green activists” and lifted from a report from the World Wildlife Fund, an environmental pressure group. The “research” was based on a popular science magazine report that didn’t bother to assess rainfall. Instead, it looked at the impact of logging and burning. The original report suggested “up to 40 percent” of Brazilian rain forest was extremely sensitive to small reductions in the amount of rainfall, but the IPCC expanded that to cover the entire Amazon, the Times reported.

PeerReviewGate – The U.K. Sunday Telegraph has documented at least 16 nonpeer-reviewed reports (so far) from the advocacy group World Wildlife Fund that were used in the IPCC’s climate change bible, which calls for capping manmade greenhouse gases.

RussiaGate – Even when global warming alarmists base claims on scientific measurements, they’ve often had their finger on the scale. Russian think tank investigators evaluated thousands of documents and e-mails leaked from the East Anglia research center and concluded readings from the coldest regions of their nation had been omitted, driving average temperatures up about half a degree.

Russia-Gate II – Speaking of Russia, a presentation last October to the Geological Society of America showed how tree-ring data from Russia indicated cooling after 1961, but was deceptively truncated and only artfully discussed in IPCC publications. Well, at least the tree-ring data made it into the IPCC report, albeit disguised and misrepresented.

U.S.Gate – If Brits can’t be trusted, are Yanks more reliable? The U.S. National Climate Data Center has been manipulating weather data too, say computer expert E. Michael Smith and meteorologist Joesph D’Aleo. Forty years ago there were 6,000 surface-temperature measuring stations, but only 1,500 by 1990, which coincides with what global warming alarmists say was a record temperature increase. Most of the deleted stations were in colder regions, just as in the Russian case, resulting in misleading higher average temperatures.

IceGate – Hardly a continent has escaped global warming skewing. The IPCC based its findings of reductions in mountain ice in the Andes, Alps and in Africa on a feature story of climbers’ anecdotes in a popular mountaineering magazine, and a dissertation by a Switzerland university student, quoting mountain guides. Peer-reviewed? Hype? Worse?

ResearchGate – The global warming camp is reeling so much lately it must have seemed like a major victory when a Penn State University inquiry into climate scientist Michael Mann found no misconduct regarding three accusations of climate research impropriety. But the university did find “further investigation is warranted” to determine whether Mann engaged in actions that “seriously deviated from accepted practices for proposing, conducting or reporting research or other scholarly activities.” Being investigated for only one fraud is a global warming victory these days.

ReefGate – Let’s not forget the alleged link between climate change and coral reef degradation. The IPCC cited not peer-reviewed literature, but advocacy articles by Greenpeace, the publicity-hungry advocacy group, as its sole source for this claim.

AfricaGate – The IPCC claim that rising temperatures could cut in half agricultural yields in African countries turns out to have come from a 2003 paper published by a Canadian environmental think tank – not a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

DutchGate – The IPCC also claimed rising sea levels endanger the 55 percent of the Netherlands it says is below sea level. The portion of the Netherlands below sea level actually is 20 percent. The Dutch environment minister said she will no longer tolerate climate researchers’ errors.

AlaskaGate – Geologists for Space Studies in Geophysics and Oceanography and their U.S. and Canadian colleagues say previous studies largely overestimated by 40 percent Alaskan glacier loss for 40 years. This flawed data are fed into those computers to predict future warming.'

Anyone still believe that the figures are beyond question and climate change is an unchallengeable fact?

“Pontificating, most are economically, politically and socially ignorant of their country. They are absolutely unaccountable to the public.”

The excellent Letters from a Tory does a masterful 'fisking' of the admittedly easy target that is Polly Toynbee, take a read.

The elephant in the room

The BBC manage to write a whole piece about the housing shortage without mentioning immigration; most odd.

Here's an extract to give you a flavour:

'The housing crisis in England is set to intensify, with insufficient numbers of homes having been built in every region since 2002, a campaign group has said.

The National Housing Federation said a record 4.5m people were on housing waiting lists and 2.5m people lived in overcrowded conditions. '

The Climate Change debate - two views

Rajendra Pachauri in The Guardian claims that:

'To dismiss the implications of climate change based on an error about the rate at which Himalayan glaciers are melting is an act of astonishing intellectual legerdemain. Yet this is what some doubters of climate change are claiming. But the reality is that our understanding of climate change is based on a vast and remarkably sound body of science – and is something we distort and trivialise at our peril.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has published four comprehensive assessments of climate change and several important special reports since its founding in 1988. The last such document, the fourth assessment report (AR4) from 2007, mobilised 450 scientists from all over the world to write the report. An additional 800 contributing authors gave specialised inputs and about 2,500 expert reviewers provided 90,000 comments.

In this mammoth task, which yielded a finished product of nearly 3,000 pages, there was a regrettable error indicating the Himalayan glaciers were likely to melt by the year 2035. This mistake has been acknowledged by the IPCC. Learning from this error, the IPCC has requested, in tandem with the United Nations' secretary general, an independent review of its procedures and practices by the Inter-Academy Council (IAC). This review was requested in part so that the possibility of similar errors can be eliminated as much as is humanly possible.

It is important, however, to understand that irrespective of the error on Himalayan glaciers and a few other questions about some specific wording in AR4, the major thrust of the report's findings provides overwhelming evidence that warming of the climate system is unequivocal. To quote the report: "Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG (greenhouse gas) concentrations."'

Yes because those were the only minor errors and everything else is based on cast-iron fact?


Meanwhile Joanne Nova prints a summary of Lawrence Solomon, author of The Deniers, recent speech, here's an extract or two (+) from the summary:

'The Climategate emails confirmed much of what the sceptics had been saying for years.

* They confirmed that the peer review process had been corrupted, that scientists were arranging friendly reviews.
* They confirmed that the science journals had been corrupted.
* That journals that refused to play ball with the doomsayers faced boycotts and their editors faced firing.
* They confirmed that sceptical scientists were being systematically excluded from the top‐tier journals.
* The Climategate emails confirmed that journalists were likewise threatened with boycotts if they didn’t play ball.
* The Climategate emails confirmed that the science itself was suspect. That the doomsayers themselves couldn’t make the data work. That they were debating among themselves some of the same points that the sceptics raised, and were privately acknowledging that they didn’t have answers to the issues that the sceptics raised.
* The Climategate emails confirmed that the doomsayers were so determined to hide their data from inquiring minds that they were prepared to break the law to hide it – and did break the law – by avoiding Freedom of Information requests.
* The Climategate emails confirmed that raw temperature data collected from countries around the world was destroyed. It appears the UK is missing raw temperature data going back to 1850.

The scientists at the heart of the Climategate emails aren’t fringe players on some periphery. They operate what’s known as the Climatic Research Unit at East Anglia University in the UK. This is the group that collects temperature data, messages it, and then feeds it to the UN and others. This is the data that we have been relying on to tell us if the globe has been warming or not. This same data is then used by virtually everyone in the climate science field who is concerned with historical temperatures.

Without the raw data, it is impossible to confirm that the planet has been warming over the last 150 years. The only ones who now know by how much the planet has been warming, if at all, are the same people who have destroyed the raw data. There are now six separate investigations underway which have been spawned by the Climategate emails. One of those six is by the UK Met Office, which partnered with the Climatic Research Unit in producing the data sets.
The UK Met Office – this is the UK government’s meteorological department – says it will need three years to recreate the data that has been destroyed.'

Read the rest of the summary, read the full speech.

Now who do you find more convincing; Rajendra Pachauri or Lawrence Solomon?

Who's 'pleased'?

The 'tweet' from Charlie Whelan that 'Nicky Campbell on plane with me back to Highlands. Very pleased with his interview with Cam exposing the Tory leaders love of fox hunting' has me slightly confused. Was Charlie Whelan 'very pleased' with this expose on David Cameron or was Nicky Campbell the 'very pleased' party? If it is Charlie Whelan then fair enough he is after all one of the Labour party's chief source of funds. If it is Nicky Campbell then is it right that a BBC journalist be so cheered by uncovering such a story?

Great punchline...

Tony: "Are you pregnant?"

Brenda: "Not unless sperm can get through sash windows..."


Victoria Wood in Dinnerladies

The Green Agenda?

"Even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while."

James 'Gaia' Lovelock

That's the green agenda for you, totalitarian control 'for our own good'.

Stephanie Flanders, the BBC's economics editor, speaks the truth about Labour slurs - Peter Mandelson will not be happy

I fear for Stephanie Flanders, the BBC's economics editor, after this piece. Stephanie Flanders analyses Labour's claims of there being a Conservatives' 'credibility gap' or "Credibility Deficit" on tax and spending and finds the claims don't add up.

'Back in January, Labour said there was a £33.8bn hole in the Conservatives' plans. Now it's fallen to £22.2bn - suggesting a 34% rise in credibiliy. But, to coin a phrase, Labour's numbers really don't add up.'

Here are a few examples that Stephanie Flanders has found, do read the whole article for more:

'Back in January, Labour said Mr Osborne had promised to reverse the new 50p rate of income tax, at a cost £2.4bn. Now that's gone from the list entirely. It's not clear whether Labour thinks they "broke" that promise or not.

...

Once again, the tax cut for married couples is listed at £4.9bn, which would be the cost of the change proposed some time ago by Iain Duncan Smith.

But the Conservatives have now made clear they will be recognising marriage on the cheap. It won't cost nothing. But it could cost less than £1bn.

You can call that derisory. You can say it's an empty promise. But you cannot then also say they've committed to spend nearly £5bn on it.

...

once again, Labour can't have it both ways. You can't claim the cost-cutting will have a devastating effect on public services and the economy - but somehow, with all that, not raise any cash.'

The key part of Stephanie Flanders' article and the one that I am surprise to see on a BBC blog is this:

'The Conservatives have at least given us a number by which to measure whether those savings happen. That is more than Labour has done.

And a party that has yet to account for two thirds of the £35bn in efficiency savings promised between 2008 and the end of this financial year (April 2010) isn't really in a position to lecture the Conservatives on their lack of detail.'

These are very good and fair points and ones that other BBC journalists would do well to bear in mind the next time they allow Peter Mandelson airspace to make his accusations.

Pity the BBC

After a day of claim and counter claim the BBC now have to report that:

'Business groups back Tory National Insurance plans

Britain's main business groups have waded into the row over Labour plans to increase National Insurance.

The British Chambers of Commerce, the CBI and five other organisations said the Tories "deserved credit" for their opposition to the planned increase.

Earlier, 23 company bosses had spoken out in favour of the Tory position.'

Of course the BBC have to shoehorn Peter Mandelson's earlier accusations that "Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne are peddling a deception."

For the first time in ages I switched onto Sky News and the Jeff Randall program is somewhat different in emphasis. It reports the original letter and Peter Mandelson's claims but then has Labour's Lord Desai all but siding with the Conservatives before interviewing a business spokesman who pointed out that the business leaders are not the naive fools that Peter Mandelson seems to portray them as but sophisticated leaders of commerce.

Meanwhile back on the BBC Robert Peston is doing his best to portray the businessmen as Conservatives, Conservative donors or 'chummy with... the leadership clique around David Cameron' and explaining that 'None of which is to say this letter of endorsement of an important Tory policy from some business heavyweights is trivial - just that it isn't terribly surprising.' and that 'it's worth noting that the interests of business and the interests of the country are not identical. '

Maybe I'll leave the last word to sandy winder in Robert Peston's comments:

'It's a bit of a dilemma.

Should we believe the Labour party, who have been wasting billions every year even by their own admittance, who have deceiving us for thirteen years and who did not foresee the recession or what was happening in the banks?

Or should we believe relatively honest business leaders who have provided wealth creating jobs for millions and been responsible for growing their businesses and pouring billions into the Treasury coffers?

Tough one that.

I think I'll plump for the one who has got the least debt.'

The best catches in the IPL 2010 (so far)

Two catches have taken my breath away this year.

AB de Villiers staggering boundary catch.


Mike Hussey's incredible three part boundary catch.


Which is your favourite?

Scrubs go to the Bahamas - Jordan and Elliot in Bikinis and Todd in a banana hammock

The BBC waste no time in publicising Peter Mandelson's claims

This morning the BBC were for a short time leading their news coverage with the story that

'Business leaders back Conservative tax pledge - Bosses of some of the UK's biggest firms have backed Conservative plans to axe part of Labour's planned National Insurance rise if they win power.

The 23 - including Marks & Spencer's and Next's bosses - said the 1% NI increase would be a "tax on jobs" and would "endanger" economic recovery.

David Cameron called it a "significant" moment in the election campaign.'

The Labour/BBC alliance swiftly countered with this 'Mandelson attacks Tory tax 'deception' - Business Secretary Lord Mandelson has described Conservative plans to scrap part of a planned National Insurance rise as a "deception".' and an article explaining that

'Labour hits back after City bosses back Tories on NI - The leaders of 23 major UK firms have been "deceived" by a Conservative pledge to axe some National Insurance rises, Lord Mandelson has claimed.

He said the Tories could not make their sums add up without increasing VAT.'

It would be interesting to know how long the BBC were allowed to keep the first article up before Peter Mandelson swung into action.

Interestingly the top story is now this:

'Bosses hit back in National Insurance rise row - A row over National Insurance rises has escalated after business leaders said claims they had been "deceived" into backing Tory plans were "patronising".

Chancellor Alistair Darling accused the Tories of "peddling a deception" after 23 top bosses backed proposals to curb National Insurance increases.

Mr Darling said the bosses should take a "long hard look" at the Tory plans, rather than accepting "flimsy advice".

But two of them hit back instantly, accusing Labour of a "tax on jobs".

Next boss Simon Wolfson, a longstanding Conservative supporter, said in a statement: "Of course we have not been deceived.

"The principle is a very simple one. It is a question of, do we pay for government profligacy through increased taxes or do we urge them to save money in a way that businesses have?"

Kingfisher chief executive Ian Cheshire said: "It's a little patronising to suggest that we've been deceived.

"This isn't a political point, it's a business issue - whichever way you look at it, it's a tax on jobs."'

The BBC do quote Peter Mandelson again:

'Business Secretary Lord Mandelson said the Conservative plans were a "cynical deception" that could not be achieved without increasing VAT, as he said the Conservatives had done after winning elections in 1979 and 1992.

He said shadow chancellor George Osborne was "like a kid in a sweet shop, who thinks he can just grab sweets from every jar without paying for them".

"Of course there are some in business who are going to support what appears to be a pain-free tax cut. I mean, who wouldn't, if offered that?," said Lord Mandelson.

"But the point is, this is not pain-free and Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne are peddling a deception."'

Well if anyone should know about "cynical deception" it would be Peter 'dodgy mortgage application' Mandelson.

Yes I know The Guardian article was an April Fool, hence my last sentence...

To all the people who keep commenting "April Fool" on this post: Yes I know The Guardian article is an April Fool, hence my last line

'Maybe bloggers and journalists should also get involved in the inter-party fighting, I would offer to take on 'Olaf Priol' but I think he may only work at The Guardian one day a year...'

The Guardian article is the best April Fool I have seen this year and in the proud tradition of their 1977 Island of San Serriffe hoax, that kept me amused for ages, unfortunately I lost my original copy in a house move.

Is this the BBC's April Fool?

The BBC report that:

'Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg could be the surprise winner of the UK's general election, former US presidential candidate Howard Dean has said.

...

Mr Dean, who was briefly frontrunner for the 2004 Democratic Party nomination and whose infamous "Iowa scream" - a yelp of defiance at a campaign rally - became an internet hit, said Mr Clegg believes he can win outright.

...

"I know the Liberals, I know Nick Clegg very well, and he intends to win this and I think they could.

"So you may have a hung Parliament but I think you won't have a coalition. At least not that coalition going forward."

Asked if Mr Clegg could be the next British prime minister, Mr Dean said: "I think he could".'

Will the BBC stop at nothing in order to boost the 'hung Parliament' narrative and particularly the prospects of the Lib Dems?

The nasty party are back (that is the Labour party in case you were wondering)

The Guardian this morning has the fascinating story that Gordon Brown has tired of his cuddly, family man image:

'In an audacious new election strategy, Labour is set to embrace Gordon Brown's reputation for anger and physical aggression, presenting the prime minister as a hard man, unafraid of confrontation, who is willing to take on David Cameron in "a bare-knuckle fistfight for the future of Britain", the Guardian has learned.

Following months of allegations about Brown's explosive outbursts and bullying, Downing Street will seize the initiative this week with a national billboard campaign portraying him as "a sort of Dirty Harry figure", in the words of a senior aide. One poster shows a glowering Brown alongside the caption "Step outside, posh boy," while another asks "Do you want some of this?"'

Do the Labour party really think that calling someone 'posh boy' is in any way sensible, intelligent or acceptable? Sorry, what was I thinking, of course they do.

The Guardian article also includes this passage which shows the lengths that the Labour party are thinking of going to in order to ensure their re-election:

'Labour was "going all in", staking the election on the hope that voters will be drawn to an alpha-male personality who "is prepared to pummel, punch or even headbutt the British economy into a new era of jobs and prosperity".'

Unbelievable...

But the article continues with details of several putative plans to push Gordon Brown's new hard man image:

'Strategists are even understood to be considering engineering a high-profile incident of violence on the campaign trail, and are in urgent consultations on the matter with John Prescott, whose public image improved in 2001 after he punched an egg-throwing protester.

Possible confrontations under discussion include pushing Andrew Marr out of the way while passing him on a staircase, or thumping the back of Jeremy Paxman's chair so hard that he flinches in shock.

One tactic being discussed involves provoking a physical confrontation at one of the three ground-breaking TV debates between the candidates. In this scenario, Brown, instead of responding to a point made by Cameron, would walk over from his microphone with an exaggerated silent display of self-control, bring his face to within an inch of the Tory leader's, and in a subdued voice, ask "what did you just say?", before delivering a single well-aimed blow to his opponent's face, followed by a headlock if required.'

Staggering...

I am shocked that even the Labour party would be aiming so low and I congratulate The Guardian's 'Olaf Priol' for this scoop, I trust that David Cameron will respond to these plans, fighting fire with fire by setting loose William 'judo' Hague and David 'SAS' Davis on to the more effete members of the Labour cabinet and other 'greybeards'. Maybe as well as this week's Chancellor's debate and the upcoming leader's debates there should also be some proper manly bouts to settle the arguments. Cabinet ministers versus their shadows is an obvious one; who would not pay good money to see Ken Clarke beat the crap out of Peter Mandelson and William Hague show Harriet Harman and/or David Miliband how a real man operates. I would also like to see a battle of the ex-Ministers with Davis Davis showing John Prescott that one punch does not a fighter make.

As Harry Hill is often heard to say: "There's only one way to settle this... FIGHT".


Maybe bloggers and journalists should also get involved in the inter-party fighting, I would offer to take on 'Olaf Priol' but I think he may only work at The Guardian one day a year...