I am not a sheep, I have my own mind
I have had enough of being told what and how to think
Whilst we are still allowed the remnants of free speech, I will speak out.
I also reserve the right to discuss less controversial matters should I feel the urge.
The recent Conservative improvement in the opinion polls means that, even more than might have previously been the case, the BBC will be desperate to boost Ed Miliband and denigrate David Cameron on tonight's Question Time.
We know that the audience has been split in a way that will reduce the right of centre voice to just 25% of those present.
Now will David Dimbleby be his usual impartial self?
If a news story is negative for a party, person or country that the BBC opposes, yes the BBC is not the impartial reporter of the news that it claims to be, then the word 'said' or 'says' is used. As an example the headline on the BBC News main page this morning is:
If the news story is negative for a party, person or country that the BBC supports then the word 'claimed' or 'claims' is used. Look at BBC reports that start 'Ed Miliband has promised', later on will come 'the Conservative party claimed...'.
Of course if the story is really negative for a party, person or country that the BBC supports then the story will just not be reported at all. Currently if you News Google 'Margaret Hodege' these are the returned results...
On the BBC it is this...
Do you see how the BBC operate?
Unbiased by charter? I think not, bias seeps through their collective veins, you can see it every single day.
Baker: What criticisms .. do you not think are right?
Pearson: Have you been on holiday for six months? Have you been away for six months?
Baker: I am not quite sure what specific criticism you are referring to?
Pearson: I think you must have been either head in the clouds, away on holiday or reporting on a different team because if you don’t know the answer to that question, I think your question is absolutely... unbelievable, the fact you do not understand where I am coming from. If you don’t know the answer to that question then I think you are an ostrich. Your head must be in the sand. Is your head in the sand? Are you flexible enough to get your head in the sand? My suspicion would be no.
Baker: Probably not.
Pearson: I can, you can’t. You can’t.
Someone: Any more questions, or shall we wrap it there?
Pearson: Listen you have been here often enough and for you to ask that question, you are either being very, very silly or you are being absolutely stupid, one of the two, because for you to ask that question, I am sorry son, but you are daft.
Baker: There hasn’t been much harsh criticism of the players.
Pearson: You are wrong. No, you are wrong. You have been in here, you've been here, I know you have so don’t give that crap with me, please don’t give that crap with me. I will smile at you because I can afford to smile at you. Now do you want to ask a different question or do you want to ask it differently. Come on, ask it, ask it, or are you not capable?
Baker: I just don’t know what, you, erm…
Pearson: You don’t know, 'what erm?'
Baker: I don’t know how you’ve taken that question...
Pearson: Well you must be very stupid. I’m sorry.
In my opinion Nigel Pearson started off just the right side of the line but crossed it with his flexibility comments and descended into bullying with his 'Now do you want to ask a different question or do you want to ask it
differently.'
I've heard that tone of voice from bullying teachers and supercilious bosses over the years, albeit not aimed at me. It says I'm superior to you and my understanding of the English language is so much superior to you that I'll help you out by emphasising the difference between two similar words. It reeks of, I am so much in control of you that you have no chance of winning this argument.
As for the impersonation 'what 'erm'' that was just plain nasty. Like the nasty teacher at school who everybody hated.
I had a lot of respect for Nigel Pearson before last night, the way he's dragged Leicester City back from relegation, but after that interview...
Imagine the BBC coverage if it had been a senior Conservative politician featured on the front page of The Times as having questionable tax avoidance actions to account (pun intended) for. The BBC would be headlining the story and the Conservative concerned would be being doorstepped and David Cameron and George Osborne would be being asked to condemn their colleague. 'Tory sleaze' would be the BBC headline and the outrage would be tangible.
However this Times story related to senior Labour MP (and Head of the Public Accounts Committee) Margaret Hodge. The Times has several pieces that are of special interest, first:
'... just under 96,000 Stemcor shares handed to Ms Hodge
in 2011 came from [Liechtenstein], which is renowned for low tax rates.
Three quarters of the shares in the family’s Liechtenstein trust had
previously been held in Panama, which Ms Hodge described last month as
“one of the most secretive jurisdictions” with “the least protection
anywhere in the world against money laundering”. The veteran
Labour MP was accused of sheer hypocrisy. She has repeatedly attacked
big businesses and bankers who used offshore arrangements, but has not
declared that she benefited from an offshore trust.'
But the extract that may be of most relevance is this:
'Ms Hodge's Stemcor shares were transferred onshore using the Liechenstein Declaration Facility LDF)... The LDF was established in 2009 to encourage people with undeclared income or unpaid taxes to repatriate their assets from Liechtenstein by offering favourable terms. Tax liabilities under the scheme need be declared back to 1999, rather than the standard 20-year period. Users must pay the back taxes due, plus interest for the period, but the penalty is set at 10 percent of the sum owed, rather than 100 percent, and there is no threat of criminal prosecution.'
When the BBC deign to cover this story, they will be probably be quoting Margaret Hodge or one of her BBC supporters, stating that all taxes due were in fact paid. I doubt that someone will raise the question of the LDF's 1999 limit and ask how much tax might have been due if the more usual 20-year period had been applied. Likewise how much penalty was saved by being applied at 10% rather than the normal 100%.
Here's what happens when you search the BBC new website for 'Margaret Hodge' this afternoon...
It's almost as though the BBC are deliberately trying to avoid any mention of this news story. Now why would they be doing that?
'At least 44 Palestinians were killed
by "Israeli actions" while sheltering at seven UN schools during last
summer's war in Gaza, a UN inquiry has found.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he deplored the deaths and stressed that UN facilities were "inviolable".'
Read on a little and you'll also discover that:
'The inquiry also found that three empty UN schools were used by
Palestinian militants to store weapons, and that in two cases they
likely fired from them'
Odd how the BBC choose to headline the anti-Israeli part of the report, it's almost as though they had some sort of anti-Israel bias.
What you won't find on the BBC is the detail behind the Hamas infractions, so here's some detail via UN Watch
Hamas and/or Islamic Jihad stored rockets in UNRWA schools. The
board found, in the case of the UNRWA Jabalia Elementary “C” and
Ayyobiya Boys School, referring to the discovery of weapons there on 22
July 2014, that “it was highly likely that a Palestinian armed group
might have used the premises to hide weapons.”
Hamas and/or Islamic Jihad stored rockets in schools that were in active use by children. During the war, former PLO lawyer Diana Buttu famously said on
Al Jazeera that “the rockets that were found in the schools in UNRWA
were schools that are not being used by anybody—school is out, I’ll have
you know.” However, in the UNRWA Gaza Beach Elementary Co-educational
“B” School, on 16 July 2014, the UN Board of Inquiry notes that the
school gate was unlocked during the period leading up to the incident
“in order to allow children access to the schoolyard.” School was out,
but UNRWA was inviting the children back in to play.
Hamas and/or Islamic Jihad fired rockets from UNRWA schools. In
the Jabalia school listed above, the board found that “it was highly
likely that an unidentified Palestinian armed group could have used the
school premises to launch attacks on or around 14 July.” Similarly,
concerning weaponry stored at the UNRWA Nuseirat Preparatory Co-
educational “B” School, the UN inquiry found that “the premises could
have been used for an unknown period of time by members of a Palestinian
armed group” — and that “it was likely that such a group may have
fired the mortar from within the premises of the school.”
Now why would the BBC want to minimise their coverage of criticism of Hamas?
I wonder what is Ed Miliband's definition of Islamophobia?
Is this Islamophobic?
I wonder if anti-Semitism will get equal protection from a Labour government? Of course not, there's a lot more Muslims than Jews in the UK, and so lots more potential Labour votes if Ed Miliband and his party pander to Islamism.
English MP Mrs. Mavis Tate shows proof of the holocaust with shots from
her visit to a German concentration camp. Taken from the original 1945
British Pathe newsreel "German Atrocities - Proof". This Pathe newsreel
showed the world at the time what atrocities had been committed. The MP,
Mavis Tate describes eloquently what she saw at Buchenwald
concentration camps.
The Holocaust - "Let no one say that these things were not real"
Maybe the holocaust deniers who occasionally infest my Twitter feed should learn some history.
Two charts from the IPPR's investigation into Britain's Immigrants that I think are interesting. The first shows how the 1997-2010 Labour government opened Britain's borders in a deliberate move to massively increase immigration into the UK; both to 'rub the right's noses in diversity' and to create a Labour voting bloc that would ensure permanent Labour government. The second shows the differences between the nationalities of immigrants in terms of willingness to work.
'Even if the Tories are the largest party, if there is an anti-Tory majority, my offer to Labour is to work together to keep the Tories out," Scotland's first minister said.
When pressed on whether that would apply even if Labour had secured "10, 20, 30, 40" fewer seats than Mr Cameron's party, she replied: "Governments in the House of Commons are about who can command a majority."If there is an anti-Tory majority, yes... we would work with Labour to stop the Tories getting into Downing Street."'
I forsee a political crisis if this happens.
Maybe a refusal by Conservative voters in London and the South East to pay for the policies of a Labour SNP government would be in order?
From tomight's Archers, right at the end. You can listen to this on the BBC iPlayer.
Jennifer Aldridge - "Kate was saying only this morning that she's sure that global warming must have a lot to do with it."
David Archer - "She could be right"
Jim Lloyd - "Well, it's common knowledge there's been a marked increase in the incidence of extreme weather"
Jennifer Aldridge - "And that's all around the world"
Is that common knowledge? Is it correct?
Here's some facts that Jim 'Professor' Lloyd should really take notice of before he opens his faux intellectual mouth to opine on this subject again. Maybe he should stick to the Classics.
23rd April is St George's Day, the national day of England. Not that you'd know that if you look at the BBC's England news page where there is not a word about it. Contrast that with the coverage that the BBC give St Patrick's Day.
The BBC really are desperate to destroy the English identity and along with the Labour Party they are doing their best to achieve this.
If the BBC do deign to mention St George's Day then there will be the usual dismissive comment that St George wasn't even English but was Turkish. Maybe someone could then explain to the BBC that St George did indeed come from Cappadocia which is in modern day Turkey but at that time there was no Turkey, Cappadocia being in the eastern part of the Roman Empire. It's odd how the BBC and their fellow travellers on the left are happy to call any Somali, Syrian etc. who sets foot in Britain, British but won't extend the same courtesy to the patron saint of England.
I'm not a huge Star Wars fan, I've not even watched the second batch of three films (Episodes 1 - 3), actually mybe that makes me a true Star Wars fan! Regardless of that, the new Star Wars film, The Force Awakens, excites me; here's the new teaser trailer
So what do we see and learn?
This desert planet may look like Tatooine, home of the Skywalkers, but is it?
What is the crashed battle ship? Empire?
Those words must be spoken by Luke but is that really him with the robotic hand sitting with R2D2?
Very Jedi hermit, if it is, and it must be.
'My father has it? Is Darth Vader stil alive?
That use of 'you', remember that 'you' can be both second person singular and plural.
The obligatory fighters flying, a yahoo, lots of running, heavy breathing and fires illuminating the darkness.
What is that TIE Fighter doing in an Imperial hangar shooting at other TIE fighters? Undercover heroes, Han Solo again?
I see there's a new 'cute' R2D2 replacement, figurines to sell?
More flying down tunnels; does the Millenium Falcom have a 'turn 90 degrees button', or does that automatiucally happen when it is chased into enters a narrow tube, tunnel or similar?
And here's Han and Chewie, looking old but good (Han that is). Leather jackets are coming back into style this Christmas then?
But where's home? Han is an orphan and smuggler who never had a home that I know of. The Wookies had a home planet but most of were enslaved or killed many years ago.
So is this Han and Chewie getting back on to the Millenium Falcon for the first time in a long time?
That would fit in with the images just preceding this excerpt.
Lots of questions, much speculation.
We must wait for the next teaser to learn any more. Or the film at Christmas 2015.
It is rather revealing that the news of Yemeni civilians being killed by Saudi Arabian attacks on terrorists is receiving so little coverage on British media. I did find this Sky News report which begins:
'More than 600 people have been killed in Yemen in the past three weeks as a result of airstrikes and ground fighting, over half of them civilians including 74 children, according to the United Nations.'
If this had been Israel attacking Hamas terrorists and killing 'civilians' then you can be sure that the BBC would be giving this story great prominence, but not so much as it's a Muslim on Muslim story.
I wonder why that's the case? Why do the BBC obsess over (and indeed hate) Israel so much?
I was browsing through my blog looking for pieces about Ed Miliband, there's over 200, and I came across this one from 2008, entitled 'Democracy Gordon Brown style'. What's interesting is the appearance of both Ed Miliband and his brother David, both happy to toe the line that the Lisbon Treaty was not the same as the 'abandined' EU Constitution. Here's what I wrote at the time:
'Gordon Brown is as fundamentally dishonest as Tony Blair was and his
behaviour over the EU Treaty is nothing short of disgusting. Gordon
Brown was part of the team that wrote the last Labour manifesto, you
remember the one that promised a referendum on the EU Constitution. Yes I
do realise that that was only promised to draw any advantage that might
accrue to the Conservatives if they promised a referendum. Then Gordon
Brown reneged on this promise by claiming that the Treaty was not the
same as the Constitution. He and other Labour politicians love to quote
Angela Merkel when she said that the Constitutional process had been
abandoned. It has, but that does not matter a bean as all that was
abandoned was the process of rep;lacing all the existing European
Treaties with a new Constitution. This process has been replaced with a
new amending treaty that moves us to the same place as we would have
been with the Constitution but by amending the existing treaties
instead. As Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, the architect of the abandoned
European Constitution, admitted
"Looking at the content, the result
is that the institutional proposals of the constitutional treaty….are
found complete in the Lisbon Treaty, only in a different order and
inserted in former treaties.." He made clear that the purpose of the
rewritten Treaty was to make people think the new version did not merit
being put to the people in referendums. "Above all, it is to avoid
having referendums thanks to the fact that the articles are spread out
and constitutional vocabulary has been removed," he added.
An Angela
Merkel quote that the Labour liars refer to less often comes from her
speech in June 2007 to the European Parliament and runs "The substance
of the Constitution is preserved, that is a fact". '
Note that Ed Miliband wouldn't answer whether he'd read the Treaty, I think it's pretty obvious why.
Also look from 1:55 and see how Ed Miliband truly is a rebel, he's put his jacket collar up: what a rebel? No, what a dork!
Also remember that when Labour Party members pine for David Miliband that he was as happy as his dork of a brother to give away British powers and diminish democracy.
Ed Miliband from 2011, sticking to a predetermined answer come what may.
Remember this video when the Labour Party and the BBC tell you how intelligent, capable and normal Ed Miliband is.
If the BBC wasn't happy to act as the media and propaganda arms of the Labour Party then this video would have featured strongly in BBC 'satirical' news programmes, but it didn't. Compare that with how often John Redwood's failure to know
the Welsh National (Mae Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau) anthem was played. As with the video of Gordon Brown picking his nose in
the Chanmber of the House of Commons, this piece of video will not be
mentioned on the News Quiz, played on Have I Got News For You or on any
of the BBC 5Live 'satirical' weekend shows. So as the BBC and their
Labour friends want this video to disappear, I think all bloggers should
keep posting it and get the word out about the massive dork who 'leads'
the Labour Party.
I found the ITV interviewer's reaction to this part of the interview, here is an extract:
'Ed Miliband thinks that the strikes are wrong at a time
when negotiations are still underway. The government has acted in a
reckless and provocative manner, but it is time for both sides to set
aside the rhetoric and get around the negotiating table and stop this
from happening again.
I know this because he told me six times. His PR must have known that
was what he was going to do. And yet he still went through a convincing
charade of pressing me on my line of interrogation, urging me to keep my
questions brief, and even – this was a macabre touch – placing a voice
recorder on the table beside me as a kind of warning not to try and
misquote his boss.
As it turned out, the first take was drowned out by a passing siren on
the Embankment, but seemed like a thoughtful and precise position for a
Labour leader to take. Clear in his condemnation, hopeful of a
negotiated settlement. Not partisan, but engaged. Detached, but not
aloof.
The second time it seemed like a less original statement. The strikes
are wrong… the rhetoric has gone too far… parents across the country…But
then, I’d heard it before and it was useful to have a clean version,
unspoiled by a siren.
The third time… the third time I was struggling a little bit. I’d asked
him how his opposition to the strikes fitted with his position as leader
of the Labour movement. I thought it was quite a clever question. Silly
me. The strikes were wrong at a time when negotiations were still
underway. The government had acted recklessly. It was time for rhetoric
to be set aside.
Some reporters like to have their questions written on a piece of paper,
and tick them off one by one as they are asked. It’s something I’ve
never done, but at this moment I wished fervently that I had a piece of
paper in my hand, just to give me something to look at, and scratch away
thoughtfully just buy some time.
I asked another question. Something about Francis Maude, and his tone of
conciliation. Not very good, I know, but the best I could manage. Get
him to say something about Francis Maude, I was thinking… his hairstyle,
his glasses, the way he peers over the top of them as he drones on,
anything, just stop already with the strikes are wrong while
negotiations are underway, and the rhetoric has got out of hand…
I’m not sure what I asked next. Frankly I was in danger of losing it. On
my own, with the eyes of Ed Miliband and his three handlers boring into
me but apparently oblivious of my presence, I was getting twinges of
what I can only describe as existential doubt. So I said some words. And
Ed told me that the strikes were wrong, and the rhetoric was out of
hand, and both sides needed to sit down…
That was the worst one, I think.
If news reporters and cameras are only there to be used by politicians
as recording devices for their scripted soundbites, at best that is a
professional discourtesy. At worst, if we are not allowed to explore and
examine a politician’s views, then politicians cease to be accountable
in the most obvious way. So the fact that the unedited interview has
found its way onto YouTube in all its absurdity, to be laughed at along
with all the clips of cats falling off sofas, is perfectly proper.
Afterwards, I was overcome with a feeling of shame. I couldn’t look him in the eye.
But before I dried up completely, and had to be led out of Westminster
with my mouth opening and shutting, I had an opportunity to ask one last
question. I had an urge to say something so stupid, so flippant that he
would either have to answer it, or get up and leave. `What is the
world’s fastest fish?’ `Can your dog do tricks?’ `Which is your
favourite dinosaur?’ But, of course, this was a pool interview, and I
had no wish to feed out the end of my television career to Sky and the
BBC.
I realise now, of course, the perfect question to ask, to embarrass him
and to keep my job. I should have asked was whether the strikes were
wrong, whether the rhetoric had got out of hand, and whether it was time
for both sides to get round the negotiating table before it happened
again.
Because that was the only answer I ever got.'
It sounds as though Damon Green has had an epiphany about Ed Miliband.
As an aside, I bet David Miliband has this piece of video downloaded and is playing it to everyone he knows...
As an aside you can get a great effect watching this video if you
want. Watch it to the end then replay it. Now try pressing and holding
the number 3 on your keyboard down..... great isn't it? Ed Miliband is Ed 'Blinky' Balls reincarnated!
The Telegraph report that 'Ed Miliband's US adviser David Axelrod pays no tax in Britain'
Apparently 'A Labour Party spokesperson said: "David Axelrod lives in the US, works
in the US and pays tax in the US. We pay AKPD Media in the US in US
dollars. There is no tax due in the UK."'
True but this is for work carried out in the UK, doesn't (or shouldn't) that make a difference?
NewsBiscuit have a preview of an upcoming programme with an insight into the 'real lives' of TV chefs: Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver, Delia Smith, Nigel Slater and Nigella Lawson. It's a fascinating piece, here's an extract re Jamie Oliver:
'Jamie Oliver says that he finds it difficult to maintain his estuary English, and longs to be able to speak in his natural Surrey accent. 'One has to remember to speak as if one had truly been born in Southend – or Sarfend, as I have to say! I must confess that when I was at Oxford studying for my degree in Philosophy and Economics one did not expect to become a TV chef... One knew nothing about cooking, but one was advised to throw everything into a pot with olive oil and salt and cook it for an hour, and one has lived on that single recipe ever since.'
Jane Corbin for the BBC reports on the persecution of Jews across the Middle East,, there's a programme about it tonight that this article accompanies - This World: Kill The Christians will be broadcast on BBC Two on Wednesday 15 April at 21:00.
The article is interesting, including where the West's invasion of Iraq is blamed for ending the Christian safety in Iraq, but it is this passage caught my eye:
'The same story is being repeated across the Middle East, where the Arab Spring unleashed forces that turned against Christians and the authoritarian leaders who once protected them.'
Strange, I can think of one Middle East state where Christians live free to worship and live peacefully. But then why would the institutionally anti Israel BBC ever refer to Israel positively?
'The BBC is a big Labour supporting monopoly with the power and network to swing an election and needs to be broken up and to Camerons shame in the last 5 years he has not touched it.'
Ed Miliband said at the Labour Party manifesto launch yesterday that:
“It was the financial crisis that caused the deficit…”
Really? Look at the graph at the top of this piece.
Was it the financial crisis that caused the deficit that Labour ran in 2002/3?
Was it the financial crisis that caused the deficit that Labour grew in 2003/4?
Was it the financial crisis that caused the deficit that Labour grew in 2004/5?
Was it the financial crisis that caused the deficit that Labour grew in 2005/6?
Was it the financial crisis that caused the deficit that Labour ran in 2006/7?
Was it the financial crisis that caused the deficit that Labour ran in 2007/8?
Questions that you won't see or hear posed on the pro-Labour BBC.
'Ed Miliband was in a relationship with a
senior BBC economics journalist while working at the Treasury, it has
emerged after his wife admitted being "furious" about the "secret"
romance.
Mr Miliband was still
seeing Stephanie Flanders, who at the time covered economics for BBC
Newsnight, until as late as March 2004, years later than previously
thought.
At the time he was a special adviser to Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer.'
The BBC of course won't confirm or deny the story:
'A BBC spokesman declined to say if Miss Flanders had informed the
corporation at the time of her relationship with Mr Miliband, saying:
"We wouldn't comment on former staff members personnel details."'
The BBC acts as the Labour Party's propaganda arm, and there's not much we can do about it.
The BBC will win the election for the Labour Party, and there's not much we can do about it.
'The Office for National Statistics has issued a correction to a Labour claim that '1.8 million people' are on zero-hours contracts.
The ONS official Twitter account picked up on a new posted that quoted the figure, pointing out that there are actually 1.8 million contracts, but only 697,000 people have a zero-hours contract for their main job.'
More here but not at the BBC who are more than ever in full VOTE LABOUR mode.
