But why is England the only place to 'escape' to?

This BBC piece shows the desperate lengths that people will go to in order to get to the UK. Whilst the article tells us that:

'Immigration Minister James Brokenshire said there had been an "increase" in people trying to get into the UK through the channel ports.

This was mainly due to conflict in the Middle East and North Africa, he explained.'

It does seem odd that these people are desperately trying to get to the UK (for which you can read England or most likely London) not from Syria or Egypt or 'Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Eritrea' but from France. They've already escaped from civil war, persecution etc. but for some reason '"This country is not good to live in, we have to go to England."'

What is is so bad about France and so good about England? Is it the benefits system? Don't expect the BBC to ask those types of questions, that would be against the narrative.

How strange!

The BBC are reporting as headline news that John Major's evidence at the Leveson Inquiry contradicts Rupert Murdoch's; the implication being that Rupert Murdoch lied. This is part of the BBC's build up to David Cameron's giving of evidence, the narrative has been set.

Meanwhile the BBC are not reporting with anything like the same enthusiasm that Ed Miliband's evidence to the Leveson Inquiry, as well as much other information, contradicts Gordon Brown's evidence; the clear implication being that Gordon Brown lied, indeed apparently perjured himself at the Inquiry.

Why the difference in the treatment of these two almost identical stories?

EU funding and the politicization of science especially regarding Man made Climate Change

There are still some people who think that 'big oil'and 'large American business interests' fund 'denier' scientists whilst the scientist proponents of man made climate change are underfunded fighters for the truth.

As with many of the accepted narratives of the left, this is almsot 180 degrees away from the truth. In fact the proponents of man made global warming receive far more funding from business, government, NGOs and especially tans-national bodies than the seekers after the truth on global warming can ever dream of.

For a detailed analysis of this area, may I commend this paper from the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. This report goes into great detail about the EU's funding of man made climate change 'research' and includes explanations of funding stream such as 'dgxii' which is from the Commission’s Directorate General for Research, 'dgxi' which was the acronym for the Directorate General for the Environment, 'dg' which is essentially a funding organization that controls a massive multi-year budget for research support known as the 'Framework Programme — or 'fp' for short. The acronyms go on and on and then come some quite staggering figures:

'The Research Directorate’s Framework Programme 6 — or “fp6” — ran from 2002 through 2006 and comprised a budget of some € 17.5 billion. The current Framework Programme 7 began in 2007 and will run through 2013 It comprises a research support budget of some €50.5 billion.'

Do read the whole article, print some copies out and have one to hand ready for the next time an eco-loon tells you that 'climate change deniers' receive large amounts of funding from big business' and that the environmental movement is the unfunded seeker after after truth.

So what does Global Warming mean for the UK's weather?

Depending on the 'expert' and when they make their pronouncement it will mean warmer, drier, colder or wetter weather. Here's a few examples of what scientists know will happen... (my comments in bold)

1) Here is a link to a 1999 Science Daily article which explains that:

'The research, which appears in the June 3 issue of the British journal Nature, offers no predictions on what temperatures future winters will bring, but suggests a continuation of the current trend for three to four more decades.

If warming trends continue, said Drew Shindell, associate research scientist at Columbia's Center for Climate Systems Research and lead author of the report, northern regions of Europe and Asia and, to a lesser extent, North America, can expect winters that are both warmer and wetter, with increased rain and snow.'


2) The Independent in an article by Charles Onians told us that:
'snow is starting to disappear from our lives' and that 'Children just aren't going to know what snow is'.


So that's both more snow and less snow...


3) The Guardian in July 2006 eagerly reported that:
'Peering into the future is a tricky business, especially for something as volatile as weather and climate. But scientists know a lot about how events will unfold. They use giant computer programs, evolved from those that make weather forecasts, to work out how the atmosphere will react to the blanket of carbon dioxide we humans are steadily wrapping around the planet. As we do, and as more of the sun's heat is unable to escape, the air and the sea warm. But that takes time, which means that whatever we do, our climate destiny is fixed for the next few decades.... Here, we present a picture of what might happen in Britain over the next century if the world fails to take serious action, and global emissions continue to rise at about the same, or a slightly slower, rate. So what does it reveal? ... Rainfall will decline in the summer and the increased deluges in winter will struggle to replenish thirsty reservoirs because much of the water will run off the baked ground.

I wonder what these scientists would say Scientists to those of us who have noticed that in the UK rather than have know reduced summer rainfall and empty reservoirs, we have had wet summers in 2007, 2008, 2009 & 2010?


Let's be honest the 'science' is being used to scaremonger and advance the true 'warmist' agenda of control and taxation.

Did you know that Labour were committed to scrapping the EMA (Educational Maintenace Allowance)

You'd be hard pressed to guess it given all the heat generated by Labour about how the government's plans to replace the EMA with different support for 16-18 year olds. But here, from 2007 and being passed around on Twitter and Facebook today, is what Labour was planning to do:

An incentive scheme that rewards 16- to 18-year-olds for staying in education post-16 will be abolished when the leaving age is increased to 18.
The Secretary of State for Education said last week that education maintenance allowances (EMAs) would no longer be necessary when the age is raised in 2015.
Giving evidence to the Education and Skills Select Committee inquiry into 14-19 education, Alan Johnson said: "The EMA is there as an incentive to stay on. We will not need to incentivise after 2015."

Not that anyone who gets their news from  the BBC would know this a they have a pro-Labour narrative to spread.

Many thanks to Mark Pack for the spot.

Will the BBC report this news story, a news story that doesn't fit their pro-Labour 'narrative' (update)

Further to this post from earlier this evening, I see that Sky News have some more detail (new in bold):

'Sir Nicholas Macpherson, Permanent Secretary of the Treasury, had been giving evidence to the Public Accounts Committee on changes to Whitehall governance.

He said spending at the Ministry of Defence under the last government was "out of control", adding it had been put into "special measures" and ordered to report on a month-by-month basis on spending.

The committee then asked if this had been the case at other departments and Sir Nicholas admitted the Department of Health and Department of Education had problems with their finances during the last decade.

Looking back to the previous system, Sir Nicholas said: "There was a point in the last decade when the Ministry of Defence lost control of public spending."


Challenged by Conservative MP Jo Johnson over whether he would say the MoD was the only major department to have lost control of its spending, Sir Nicholas replied: "No, I wouldn't."


Sky's Deputy Political Editor Joey Jones said the comment was "very important", adding: "The reason that this is significant is because this is absolutely at the core of the economic argument that is going on at the moment.


"Ed Miliband has acknowledged there were certain failings in the way in which the Labout government ran the economy, notably in terms of their lax regulation of the banks.


"But he absolutely refuses to admit spending was not under proper control, saying national debt was at a low level and the deficit was running at a low level before the banking crisis.


"This is important because he is such a senior figure and civil servant."'

Earlier I said:

'So far no mention of this story on the BBC. I wonder if they will report the story and if they do then where they will bury the story and who they will quote to contradict Sir Nicholas Macpherson.'

As of 18:36 I can see nothing about this story on the BBC news website yet, I wonder how long it will be before the BBC will cover the story or will they really ignore it...

Will the BBC report this news story, a story that doesn't fit their pro-Labour 'narrative'?

Sky News are reporting that:

'A top Treasury civil servant has said Government departments "lost control" of public spending under Labour.

Sir Nicholas Macpherson, permanent secretary of the Treasury, had been giving evidence to the Public Accounts Committee when he made the comments.

He was firstly asked about spending at the Ministry of Defence under the last government and said it was "out of control".

The committee then asked if this had been the case at other departments and Sir Macpherson admitted he had concerns about the Department of Health and Department of Education.'

So far no mention of this story on the BBC. I wonder if they will report the story and if they do then where they will bury the story and who they will quote to contradict Sir Nicholas Macpherson.

The humanitarian disaster in Gaza

I have blogged before about the massive exaggeration, if not actual lie, that is the humanitarian disaster in Gaza, so I was interested to see two articles on Israelly Cool on the same subject. This one is about The Aldeira Hotel in Gaza, very swish and this one about Gaza's new luxury shopping mall - cleaner than Brent Cross, less chavs than Bluewater. Meanwhile here are some pictures of Gaza and the poor starving people; note the amount of fruit and sweets on display and the well fed residents. Maybe the BBC would like to take a look at these articles and comment, but then again maybe not as they have a narrative to tell.

'Male and pale'

The BBC are pushing 'the narrative' that the Conservative/LibDem cabinet is 'male and pale'. 'So what' I thought but Beeb Bias Craig has done the necessary analysis and has discovered that whilst the Conservative/LibDem cabinet of 23 features just 4 women, the last Labour government by way of contrast 'also contained just 4 women out of a cabinet of 23'; so that's the 'male' part dealt with. Beeb Bias Craig also looks at the 'pale' part of the double charge 'I'll match lonely Baroness Scotland (1) with Baroness Warsi (1)'

So will that stop the BBC/Labour attacks on the 'male and pale' front? No, of course not', there is a 'narrative' to establish.

The 'legitimacy' of a Conservative government

Here's a NotaSheep prediction. Assuming that the Conservatives do not get over 50% of the popular vote, and they clearly won't, I believe that the 'legitimacy' of any Conservative government will be immediately questioned by the BBC. Much of the talk of a hung/balanced parliament has been done so as to sow the seeds of doubt in the public's mind.

How can a Conservative government with less than 50% of the vote be 'legitimate'? What right to govern Scotland would a primarily English Conservative government have with none, one or even just two MPs in Scotland?

Left aside will be any comparison with Labour's less than impressive share of the popular vote in 2001 & 2005.

Be assured that the BBC have been plotting this line of attack for some time and they will use it with great relish on 6 & 7 May. The champagne that was drunk with such joy at the BBC in 1997 may be left un-drunk in 2010 but the joy at attacking a Conservative government will be palpable.

Thank heavens Gordon Brown is anti-'personality politics'

Following my earlier piece I now see in The Mail that Labour spin doctors and an acquiescent media are pulling out all the stops in an effort to make Gordon Brown seem a sympathetic human being:

"Gordon Brown wept in public this weekend when he talked of the death of his daughter Jennifer and spoke of facing up to the possible premature death of his son Fraser, who has cystic fibrosis - and his hope a cure will be found.

Mr Brown's wife Sarah, who was present, also sobbed in an extraordinary display of emotion when the Prime Minister was interviewed by Piers Morgan for a TV programme.

The candid exchanges, which took place over two-and-a-half hours in front of a live studio audience, are to be broadcast on Piers Morgan's Life Stories on ITV next Sunday."

Why is crying "an extraordinary display if emotion" for a woman who has lost one son and may lose another? It seems quite normal to me. What is extraordinary is that people might buy this 'look Gordon Brown is a normal human being and so should be re-elected crap'. Unfortunately the way the opinion polls are going it looks as though the 'narrative' is working.

F**k me some people are easily manipulated and frankly they deserve to be screwed over by another 5 years of a Gordon Brown lead Labour government. I however spotted the lies that new-Labour was built on before 1997 and don't want to see the UK dragged even further into the economic and social mire and so I will continue to speak out and campaign for the ending of this vile Labour government.

The BBC shamelessley set 'the narrative'

I find that I can only listen to 5 or 10 minutes of the BBC Today programme before the bias drives me to the off button. So this morning's 08:00 news should not have surprised me. Three articles set the pro-Labour 'narrative' nicely: first news that some UK manufacturing companies were bringing manufacturing back to the UK positive economic news), second a report that Gordon Brown was to deliver an upbeat New Years message (to contrast with Conservative pessimism/realism) and third that papers released under the 30 years rule showed how Margaret Thatcher wanted deeper cuts than her economic team (shamelessly linked to predictions about an incoming Conservative government).

Five minutes of radio that sum up the pro-Labour approach that the BBC Today programme takes and will increasingly push as a general election approaches. Five minutes, and an attitude, that the Conservative leadership need to address urgently, leaving it until after an election might be too long; the BBC need to be tackled about their blatant bias now.

Yet another BBC pro-Gordon Brown article

I was interested to read this BBC article yesterday. It "reports" Gordon Brown's final press conference of 2008 where he claimed that a "can-do attitude" will help the British economy get through the current downturn and prepare for future recovery. The whole article is devoted (and I choose that word advisedly) to reporting Gordon Brown's words without any critical analysis or comment from David Cameron or Nick Clegg. Can you imagine a Conservative Prime Minister's words being accorded such reverence?


Here's the end of the BBC "report", can you just hear Gordon Brown boring on and the BBC faithfully lapping up the pearls of wisdom being imparted by the great helmsman:

"He attacked the Conservatives for having "no idea" of how to deal with the problems facing the economy.

And he blamed international factors for the slump in Britain, insisting the country had been "the victim of a global downturn".

He said it was "unfortunate" that the UK had been "unable to avoid being affected" by events elsewhere.

"We face problems, many of which we have no control over," he said.

The PM also hit back at commentators who had written him off earlier this year amid low poll ratings and internal strife in the Labour Party.

"In my view what 2008 has taught us is that the public has less interest in the minutiae, the trivia of everyday events, of the personalities and the conflicts, in Westminster," he said.

"What they really want are governments that can actually get on with the job and do what they intend to do, and that's give real help to families and businesses.""

There is a "narrative" to keep on pushing and the BBC are more than happy to push Gordon Brown's message all the way up to and beyond the next general election; it's Labour and the BBC against the Country and scarily "they" might win.

Reporting the opinion polls

I have blogged many times about the BBC's habit of only reporting those opinion polls that are positive for the Labour party. It seems that this pattern has not been broken today. Last week the BBC were fond of mentioning that Ipsos Mori were reporting the Conservative lead down to just three points, so supporting the Labour/BBC narrative that Gordon Brown was leading a sustained bounce. The BBC were much less keen to report the other polls that showed 10%+ leads for the Conservative party.

This weekend Ipsos Mori are reporting the Conservatives up 3% at 43%, Labour down 5% at 32% and the Lib Dems up 3% at 15%. Are the BBC reporting this massive turnaround on the last Ipsos Mori poll, although is reality a return to the normal levels of support after a rogue poll? Not that I can see...

Is Gordon Brown at war already?

Fraser Nelson in the Spectator speculates that Gordon Brown is already plotting the timing of the next general election and will call it sooner rather than later, before the economic news becomes even more bleak. As Fraser Nelson says:

"the likelihood of a January election grows stronger. It would be an extraordinary time for an election, yet that very singularity would play to Mr Brown’s favoured theme: namely, that there is a national economic emergency. Even in the depths of winter, he could easily argue that he needed a new and explicit five-year mandate to implement his rescue plan. And most of all, it would get the electorate into the polling booths before the really bad news breaks."

In many ways the key to Gordon Brown's plans being successful is keeping "the narrative" that the economic problems are all the fault of America and greedy bankers, he will be enthusiastically aided in this by the BBC who will push this narrative even as Alistair Darling is rumoured to be

"considering changing the Bank of England’s remit, to see whether it should pay more attention to asset prices in future. Instructing the Bank to ignore the debt-fuelled asset bubble was perhaps Mr Brown’s most calamitous misjudgment, and became the foundation of what will soon be known as the Brown Bubble."

The BBC will happily portray Gordon Brown as the only possible saviour of the UK even as the facts point to the opposite.

As Fraser Nelson concludes:

"There is a reason why sterling has been the 159th worst performer in the world’s currencies in the last year, and it has nothing to do with subprime American mortgages.

The shadow chancellor was simply stating the obvious, and this is what Mr Brown is trying so desperately to hide from. His preferred narrative — that he is personally saving a strong Britain from a global ‘contagion’ — is an elaborately constructed myth that simply cannot last the course. On Monday, he will doubtless unveil a package that will be presented as a radical remedy. Yet its failure will be obvious by Easter. This is why his best chance is to hold an election in the new year, before he is found out. For the second time, the PM is in position, ready for battle. And for the second time, Mr Cameron’s mission is to convince him that the Conservatives are ready, too."

The break-up of Pakistan

It would seem that Pakistan is fragmenting before our eyes. News reaches me that (my emphasis):

"On May 11, 2008, the secular government in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP) finalized a deal with the Taliban groups for the implementation of shari'a in the province's seven districts. The Pashtun nationalist government in the NWFP, which came to power last month, had vowed to talk to the Taliban in order to establish peace in the region. The talks were held between the government, Pakistani Taliban and the outlawed Tehreek-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e -Muhammadi (Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Shari'a).

The Tehreek-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Muhammadi, led by Maulana Sufi Muhammad, the Islamist leader recently released from prison under a deal with the government, is the dominant Taliban group in the NWFP. It is also a constituent of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, which is led by Baitullah Mehsud.....


Under the deal between the NWFP government and the Tehreek-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Muhammadi, which is controlled by Sufi Muhammad's son-in-law Maulana Fazlullah, a shari'a system of administration and justice will be implemented in seven districts. This will effectively create the world's first mini-shari'a state within Pakistan, with the provincial government practically ceding control to the Taliban in roughly 45% of the province....


According to the Roznama Khabrain report, "the [ulema of the] department of Amr Bil Maroof will train [sic] people in Islam, Islamic teachings, Islamic norms and laws." There will be total ban on singing and dancing, and the ulema, who will not be paid a salary, will be based in the local police stations of the seven districts and offer their services as part of their work for Islam.

Courts Will Deliver Islam-Compliant Punishments

The paper stated that shari'a courts will be created in the seven districts, and that these courts will have the power to deliver Islam-compliant verdicts such as amputating the hands of individuals convicted of theft, administering 80 lashes or stoning for convicted rapists, or enforcing qisas - a principle that permits "like punishment" for a crime...."

So having ejected the Taliban from Afghanistan the West now have to see the Taliban in power and inplementing repressive sharia law in part of our alleged ally Pakistan. I wonder if this story will get any coverage in the UK or does it not fit the chosen "narative".

More BBC bias - this time of omission

Take a look at this from Iain Dale and wonder how the BBC can claim to be unbiased. The BBC help to define the political agenda, "the narrative" as I call it, and they can do this by angling the stories that they choose to cover and also by not covering stories that don't fit "the narrative".

Emily Thornberry, Labour MP for Islington South, is the MP in question and she was named by Sir Philip Mawer (Parliament's standards watchdog) as being "unwise" to have inserted a quote into an official press release. Tou can read the report here and you will notice that Ms Emily Thornberry's name appears quite prominently near the top of the report.

From the conclusion of the report comes this "I find proven on the facts the allegation that Ms Thornberry inserted a quotation from herself in an Electoral Commission press release, without first obtaining the Commission's permission, before sending it to the media in a form which might reasonably have given the impression that it was still an official document from the Commission."

Mind you the Commissioner concludes that "To sum up, on the evidence before me, I find the first limb of Councillor Hitchins's complaint proven as to the facts, but the second not proven. Ms Thornberry's actions in adding a quotation in her own name to an Electoral Commission press release without the Commission's permission and then distributing the release to the media in a form which could suggest it was still a Commission document were unwise and unfortunate. They are not to be condoned. For the reasons I have set out in paragraphs 42-48, I do not, however, believe they amounted to a clear breach of the Code of Conduct. " In other words what you did was wrong but I don't want to risk losing my job like Elizabeth Filkin.

Also take a look at this.

More Labour corruption?

I am disgusted by the latest revelations about this Labour government. You can read in today's Telegraph about how "Deborah Mattinson, the Prime Minister's favourite pollster" has a business, Opinion Leader Research (OLR), which "has won nearly £3 million worth of contracts across an astonishing array of government departments and agencies...Lucrative contracts were awarded to OLR by the Treasury and other departments overseen by Mr Brown while he was chancellor. The market research firm also received substantial contracts from the Department of Constitutional Affairs when it was led by Labour's deputy leader, Harriet Harman, a close friend of Miss Mattinson...Just months ago, OLR was paid nearly £800,000 by the Department for Work and Pensions to organise a forum to discuss pension policy. The Department for Education and Skills paid OLR £153,000 for a similar event in February..." Read the whole article to get a flavour of how a Labour supporting pollster can do "unpaid" work for the party and coincidentally obtain millions of pounds worth of work from the same government.

Now take a read of Guido Fawkes article on this matter which links this affair to the Sith Smith Institute and explains clearly how the arrangement works.

Now take a read of the comments at Guido Fawkes's site and digest some of the anger that this sort of New Labour sleaze is creating.

Now take a look at this previous article from Guido Fawkes on the Sith Institute affair.

So what is to be done?

An anonymous contributor to Guido Fawkes says "Why isn't this a big story? Narrative, I think. It took years, nine or ten, of incompetence and corruption at the heart of the Blairite establishment to hammer into the public (or at least media) consciousness that "sleaze" wasn't just a synonym for "Tory". Gordon Brown is Mr Probity. It will take years, I fear, for the message to get through that "sleaze" isn't just a synonym for "Blair"." I have blogged about the "narrative" before, it is the Main Stream Media that control the "narrative" and that means above all, the BBC. As I have blogged before, so many times, the BBC will support Gordon Brown by all possible means. The "project" must continue and succeed, nothing must be allowed to stand in its way.