"Obama said he would strengthen the middle class and introduce immigration reform"

Thus BBC Radio Four on the State of the Union address. 

Given that "immigration reform" is Newspeak for "legalise the illegals and invite their friends and family", it seems unlikely the middle class will be strengthened.

The wealthy class, very probably.

BBC Presenters Against The Toffs

Kaye Adams, the BBC broadcaster, has been accused of being unfit to present a top current affairs programme after she tweeted in response to Boris Johnson's suggestion that rioters should face tough punishments, "P*** off back to boarding school, Boris".

Hmm. Obviously a toilet-mouthed working class girl supporting her fellow workers/rioters against the assaults of the fascist state.

The former presenter of Loose Women, the ITV talk show, who presents a popular Radio Scotland show, was on holiday in Tuscany when she made a series of expletive-filled Tweets about London's mayor.

UPDATE - Adams attended St. George's School for Girls in Edinburgh - boarding £5,800 a term! Oh, the hypocrisy!

Who's "we", Paleface ?

Henry Porter in the Guardian :

'We will wear the great shame of these riots for a very long time. A great shock has been delivered to England's sense of identity blah blah blah wibble ...'

It was interesting to see how quickly the BBC responded to Alex Salmond's taunting and changed the "UK Riots" heading into "English Riots".

I'm not sure the BBC will want to take that laudable principle of localisation too far, though - are you ?






I just get a feeling from today's Guardian and BBC that it's back to normal as far as our rulers are concerned.They're all going to try and understand a little more and condemn a little less, having used up about five years worth of condemnation over the last week. Business As Usual ? We shall see.



UPDATE - a comment :

I am a teacher of English and taught in England for 15 years before emigrating to Australia in 1987.

In 2000, 2006 and 2009, I returned to the U.K. and did Supply Teaching at five secondary schools, two in London, three in towns a few miles outside.

All five had many moments redolent of 'Lord Of The Flies' , but the saddest and most revealing experience occurred at a school in Essex in 2000, as I'd taught at that school for 8 years when I still lived in England, leaving there in 1983. Thus I had not set foot in that school for 17 years and, amazingly, two teachers were still there. Both, so sadly, and independently of each other, while over-joyed to see me, said don't let what you see spoil your happy and positive memories of the school.

I'm not being alarmist - it hadn't just declined, it had plummeted.

I still vividly remember voicing my first concern with a Deputy as when we approached the entrance, which I'd so many times gone through, it was now necessary to enter a code in order to get in. When I said that was worrying, the Deputy disagreed, saying you couldn't have parents just being allowed to enter the school and assault staff. I looked sharply at him when he said this but he didn't notice. It is so obviously nothing more than a short-term, band-aid solution that clearly reveals far more worrying, serious, disturbing and underlying issues, concerns and realities that long-term just simply have to be addressed.

To be honest here, while looking at the scenes with incredulity, especially those from Tottenham and Enfield because these areas are where I was born, raised and still stay in when over over there, I just could not separate what was happening with what I'd experienced and witnessed in those five schools.

In a way, as unbelievable as it all seemed, none were that surprising.

This Just In From The BBC

In a series of incidents last night, a drawing room was severely damaged.

Our reporter at the scene :

"Well, I can tell you this morning that this drawing room has been almost totally destroyed. The china cabinet has been destroyed and its contents smashed, all the furniture looks as if it's been sat on by something heavy - even the doors are smashed off their hinges. Witnesses have spoken of scenes of mindless violence. It almost looks as if some large animal had been in here wrecking everything ..." (noises of trumpeting and cries of 'it's coming!') ... "I'm afraid I have to go now because the situation looks dangerous."

Peter King - "Contemptible"

No one's less of a Rupert Murdoch fan than I, but believe it or not, there are actually worse people in the world - and when they slither out to join in the kick-fest the harsh light of publicity should be shone on them. When it comes to casting truckloads of stone on the Dirty Digger, let he who has the fewest sins chuck the first barrowful - and let he who is weighed down by sin keep his ugly, bloodstained mouth shut.

"Republican Congressman Peter King - who is chairman of the House homeland security committee and represents a constituency in New York that lost more then 150 people in the 9/11 attacks - called on Wednesday for an FBI inquiry.

"The thought that anyone would have hacked into the phones of either those who were killed, those who were missing, the family members, during that tragic time... is contemptible," he told the BBC on Thursday."

He thinks hacking into phones is bad, but blowing up Brits is cool :

"We must pledge ourselves to support those brave men and women who this very moment are carrying forth the struggle against British imperialism in the streets of Belfast and Derry," Mr. King told a pro-I.R.A. rally on Long Island, where he was serving as Nassau County comptroller, in 1982. Three years later he declared, "If civilians are killed in an attack on a military installation, it is certainly regrettable, but I will not morally blame the I.R.A. for it."

There's loads more on Wiki - he seems to have been in up to his neck :

King did not meet Gerry Adams until 1984, four years after his dalliance with the IRA began. At this time he was friendly with Michael McKevitt, the common law partner of Bernadette Sands, sister of the IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands. McKevitt was at the time a senior leader of the IRA and was its Quartermaster-General, in charge of arms acquisition. McKevitt planned a massive series of arms smuggling operations of weapons provided to the IRA by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi during the mid-1980s. During this time, King would stay in their home in Co. Louth while visiting Ireland and was also very close to the IRA's former Operations Officer in Belfast, Anto Murray, who was convicted in 1990 of kidnapping a suspected British spy. As Belfast Operations Officer, Murray planned or authorised every IRA bombing, shooting and killing in the city. King would stay with Murray and his wife Lucy during visits to Belfast and after Anto Murray was imprisoned, he hosted Lucy Murray on a tour of the Capitol when she visited the United States.

Nice ...

"He stopped supporting the IRA after being offended by Irish public opposition to the invasion of Iraq"

And I'm not sure why that makes him look like an idiot, but it does.

(He's all over the BBC. They'll use any stick to beat Murdoch - even one with blood all over it.)

Ancestral Voices Prophesying War

BBC news journalism to a very large extent relies on reporting stories that fit an existing left-liberal narrative and ignoring stories which challenge this narrative - the classic example being the enormous disparities in their reporting of racist murder - those disparities relating to the ethnicity of both perpetrator and victim.

Where BBC journalists go looking to make the news, by unearthing new facts or obtaining an admission from a politician or businessman, the same rules apply. Sending undercover cameramen into BNP meetings hoping to hear bad things being discussed? Sure. Sending them into mosques with the same brief? Er ... we'll leave that to Channel Four, thanks very much.

A favourite sport of Today presenters is to try and create the lunchtime news headlines by getting some interviewee to either "drop a clanger" or "reveal their real agenda", depending on your viewpoint. Even a Victoria Derbyshire can do it if the interviewee is ill-briefed and ill-prepared enough.

But sometimes the quest for what's perceived to be the killer admission can ruin the interview - for some reason I always think of Evan Davies interviewing anyone at all on drugs policy, where he seems incapable of keeping his personal enthusiasms in check.

And sometimes the quest for a not-very-important admission can blind the interviewer to the most remarkable statements being made by the interviewee - which go straight past the journalist's head because they're nothing to do with the little verbal traps he's setting.

That failure to actually listen to the interviewee constitutes IMHO diabolical journalism. John Humphrys (for it is he) should listen to his Patrick Mercer interview from yesterday morning, then tear up his NUJ card and announce his retirement.

The subject of the interview was a leaked letter written by Defence Secretary Liam Fox to the Prime Minister, expressing concern that the Government planned to make a legal commitment to increasing its overseas aid spending at a time when armed forces budgets are being cut heavily. The subtext of the interview, as Humphrys revealed, was Conservative division.

In the studio were Patrick Mercer, a former army officer and former Conservative security spokesman, broadly sympathetic to the Fox concerns, and Lib Dem MP Malcolm Bruce, very much against them. You'd imagine Mercer is reasonably close to current military thinking, and current M.O.D. thinking.

It was near the end of the interview, emboldening is mine :

Mercer :

"At a time when the armed forces are being cut and cut hard, when they're at war in Afghanistan, Pakistan and indeed in Libya, with other conflicts on the horizon ... you can see why the defence secretary is concerned"

Humphrys, completely missing the above and intent on his 'Tory division' narrative (I paraphrase) :

"But .. Liam Fox wrote to the Prime Minister and addressed him as 'Dear David Cameron' .. now we know he would like to be Tory leader - isn't there an ulterior motive?"

Mercer :

"at a time when money is stretched ... at a time when we are at war on at least two fronts, and probably a third front to come, no doubt Liam Fox is fighting his corner as any other Secretary of State would do".

Now it may be that Mercer's statement that we are at war in Pakistan is a slip of the tongue, and he's thinking of the Americans, who do seem to have made one or two trips across the Durand Line recently. But what are these "other conflicts on the horizon"? What is this "third front to come", assuming Front 1 to be Afghanistan and Front 2 Libya? Have I been asleep lately - should I know all about this war to come?

Syria ? Seems unlikely. Iran ? Ditto. Are the Argentinians planning another crack at the Falklands (and if they were, how could we possibly form a front down there once Mount Pleasant was lost, having no carrier capability?).

I would really love to have known what Mr Mercer was talking about - and I imagine BBC listeners might have been interested, too. Pity the BBC couldn't find a journalist to ask him!




(cross-posted at Biased-BBC)

A Small Post

At Biased-BBC.

And something that made me smile, also at Biased-BBC.

A Small Postette

At Biased BBC.

Five Years On

Listening to the BBC on Wednesday, July 7th, 5th anniversary of the 7/7 attacks, was an odd experience.

'Nikki' Campbell's morning programme treated the events as you would a flood or other natural disaster - tales of coping and survival. People were interviewed about how they escaped, how they treated the wounded, how they first heard the news. Not a mention of the perpetrators, still less the M- or I- words. Hitler got a mention, the IRA - none of 'them' could break the spirit of Londoners and neither would 'this'. You'd think the attacks were just a thing that happened.

In the PM and World Tonight programmes the perpetrators were still only mentioned obliquely - in one interview after another, a kind of conversational tapestry was woven all around them without ever actually alighting on them, so that their image was marked by a hole, an absence. What we did get in the heavyweight programmes was warning after warning that anti-terrorist activity and legislation not be 'counter-productive' - that it not upset the (still un-named) 'community' and create more terrorists. Our ruling class are 'frit', as Mrs Thatcher would put it.

And with perfect timing for the anniversary, we were treated to Jeremy Hardy on 'How To Confront The Vexed Issue Of British Identity Without Getting In The Most Fearful Bate About The Whole Thing', a 30-minute lecture on how 'they' are in fact just like 'us', that there is absolutely nothing to worry about and the sooner we realise that fact the happier we'll all be.

The anniversary 'refocused attention on Islamist terrorism' according to the Guardian. Not on the BBC it didn't.

"We No Longer Own It"

The following, by BBC presenter Dotun Adebayo, was, according to 'Damon', a commenter at the Pickled Politics site, printed in the Voice newspaper in September 2008.

Damon's view of it : "It seems all kinds of people can feel this ”loss of hegemony”. When it’s articulated by the white working class (in places like East London) it’s usually called racism."

He also posts it somewhere Laban doesn't hang out at a great deal, the Billy Bragg forum.

I'll let it speak for itself, but I wonder - what would have been the career trajectory of a white BBC presenter writing such a piece, lamenting the loss of an earlier (John Major's ?) Brixton, mourning his dashed hopes that the area "would ever be white" or complaining that "all the shops are now owned by"? Would they still be at the BBC ?

WAVE BRIXTON GOODBYE.

There used to be a time when everyone knew that Brixton belonged to us.
We fought for it, and made love for it.
Some of us even died in that corner of the landscape that would ever be black.

It didn’t mean that white folks weren’t welcome, all that it meant is that they KNEW it was ours, the same way as when I go to Norfolk or Suffolk, or any of the shires, I know that it’s NOT ours.
I’m on my ‘p’s and ‘q’s when I go up country, because I don’t have the backative to claim it as mine. And all the youts know this, so they’ve got the bottle to shout out ”N*****!” from across the road when they see you walking down one of their village streets or quiet country lanes.

I don’t have a problem with that because I KNOW when I venture out there I’m in a white mans country and the white man makes the rules.
Brixton was different though. Babylon THOUGHT he made the rules until Brixton made a stand against the so-called Operation ‘Swamp 81′. As the late Bernie Grant MP would say, the police got a ”bloody good hiding” that time.

There were of course casualties on both sides. But at least the message was clear all around the country that Brixton belonged to us. And so did Tottenham. And so did Hackney and Stonebridge and Peckham and Handsworth and Moss Side and Cheetham Hill and St Paul’s, so on and so forth.

ROOTS

Where ever you had an inner city, you had a corner of England that would be forever Jamaican or Nigerian or Bajan or St Kittian. We didn’t just put down roots, we put down down-payments on those areas, or at least our parents did. And like the law states, if you own a piece of this green and pleasant land, it’s yours.
Nobody can take it away from you (unless you divert the mortgage payments to buy a Ferrari).
But 27 years on, Brixton no longer belongs to us. I went down there the other day and discovered another country. Oh, we were still evident. It wasn’t like ‘’spot the black man” but we no longer own it.
The bars, the clubs, the resturants and shops no longer belong to us. With the exception of a pattie shop or two, Brixton belongs to everybody but us. It’s the same in Tottenham and Hackney. We spend most of the money, but virtually the only things we own are barbershops and hairdressers.
We’ve got ourselves to blame. Look at the Asian community. They came here at more or less the same time we did. They didn’t just put downpayments on the areas they claimed, they bought them outright.
Often jointly, communally, together as one family. So when you go to Southall, Alperton, Ealing, Whitechapel, and the other London areas they own, it’s all about Indiashire, Londonistan and Bangla-Brick Lane. They own the houses, the businesses AND the councils.
So who do you think makes the rules in those areas? It’s not the Women’s Institute and the Rotary Club and the Freemasons, I can tell you. Forget the local parish church and the sound of Bow Bells, it’s the Hindu temples and the mosques that call the shots, and if the Imam wants to call the belivers to worship at five in the morning, that’s up to him.

Like I said, we’ve got ourselves to blame. We had it all in the palm of our hands and we threw it away. We could have been contenders. We could have controlled entire neighbourhoods, businesswise and otherwise.
We should be in control of our local councils in those areas where we are/were the majority.

VICTORIES

But after the street battles that won us our victories of the past (and not just us, because let’s face it – Asian communities benefited from the blood we shed in the eighties - (not the two Asian people burned to death in Handsworth Post Office - LT) we rested on our laurels. Like ex-slaves, we indulged our new found freedoms far too long and partied until it was 1999. By then of course it was too late.

During the eighties and nineties more drugs were pumped into the black communities of Britain than ever before. I lived in and worked in Brixton at the time. Previously it had been all about the good sensi (or collie or lamb’s bread, as it used to be known). After the riots of 1981 and 1985, we began to see the emergence of hard drugs – heroin, speed, then cocaine, and then, of course, crack.

The drugs did their job, They subdued our people into submission. Those very same crack addicts that you see in ‘black’ neighbourhoods are the same guys who used to live on the frontline ready to protest at the injustices we suffered. Those injustices are still here, but if you ask the warriors of old to come out and demonstrate, they’ll fall prostrate, begging for one more hit.

You see, in winning the streets we really didn’t win anything. The streets belong to everybody, whatever your local gang might think. Real power and real wealth is all about who controls the means of production, the judiciary and executive.

The Nigerians of Peckham know this. They are the new Jamaicans. It remains to be seen whether they will be seduced into not buying the freehold of that corner of south east London that will forever be ‘Lagos’.

There's enough material here for an entire conference.

(cross-posted at Biased-BBC)

A Small Postette

At Biased-BBC.

A Small Postette

at Biased-BBC.

I've Never Seen Anything Like It In My Life

I've managed to avoid posting on it so far, but I cannot believe the amount of coverage the BBC are giving the BNP this week. I don't think I've heard a single news bulletin since the weekend where they didn't get a mention. Some kind of mass hysteria seems to be sweeping the liberal psyche - a moral panic on a grand scale. Could McCarthy's America or seventeenth-century Salem top this?

Today it ranged from Laura Janner Klausener (any relation to Greville ?) on Thought For The Day :

For me, a helpful way to understand conflict is to think in terms of perpetrators, victims and bystanders. In the context of provocation by extremists, we know who'd be the perpetrators and who'd be the victims but most crucial are the bystanders. The bystanders will be the spectators at home, watching "Question Time", some may be cheering, or others tutting and shaking their heads. Some may want to switch off completely.

There's certainly only one anointed victim for tonight's entertainment. Didn't the Fall have a record called 'Live At The Witch-Trials' ?

And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness:

And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited ...

I digress. From that, to - at lunchtime - Victoria Derbyshire on R5 asking some hapless BBC executive words to the effect of 'will you be able to sleep in your bed at night knowing you've facilitated all the racist attacks which are going to happen" ?

The salivating ex-decents of Hebden Bridge are doomed to disappointment, I fear.

Tonight in the pub, by no means a bastion of bigotry, nevertheless much chat from sundry locals about Nick Griffin appearing tomorrow on Question Time. Much was seriously depressing. He "has a point" say people I have thought were decent. Many, it seems, will be watching with anticipatory glee.The ratings are likely to go through the roof- for entirely the wrong reasons.

My money is on the whole thing being called off after a series of bomb scares. Martin McGuiness wasn't at the Labour Conference for his health, you know.


UPDATE - Telegraph live-blogging includes this spot-on quote from Conservative Home's Tim Montgomerie.

7:23pm Conservativehome director Tim Montgomerie tells Sky that the only thing that will undermine the BNP is a mainstream party which opposes unbridled immigration.

More Telegraph - Richard Preston (any relation?) :

"Only hours to go now until the fascist takeover ..."

A Small Postette

at Biased-BBC.

Another Wee Postie

at Biased-BBC.

A Small Postette

At Biased-BBC.

Laban Pontificates ...

On James Murdoch, monopoly, and the BBC, at Biased-BBC.


UPDATE - on reflection I may have been measured but perhaps too kind to Mr Murdoch. To quote Churchill, 'one can hardly find a more perfect specimen of humbug and hypocrisy ... what is astounding is that it should be regarded with anything but scorn by men and women of intelligence in any free country'.

A Small Post ...

At Biased BBC.

A Tiny Post

At B-BBC.

We're Not Having Kids Part 503 - Liz Forgan

Times interview with the current Arts Council chairman :

There are, she thinks, two reasons for her becoming such a successful woman. During her single-sex education it never crossed her mind that women could not run things. “And I don't have children. It is unquestionably much more difficult for women with children to have a long-term career. I am in awe of women with children juggling 18 balls but the superwoman myth went too far. In your life if you are a daughter, mate, parent and have a career you cannot give 100 per cent of time to all of them.”

Laban thinks single-sex education is a Good Thing, too - particularly for girls.

But it's funny. She doesn't seem in awe of this successful woman with kids :

I have been a card-carrying feminist for 40 years and this woman has found somewhere in me a little kernel of sexism. She causes me to make a failure of sisterhood. Sorry Charlie but I cannot stand her candy coated philistinism, I hate her crass creationism, I loath her parading of her family about the place, God forgive me I even hate her teenage hair ...