Why isn't our national broadcaster on our side?

Well?

Come on, I asked you a question, what's the answer?

I'm kidding of course. I tend to try not to intimidate either of my readers for fear that they will become one.

But I think it's a valid question nonetheless.

The BBC is the British Broadcasting Corporation it is, so they have told us 'your BBC'. And that is certainly true since we pay for the bloody thing.

One would expect, therefore, that it would be on our side. Yes reporting events in the world, bringing us news of what is going on outside of our sphere of knowledge as well as on our doorstep, but doing so in a way that is objective, unbiased and 'straight'. Facts in other words. Presenting both sides' case and allowing us to make our minds up on the issue.

Where the BBC should be erm, if not biased, certainly slightly defensive or more focused on UK issues, is where those issues could or will affect Brits. Patriotic is perhaps the word I'm looking for. On our side perhaps best defines what I'm talking about.

I don't mean parochial ' 'Fog in the Channel, Europe cut off' stuff, but a bit more concerned about the effects of stuff on the UK population whom the BBC seeks to represent and in whose ownership the corporation resides (if one believes their sloganising). If it is not on our side, what the fuck is it for and why (dafuk) should we carry on paying for it to tell us that what we think - our core, generous, humanitarian beliefs -  are wrong?

I am of course referring to the current migrant crisis in Europe. But the same accusations could be levelled at the BBC on a variety of other issues - indeed most issues that are occurring in the world, where the BBC seems to have an active agenda and increasingly seems to be favouring one side over another. Israel is clearly one of these issues as is UK party politics, where the BBC is clearly not providing straight, unbiased information or coverage, and where journalists and correspondents are editorialising and colouring the audience's views on the subjects. But for the purposes of this blog, I'll just stick to the migration issue...

BBC coverage would have you believe that we (Europe and, in particular, the UK) should take in all of these people. That they're all families with vulnerable women and children. That it is a humanitarian imperative that we do as much as we can for these people. That we should take a refugee into our home if we can.

And that is a viewpoint. Arguably a humanitarian viewpoint. Arguably a charitable viewpoint. It is something that should be considered, particularly since it is likely to become reality - these people will be here, and quite soon. But this consideration should be objective and balanced. It is not a clear-cut situation, there are potential benefits (particularly to Germany which has a declining and ageing population and could do with an influx of young people) - and 80% of these migrants are young men after all. There are also some risks or potential downsides to taking serious numbers of people from the Middle East and Africa, concerning their backgrounds, their lawlessness, the teachings of the religion they follow, their culture and attitudes particularly towards women, etc.

And there are 10.8 million Syrian refugees (UNHCR figures), in camps in the Middle east:- Just Syrians, not Iraqis or Afghans, and Frau Merkel has invited them all to come and join the party. 20,000 refugees over five years is what Dave has said we'll take. If we don't regain control over our borders, we'll be taking 20,000 every five days once Frau Merkel and Monsieur Hollande have processed their applications, informed them that they have every right to come to the UK, and bussed them across Europe to Calais.

The thing is that the BBC does not ever seem to consider the potential negative effect this scenario might have on the UK. On our way of life, our economy, our housing shortage, the crisis in the NHS (that is so often rolled out as a means of criticising the Government but completely ignored when the story might be anti-immigration); our education system, crime etc. Not a word about this.

Not a word about the fact that we are paying our taxes to support our country and our fellow Brits and that a significant amount of our monetary contribution might be diverted, without our agreement, to pay for a crisis that we (as individuals) had no hand in creating. While there are fallen heroes on our streets and our own homeless crisis going on, we're being forced (let alone asked to approve) payment to people who have absolutely no interest in our welfare or way of life; who we have no legal obligation to help; who have made absolutely no contribution to our country or economy and many of whom have the stated goal of actually undermining our way of life.

However you slice it, this must surely mean that this side of the issue ought to be covered and considered by the BBC. It is simply not being - to the point where it is not just ignored, but covered up as the BBC refuses to join up any of the dots on crime (for example) that Muslim communities are perpetrating, enabling or ignoring in the the UK - crimes like the Rotherham child abuse scandal that is being repeated in every urban conurbation in the country and which caused the establishment to declare that these crimes were being scandalously ignored for 'PC' reasons (so as not to offend Muslims essentially) and has since led to, erm what? I'll tell you what, the continuation of the practice for exactly the same reason (that we're scared of offending the Muslim community in our midst).

They're 5% of our population; how can they possibly receive so much 'leway' to flout our long established and widely accepted laws and values? And how, if we allow this, can we ever hope to integrate these people into our society?

Indeed, more than this lack of contribution to UK society, most of these people belong to a religion that has a clear public position that is in conflict with our way of life and its radical 'arm' (considered by credible analysts to be about 25% of the total in the Muslim community) is the source of many hideous and unjustifiable acts of terrorism that are designed to achieve exactly this outcome (change to our way of life in the West). 25% is a big number when one considers the extremes to which these people will go. A frightening number if you ask me. But an entirely credible one.

So at the very least an influx of massive numbers of Muslims must present a threat to the countries that take them in. It simply must be so. But the BBC does not mention a single word about this. However destitute people are and however much our humanity would like us to try to help them, taking them in to our country against this background must come with a significant downside of the potential threat we face.

That's not me scaremongering, it's simple logic. Look at the track record of existing Muslim communities in the UK: FGM. Polygamy, honour killings, electoral fraud, grooming of 'white trash' girls, infiltration of educational establishments to teach Islamic values to British kids. Young British Muslims, having been brought up, looked after and educated here, preferring to travel to Syria to fight against the West. Do we really think the people we're proposing to take in are more civilised than the people behind these things?

Rape and child abuse are rife in refugee camps in the Middle East and now in Germany too. We're proposing to import this. And still not a word from the BBC.

I'm not saying the BBC should be howling with terror or telling us how terrible it will be, but they should not either be ignoring news events that identify these issues as serious threats to the UK. The BBC is concentrating on how we can welcome these people, how we can help them to get benefits and homes and healthcare, what lovely people this will make us look - and feel - like. Not a word about how we need to integrate them into our society, how we get across the values of their new home, how our legal system works, what is and what is not allowed here, in comparison to where they have come from.

The BBC is presenting a fluffy, poor bunny in need of our help. And ignoring the fact that this fluffy bunny may have a bomb inside it. Figuratively and literally. These people have not exactly created a fair, free, coherent and just society in their homeland even if one takes the brutal governing regime out of the equation. Bullying and religious-driven prejudice, exploitation and subjugation are rife in their societies regardless of the governing regime. Indeed many might argue that it is only the brutality of governing regimes in the Middle East that has kept the lid on this problem for the past decades and that once this lid is lifted, chaos ensues. It's quite difficult to argue against this.

The evidence would suggest that not controlling these people firmly leads to really serious, tribal problems and unfettered violence and lawlessness. So remind me, what are we proposing right now? Help of course, but not in their own countries, in ours? Are we quite mad?

Now I know, as a human being, that I will try to help others less fortunate than myself. And as a country we do that in spades. But we cannot simply give all our hard-earned money to people who demand it however desperate or needy they are. We already give more per capita than any other major nation in the world. And we do this to help people where that help can be most effective in their own lands. Taking them into our country carries a risk and a level of cost that goes way beyond what we have been doing for decades to help people. 

Helping people in their own cultures, their own countries, is massively different from taking them into our own. There, we can help them to survive, to be educated, to be healthy, without impinging upon their beliefs, attitudes, 'culture' or values. If we take them in we also take in these elements of their lives - and many of them are quite clearly incompatible with our own. And because we're so fucking 'PC' these days, we have not the guts or the strength - or thanks to the BBC, the will - to tell them, in no uncertain terms, how we expect them to behave in return.

And even if we do this, and they then break our laws, we'll ignore it for fear of offending the perpetrators; the very people who we took in. On what planet can that be right? And on what planet can this be a good thing for British people?

We can and already do take in and help a significant number of needy refugees every year. But if we try to help all of these economic migrants we will be unable to. Financially or culturally. We will be throwing our money at an insoluble problem and this will inevitably mean that our ability to help other people - almost certainly more vulnerable and needy people who can't even afford smart phones or Nike trainers - will disappear. And, as night follows day, having bullied their way in here, these people will use our 'tolerance' to indulge their own 'intolerance'. And will undermine our way of life to the point where our generosity to the world becomes just an ironic, sad and unaffordable joke.

 If we try to take in massive numbers - and believe me, following Frau Merkel's unbelievable stupidity of inviting them to come, there will be massive numbers - we will inevitably be reduced from a strong first world country into a failed state. It won't happen overnight, but it will happen. And then what?

We currently take-in and help genuine refugees on a significant scale. What we're seeing coming into Europe right now is not refugees but economic migrants, opportunists who will do anything they can to bully their way into the West. If we let these people in in serious numbers, there will be war. Not just between countries - the Balkans is once again becoming a powder keg because of Merkel's idiocy - but inevitably within countries.

It really is a terrifying prospect. I personally don't think that this is a particularly unlikely scenario. I think it's quite likely and recent events would tend to support this viewpoint.

But not a word on 'our' BBC? Is it really 'our' BBC or 'their' BBC? It sometimes seems to be that the latter answer is more likely and I just don't know why this should be the case.

Is anything I've said above completely wrong? Is there real evidence that the people the BBC is encouraging us to take in and help are other than how I've described them? Not all of them obviously, but many? Have I not raised any valid issues? If I have I would expect our national broadcaster to at least address and take account of them and inform us about them. They are not insignificant concerns. They are not about who gets voted off the bake off (or whatever happens on that programme), they are about our future way of life for fuck sake.

I have blogged before about the need to ask the question of people in our Muslim communities as to whose side they're on - in a way which weeds out the radicals and makes safer and better accepted the 'moderates'. I am not anti Muslim, but I am vehemently anti Radical Islam because it is a clear and present threat to us all.  The question should be: 'Sharia or UK law?' If the answer is the former, we should be civilised about it of course. And send them home in a nice bus, ship or aeroplane. With sandwiches and bottles of water. And a tenner in their top pocket. But send them home nonetheless.

It amazes me that we should perhaps have the need to ask the same question of 'our' British Broadcasting Corporation. But it seems to me that we do.

Thanks for reading.

Is covering women from head to toe really about modesty?

In southern Germany this week, the locals, having 'welcomed' into their communities groups of Muslim men (amongst others) were advised not to allow their daughters to go out alone or to wear short skirts. In case this were to cause any 'misunderstandings' amongst the incomers.

Presumably these 'misunderstandings' mean that if a girl - or any woman actually - is walking the street on her own to go about her normal, ordinary, daily business or wearing a shortish skirt (or just not covered from head to toe in a burqa - or holding up a 'no entry' sign that can be seen from space), it might be construed as a message which says 'please come and rape me.' Or 'I'm sexually available and I'd like nothing more than a strange man I've never met before to come along and force himself sexually upon me.'

I'm sorry but this is fucking outrageous. In every sense. In the West women can venture out on their own and wear whatever they want to wear because they have the freedom to do so. And because our men-folk are not so deranged, immature or deviant as to think that the sight of a well-turned ankle is a signal for sexual attack. Because the men-folk here respect women: admire and appreciate? Yes of course.

Even in my advancing dotage I enjoy seeing an attractive woman and I'll sometimes smile at her in a completely non threatening, entirely friendly way - and the message is conveyed: You look great, well done you. (and that thought is delivered in an utterly non sexual or patronising way). It's one human being appreciating another.

And she, having made an effort to look nice, might or might not appreciate the sentiment, (mostly appreciate would be my guess), but with absolutely no fear or concern about my motives and quite rightly so. Because I don't have any 'motives'. I'm a grown-up and have respect for other people.

I happen to be lucky enough to be married to a beautiful woman. She has occasionally noticed me appreciating another attractive woman when we're out and frowned and I say - 'I can look at the menu darling without ordering dinner'.

'You shouldn't be hungry', is invariably her reply.

The thing is that we shouldn't be having to change our western ways of life in order to accommodate people who are coming into our communities. They should be changing their ways in order to fit in with us.

Covering women from head to toe in a burqa has absolutely nothing to do with their modesty, but everything to do with trying to protect them from the predatory, disrespectful men in their own community. Immature men of all ages who view women as objects and fair game. It has nothing to do with addressing the sexual liberation of 'the West' and everything to do with trying to dissuade some of the 'animals' in their own societies.

And yes of course there are Western men who cannot control themselves - who are mentally 'challenged' in this regard - but these men are few and far between, not a significant percentage of our society. Not significant enough, for example, for authorities to recommend a universal change in behaviour when Western males come in to an area. The reverse does not seem to be true.

Tell me please how this is good for this country?

Thanks for reading.

Flawed flooring

It's not all politics you know?

Sometimes I get to fit floors. Or to be a bit more accurate, flaws.

Our new dog Rupert is in contention for the world's cutest mutt award and the Nobel committee is considering its verdict as we speak, write, read etc. You know what I mean.

 His nickname before he became a member of our eclectic family was 'puddles'. And it was entirely accurate.

I take him (Rupert) for long walks - six miles or so across the majestic Welland valley here in south Leicestershire with Jeeves who is now the elder statesman of dogs. He barks in a 'never, in the field of doggy conflict have so many posts and ears of corn and hedgerows been marked (wee'd upon) by so few.....' etc. kind of way nowadays. He's getting on you understand. As are we all.

 Rupert lends a youthful joy to proceedings, ever enthusiastic, always exploring, but also looking to Jeeves for guidance - 'what do we do now?' 'Shall I attack this Doberman?' Jeeves is a Yorkie and Rupert is a 3/4 Yorkie with a quarter of Maltese terrier thrown in. Or not thrown exactly, well let's not go there.

'Crusher' (I know) - Jeeves' predecessor (who hadn't been 'done') would have advised Rupert to tackle the Doberman, the horse and its rider next to it in his time, but Jeeves (who has) is a tad more circumspect. 'Not today Roop old chap, but just remember you could have taken him easily if you'd wanted to and killed him at will' - presumably if he'd got stuck in his (the Doberman's) throat.

Anyway these walks are fabulous, proper countryside on our doorstep, we see badgers and foxes and hares and rabbits and deer and  Red Kites. It's a real privilege to be able to do so just by stepping out of one's front door.

And they (the walks) take about an hour and a half to complete because it's undulating and sometimes steep and we have to take account of the old boy's fitness. And Jeeves' come to think of it.

Six miles. It's impossible not to have a pee on the way round. Jeeves sprinkles at will to mark his territory and even I have been known to unzip in the middle of nowhere from time to time.

Which reminds me, I went for a regular blood test - I never revise - the other day and found a new nurse at the helm. We hadn't met before. She got the finger pricking contraption out and said 'just a small prick'. I was wearing shorts but how she could tell so quickly is beyond me. They're clearly better trained these days than in the past.

Anyway, six miles over hill and dale, valley and glacial geology, kingfisher and brook, past church and village hall, up the hill to home. Six miles is a long way when one has four-inch legs, and so to an afternoon of slumber for the worn out dogs.

Jeeves has a big drink of fresh water and at this time of year lies down in the sunshine in the yard and goes to exhausted, but happy sleep.

Rupert also has a big drink of fresh water and then sneaks off into the back hall and pisses, like his life depends on it, about a gallon of piss that he has been holding in for the past hour and a half and six miles into the axminster.

Which is why I'm fitting a new floor.

To be continued.

Thanks for reading.