Daily Mail Letter - Racism Smear

  This letter was in the Daily Mail yesterday. It went out to most Scottish papers. I seem to be doing very well with the Mail - or arguably doing inexplicably badly with the rest of the press.

Sir,

      UKIP gaining 1 seat out of 6 from Scotland in the EU election is actually surprisingly low.

 

     A recent poll showed that 70% of Scots people agree with UKIP's policy on immigration - limit it to 50,000 a year. On other policies we have a lead that is less but not that much less.

 

    No new party have got 70% - many people vote for parties because "our family have always voted ....." and perhaps some distrust of policy promises is justified.

 

     Nonetheless something other than honest political debate on policy has clearly been at play.

 

      This can only be the disgusting smear campaign run by the state owned ("balanced" it says so in their Charter) BBC and some followers in the media, claiming UKIP is "racist". This claim is a deliberate, untruth [and cannot be proven].

 

      I challenge any of those who made this wholly false attack on UKIP to provide proof of UKIP having done anything 1/10,000th as racist as those parties or the BBC. By definition, any honest media personality who promoted the smear, will wish to prove it, and any who did and don't are totalitarian liars.

 

       Bear in mind that UKIP opposed our illegal wars including the one that led to our police (appointed from the KLA, a NATO organised terrorist group, in turn recruited from gangsters, sex slavers, organleggers and drug lords) dissecting thousands of people, chosen on racial grounds, while still alive, in Kosovo. This was done with the support of out main parties, though UKIP opposed it, and with the censorship, racial smearing and spinning of the BBC.

 

     If not they owe an apology not just to UKIP but to every British citizen for the way something close to a media monopoly has been used to subvert democratic choice. An academic statistical study has shown that the degree of governmental corruption and incompetence is directly proportional to government ownership of broadcasting (direct control of the press is less important) and that it had "no benefits". By their dishonest censorship and smearing (which has been much worse in Scotland than across the UK) the BBC have proven their monopoly power is not compatible with a free society.

Neil Craig

 

Ref - government ownership of broadcasting report  http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/report-reveals-state-media-ownership.html

70% of Scots support UKIP immigration policy http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/referendum-news/seven-out-of-ten-scots-back-ukip-policy-on-immigration.24278719

 

    The stuff in italics was edited out and the rather simpler but less emphatic "and cannot be proven" substituted. Not surprised. In fact I left it in because I doubted the letter would be published in any form. The accusation of LabConDem/BBC complicity in something that makes simple genocide look clean by comparison is undisputably true but (for that reason) virtually entirely censored by our media.

Brian's Big "Debate" Today

 Was held in Townhead "Village Hall". This one was specifically about the referendum (16 weeks to go). The total audience was about 35, which is poor, though no schoolkids. On the panel were -

- Patrick Harvie, Green leader (* coincidentally on during the April edition previously described, and also previously described by me as "a permanent fixture on the BBC")
- James  Dornan, SNP

V

- Annabelle Goldie, Tory and previously party leader
- Jim Murphy, Labour (impressive - he has mastered sincerity and displays it as effectively as he did the spot of blood in the middle of his white shirt after the Clutha bar tragedy)

4 questions during which I was able to answer twice as was Robert Malyn, Glasgow branch chair.

1 "Who should we believe when the figures the Yes and No camps produce are so far apart."  Obviously everybody said me, what else can they. However Harvie somewhat weakened my question to him by getting in his admission first. Dornan had said their growth figures were credible. Harvie then said it wasn't about growth or economic success but equality, greenery etc. When I got chosen I pointed out that Harvie had said in a TV debate that "nobody should vote for independence on the grounds that it would produce growth, indeed that he didn't expect any growth" and that Nicola Sturgeon, on stage with him, hadn't disagreed. Would these 2 lie to tell us which it was, since it is difficult to accept their position until we know what it is.

Brian then took several other questions and in the shuffle mine went unanswered, which is answer enough.

2 - "Can Scotland be viable without oil" - Murphy wisely answered that of course we would be viable, just poorer. Harvie said we must stop burning oil because of "catastrophic" warming.

I put up my hand and got called & said "As a supporter of UKIP I do not believe in the catastrophic warming Mr Harvie warns us of. This is supported by the fact that there has been no warming at all, let alone catastrophic warming since 1998. However, be that as it may, because of the shale gas revolution, we must expect oil prices to fall. There is as much shale available in Britain as to match our oil. One thing we can be sure of is that if the SNP or Greens had been in power when north sea oil was found it would still be in the ground.

Robert also stated from personal experience of living in Ireland in 1990s and 2000s during the boom, that Ireland generally since Independence in 1922 has been an economic basket case and various public services e.g. health service, Public Service TV, and Transport Infrastructure roads / rail etc were pretty poor in comparison to the UK in General and Scotland in particular.

3 - "What about the pulling of cinema ads" - a light hearted bit in which people said which films they didn't like. I wanted to point out that this may show the people to be less interested in the referendum than the political classes and it would be dreadful if the vote, either way, went 51:49 on a 40% turnout. I wasn't asked.

4 - "Do we need Trident in a post cold war world" - Quite a lot of sensible points were made on all sides, mainly on the principle of keeping it. I didn't try too hard because I really don't know what the proper answer is. If I had been taken I would have said something about it being a token on both sides since there is no possibility of Britain actually using our nukes except as part of a general NATO action.

Robert got to point out the incongruity of those wanting to cancel our nukes on financial grounds while we give foreign aid to those investing in their own ones. 

Brian's Big "Debate" - Bearsden - 4th April

  On Friday I am going to be part of the Big "Debate" audience in Townhead. So here's one I did earlier:

Friday 4th April, Bearsden the panel, Patrick Harive for the Greens, David Martin, Labour MEP, Mona Siddiqui, Edinburgh Uni, formerly Glasgow Uni, Court member, Fiona McLeod, SNP MSP and Neil Baxter.

 

There were 4 questions on three of which I got to say something simply by keeping my hand up. The one I didn't was about global warming where Brian specifically said he was moving on though there were still hands up. Perhaps the email from the Head of BBC Scotland Censorship Dept saying that under no circumstances should any debate be allowed on the subject, in which the other side were allowed to participate, be allowed, had something to do with that. Siddiqui was balanced on this in that she said she knew nothing about it so Harvie was given as much time as necessary to assert that catastrophic warming was visible.

 

Childcare - all about the SNP promise to spend more on childcare after separation. It had recently been found that their promises that this would be payable for out of the extra taxes working mothers pay had no factual backing. No serious estimate had been made of how much these mothers would pay. I got to point out that childcare costs in Britain are 41% of average wages whereas in Estonia, not a country known for hating their children, it was just 6% and that the difference is entirely political regulations which, even though a member of UKIP, I couldn't blame on the EU because Estonia is a member too. Holyrood has control of most regulations so the SNP could massively reduce those costs right now if they wished.

 

Red Road Flats being blown up to celebrate the games - everybody disagreed with that. I got to say that the problem was not the blowing up but the decades spent letting them decline, when they were structurally sound - and that this was symptomatic of the way 3/4 of housing costs are actually political not technological. The blowing up was cancelled but that is just cosmetic - the real damage was done.

 

Can't remember the last question now but it gave me a chance, at the very end, to say that it was improper for the BBC to censor UKIP, particularly when it is important enough for attacks to be made (2 panel members had made such). Brian denied that UKIP was censored, citing as proof, that I was able to speak from the audience. I don't know if any listeners found that convincing

3 News Items about UKIP

   3 Interesting news items about UKIP

- Lord Tebbit's blog on the Telegraph points out:

"There were some odd features of the poll, particularly the puzzle of who was really funding the "An Independence From Europe Party" whose title put it at the top of the long ballot paper which had Ukip at the bottom. Clearly the organisers and funders could have had no hope whatsoever that it would gain enough votes to elect an MEP, so what was their motive? I can only assume it was to catch out voters intending to support Ukip and lure them into precipitately putting a cross against its name before finding Ukip right at the foot of the page. One way or another it secured 1.49 per cent of the vote and if one adds even half of that to Ukip's score it makes Mr Farage's lead even more impressive."

I commented - Thanks for pointing out that 1.49% the spoilers took from the UKIP vote - something the BBC media have been silent on. Bearing in mind that the difference between UKIP getting no Westminster seats, at least if we don't target, which we will, and winning an overall majority of Westminster seats is only 10% (25% to 35%) that is a major effect.

Running this through Electoral Calculus we get

Conservative 210 seats, Labour 278 seats, LD 20 seats, UKIP 113 seats

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- The BBC have just been reporting a ridiculous claim by the Yes campaign that, because they will achieve a marginally higher growth rate than currently, after 17 years we will all be better off. This is to counter an opinion from No that it will cost us over £2 bn to do the organisational changes of setting up new departments in every branch of government now run centrally. Yes's counter was to say it would cost £200 million. Bearing in mind that the enormously simpler job of raising or cutting Scotland's income tax alone by up to 3p has long been agreed on both sides, to cost £40-£45 million the idea that hundreds of changes of a similar order could be for £200 is ludicrous and even No's figure seems optimistic.

   Which didn't stop the BBC repeatedly saying the truth must be half way between each figures.

    This also induced me to send them this email. While it has not been answered it is now undeniable that a "balanced" BBC would have to give, at least, matching airtime and matching support for this:

"The Yes campaign's assessment of us being £1000 better off in 17 years depends entirely on the SNP being able to promise a slightly higher growth rate. That is simply an evidence free assertion. If they achieve an economic collapse we will be poorer.

 

Or if we achieve the average growth rate of the non-EU countries (5.5%) rather than our 2.5% we will, in 17 years be 65% better off (1.o3^17) or £17,000.

 

We can be much more confident we can do that with a UKIP government outside the EU. Lets see if the "balanced" BBC state propaganda organisation decides to allow, or to censor, mention of this option."

 

I have much more faith in UKIP, outside the EU, achieving non-EU average growth rates than I do in the openly Luddite SNP achieving higher growth rates, or any growth, outside the UK & inside the EU.

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- The Scotsman has a relatively friendly article about David Coburn's victory.

 

"Ukip is currently without a Scottish leader – although Mr Coburn said he was “sort of running it” as the only elected parliamentarian the party has north of the Border."

 

I assume this means that because we have not yet had this year's AGM due by the end of May, Misty Thackeray's pro-tem leadership is no longer legal. Fortunately the AGM is promised very shortly and we can clear up the leadership issue. This is vital if we are to have a full range of radical, visibly Scottish, policies before the run up to the Westminster and Holyrood elections. 

CON	36.97%	307	23.00%	4	101	210
LAB	29.66%	258	24.40%	35	15	278
LIB	23.56%	57	6.60%	0	37	20
UKIP	3.17%	0	%	113	0	113

If 70% Of Scots Support UKIP Policy Why Do Most Vote For BBC Approved Parties?

   Letter sent today. Any odds on whether it is censored, let alone whether any of the lying beeboids feel able to answer the question raised.

Sir,

      UKIP gaining 1 seat out of 6 from Scotland in the EU election is actually surprisingly low.

 

     A recent poll showed that 70% of Scots people agree with UKIP's policy on immigration - limit it to 50,000 a year. On other policies we have a lead that is less but not that much less.

 

    No way could any new party have got 70% - there are many people who vote for parties because "our family have always voted ....." and perhaps some distrust of policy promises is justified. Nonetheless something other than honest political debate on policy has clearly been at play.

 

      This can only be the disgusting smear campaign run by the state owned ("balanced" it says so in their Charter) BBC and some followers in the media, claiming UKIP is "racist". This claim is a deliberate, totalitarian lie.

 

      I challenge any of those who made this wholly false attack on UKIP to provide proof of UKIP having done anything 1/10,000th as racist as those parties or the BBC. By definition, any honest media personality who promoted the smear, will wish to prove it, and any who did and don't are totalitarian liars.

 

       Bear in mind that UKIP opposed our illegal wars including the one that led to our police (appointed from the KLA, a NATO organised terrorist group, in turn recruited from gangsters, sex slavers, organleggers and drug lords) dissecting thousands of people, chosen on racial grounds, while still alive, in Kosovo. This was done with the support of out main parties, though UKIP opposed it, and with the censorship, racial smearing and spinning of the BBC.

 

     If not they owe an apology not just to UKIP but to every British citizen for the way something close to a media monopoly has been used to subvert democratic choice. An academic statistical study has shown that the degree of governmental corruption and incompetence is directly proportional to government ownership of broadcasting (direct control of the press is less important) and that it had "no benefits". By their dishonest censorship and smearing (which has been much worse in Scotland than across the UK) the BBC have proven their monopoly power is not compatible with a free society.

Neil Craig

 

Ref - government ownership of broadcasting report  http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/report-reveals-state-media-ownership.html

70% of Scots support UKIP immigration policy http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/referendum-news/seven-out-of-ten-scots-back-ukip-policy-on-immigration.24278719

 

   Incidentally, just as I was writing this BBC Radio Scotland have just broadcast (12.40 today) another attack on UKIP as being "racist" - no attempt at facts made by these totalitarian fascist liars.

UKIP Victory Across Britain as well as Scotland

   "There is no substitute for victory" according to General Douglas MacArthur and UKIP don't need a substitute.

   We came a clear 1st in the UK election:

   "UKIP won 27.5% of the vote and had 24 MEPs elected. Labour, on 25.4%, has narrowly beat the Tories into third place while the Lib Dems lost all but one of their seats and came sixth behind the Greens."

    So we may expect to see the Tories cease demanding free marketeers support them for fear of "splitting" the vote, indeed in theory they should start telling their supporters to vote UKIP everywhere where they came 3rd and while I don't expect them too, the voters are smart enough to work that out for themselves.

     While it was not the 100% wipe out for the LibDems some had predicted it is close enough - they were beaten by the Greens.

     Eurosceptic parties also did well across the continent.

    The Scottish vote is also a victory:

"The SNP won 386,193 votes on the night - almost 29% - with Labour coming second, on 346,377 votes (25.9%).

In third place was the Conservatives, with 230,569 votes (17.2%), followed by UKIP on 139,687 (10.4%).....

The Scottish Greens hailed their "best ever result", after winning 107,805 votes (8%), while the Liberal Democrats got a total of 95,076 votes (7%)."

   That is very bad for the SNP, particularly with the referendum coming up. It looks like a lot of SNP who would be Tories elsewhere decided to vote unionist. It is good for the Tories who were well ahead of us, though UKIP thrashed them elsewhere - I suspect this is not so much an increase in approval for them as a decrease elsewhere.

    Though we got our seat and are now the 4th party in Scotland, it was by a very thin margin. I strongly suspect that the votes going to the Tories not us (& more) was entirely because of the disgusting, dishonest and wholly corrupt campaign run by the BBC to call us "racist".

     In theory, and law, now that we have just over 1/3rd of the vote of the SNP the BBC will be obliged to give 1/3rd as much airtime to UKIP members as to Salmond, Sturgeon and co. In practice you would have to believe we live in a free democracy to expect that law to be enforced. However we can expect an almost infinite amount more coverage (ie some) and even some making up for 2 decades of censorship.

    10.4% in an EU election suggests a somewhat lower Holyrood vote, though, since Holyrood is under a PR system, not the squeezing out that happens in Westminster elections. To be a major party at Holyrood we have to have positive Scottish policies to put forward. I am convinced that the Scottish people only need some serious policy alternatives to the present "left of the UK Labour party consensus" that all 5 Holyrood parties share. I hope to keep on suggesting some.

    The Greens beating the LDs is also a humiliation for them, though it was achieved more by the latter increasing their vote - another sign more of dissatisfaction with the main party alternatives, I think, than approval of the Green enthusiasm for recession, blackouts and pensioner freezing.

Daily Mail Letter Of The Week - Honour Colin Pillinger By Building Beagle 3 Cubesat In Glasgow

Scottish UKIP policy proposal #1

 

    I got a notification (and a pen) from the Daily Mail that mine had been chosen as their letter of the week. Published 13th May. That is pretty cool. All the moreso since the letter, below, is one I am extremely proud of and which contains a proposal that could be literally world changing (the world being Mars). The letter had gone out to 30 odd British newspaper and not appeared when I googled it so I assumed it had not been used but the Mail don't put their letters online.

   I would, once again, like to take the opportunity to say that I think the Mail is the only real newspaper in Britain. The only one that goes looking for real news rather than rewriting press releases and "reports" from government, or government funded sock puppets (or in the Guardian's case, under the counter smears from Conservative central office or assorted genocidal Nazis). This is presumably why it is relentlessly denigrated by the propagandists at the Ministry of Truth BBC.

     original article it was derived from was on my blog here.

   The editings have been done with respect for the content and must have taken time. I suspect they have improved my grammar a little, though sometimes the most grammatical is not the most impactful. The editor dropped the "Westminster" from "Westminster MPs" - I assume because it was used in the Mail across the country not just Scotland though local references to Clydespace and the Forth bridge cost were kept in, which is good.

  It was slightly shortened, remaining the longest letter of the day (May 13th).

   I am happy with that editing.

   Google still indicates no other Scottish or UK paper found it reached their literary standards. I may be biased but I think the Mail's literary judgement is better than theirs.

    I also trust their judgement on what is popular with readers more than the other papers - and on that I have the support of their rising number of readers as competitors readership falls.
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Sir,
       The death of Professor Colin Pillinger who dreamed up the 2003 spaceprobe Beagle 2 was, is a time for a little reflection.

 

      His brainchild was built on a shoestring and made so light that ESA couldn't find any excuse not to include it with its probe to the red planet.

      Against all of the expectations of our political class it became incredibly popular, and a source of pride.

        That shows good judgement - finding life on Mars means life must be common across the universe  and. If there is a more important philosophical question than "are we alone in the universe" I have yet to hear it.

      Beagle 2 was renamed a spaceprobe in its own right rather than just an experiment (& Pillenger was awarded  a CBE).

     But it failed, as scientific experiments often do when something unusual is being attempted.

       The ESA said it would take it the Beagle programme over and do "more efficiently" - at 10 times the cost. Our MPs told Pillinger why they thought Beagle 2 had failed. He hadn't spent enough or taken long enough.

        ESA got their budget but  Beagle 3 is still unlaunched. Now we have cubesats (square "black boxes" 10cm o that are as revolutionary to space experimentation as containerisation was for shipping). And of how an engine is being designed that can drive a cubesat, or a cluster of them across the solar system. I suggested then they would be ideal for exploring and assaying the asteroids beyond Mars.

       They work because as Moore's Law predicted, computer capacity doubles every 18 months, so equally efficient devices can be made ever smaller.

         Beagle 2 was launched 11 years ago and according to Moore's Law capacity is up 400 times - a cubesat of 100g would be as efficient as Beagle 2.

           Cubesats (with 40% of all all those now in use around the world containing hardware produced in Glasgow) are being put in orbit for under £100,000 and they are proving to be a technology that is game changing for space development.

          Beagle 3 would be much more complicated than 1 communications cube in Earth orbit. But how much more. It looks as though the cost of launching Beagle 3 would be far more expensive than cubesats at several million £s although that than 1 metre of the new Forth bridge.

           Is that worth spending if we get closer to answering arguably the ultimate question about life and the Universe?

            I would think Westminster, and all our best known philanthropists would fight for the opportunity to honour Professor Pillinger thus.

 

Neil Craig
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   If there are no technical reason why I am wrong and I don't think there are, then I hope I and perhaps others can push this further. If government (UK or Scots) were to put up even £1 million I am sure sponsorship of any excess would be possible, as much of the much greater cost of Beagle 2 was raised privately.

 

    My thanks to William Scott for posting me the page from the Mail on 13th May containing my letter.

 

    The editings are shown on my blog for anoraks like me who enjoy seeing them http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/honour-colin-pillinger-with-beagle-3.html