It has rightly long been against the law to urge people to violence against others or to send out messages to people to join burglaries, looting or rioting. It is an offence to discriminate against people for their race or religion and to use hate speech against individuals or groups. Recent On line Harms legislation has underwritten that none of this must be done online, though it was already a crime whether you used the phone, a placard, a leaflet or an on line posting.
There are now those who want to widen the law to ban so called fake news. They argue that someone can circulate a wrong fact about an event which then whips up racial or religious hatred if it wrongly accuses people of a crime they did not commit. This is still covered by existing law if the resulting comment or stimulus to action is based on hatred and on their race or religion, using an invented and wrong fact to reinforce that ill.
Trying to ban all fake news goes far beyond necessary protections of people and property, and desirable crack downs over invitations to violence. It implies there is just one truth, that the authorities can judge that truth, and that any other statements are false. Life is not that straightforward.
If people and institutions cannot make false claims which they believe Ā to be true at the time much debate and discussion will be banned. A government moving Ā in this direction might end up breaking its own fake news law all too often.
Consider some of the statements the present government has made. They said they will build 300,000 new homes a year for 5 years. Many think that unlikely. If they Ā do not build 300,000 a year for the next two years does that make their comment fake news?
Then there is their aim to make the U.K. the fastest growing G 7 economy. It is true it was the first half of this year but most Ā official forecasts expect others to outperform over the next few years. Would that also become fake news?
When it comes to issues like climate change and net zero policies there are big disagreements.Is government saying only one view is allowed of all the complexities? When the Bank of England told us two years before inflation hit 11% it would be 2%, was that fake news?
Of course we need to keep the ban hate speech and stop people promoting criminal activity. Why arenāt all the communications of all the small boat vendors taken down and prosecuted? We must not ban different ways of reviewing the big issues like climate change, migration and the economy as disagreement about cause, effect and policy are fundamental to democratic debate.
August 18, 2024
I agree with every word you write on this. To me this is the government attempting to control the narrative (nothing new here) but using the law to ban alternative narratives (foreshadowed by Orwell). Under their proposal would this expression on my opinion be deemed “fake news” if the government denied the intent?
August 18, 2024
The biggest purveyor of fake news is government. Climate change being the biggest con of all. Britain is alone in deindustrialising itself on the altar of net zero underpinned by government propaganda and false news.
The commissioner of the EU warned Musk not to say hurty things during his interview with Donald. This just highlights the sheer arrogance of the ruling classes.
They hate social media because it’s real time reporting which prevents them controlling the narrative.
August 18, 2024
Exactly some fake news – the most egregious is comes from government:-
We will stop the boats, we will limit immigration to the tens of thousands, we have cut taxes, we will give you a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, I will stay on a deliver on the Brexit referendum a deliver the section 50 notice the next day (Cameron), I will raise IHT thresholds to Ā£1 m each (still Ā£325k now only worth Ā£200k in real terms.
Net Zero is needed will help grow the economy & create net jobs. There is a climate emergency caused by man made CO2.
Liz Truss crashed the economy (it was Sunak, Boris and the BoE)
The NHS is the envy of the World
Sunakās lie (or perhaps he really is that ignorant/moronic) the Covid Vaccines were unequivocally safe.
Lockdowns save lives (they actually did net harm.
On a government web site Cycling and Walking cause no CO2 direct or indirect per mile.
Saving a bit of the 1% of manmade CO2 produce in the UK will stop wild fires in say Greece.
We also now have the government statistic authorities lying, hiding and distorting statistics hugely on post vaccine excess deaths, crimes by immigration statusā¦
Almost everything said by politicians before electionsā¦
August 18, 2024
I think I will read this later today.
Last Man Standing: Memoirs from the front line of the Brexit Referendum Kindle Edition
by Alan Halsall (Author) Forward by Dominic Cummings.
It will get for worse under Stasi Starmer & Labour’s QUANGO gravy train empire.
August 18, 2024
It appears the Electoral Commission were out to get him, once more another Blaire quango ripe for scrapping.
August 18, 2024
The problem with too much efficiency is that it results in collective madness!
The US economy is more efficient than ours – but it’s people a lot crazier and its culture a lot more dismal.
I love the UK. So much of the USA is a sh-thole. Where people work and live to impress others. Who cares if you drive this car or live in a certain house if you’re country is that bit more insane / crazy / uncultured.
Huge mistake has not being critical enough about how trying to ape the US economy and culture, has left the UK so much the poorer in terms of culture and people being happy.
August 18, 2024
Fake news, a term created by Trump who was called a Nazi sympathising sociopath by Lammy! Cooper wants misogyny to be classed as terrorism!
We have illegal economic migrants from France coming here in boats. They cannot be refugees or asylum seekers because they come from a safe country! How many ministers, MPs and MSM guilty of false information? Govt now wants to call them irregular migrants!
How about Rachel Thieves black hole? Two Tier Keir and Tory scum Rayner taking the knee? Is this condoning violence of BLM?
August 18, 2024
How do we define āmisogynyā?
If I say women on average are less tall, less strong, less likely to study Maths, Physics, Engineering, Computer programming, more likely to read fiction, less good at chess, bridge, darts, snooker, more concerned with their makeup and appearance, walk more slowlyā¦ is this āmisogynyā or will truth a defence?
Then again if we have misogyny laws but not misandry laws this is clearly yet more two tier anti-male justice. If we do have this then if I say men are far more likely to murder, stab, rape, be in prisonā¦ (and be murdered) than women is truth a defence here?
A 2000 global study on homicide by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime found that men account “for an average of 95 per cent of all persons convicted of homicide in 53 countries” and 79% of the victims.
August 18, 2024
LL,
Interesting. Perhaps Cooper will ban Bhurka, Nijab to ensure it is worn by choice not forced to wear by men, ensure All ethnic minority women are allowed to speak English and get jobs if they wish, eradicate forced and arranged marriages, eradicate FGM all ethnic minority cultures that could be viewed misogynistic? Perhaps she take to task universities who still have Asian only nights, place females at back of auditoriums when Muslim speakers attend etc. Cooper will undoubtedly want a war on Sharia law to make sure it has no place in our society and that our law, the law applies to everyone equally.
If Cooper does not then we know she is attacking indigenous white British people. Again, attacking our nation state, culture and way of life.
August 19, 2024
@ Hope – Indeed.
August 18, 2024
Or the false claim by Starmer and Reeves that VAT on school fees and abolition on Non Dom status will pay for all their daft plans. It will in the long term cost far more than they raise and so will pay for nothing and do huge net harms – pure politics of envy evil.
Also the idea that the VAT is an unfair tax break. They will actually be paying four times as with private healthcare. One for the service they do not use, then more income tax NI on the extra they need to earn for the fees, then the fees than VAT on top. With healthcare it is IPT tax at 12% replacing the 20% VAT.
August 18, 2024
They even call the “no VAT on private school fees” a “subsidy” but the subsidy is clearly from private school users to state school users already. State school users pay no VAT and no fees either!
August 18, 2024
Somehow I doubt the deep misogyny embedded in certain cultures now well established will be included. More two tier policing can be expected.
August 18, 2024
A judge criticised an offender this week for blogging boat people as invaders! Hardly outrageous, what planet are these people on?
How about gestures and signs? We saw an ethnic minority making a gesture to pull a trigger and shoot at a camera? Does this count? I thought public order offences and malicious communication act covered this type of behaviour already. Why more legislation? Is it not to silence and strictly allow Govt. only speech?
August 19, 2024
+1
August 18, 2024
Rayner is not a Tory and we do not know whether she agreed to Starmer’s bizarre antics of her own free will or was enjoined because of her non-globalist credentials.
August 18, 2024
The whole issue is an aspect of anarcho-tyranny that the paleoconservatives in America highlighted decades ago. Now the police in the UK ignore real crime. Shoplifting is already tolerated below Ā£200. Crime numbers are issued but the crime itself is rarely investigated.
Instead police time is spent looking online for words that the government disapprove of. People are not even allowed to pray silently in the street. Christian preachers get arrested, Muslims donāt.
August 18, 2024
‘Britain is alone in deindustrialising itself on the altar of net zero’
– that is twaddle to a degree.
The Conservative government failed to support the High Tech industry with its North Sea Oil, instead spending that money to support the financial and consumer markets. And still so many Tories lack the vim today to help turn the UK into the world’s second Silicon Valley.
So what do you mean by industrialisation? Do you mean heavy industry? You sound quasi left-wing, then, as it was precisely the socialists and trade unionists and Marxists that were trying to preserve heavy British industry – when of course this has passed on to countries such as China and now India as this industry involves lower skills / lower pay etc and working conditions that people in the West no longer willing to put up with so much.
Sure, Net Zero is a bit of a pain but there is a tonne of money to be made out of it for both people in High Tech and Finance.
August 18, 2024
It was OK for Rayner to say “Tory scum.” It was OK for Jo Brand to say “Throw acid at Farage.”
August 18, 2024
Free speech should prevail. Everyone has preferences. Merely not liking someone or something being interpreted as hatred is extreme. Simply stating a fact about something might cause others to react harmfully, but stating fact is nothing other than truth: obvious to many and beyond dispute.
If fake news is made illegal, then any report that contains wrong info is similarly illegal, including many politicianās claims. Jokes, which depend on conveying one perspective then become funny when the punch line reveals that the listenerās perception was different would be illegal too.
People who harm others by accident are generally regarded as innocent. Malicious intent is the driver of wrongdoing and what holds the guilty to account.
If someone doesnāt like someone else or their practices, being free to state so and why makes things clear. It may be a simple fact they state. However, if their opinion is wrong, others can realise that, regard them as idiotic and disregard the value of much else they say.
Anyone urging anyone else to harm others, by any means of communication, is evidently bad. It is the malicious intent of the wrongdoer than needs dealing with. That is not remedied by restricting the freedom of speech of everyone else.
August 18, 2024
Bloke, +++++ sound sense and constructive, recognisable as such by any normal person, and timelessly old fashioned.
August 18, 2024
+1
August 18, 2024
Think piece. Imagine an Estonian and a Russian in Tallinn towards the end of the Soviet Union. The Russian is the oppressor, threatening the Estonian with the Gulag if they object and demonstrate publicly. After the revolution, the tables are turned, and Estonians seek revenge, excluding Russians from jobs, forcing them to learn Estonian (just as Russian had been the language of schooling before), and ousting them from homes. Objection and demonstration against the new policy is banned. Many Russians emigrate.
August 18, 2024
Take a look at the Conservative government’s definition of ‘extremism’ (published online March 2024). Extremism would for example be ‘promotion or advancement of an ideology based on… intolerance that aims to… negate or destroy the fundamental rights and freedoms’. I saw during the Covid crisis an ideology – the state knows best – that aimed to destroy the fundamental right of the individual to bodily autonomy. I heard government ministers promoting that ideology, and showing intolerance of anyone who defended that right. Does that mean they are extremists and should be locked up? The definition also says that you are an extremist if you have the aim of ‘subverting the way public or state institutions exercise their powers, in order to further ideological goals, for example through entryism.’ Entryism is what Common Purpose people do, in the civil service and elsewhere, in particular by furthering the UN’s Agenda 21, which the UN seeks to impose on state institutions. Does that make such people extremists?
August 18, 2024
Take control too far and you end up with 1984 and the Ministry of Truth Nett Zero is a near product of such a ministry. The millipede needs an assistant such as Winston Smith.
My advice is to conduct life minus the burdon of Facebook, X, the BBC, and Chanel 4, all of which are vehicles for fake news or totally unbalanced reporting of news. Stick with GBNews if you can accept, for the sake of balance, the views of some they use for this purpose. It is an opportunity for forming yout own opinion.
I would leave political truth to history. Day to day it is rarely a source of veracity. Politicians lie by ommission or nuanced use of fact, caveat emptor. Statements on inflation or the cost of energy are typical, the truth can be found at what you pay at the pumps and supermarket. Those prices are the reality.
Frankly I would rather the law be directed at those intent on stealing my car, robbing my home, shoplifting, and attempting to stab me, than those expressing half baked opinions or calls for revolution on the internet. Their appeal only reacts with equally half baked idiots. Hit hard the resultant rioters, paint sprayers, and road blockers, failure results in undeserved contempt for our front line police when the real problems are their senior ranks and politicians.
August 18, 2024
I second all that Agricola, during my working life I had no time for all that nonsense on mobile phones etc so I never got into the farsebook nonsense! To this day I now see it was all a con-give me discussions like Sir Johns diary and Conservative Woman, but thats my limit!
My life is in its twilight so if I do not agree with someone , then I Ignore them
August 18, 2024
LL, +++++
August 18, 2024
The Government issued fake news on a daily basis from 23 March 2020, when Johnson announced the first lockdown, knowing full well that it was a Low Consequence Infectious Disease.
It issued regular disinformation about the gene therapies which were erroneously branded “vaccines” because the WHO changed the longstanding definition of a vaccine in order to encompass them.
It regularly issues disinformation and misinformation about the Climate Change lunacy and the costs involved in reaching Net Zero.
All Keir Stalin wants to do is shut down any discussion about mass immigration; the failure of multi-culturalism; violence, when it is carried out by ethnic minorities and/or immigrants and what he calls Anti-Establishment rhetoric.
Basically, he wants to create a Police State where you can have any opinion you like as long as it’s left-wing and supports Establishment policy.
August 18, 2024
This Government want to build 300,000 houses a year. This is an impossible task. The Government needs to be realistic before making such statements.
August 18, 2024
It is INTENTIONALLY giving a fake promise and creating fake news. But the law allows it to do so. You however are not allowed to do so.
August 18, 2024
For some time we have ceased to trust Government and the Establishment. The current Government has taken the lack of trust to a whole new level.
Presumably, they expect us to believe their statistics which tell us how much we trust the Government and the Establishment.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/wellbeing/bulletins/trustingovernmentuk/2023#:~:text=2.-,Trust%20in%20government%20and%20institutions,these%20institutions%20(Figure%201).
Their 2024 statistics will be interesting.
August 18, 2024
Do you trust the ONS to carry out an honest survey?
I don’t.
In Keir Stalin’s Wannabe Police State, it’ll be a brave person who says they have zero trust in any Governmental Institutions.
August 18, 2024
Donna, let everyone simply make such a statement
August 18, 2024
Nor I
August 18, 2024
Expect the survey to be discontinued as an economy measure.
August 18, 2024
Many years ago, newspapers reported that an insurance company had gone bust resulting in large numbers of motorists losing their policy cover and having to pay again. The story resulted in the companyās head office being besieged by angry policy losers, erupting into their engaging in fist fights with innocent staff members as if it were they, the frontline employees who were at fault.
Should the newspapers have been sued for inciting violence? Of course not, even though it was clear that their true story caused the violence.
August 18, 2024
What about the lies told by Blair and Campbell about weapons of mass destruction? These lies caused a war, and many deaths and led to the instability of the Middle East. An enquiry established these lies but no one was held to account.
August 18, 2024
The GDR termed The Berlin Wall as the anti-fascist barrier. This is the mindset of woke Marxism. Light is dark, truth is lie and sweet is bitter. Nothing is ever as it first seems.
Understand, we are now dealing with genuine evil, trust is gone and all three main parties endorse it. Project 1997 has brought us to this point. I hope those who voted for those three cancerous parties are happy because it’s going to get a lot worse.
August 18, 2024
DOM, Agreed, wickedness is there in the many dishonest statements which are daily put about, and the āfar rightā are not who I mean.
August 18, 2024
And above all we must be allowed to challenge without fear of ridicule, reprisal or the law
August 18, 2024
The government instructing children how to spot fake news should be of great concern to everyone. The only intent here is to further entrench socialism and this government have used the recent riots as an opportunity to launch yet another socialist trojan horse to brainwash our kids. How to spot misinformation and disinformation is already a crucial part of the existing education curriculum as we are taught at GCSEs how to identify propaganda, appraise competing arguments objectively and provide accurate analysis and conclusions (eg the pre-war Nazi propaganda). The existing curriculum already provides all the skills necessary how to spot ‘fake news’ therefore this latest dictat by the government is not required at all. Given the government will be giddy with joy at this latest socialist spreading opportunity I would like to see it challenged. I think the first item on their ‘fake news’ list should be another socialist trojan horse: Climate Change. Let’s see all the ‘fake news’ associated with that on display.
August 18, 2024
It doesn’t surprise me that, a lawyer would want to introduce ever more laws.
So many of the proposed new laws are little more than “Play nicely children.”
The problem the state has is, although they can dictate what people can say, they can’t control what people can think or believe. The problem is that, if people aren’t allowed to express an opinion, it can fester and breed resentment and eventually, it will explode outwards.
I do wonder whatever happened to the sticks and stones mantra we had when I was growing up?
Fact checkers and BBC verify seem to just be their opinion, in the news print, it used to be called an editorial.
August 18, 2024
This is a complex subject. It is good that in a liberal democracy such as ours, people can express views that differ from the received wisdom. Ultimately a new consensus emerges, when the received wisdom changes or to be more accurate, adapts.
Fake news is different – here vested interests publish or post views that support their point of view, but which are demonstrably false. Much fake news of this nature originates with the intelligence services of adversary countries; the Russian KGB and now the FSB are past masters of the black art of “disinformation”
I have given up trying to discuss climate change – or the benefits of net zero – on this blog. One cannot change entrenched views with scientific evidence; people read the right wing press which reflect the views of their owners, who are convinced that net zero is a bad thing and must be opposed. Or that the climate crisis is a Chinese hoax. Or that driving an EV damages the roads more than a 55 ton juggernaut. Fake news anybody?
August 18, 2024
‘One cannot change entrenched views with scientific evidence’. How true, it must be frustrating to find such a person – now look in the mirror.
August 18, 2024
@Sakara Gold
…… but over 1,600 scientists claim that the climate emergency is a myth.
Which “science” do we plebs follow ?
https://thefederalnewswire.com/stories/649656011-over-1-600-scientists-claim-that-the-climate-emergency-is-a-myth
August 18, 2024
SG
Just search, “failed climate predictions” and you will be able to read the many statements made by experts in the past that have failed to happen.
Fake news anybody?
PS
One question for you on the UK’s drive to net zero.
If achieved, how much will it reduce global temperatures?
August 18, 2024
No. The first question is where is the scientific evidence that CO 2 at 0.04% of the atmosphere is the cause of climate change?………. Deafening silence. All models have have proven to be wrong, yet the idiots in Westminster have pushed on, signed us up to billions of Ā£pounds of energy waste, deindustrialisation and leaving oil, gas and coal in the ground based on non science. Still it’s OK to import these things and pretend how wonderful we are at impoverishment for no reason!!
August 19, 2024
@ Sakara āOr that driving an EV damages the roads more than a 55 ton juggernautā Who says that? No one that I have heard. EVs are 20-30% heavier and so do damage the roads more than petrol cars or a similar size plus more tyre wear and particulates.
So sakara you have āgiven up trying to discuss climate change ā or the benefits of net zero ā on this blog. One cannot change entrenched views with scientific evidenceā
The scientific evidence Sakara is all on our side. We live in a relative dearth of CO2, we have had ice ages with CO2 at levels over 10 times current levels. EVās, renewables, heat pumps, burning wood (young coal) at Drax, public transport, walkingā¦ save little or no CO2 anyway and a bit more CO2 is a net good anyway.
August 18, 2024
When did you give up discussing climate change ? I must have missed that. Claiming my electricity bill will be Ā£300 lower is classic fake news but you promoted it.
August 18, 2024
+1
August 19, 2024
+1
August 18, 2024
There IS no genuine scientific evidence that climate change is solely caused by the use of “fossil fuels” in western industrialised nations, just manipulated models and unrelenting propaganda.
It’s an obvious scam.
August 18, 2024
Iāve heard it argued that one volcano erupting is the equivalent of 100 years of man-made co2 ā¦.who to believe, they never argue the subject but how many scientists back their position
August 19, 2024
A very obvious scam. CO2 is but one factor of millions in climate changes and it is not even a large one.
There is no reason to believe in any man made CO2 driven climate emergency. Many reasons to think it is a net good on balance as it is plant, tree, crop and seaweed food and vital for nearly all life on earth.
August 19, 2024
I didn’t need to read anything to conclude that Net Zero was a blatent example of creative accounting SG. Make something here and it has a carbon footprint. Make that same item elsewhere but import it and it has none. Whatever the truth of Climate Change, the current NZ polocies are clearly nonsense.
August 18, 2024
The government wouldnāt break this proposed law because MPs would exempt themselves from it, just as they have exempted themselves from the laws of slander for statements they make in the House.
August 18, 2024
There were lots of āfactsā around covid that were used to justify a complete lockdown of the country that turned out to be complete nonsense.
These new censorship laws are a bullet in the back of the head of western civilisation.
August 19, 2024
Like the lockdown did net good (sure), the vaccines are/were safe and effective (not shown by the stats. even coeced on people with zero need for them as young, or had had covid already. Tony (counter productive war on a blatant lie) Blair even called people idiots for not taking the vaccines. 14,000 claims so far and you have to be 60% incapacitated just to qualify for the derisory Ā£120k. So over two limbs, 60% of you brain, one and a bit eyes & ears, 60% of heart capacity, gut functionā¦ rather a high threshold.
So does Kier Starmer think the Covid vaccines were āunequivocally safeā as Sunak said to the House (or just lied)?
August 18, 2024
More Government is not the answer, but more common-sense from our politicians in Government would be good.
We surely do not need more complex laws, which have proved to be a lucrative income for many lawyers, but still fail to solve the problems.
For years we have had justice if you can afford it.
More laws will just make matters worse, just look at the illegal immigration scenario, which should be so simple to enforce.
Arrive without any paperwork or documentation, but still allowed to stay, and with legal aid support.
The law in this Country is now becoming a farce, with fines and penalty points on a licence for minor traffic or parking offences captured on camera.
August 18, 2024
The cause of climate change is an extremely complex interaction of physical forces on earth and beyond. The current government narrative that it is all caused by excess of a single trace gas in our atmosphere, Carbon Dioxide. Despite this being complete nonsense, those who question it are called “climate deniers”. Under Miliband as Energy Security Net Zero minister (an oxymoron if ever there was one) decarbonisation has become a religion difficult to openly challenge in our press. Indeed, no national newspaper, including the Telegraph, ever allows comment on the causes of climate change, only the practicality or effectiveness of Net Zero.
I find this as frightening as the previous mainstream coverage of the Covid lockdown madness and accusations of “anti-vaxxer” thrown around. I suspect I am in the opposite camp to Sakara Gold, who has already posted, but the point is we should be allowed to openly debate these views.
August 18, 2024
The slide towards Stalinism is rapidly going beyond two-tier policing and the two-tier judiciary. Somebody was apparently given prison time for expressing anti-Establishment views whilst a Jordanian who harassed women and attacked a female police officer was spared even community service because he claimed he couldn’t speak English. Yesterday I watched a respected sports personality declaring that anyone who boos when footballers take the knee should be identified by surveillance cameras and given 100 hours of community service; next it will be an offence not to stand and applaud like in a Communist party conference.
Officialdom is skittish after the open opposition to mass immigration in Ireland threatened their plan to destroy the current Western nations with Open Borders.
August 18, 2024
I really donāt see how sharing news and views on the internet can continue.
Maybe the age of the internet is over?
It never worked very well anyway!
August 18, 2024
Well we know that the age of the MSM is over.
August 18, 2024
We do!
August 18, 2024
OED Fake = a thing or person that is not genuine. Better to ask what or who is genuine.
August 18, 2024
Fake news is what the government doesn’t like. We know that by now. The real question is what can we do about it. Is there an opposition which will seek to challenge the government on this? Frankly, I don’t get the impression we have an opposition, it looks like the Tories have all gone on holiday. Not that it would make much difference even if they did make their voices heard. The Tories have been trying to curb free-speech ever since Theresa May, culminating in their so-called online harms bill.
August 19, 2024
Exactly.
August 18, 2024
Without freedom of speech it is impossible to detect fake news or determine what is the truth. This is why the PM wants to end it and sovietise our country.
August 19, 2024
Exactly and without free speech how can we have any real democracy with informed voting?
August 18, 2024
You are right in pointing out that HMG is responsible for a lot of fake news, and then they have the cheek to persecute the rest of us when they don’t like what we are saying.
A recent report demonstrated just how the BBC is adept at labelling the truth as fake while the BBC spreads lies and deceit wilfully. HMG is even more skilled having their psyops to manipulate data and opinions.
Claiming announcements are fake news is simply a woke way to restrict what we can talk about – another control mechanism employed by the authorities. The whole concept is oppressive and those pushing for more legislation on the subject are guilty of misrepresentation and worse.
August 18, 2024
āA recent reportā, can you be a bit more precise, please.
August 18, 2024
JR doesn’t always like links but here it is for those that missed it
https://www.netzerowatch.com/all-papers/tall-climate-tales-from-the-bbc-2023?ss_source=sscampaigns&ss_campaign_id=66bb675f678d676db1969888&ss_email_id=66bc6bd197a654379a916313&ss_campaign_name=Tall+Climate+Tales+from+the+BBC&ss_campaign_sent_date=2024-08-14T08%3A33%3A44Z
August 18, 2024
+1
August 19, 2024
Indeed.
August 18, 2024
If funding a criminal act is a criminal act itself, how is it possible that the climate activists, both organisations and individuals, who fund criminal actions by organisations and persons belonging to XR and JSO are also not prosecuted?
Because of 2-tier laws, policing and judges?
August 18, 2024
Some of them are also funding senior politicians. Ed Miliband got a Ā£99,000 donation from The Green Finance Initiative and Ā£266,600 from Lisbet Rausing, a billionaire who wants to re-wild the UK.
There’s not the slightest connection to his role as Minister for Increasing the Cost of Energy and Destroying Our Energy Security, of course.
August 18, 2024
Wow – does that mean we acknowledge that funding Zelensky to attack civilian targets inside Russia is a criminal act.
August 19, 2024
What about Sunak who funded so many surely criminal acts like lockdowns and the dangerous net harm and ineffective Covid vaccines even for those with no need of them? And still lies about their safety perhaps he just cannot face the truth.
August 18, 2024
The problem with fake news, is who is going to be the arbiter of what is fake and what is fact?
As we have seen on so many occasions, major media organisations present story lines, often in good faith, that then turn out to be false narratives. The list even for our national media champion the BBC are too long to present.
With those being the facts. How does anyone anywhere imagine it is possible to have a law banning fake news?
August 18, 2024
Rod
Perhaps we will need to put a disclaimer at the bottom of everything we write or share, but then would that be enough in these days.
August 18, 2024
The biggest fake news in history is that we have a climate crisis caused by anthropogenic emissions of CO2. Even if the politicians at the UN, WEF our governments and the BBC disseminate this false propaganda the UNās own IPCC Working Group 1 (āThe Scienceā) can find no evidence for their claims. Table 12 in Chapter 12 shows no signal for climate change can be found other than some mild warming leading to a loss of ice and snow and the footnote on P95 declares that doubling CO2 (which would take 170 years at the current rate of increase) gives an increase in the GHG effect of just 1.2 degrees C (Happer & Wijngaarden calculate 0.7 degrees C).
It is time we had a referendum on Net Zero before any further damage is done to our economies, military capabilities and well-being, including our sanity.
August 18, 2024
PS :
The governmentās ending of pensioners Winter Fuel Allowance is not a fiscal measure to reduce spending but a Net Zero measure to reduce CO2 emissions.
August 18, 2024
I assumed it was a fiscal measure to reduce the cost of the State Pension by increasing winter deaths from the cold.
August 18, 2024
Donna :
Deaths also reduces CO2 emissions. Hence also the support for Net Zero by Malthusians, one of which is a very well known and long-standing BBC presenter.
August 20, 2024
Cremations emit a lot of CO2.
August 18, 2024
Or a means to harm our pensioners who will have to choose to heat or eat as the eco loons have tripled our energy costs on their alter of their non existant climate change God.
August 18, 2024
|I fully agree the Net Zero policies founded on the false premise that CO2 is a control of climate is the greatest, most damaging hoax yet visited on society.
The collective international programs that have been adopted in the wake of that climate crisis hoax is indicative of how easy it is to ‘fool some of the people all of time’.
Those of us with the education and time to study the facts, know climate variation is not a man made phenomenon.
Sadly the control freaks in too many governments’ across the world, see climate change as a convenient tool to use when seeking to have power over their subjects.
The legacy damage the Climate Change policies are building are of no concern to those who will be retired on a fat pension before the eventual collapse takes place.
We live in challenging times, all of our own making.
August 19, 2024
Indeed though Mankind has some effects, particularly urban heat island effects. But a bit more CO2 and a bit warmer is a net good on balance. Even if we had to cool the world the. less then CO2 would not be the way to do it.
August 18, 2024
If we look at it from the authorities’ point of view, what we see is an unprecedented technological means -the internet – of causing trouble by spreading rumours. There is no doubt that causing trouble by spreading rumours has been a serious public order problem in the past: anti-Jewish and anti-Catholic pogroms in this country’s history, for example. If we accept that the police are under-resourced, it’s natural that they should favour plans to limit public disorder caused by scuttlebutt spread in no time via the Internet. So it’s no surprise to see Police Commissioner Mark Rowley helping to shape government policy in that direction. What should be surprising is that no prominent advocates of free speech provided input to current legislation as a counterbalance, setting clear limits to what can be called fake news and safeguarding the right to a dissenting opinion. Or if they did, no government of either stripe took much notice. You can see the bias in the current legislation’s approach, which says: ‘Those seeking to identify whether certain behaviours are extremist should look to identify intention first, and then, where it is not clear whether the explicit intention is extremist or not, investigate whether the behaviour forms a pattern that is promoting or advancing an extremist ideology or goal.’ In other words, here’s the criterion: the person’s intention. But if you can’t get them that way, surveill their behaviour until you can claim there’s a threatening pattern. Then get them. I don’t suppose the KGB or the Stasi worked very differently.
August 18, 2024
Agree with this text but we have a government who seem to be intent on writing all types of new laws into the Constitution to suit themselves and their own motives (these I am very worried about). When you have an atheist in charge (Starmer has said he is one) then the laws and state of this country which is based on Christianity are in severe danger of being changed to something else. The country and indigenous people are in mortal danger from these people in power.
August 18, 2024
Am reading this blog today and can see in itself it is a spin with misinformation stacked in its content. Firstly it is absurd to call fake new ‘so called’ – fake news as we know it now is lies deception blatant misinformation or disinformation if the intention is to do harm – there is nothing ‘so called’ about any of that. Next thing you talk about the authorities judging the truth when there’s no need to – referees or moderators can be appointed for fact-checking all that is needed is a delay on the line to allow for examination – that’s not censorship but common sense. If you had fact-checking in place at the time of brexit so many people would not have believed about 350 million on the side of the red bus for example – the people have to be protected from this onslaught of outrageous pouring coming from politicians especially and as we see more of it coming from the other side of the Atlantic again today where one side has called the other a lunatic. Somehow or other we’ve got to get a sense of proportion and decency back into our discourse and one way to do it is for a delay on the line, a slow down, to allow for fact checking – the other is the courts. Murphy Dublin
Reply You demolish your own case by discussing the Brexit savings. The NHS did get much more than the Ā£350 m extra, and we are now saving our membership fees. We also have avoided being jointly liable for more than euro 800 bn of new EU borrowings.
August 18, 2024
The UK gives the EU a gross contribution of Ā£350 million a week. This is not a lie, and it is an amount which could be spent on the NHS if the UK Government so wished.
There were many lies during the EU Referendum campaign, but these were from the ‘Remain’ side:
Businesses will flee the UK.
Trade will collapse.
Families would be Ā£4,300 worse off if the UK voted to leave.
Brexit will destroy Western civilization as we know it.
The Scots would immediately vote to leave the Union.
World War 3 would be upon us if Brexit occurred.
3 million people in the UK will lose their jobs.
House prices will collapse.
“A dangerous fantasy” is how Nick Clegg described Nigel Farage’s claim of EU plans to create an army.
We were told companies would leave the UK in their droves.
David Cameron said he wouldn’t resign as Prime Minister if he lost the Referendum vote.
August 18, 2024
murphy : āā¦..referees or moderators can be appointed for fact-checking all that is needed is a delay on the line to allow for examination ā thatās not censorship but common sense.ā
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Who would you appoint?
Only with freedom of speech is it possible to detect fake news or determine what is the truth.
August 18, 2024
Murphy you are guilty of disseminating fake news with the intention of doing harm to British people by bullyIng them into reversing Brexit.
Stick to Delaneyās Donkey will you? Shoving it and shooshing itā¦
August 19, 2024
To reply, yes but Sunak borrowed (off our backs) huge UK sums instead to fund net harm lockdowns, net harm covid vaccines, net harm net zero policies and other lunacies.
August 18, 2024
The problem would lessen considerably if we had a news outlet that could be trusted.
To take broadcast news as an example, the only way to get some idea of what is going on is to take an aggregate of the BBC’s output and GB News output.
August 18, 2024
Without the spread (by teachers) of fake facts there would be little education system.
History wouldn’t be taught as it spreads fake facts, especially as in the past historians wrote with the primary objective of spreading a point of view (for instance showing how glorious the ancient Romans were in the case of Polybius and Livy) rather than the exact truth. Even Thucydides, the most accurate of the ancient historians, stated explicitly the speeches he recorded were not of what was actually said but what he thought should have been said.
Religion would of course no longer be taught as there are numerous conflicting versions of God. Even the accounts of Christ’s alleged resurrection are surely fake news as the 4 gospel accounts all conflict with each other as to how many times it was seen, by whom it was seen or where it was seen!
Most Science subjects would also no longer be taught. For ages it was taught that the Universe is 8 billion years old before the Hubble telescope discovered galaxies much older than that. My mother was taught at school that atoms were the smallest matter that couldn’t be further divided. Even anatomy has recently been amended, let alone other aspects of medicine. So if there could be no spread of fake facts no doctors and nurses would be trained.
And underlying it all the education system is underpinned by extremism where the aim and greatest success is based on being extremely correct and getting extremely high marks (not middling nor moderate marks) at exams.
August 18, 2024
I see parents and teachers have been complaining that the government’s education ministry Facebok page has ‘disappeared’ comments that question the Labour policy of VAT on private schools. Are these parents and teachers ‘extremist’ spreaders of fake news too? After six weeks in power, we can see the direction of travel with Labour.
August 18, 2024
I should have added the MPs of all persuasions, caught out doing wrong and sometimes illegal things, proclaim that they did X unintentionally. That they were unaware of the law (as if that is an excuse not to obey the law).
Are the Ruling Class exempt from the law too?
August 18, 2024
As you suggest it is a danger is that bad definitions of hate speech and similar has been and seems to be being widened.
This must be stopped. It is being used by government, to control us. And there are endless bodies, close to government but outside it increase their power too.
Our freedoms, often for the benefit of newcomers, are being removed. We are being punished. Those who say ‘hate’ against us however are frequently left alone.
It must not go on, as we will be entitled to remove it if nothing is done. Look how weak institutions are appeasing threats.
August 18, 2024
The Prangwizard :
Correct. We need a return to our original “sticks and stones” culture which has been destroyed by fifth column communists to break us up into warring “communities” having failed to achieve a divide between the classes in our society.
August 18, 2024
The English need a new Oliver Cromwell. We are being held in contempt by our leaderships and we must act against them.
Our historical freedoms must be re-established, and permanently preserved, and subverters and subversions removed.
August 18, 2024
One personās fake news is another one’s truth. Who decides? If we cannot have debate then we are lost as a society. We have seen so many injustices in the past. Who is going to speak up for these people now? Governments and politicians are amongst the biggest liars out there. If they cannot be held to account then we have descended into a totalitarian state no better than Russia, China or North Korea. How long before this site is closed down? How long before Sir John is forced to hand over our details to the authorities? If ordinary people donāt make a stand now and vote out these politicians who have abused their power then there is no hope for our country.
We need to fight back by playing the same game. Trawl through left-wing hate speech and report it to the police whenever you see it. There must be tons of it out there. Swamping the authorities with so much information means they can no longer cope and have to change direction.
Stand strong, stand proud.
August 18, 2024
It would now appear that having an ‘opinion’ is fake news,
The big fear is who defines and decides? – Today’s views soon become yesterdays.
It is better to have all opinions, views, etc out in the open, they can be countered and challenged.
I get the incitement to violence, but hate? – again who defines and decides?
August 18, 2024
Here in Sussex we remain defiant.
‘We wunt be druv. ‘
August 18, 2024
Agree – free speech is our last freedom
August 18, 2024
Fake News;….It has got to the point in the UK where most people don’t know what and who to believe anymore and can’t rely on what they’re being told.
There are too many ‘U’ turns on major issues where we are lead to believe and make decisions around one set of beliefs, only to be told later on that these were wrong and they’re no longer relevant or they’ve changed.
The bias reporting on the TV doesn’t help in knowing what is right and wrong, nor does the in fighting between differing political parties who, whether they agree with each other or not ,must be seen to disagree rather than agree; and then there are those so called experts who have to be seen to be driving their own agenda whether right or wrong.
We are being encouraged to buy very expensive electric vehicles [EV’s] to achieve ‘net zero’ by 2030 or 2035 or is it 2050,I’m not sure! At the same time we are told there isn’t enough electricity available in the grid, nor charging points, and EV’s can be unsafe as they often catch fire.Jaguar and other car manufacturers are relying heavily on EV’s for their future and investing heavily in this new technology;Apparently there are 1000’s of unsold EV’s, and on top of this there is a report recently that EV’s are going to be taxed by the labour government to help fill the Ā£20 billion black hole which they are saying they inherited from the Conservatives.Fake news or not we don’t know!
I personally doubt if it is ever possible to achieve net zero;Is climate change as serious as it’s being made out to be, and I question whether we need the numbers of housing we are told we do and if so where are the facts that are reliable enough to support these claims;
In fact are we all being told a pack of lies in order to direct the public to act in such a way which suits those in authority and power to support and uphold the committments they’ve given on our behalf to the UK and the rest of the World.
August 18, 2024
Well, not incitement to hate or violence for one thing. They are not in England, for another.
August 18, 2024
@ Mike Wilson – Not entirely true for in my community here in England a small boat vendor habitually communicates the virtues of his self-built skiffs. Granted, his adverts don’t seem to promote hate and violence.
August 18, 2024
492 illegal economic /criminals arrived in the UK yesterday from the safe country of France …..this is not fake news, however there is some censorship as our government(s) make this info/data is difficult to find
August 18, 2024
‘A new report from Net Zero Watch has exposed misinformation and factually incorrect reporting by the BBC on climate change. āTall Climate Tales from the BBC, 2023ā by Paul Homewood gives over 30 examples from last year alone showing how the public have been “misled”. https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2024/08/18/bbc-climate-change-output-blasted-as-ludicrous-gb-news/#more-74893
August 18, 2024
This government is evil.
When does the King intervene ?
August 18, 2024
It needs a march with elders such as John Redwood, Peter Hitchens, David Davis, Anne Widdecomb at the head of it so that the police have no excuse to deploy batons.
August 18, 2024
Two stabbings in Truro (unthinkable two years ago !.) The public are left to guess what this might be.
August 19, 2024
Fake news or downright lies?
Too often the Government, or Party in Opposition, arrange the spreading of what they know cannot be achieved or come to pass. The BBC has been a wonderful instrument of nationally presenting lies which when repeated often enough will misinform the ignorant or unwary. Lies are used and known to be lies, fake news used to create or influence views by the impressionable.