How nice of the Guardian to follow Red Ed and align themselves to the Occupy movement. How sad though, for both,  that the outreach comes during the death throes of the Occupy “movement”. New York has been reclaimed for the people, with the imposters who claim to be the 99%, evicted. Perfect timing then for the Guardian Comment is Free team to have a boozy lunch and leave their site “occupied”. And it looks like they are starting at the very beginning:

A very good place to start for this lot. The lunatics have taken over the asylum!

An investigation by the Indy has caught the BBC red-handed selling airtime for millions of pounds. They are trying to spin it as “nominal fees”, but a look at the numbers and content involved is pretty shocking:

“FBC produced programmes for the BBC about Malaysia without declaring that it had been allocated £17m by the Malaysian government to carry out a global strategic communications campaign. The BBC also found that FBC had breached programme guidelines on a programme it made on the subject of Egypt this March during the Arab Spring uprisings. The Independent has established that FBC has worked for the regime of the former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.”

Perhaps most damning is the fact that a BBC World documentary about climate change was sponsored by green crusaders Envirotrade. And of course “Envirotrade was featured in a positive light in the programme but viewers were unaware that there was a funding arrangement in place.” The BBC have ruled “that commercial, financial or other interests may have influenced the editorial judgments in these programmes.”

So remember that next time you swallow the Beeb’s “the debate is over” climate change line…

See also: Green Flatlining, CRU Boss Stands Aside, Queens University Blocking Data FOI, Time to Defund CRU’s Global Cooling Deniers, Climate Change Alarmism is Snow Joke

No let up for Theresa May. Brodie Clark helpfully brought a big bucket and a hand-held fan to his appearance before the Home Affairs Select Committee. He’s sticking doggedly to his line that he introduced “no additions to the Home Secretary’s trial. I did not enlarge, extend or redefine the scope in any way.” As it stands it is his word against the Home Secretary’s, which does not bode well for him. There’s no paper-trail smoking gun though, just he said/she said...

Labour know this, which is why they are broadening their attacks to include private jets and airports today. Theresa May didn’t make it to the House, because of “an important meeting of the National Security Council”, leaving Damian Green to take the flak. Such unfortunate timing eh?

Broadcasters have been left scratching their heads on why the Bank of England have asked the Palace not to release the footage of Mervyn King receiving his knighthood. The Bank’s spinners confirmed that the strange request had been made, but refused to comment on why. Nothing to do with the powerful image of the Governor on his knees…

On the day the Bank of England announced that inflation is still more than double the target of 2%, Mervyn King is to be knighted. When the target has been missed for the last three years, you have to wonder what is the point of it? Whatever happened to performance related rewards?

There was the first run on a bank in some 200 years on his watch. The Bank of England’s official position is that deflation is the danger. He’s been photographed repeatedly during crisis days at Wimbledon and Lords, and now he’s off to the Palace. Arise Sir Mervyn of Credit Crunch…

The moment the Prince of Darkness had his words handed to him on a plate can now be savoured thanks to Liar Politicians:

As Guido mentioned earlier, he refused to rule out joining the Euro one day in the full clip…

Quentin Letts on the Institute for Government…

“a silo of Guardianista gibberish”

David Miliband doesn’t “know whether to weep or laugh” about the Eurocrisis. He’s taken to the pages of the FT to carefully place a hand grenade under yesterday’s attempts by Ed to rebalance Labour’s position on the EU, bringing it slightly closer to sceptic public opinion. Dougie Alexander got all “realistic” in his speech and the bloggers were dispatched to re-write history; with the most brazen attempt being LabourList’s “Did we even care about Europe ever really anyway?” And then it all started going wrong…

There was Lord Mandelson on Newsnight refusing to rule out ever joining, as well as refusing to apologise for declaring the Euro a wonderful sustainable success, just two years ago. And now in this morning’s FT Brother Miliband twists the knife. Apparently negotiating powers is  ”deluded and dangerous” and the real key issue is the fact that “President van Rompuy is up for re-election in June.” Hardly in tune with the line his brother signed off yesterday for Wee Dougie:

“…any treaty change sought by Germany in response to the euro crisis as a legitimate occasion to look at the balance of powers between Europe and nation states.”

It turns out the most prominent figures in Labour do still care about Europe. Deeply…

Love this truculence from Baroness Trumpington…