IamalrightJack · @IamalrightJack
27th Nov 2012 from Twitlonger
Exposed! The BBC misleading viewers on welfare spending!
After watching Andrew Neil misleading viewers about welfare spending on the Sunday Politics Show I have made a complaint to OFCOM, BBC and even told Andrew Neil that he should resign or else he will be exposed and sacked- the ball is his court. I'm not going to stand for the BBC following Tory narratives and sound bites. They are the main reason we have cuts. They give the Tories public support and justification for austerity by acting as a extension to number 10’s spin machine. They influence viewers to support Tory policy by misreporting and misleading facts and news. Below is my email and complaint about Andrew Neil. First this is the interview with Liam Byrne http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-19863895
BBC Trust,
I have phoned up BBC complaints and I was told my comment would be passed on. I was peeved off because I just wasted 5 minutes making the complaint. I said I wanted to make a complaint so action will be taken. He said well I can include it as complaint. Anyway, I'm writing to you the Trust because this chap did not take my name, address, phone number or any other details. Neither did he give me a reference number. So I gather you have no complaints department and the number on your website is simply for comments- Great start.
To get to the point Sunday night about 11pm I sat to watch Sunday Politics. What I saw was Andrew Neil misleading viewers because he must think that everyone watching are idiots and they will never catch on. Hence, you the BBC think viewers are idiots and stupid- we will take anything you say as the truth.
Andrew Neil was interviewing Liam Byrne. He showed him a graph of welfare spending. The graph showed two bars. The first bar representing 1997/8 when Labour entered office this had figure of £83bn the other bar was 2010/11 when Labour supposedly left office with a figure of £125 bn.
The first misleading thing is: Labour left office in 2010 so the second bar should show 2009/10 as the election was held in May 2010. Andrew has just added billions on Labour welfare bill by adding a year that they were not even in office-2011.
The second way he is misleading viewers is by simply using cash terms. Now as an economist I know that every economist in the "world" knows that you do not express any kind of government variable in cash terms because it shows half the picture and numbers on their own don't really mean anything. People who use cash terms only do so to mislead and scare people with great big numbers- there are no buts about it. What he should have done was represent the welfare figures as percentage of GDP or even total spending.
Hence, Labour inherited welfare spending of 6.7% in 1997. If Andrew is an economist he would also say: By the start of the banking crises in 2007 welfare spending was down to 5.9% . Thereafter as unemployment rose the welfare bill rose to 7.5%. Hence, as we economist look at figures in the long run over 13 years labour increased welfare spending by 0.8% . Now considering the GDP grew by £0.8 trillion in 1997 to £1.5 trillion in 2010 which is an increase in income by about 90% (this why percentages are used) they kept welfare spending reasonable the same as when they entered office in 1997 or it was flat. The graph is at the top page and the chart is at the bottom of the page http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/spending_chart_1997_2011UKp_12c1li111mcn_40tNow, this is Total welfare spending including pensions which Andrew excludes. However, this does not make any difference because; the fact is he uses the wrong departure date 2010/11. He also uses cash terms to mislead and ignores the effect of the economic cycle (start of recession) on the GDP and welfare spending. Now, am I to believe he is just a ordinary guy off the street who knows nothing about economics? So he is obviously misleading viewers. This is not the first time BBC staff has done this. It has been going on since 2008 along with following Tory narratives and sound bites which I won’t go into to now but it’s well documented on Youtube- and you wonder why people don’t trust the BBC. I have made a complaint with OFCOM and there will be an article appearing this week in a major newspaper online. I expect a full apology with the correction in the next show or sack him.
I will be blog this email on twitter so that everyone that is fighting cuts and others will read it. The ball is in you court you can carry on exploiting people’s economic illiteracy but eventually you will lose and the people on social media will win because I’m never going to let you get away with it- I won’t stop in the name of democracy , liberty and those on benefits.
I look forward to your quick response.
Please share this so the BBC Trust know that we mean business. Otherwise they will carry on misleading viewers and we shall get another Tory coalition back into office in 2015. Most of all they will carry on insulting our intelliegence with their mis-repoting and there will be more unjust cuts. Please Re-Tweet and share it on facebook.