Every half hour BBC News is running a three minute puff piece which is even more sinister for what it hides than for what it says – and By God! That is sinister enough.
“Now the BBC has learned about an alternative No campaign which calls itself No Borders a group determined to rouse the emotions many feel about being Scottish but also British. Gavin Essler has this exclusive report:”
GAVIN ESLER: “A recording studio on the outskirts of Edinburgh. A group of musicians putting the finishing touches to a song which they hope could save the United Kingdom”
(Pretty girls caterwauling unpleasantly). The song is part of a new campaign called No Borders. Their website goes live today on the anniversary of the Union”
(Long speech by Malcolm Offord of No Borders – not a single question asked).
GAVIN ESLER (orgasmic voice): “Here in the very heart of Glasgow in fact almost anywhere you go anywhere in Scotland you’re never far away from our three hundred years of shared British history…. Putting the passion into the campaign to save the United Kingdom is exactly what No Borders say they are about.”
(Another statement from Malcolm Offord. Still not asked any questions).
GAVIN ESLER ‘The idea is a grassroots campaign to rival that of the pro-independence campaign, based on those who wish to remain in the UK. A retired care nurse from Glasgow Elizabeth Bashir is one of those who has given her testimonial.
(Pro-union view from sweet old lady.)
(14 seconds to spokesman for Yes campaign – presumably this is BBC “balance”.)
(Pretty Girls Caterwauling Again).
GAVIN ESLER “In the music industry they say you should never rewrite a hit, and No Borders say the Union has been a great hit worldwide for three hundred years. But others say it might be time to sing a new song.”
Now this long propaganda piece for the No campaign is disgusting in itself for its internal bias, and for the fact that the very much larger grassroots movement the Radical Independence Campaign has never been given any publicity by the BBC (and the failure to reference the longstanding anarchist No Borders movement). It is not even news – it is two days since “Vote No Borders” was given an even longer bout of free publicity on Newsnight Scotland.
But what makes this propaganda utterly unforgiveable is that Vote No Borders is not a grassroots campaign at all but a government organized campaign which has mysteriously acquired start-up cash of 400,000 pounds with no declared origin.
The registered office of Vote No Borders, a private limited company, is at 24 Chiswell Street, London, EC2Y 4YX . Which is perhaps surprising for a “Scottish grassroots campaign”. The directors are Malcolm Offord and Fiona Gilmore.
Now pay close attention: Fiona Gilmore is chief executive of Acanchi a PR Consultany which specializes in “Country Branding”. Its clients include Israel, Dubai, Bahrain and “England”. Yes, it actually specifies “England” on the company website. Acanchi also works for DFID – in short, it gets UK taxpayers’ money, plus Israeli and Gulf Arab money. Are you familiar with the word fungibility?
Malcolm Offord, it turns out, has donated over 120,000 pounds to the Conservative Party plus made personal donations to Michael Gove. He is the author of the report “Bankrupt Britain” on the Conservative Home website. In his paper Offord suggests that further cuts in UK public spending should continue to be made even after the present debt crisis has been passed and urges government to:
“Reform the bloated benefits system of this country to reduce the burden on the state and, just as importantly, boost the growth rate of the country”
And the wee retired care home nurse Elizabeth Bashir? Well, she’s not quite as “grassroots” as shown by the BBC either.
That picture is definitely the “grassroot” Elizabeth Bashir interviewed by the BBC. There is also an Elizabeth Bashir from Glasgow on Facebook who “likes” Vote No Borders [reference here deleted as it has been pointed out, I think fairly, it was to something probably meant as a joke]. This lady has expensive tastes for a grassroot, her other “likes” are Svarovski Crystal, the swanky Aura club in Mayfair and Faz Collection clothes. Strangely although she calls herself Elizabeth Bashir, Glasgow and supports Vote no Borders, everything she “likes” which has a geographical location is in London. It is conceivably a different Elizabeth Bashir from Glasgow, perhaps a daughter, but the coincidence of the Vote No Borders like is very strong.
It took me an hour with google to find all this. That the BBC continues to propagandise this fake “grassroots campaign” without revealing Offord’s Tory Party credentials, his belief in never-ending cuts in public spending and welfare benefits, and Acanchi being a consultant paid by government to boost the UK image is completely beyond anything that can remotely be described as legitimate.
It is the most abhorrent example of a fake story, entirely contrived state propaganda, being put out by a state broadcaster.
UPDATE
From commenters below: The “Vote No Borders” website domain was registered by Gary Waple, who works in the Prudential Regulatory Authority of the Bank of England!!!! Before that he worked at the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates – that British government and Gulf money connection pops up again.
ANOTHER UPDATE
The Guardian also is pushing it. Amazing how neither the BBC nor the Guardian noticed who Mr Offord was, or who his fellow director is, or asked where the money came from. We have a huge responsibility in social media to combat the ultra-powerful combination of the entire mainstream media with the British state, the City of London and their overseas neo-con allies.
I ask every single person who reads this to do what they can do to get this news out – it may open eyes about the BBC, media in general and the hidden hands behind the No campaign. Feel free to copy and paste anywhere you want. But please everybody either blog or tweet about it, put it on your facebook page, email people about it or if you can’t do any of those, just tell three people. The only way we can beat the massed forces of the state and the ultra-rich is by a deliberate and purposeful exercise of people power. That will never happen unless everybody tries. Do something. Now. It does not matter where you are in the world. Knowledge is universal – that is the root of every power the people can hope to have.
FURTHER UPDATE
Brilliant! This post is currently being read by more than one person every two seconds. I hope it’s being read some other places by now too. Don’t stop, we need much more than that to equal the numbers who will view the execrable mainstream propaganda.
An absolute embarrassment of riches from you at present, Craig. On the Guardian website at present the comments on this story are well worth reading. “Busted” doesn’t begin to cover it. Just love it when any part of the Neocon train shows signs of a serious derailment.
The Medialens editors have posted the Wings Over Scotland report on this BBC campaigning.
Independence referendum: scrutiny of a BBC News report on the No Borders campaign
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1399046081.html
The BBC maintain that they are independent. Links here if you can work your way through the pdfs.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/governance/
Current events might call for a post, Craig.
“Wondering why Treasury yields plumb new depths, gold’s having its best day in a month, and stocks can’t keep a bid no matter how many times JPY or VIX is slammed? The answer lies in these disturbing images from Odessa which show Pro-Russian forces under attack by Ukrainian forces, buildings burning, deaths, and of course – most critically – the kind of anti-Russian actions that Vladimir Putin said was the red-line for him taking action…”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-02/odessa-images-spooking-market-ahead-weekend
Gavin Esler has always had a bad smell to him, he’s never come across as an independent journalist.
I’m glad to see from the Wikipedia link that he’s now off Newsnight – I thought I hadn’t seen him for a while. Good riddance. Hopefully he’ll retire soon and the average standard of all BBC output will rise a tiny bit.
Sorry O/T again but…
https://twitter.com/ReutersWorld
What is so cynical in this, fore bye the Political Chicanery, is the Personal Element involved. The Young Lassies singing the Song will be lambasted when the whole story comes out, when I’m sure their ‘Political’ nous and input will be little more than derisory.
Actually I could not catch a word they sang and perhaps no more than a Tenner of the Four Hundred Thousand Pounds Launch of this Front for Cameron, went into the production values!
Strategist. He does the film review with Mark Kermode and chairs Dateline which is a discussion between foreign journalists. I think I have seen him on Hardtalk too. A safe pair of hands for the propaganda machine.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01rk5j5 Film Review
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006m93g Dateline
The Barking-mad Broadcasting Corporation, aka ZBC aka PinocchioVison, might have excelled even this in tonights dross piece on NATO exercises in the Baltic and Estonia, the justification is given as stopping the ‘contagion’ in Ukraine from spreading. It is hilarious given that NATO, the US and its lapdogs are are entirely responsible for starting and sustaining the events in Ukraine too. It’s Afghanistan/Iraq/Libya/Syria all over again, our leaders are a blight on humanity and the earth. The contagion emanates from Washington and London and state propaganda peddlers are the means of transmission.
No longer can this shameful propaganda mouthpiece and extortioner continue to spin such audacious webs of blatant lies excusing the out of control dangerous and insane western elite who’re pulling their strings. The people have awoke, no-one should and no-one will take any of the BBC’s news output with anything other than incredulity and apoplexy, alternating with gales of laughter –before cutting off their funding at the first opportunity. Pensioners over-75 who receive free TV licenses could well have a strong argument for insisting on the concession being paid instead to them in cash back from the residue of the late unlamented corporation’s swollen coffers after its extermination.
“It took me an hour with google to find all this.”
WOW! Who knows what else Uncle Craig would have turned up if he’d used DuckDuckGo or Startpage.
“Brilliant! This post is currently being read by more than one person every two seconds.” Those bloody speed-readers are taking over!.
“But please everybody either blog or tweet about it, put it on your facebook page, email people about it or if you can’t do any of those, just tell three people. The only way we can beat the massed forces of the state and the ultra-rich is by a deliberate and purposeful exercise of people power. That will never happen unless everybody tries. Do something.” Yes! This conversation needs to go viral. Thanks.
My favoutite bit is Gavin Esler: “No Borders say the Union has been a great hit worldwide for three hundred years.” WTF?
Great to see this post flushing out so many new commentors. Hello everyone, and welcome.
…
All the talk about branding has made me decide to be a brand myself when I grow up. With my amazing intelect, stunning good looks, breathtaking modesty and Dad’s negotiating genes, what could possibly go wrong?
‘A new grassroots pro-Union group called No Borders launches later to make what it says is an “emotional” appeal to voters.
Its spokesman, Malcolm Offord, is an investment banker originally from Greenock who now works in London and Scotland. He said the group’s aim was to engage with voters’ emotions and promote “ordinary voices”.
Mr Offord told the BBC: “It is going to allow people to tell their stories. These are not polished political voices but they are from local communities within Scotland and they are going to give the reasons why they want to keep the Union.”
Grassroots support
The No Borders campaign is hoping to raise £400,000 through individual donations and crowd funding and it plans to spend almost all of that before the official referendum period begins on 30 May.’
1 May 2014
Scottish independence: Questions raised over campaign spending rules
By Lucy Adams
BBC News
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-27228971
Ba’al. 1 29 pm
Thanks for the link.
I think I’m getting the hang of this branding game.
“Our research shows that Israel’s brand is essentially the conflict,” Ido Aharoni, head of the brand management unit within Israel’s foreign ministry, told Israeli daily….
Well, what does he expect when Israel disposess a whole nation then spends the next 60+ years beating, shooting, kidnapping, bulldozing, starving and bombing the survivors?
Ben
Stop trying to derail this thread
Craig; Are you annoyed with me as a commentator? What is the specific problem with me, other than my geography?
Ben: There is a thread about freemasonry. Stick to the right thread, that is all.
I live in the Borders and my impression is that the Yes campaign is not very strong here. I wasn’t too keen myself until Lord George Robertson told us that voting Yes would make the sky fall in.
Actually Craig’s story comes straight out of Thomas Piketty’s thesis (see his book Capitalism in the 21st Century) that the rich are coming to control not just the economy but politics, and by extension the media. They will then undermine and destroy democracy itself.
It’s a shame that the BBC is playing this game when it can afford to be impartial. Abolish the TV licence fee and then we’ll all know that the Beeb is a capitalist pawn.
Excellent post Craig… Wow
Ans as Sofia say many new posters Good stuff…
Craig – ” I can’t find a birth certificate for a Malcolm Offord, Greenock, 1964.”
i shall be popping into the Greenock registry Office on monday…see if any light can be shone Re a Malcolm Offord…
And sharing on Fbook.
Great work Craig
I see Offord has found a connection to the royals in the form of P Anne. She is the patron of some outfit where he is a trustee. Social enterprise or some such. A salve for the conscience perhaps if one has worked in the world of buyouts and asset stripping.
http://www.columba1400.com/about-us/board-of-trustees/malcolm-offord
This is the website for the private equity outfit where he used to be a partner. Smooth website as are the feeders. http://www.charterhouse.co.uk/team
In their portfolio is a company called Tunstall specializing in ‘telecare’ and ‘telehealth’. http://www.charterhouse.co.uk/portfolio/tunstall
This will contribute large profits as it is a high growth area. The ConDem NHS plan is to withhold hospital care for the chronic sick and elderly and to keep those people at home (in the community!) using electronic monitoring. Believe it or not there are already virtual wards where the professionals sit round a table and perform virtual ward rounds.
Craig; That is not an answer. You seem to be ambivalent wrt nominally related issues from others, but are particularly upset by my posts, as a rule. Is Hab the issue?
No, I can’t remember ever deleting any of your comments before. I might argue sometimes but that’s the fun of the blog. I don’t oversee other moderators so possibly you had a spat I don’t know about. The answer I gave really is the truth – I am particularly not keen to let this blog be derailed. I have deleted comments from others on this particular thread for the same reason. I am not annoyed with you, or with anyone else apart from Gavin Bloody Esler! Just deleted Mike for off-topic too. I intend to blog on Ukraine tomorrow, as soon as I can get a more certain idea of what’s really happening. At the moment I want to keep the focus on this British government front and its plugging by the BBC. If that leads more people to understand the wider lies of today’s BBC, that too is good.
Saw the article on BBC News 24. Quite frankly if this record came out before I knew about it being a song I would have thought it was a group called ‘Cats being castrated for the UK’. It reminded me of The Cats Chorus.
Very well, Craig. I understand. However you seemed to ascribe improper motives when you said I was TRYING to derail the thread.
I thought it was uncalled for, and still do.
fair point – I just found I have a reply button!
Craig
I realise that both the thrust and tone (style, if you will)of your post are a reflection of your very personal interest in the forthcoming referendum and your wish for a yes vote.
That said, your chefs d’accusation appear to be
1/. that the BBC devoted too much airtime to this new “movement” (“puff piece”) and that it either knew – or failed to find out through lack of research – that
2/. the campaign is not a genuine grassroots campaign but a government-organized fake, lauched, organized and sponsored by
3/. a couple of individuals of whose other connections, activities and donations
you disapprove. This latter point has been taken up enthusiastically by some of the usual suspects (who have dug out a lot of information) as well as by some new contributors
Re Pt 1/., it is not unknown for the BBC to inadequately research its news items. Furthermore, my experience with the BBC news is that it very often repeats the same piece of news in every news broadcast throughout the day…and then drops it completely the next day when a newer bit of “news” comes along. It is this which seels to have happened with this news item, of which I haven’t heard a peep today.
Re all three points : you will, I’m sure, remember the 1975 referendum on whther the UK should stay in the EC (as was). You will, therefore, remember that the BBC gave considerably more airtime to the Yes campaign (“Britain in Europe”)than to the No campaign (“National Referendum Campaign”). You will also remember that the press was overwhelmingly in favour of the Yes camapaign. You will also remember, finally, that the govt of the time gave £125.000 to each campaign and that, after donations from institutions, various organizations and individuals (mainly Tory,) the Yes campaign disposed of a war chest of around £1,5 million and the No campaign of roughly £130.000; and that contributors to the Yes campaign included Shell, Marks and Spencer, GKN, Vickers, Ford, IBM, Reed, Rank, Legal and General, Sun Alliance and Unilever – ie, the sort of capitalist bogeymen that probably keep many of your followers on this blog awake at night.
So there seems to be some similarities between those two referendums.
Now I know that you weren’t running a blog in 1975. But may I ask you the following, bearing in mind that you support the EU and UK membership of the EU (as indeed I do) : were you, at the time, as exercised by the conduct of the EC referendum as you appear to be by the conduct of the forthcoming referendum on Scottish independence?
Obviously Hab has claimed and overtaken the high ground.
‘cave, lector.’
The downside of such a silent deletion is of course that it removes the evidence that Mary was seeking to provoke me. Convenient for her image but a little sneaky, perhaps?
But why does that matter? Damn, lost that reply button again. This comment will self destruct in two minutes.
Eureka !
Hamish
To be perfectly fair, I thought they looked a very great deal better than they sang. By the time the recording studio have finished their jiggery-pokery, they will sound like they can sing in tune, I expect. You can do amazing things with 400,000 pounds.
The Vote No Borders videos are deliberately vague, aiming to spread generalised doubts about the ‘unknown consequences’ of independence, without being specific, because if they mentioned any particular issues, these could be shown up as unfounded.
The aim is to provoke the emotions of people who are undecided or unsure, leaving them with nagging worries as a gut feeling, in the hope this will outweigh rational decisionmaking be enough to make them vote for the security of the status quo.
Anyone who is uneasy about the vague worries in the videos need only look to separate country Eire. Irish friends and relatives have no problem trading, collaborating, working visiting, playing sports, etc, with and in the other nations of the British Isles despite being outside the union. Why on earth would an independent Scotland be any different?
The Irish play rugby as part of the Lions, showing independence should be no obstacle to Scotland participating in combined British Isles teams should they want to. The Irish remain a close part of our family of nations and so would a Scotland that’s chosen emancipation from Westminster rule.
Habbie
Perfectly relevant question but at 16 I don’t think I was politically sophisticated enough to know. That is not to say all 16 year olda are unsophisticated. But I was.
Peacewisher – pl see conversation above with Ben on not derailing this thread onto Ukraine
The vote no borders videos of “unpolished” grass roots NO supporters are clearly filmed and produced by the same person not spontaneous self made clips. There is clearly someone prompting and they are actually edited in an inept fashion. The most disturbing aspect is the Acanchi PR folk have gone for a strategy not of engendering fear of independence or even positivity for the union but just downright apathy and lack of engagement. The underlying message is dont think you can do anything political or effect any change its best if you just vote NO and muddle along without upsetting the boat.
Craig
Fair enough. But you know enough about (the virtual)me to have guessed that I can’t resist this follow-up: now that you do know, do you have the same feelings about the conduct of the 1975 EC referendum as you do about the forthcoming Scottish one?
BrianFujisan @22.00 said, ‘I can’t find a birth certificate for a Malcolm Offord, Greenock, 1964‘
ScotlandsPeople gives 1 result for a Malcolm Offord being born in Greenock in 1964