Richard Bilton of the BBC today exposed himself as the most corrupt and bankrupt of state media shills – while pretending to be fronting an expose of corruption. There could not be a more perfect example of the western state and corporate media pretending to reveal the Panama leak data while actually engaging in pure misdirection.
In a BBC Panorama documentary entitled Tax Havens of the Rich and Powerful Exposed, they actually did precisely the opposite. The BBC related at length the stories of the money laundering companies of the Icelandic PM and Putin’s alleged cellist. The impression was definitely given and reinforced that these companies were in Panama.
Richard Bilton deliberately suppressed the information that all the companies involved were in fact not Panamanian but in the corrupt British colony of the British Virgin Islands. At no stage did Bilton even mention the British Virgin Islands.
Company documents were flashed momentarily on screen, in some cases for a split second, and against deliberately unclear backgrounds. There is no chance that 99.9% of viewers would notice they referred to British Virgin Islands companies. But instantly reading a glimpsed document is an essential skill for a career diplomat, and of course I happen to know immediately what BVI or Tortola mean on a document. So I have been back and got screenshots of those brief flashes.
Is it not truly, truly, astonishing the British Virgin Islands were not even mentioned when the BBC broadcast their “investigation” of these documents?
In deliberately obscuring the key role of the British money-laundering base of British Virgin Islands in these transactions, the BBC have demonstrated precisely why the entire database has to be released to the scrutiny of the people, rather than being filtered by the dubious honesty of state and corporate journalists. The BBC targeting of two very low level British minions at the end of their programme does not alter this.
The BBC could also address why their Pacific Quay HQ in Glasgow is leased for £100 million from a hidden ownership company in the Cayman Islands.
Not sure the BBC is entirely responsible for the oversight though. It’s just as likely to be ignorant journalism, but despte all the rhetoric below, I wouldn’t be so quick to cry ‘corruption’ without first investigating the circumstances. If the BBC are as corrupt as you say, there will be hard evidence.
And that’s another problem in itself. It takes more effort to disprove a conspiracy theory than it does to conjure one. This means that theories, as those purported in this article can spread without being argued. It would take years to dismiss (or prove) or prove these claims, but at the same time, working for a large broadcaster myself, I think people give these organisations far too much credit when they say ‘media propagandists, trying to control us’ etc
It isn’t necessarily personal corruption. The BBC knows it needs to curry the favor of politicians to get their license fee legally extended. And any bureaucracy’s first priority is self-preservation, and, if possible, growth.
Just out of interest – if the data was only leaked on Sunday how did they turn this documentary around so fast, with onsite footage in Panama and everything?
Spot on….the fuckers keep on pulling this shit……UK /London don’t want EU banking regulations because it would close down their offshore privileges .
Re. Scameron’s mealy-mouthed equivocation:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2016/apr/06/steve-bell-no-10-panama-papers-cartoon
I also object to the otherwise good Guardian reporting which keeps saying the owners of the wealth “have done nothing wrong”. No doubt protecting themselves from libel suits. They should say they may have done nothing illegal, but it IS WRONG!