Friday 31 January 2014

@LucianaBerger: Liar Or Idiot?

What chance the truth when we're forced to suffer broom handle MPs and a news-gatherer as shoddy as the BBC?

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What?
BBC: "Where are those figures coming from? Are you confident on those figures?"
Berger: "We are confident on those figures. It's from the ... there are studies that have been done right across the board that show, as I said, 23, err, the level of cigarette smoke is 23 times, up to 23 times as toxic in the confines of a vehicle compared to in a room in a house"
Fortunately for Luciana, she is allowed to lie to the public on national TV without citing any source, and without fear of being prosecuted, which I'm sure as a Labourite she'd be fully in favour of if it were big business doing what she has done.

Because she is talking garbage. It says something about the poor quality of Labour researchers and the BBC that neither of these cretinous organisations could Google this myth and discard it.

For background, you may remember that the last time this "23 times" nonsense cropped up, it was the BMA's "ethical" Vivienne Nathanson doing the lying on - you guessed it - the BBC.



This was completely untrue, which she should have known considering it was thoroughly debunked by her own side a long time before that transmission. Humiliatingly, the BMA were forced to issue a retraction just a couple of days later.

It's the tobacco control industry lie - incontrovertibly rubbished by one of the world's leading tobacco control industry execs - which refuses to die. How can it when mendacious BMA reps and vacuous parliamentary quislings keep resurrecting it?

Worse still is that Berger might even have got her reference wrong entirely. Full Fact points out that her assertion was slightly different but that Labour can't point to anything at all to back up her oft-spluttered but seemingly baseless claim.

So the question we need to ask is, did Luciana lie deliberately on the BBC or is she just an innocent idiot?




12 comments:

Peem Birrell said...

No - it's liar *and* idiot. And definitely not innocent

moonrakin said...

A dugong speaks! - although she might be simply a parrot.

trashbunny said...

Caught out big time would be my guess and shoddy is an understatement when it comes to the reporting standards of the BBC. Their anti-smoker bias also extends to anyone considering switching to e-cigarettes. Just check out the transcript from the recently aired Inside Health edition on Radio 4 in which calls are made for banning advertising, banning flavours and introducing plain packaging for such products. Yet these products could be a life-saver for long-term smokers. It's not about children (although they shouldn't smoke anyway), it's all about power and control. See: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03s742d

Der Rosenkavalier said...

Typical Trot paratrooperette, dropped from a low level onto the dim populace of East Liverpool who would vote labour ,even , Bashar Assad, if he shopped at the local Co-oP
Guess who is pulling her strings. It aint scousers.
"Representative" Parliamentary Democracy????.......Dont make me laugh

chrissnowdon said...

Interesting to compare Berger's interview with Nathanson's. This is from the latter:
-
Interviewer: What is the evidence?




Nathanson: Well, the evidence is, in fact, that the levels of toxins that can build up in a car do reach 23 times the levels in a smoky bar...



Interviewer: And that is—sorry to interrupt you—but that is peer-reviewed?



Nathanson: Yes, absolutely.



Interviewer: Everyone in the scientific community accepts that it's true?



Nathanson: Absolutely.

http://velvetgloveironfist.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/bma-retracts-claim-about-smoking-in.html
-
In both cases, the BBC interviewer expresses scepticism only to have the idiot/liar defiantly insist that it is scientific fact. It is a confidence trick in the most literal sense.

Rursus said...

Luciana Berger MP having a sneaky fag outside Speaker's house. pic.twitter.com/XcpkVnfV9D— Eye Spy MP (@eyespymp) 24. Juni 2013

c777 said...

United Nations appoints former NYC Mayor Bloomberg cities, climate change envoy

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/31/us-climate-un-bloomberg-idUSBREA0U02Q20140131



Be afraid, be very afraid.
I mean, their havin' a larf right?
For gods sake someone tell me this isn't true!

Steve Brown said...

The Warmists are afraid, very afraid. Bloomberg is the last hope that they have, and he's an absolute nutter.

c777 said...

Bloomberg makes Charles Manson look sane.

AlexanderGalt said...

The most startling thing is that a political party can stick this in its program and still remain electable.

And it's not just Labour. Cameron gets away with endless lies just so long as they protect P.C. pieties.

His latest lying spree is on immigration and merits a few tough questions.

Why call allowing Polish immigration a huge mistake when they have the lowest take up rate on benefits of any ethnic group in the UK and when almost a quarter of our youngest demographic are on disability benefit?

Incidentally there's a great take on exactly why that is in, "He Who Lies With Good Intent" at:

http://john-moloney.blogspot.com/2014/01/a-lie-thats-told-with-good-intent.html

Michael J. McFadden said...

I'd go with innocent idiot, generally incompetent, and should be fired/removed from their positions.

However, to be fair, they may indeed simply be deliberately lying by way of trickery. I'm not sure how this sort of thing plays in court: anyone know?

Here's what they said:

Nathanson: "that can build up"
Berger: "up to 23 times"

Both of those statements ARE *technically* true. The untruth lies in presenting them as the norm rather than as some weird scenario.

Did you know that insecticide fumes can be up to 23 times as intense in a Scottish home as in the Welsh home? Yep. If, that is, the Scot just happened to spray a bunch of insecticide in their home.

It's the whole "accuracy vs. truth" thing: the wealthy politician saying he gives as much as he comfortably can every year to organized charity and to the poor homeless he encounters in everyday life. He gets roundly applauded and toasted for his wonderfulness of course, and then, when he steps outside later, he tosses his annual penny in a Salvation Army bucket and another one at a homeless guy asleep on a vent.

Did he lie in his speech? No more than Nathanson and Berger.

- MJM

Nathan Fields said...

Do you smoke after getting double-anal from black guys?