BBC's heartbreaking victim of "Tory cuts" exposed as a total scrounger

[longfingernails]

Benefits scrounger James Van-Cliff, who the BBC tried valiantly to make a sob story out of, has been exposed for what he really is - a layabout who quit his job because he was better off on the dole.

www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3205439/Scrounger-cons-BBC-viewers.html

Well done the Sun! And shame, shame and shame on the BBC!

that doesn't make sense, working for £93 a week would have left him better off than on £51 benefits - as he would still have got some housing benefit and council tax benefit - so even taking into account the top of rent and council tax he would have had more money

and lets face it - £51 a week isn't going to go far after you'd paid for your utilities and food - hardly the life of luxury

MaMoTTaT The importance of this isn't really the scrounger himself. It is more about how the BBC is willing to sacrifice any journalistic standard in order to promote its left-wing world view.

But The Sun article isn't correct either.

My brother used to get the "normal" rate of JSA, but is now working for a similar wage to the bloke in the article (he's not allowed to earn more yet as the type of bankruptcy that he was given means he has to have a low income until he's discharged). Actually I think it's the same wage

And he's better off working those 16hrs a week than he was on the (higher rate of £60ish) JSA.

So maybe the BBC didn't get it's facts right about his working status, but The Sun is talking shite as well - pot-kettle-black???

Oh I see - and the Sun doesn't have any particular world view then, does it?

I would like to see some evidence of the BBC's supposed left-wing bias.

They are putting the cuts under scrutiny - so what - that's normal. People's lives are being changed for the worse and we have a right to know why and whether it's really necessary.

They didn't give the previous administration and easy ride over all their policies either. Or did I imagine dossier-gate?

sorry that was to lfn. Crossed with you MaMoTTaT

I coundn't believe the BBC last week when the growth in the economy figures were released.

ITV and Sky news were reporting that although the growth was small, it had been predicted to fall much more, so figures were positive news.

The BBC meanwhile were saying the figures were very bad news for the economy

I thought the BBC were supposed to be "independent."

Of course the Sun has a world-view.

On the other hand, nobody is forced to buy the Sun.

As I have pointed out many times before, the best evidence for systematic BBC bias is the 2007 Facebook survey. Amongst 10000 employees, it showed that BBC staff were more than 4 times more likely to list their political preference as "liberal" (in the American sense) than Facebook users as a whole. Yes, it's not scientific, but still very compelling. We also have statements by Andrew Marr and others in corroboration.

actually I've just re-read it

It doesn't make sense

The Sun visited him at his "£9" a week flat

He's applying for £93 a week of housing benefit for the flat he moved into just days before the BBC visited

maybe it's a typo.............but hardly great journalism if it is.

Really? Where they saying the figures were bad news for the economy? I listened to several news reports (BBC and elsewhere) and they all said that the growth was positive and encouraging although didn't show the full picture because all the figures relate to before the cuts. Not sure what else they could have said?

Here is what the BBC's economics editor has to say about the figures. Please explain to me where this is allegedly biased and gloomy? The header is a clue "Good News on GDP".

QuickLookBusy Yes - and wasn't it strange that the BBC managed to do their report that day from a derelict warehouse in Sunderland, where the evil cuts were destroying the business?

The looks of utter anguish on the reporters' faces when they realised that the economic news was much, much better than expected was a joy to behold.

LFG - no-one is forced to watch the BBC news either......

A) a facebook survey is NOT scientific

B) If you conducted a similar one at any other arts and media organisation (including the Sun) I suspect the figures would be very similar - young people working in the media tend to be pretty left wing regardless of the editorial policy of the paper they work for.

C) I was referring to the fact that Rupert Murdoch has a very well-known gripe against the BBC for obvious reasons - and that therefore any report by the Sun on the BBC might be a teensy bit partisan...?

MaMoTTaT Yes, but I am pretty much forced to pay for it.

\link{http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11624742\BBC - the economy grew faster than expected}

That's the first article that I read about it on the BBC and I'm failing to see the doom and gloom and bad news in it???

theyoungvisiter Unfortunately the BBC has long refused to carry out a proper survey.

A Facebook study is obviously non-scientific - but the sample size of more than 10000 employees lends a fair amount of credibility.

The BBC is totally out of tune with the country at large, and is therefore unrepresentative. The most recent opinion polls show the housing benefit cuts are wildly popular. 52% of Labour supporters alone want housing benefit capped. Yet, if your only source of news was the Beeb, you would get the impression that this policy was unpopular!

Oh so we have moved from the unbelievable viewpoint of the BBC to to totally reliable one of The Sun.

Well done.

MaMoTTaT The BBC is well-known for changing its headlines and articles without warning.

Do you remember the previous headline? I do. It was something like "Growth expected to slow sharply".

I don't think a FB survey could be presented as even "compelling", let alone scientific.

Bollocks, maybe. That would work.

I think the BBC's point (which is fair) is that the private political leanings of their staff are their own business.

What's next - they'll be forced to fire a % of the staff who admit to voting labour just to keep the ratios correct? Maybe they should get a representative number of BNP voters on board too?

Political views are your own private business, as long as you don't bring them to work. So the fairest way to judge the BBC is by their output - not by what people think in their own time. Until you can show me evidenced based bias in the BBC's output, I'll continue to think that.

PfftTheMildySpookyDragon No-one thinks the Sun is a paragon of virtue - though together with the NOTW, it breaks more stories than most other papers. The BBC, on the other hand, pretends that it is holier than thou when it comes to standards. Worse, it pretends it is "independent".

The Sun has exposed both those myths - and we should be thankful to them.

Not sure why teh BBC should be feeling shameful. If he managed to trick the benefits people it would have been easy to trick the BBC.

PfftTheMildySpookyDragon It wasn't a "survey" in that it didn't solicit responses - it was an analysis of all those in the BBC employees group.

I suspect James Van Cliff was paid for his story in the Sun. That alone would make me question it's reliability.

yes I remember the previous article said expected to........then the figures were released and that was what the new article headline said