Sunday 20 November 2016

Open-mouthed Britain

We’re all guilty - to a certain extent - of cherry-picking certain sound-bites and using them endlessly when it suits. I‘m thinking of Jeremy Corbyn’s ‘friends’ and so on. (But in that case I believe Jeremy Corbyn did indeed call Hamas and Hezbollah ‘friends’ because he felt ‘friendly’ towards them, even if he didn’t necessarily count individual members as personal friends.) 

No, I mean eg., quoting Trump saying he would “ban Muslims” from entering the states, without mentioning the “figuring out” part. (which obviously qualifies the whole thing and makes the statement look less radical)

By now you will be familiar with Andrew Neil’s  forensic debunking of the video which has apparently gawn viral,  because Guido has featured it, and no wonder. 

For once someone at the BBC took the trouble to do their homework (unlike poor ol' Justin Webb) and collate the relevant qualifiers, which meant the allegedly incriminating soundbites slipped into context like the final pieces of a jigsaw. This neatly turned the tables, showing the co-director of Open Britain James McGrory and his video to be the disingenuous ones.



What struck me was the spluttering dumbfounded apoplexy McGrory was reduced to when confronted with the actualité. Open-mouthed Britain.

3 comments:

  1. I think Mr Neil must be close to retirement...if he wasn't before, he is now.

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  2. James McGrory was hilarious. He was behaving like a teenager. Anyway, doesn't he realise that the Leave Campaign don't have a mandate to do anything, they never did have. They were a campaign team. It's Parliament that has the mandate and if he were to check the leaflet that was sent round to every household in the country at our expense he would see that the Government told us we would not have membership of the single market if we voted to leave. Some people have very short memories.

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  3. Sorry Friends.
    Searched in vain for a post to spout off on re the gorgeous, long to be lamented, brilliant Leonard Cohen. A True Friend of the Righteous Cause of Israel, and a man who even Jonathan Sacks has just done a deep and very wise sermon upon...hope Sue`s similarly inclined to run a thread for us! Lv AlsX

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