Sunday 6 August 2017

Martin Bashir makes a point


The go-ahead Bishop of St. Albans

Radio 4's Sunday featured the following exchange this morning:
Justin Welby: I'm really quite bowled over by the genuine level to which Uganda has accepted a volume of refugees which, proportionate to their population, is the equivalent of us taking, I don't know, two-and-a half to three million. And this is in a poor country that's led by the president who says, "We don't use the word 'refugees'. These are fellow human beings, fellow Africans". And what a challenge it is to our own politics!
Martin Bashir: Do you mean by that that it's a contrast with some of the rhetoric that we've heard perhaps since the referendum?
Justin Welby: I think it's a very powerful contrast, but some of the political rhetoric is so much in contrast to the rhetoric we heard today, which we saw lived out in communities that are by any European standards poor beyond our imagining. 
Martin Bashir's question there showed him taking the opportunity to make a point. 

The programme also ended with a discussion about Brexit, framed in the following fashion: 
Good morning. On this week's Sunday a Church of England bishop goes head to head with the Farming Minister over  his fears that mishandling Brexit could bring about a food crisis in the United Kingdom.
It has to be said though that the The Bishop of St Albans, the Rt Rev Dr Alan Smith, considerably toned down his language during the actual discussion with George Eustice, which was handled fairly by William Crawley. 

12 comments:

  1. Uganda and Sudan have a border. I dare say if there was war in say Wales, then England would accept a million refugees from the West. But what the situation in Sudan has to do with the EU referendum or even the need for the UK to accept mass migration from all over the world beats me.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Perhaps Uganda will take back their own, like Yasmin Alibhai-Brown?

    As Ozfan says, there is a huge difference between providing first-aid to a neighbour and mass immigration of alien peoples and their alien cultures.

    ReplyDelete
  3. It's all well and good, but is Uganda's offer for ever ?
    Does it involve financial support ?
    Will it destabilise demographics ?
    Are there the issues of language, culture and religion to address ?

    ReplyDelete
  4. BBC R4 News today has been enthusiastically reporting Vince Cable's speeches in the press where he blames old people's selfishness for the Brexit vote.

    It seems to me that this is the sort of rhetoric that has increased since the referendum, i.e. dividing the population and then slandering those who voted for Brexit.

    As a public service broadcaster, the BBC should be defending those who were asked to cast their vote and honestly did so, not continuously lining up and joining in with the attacks (remember "Brexit Street"?).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The BBC has Vince Cable's Mail on Sunday piece among its top three stories on the BBC News website, so they are really running with it. In stark contrast, neither the Sky News website nor the ITV News website considers it worth including as a story AT ALL. It's nowhere among their (many) headline stories. The BBC article is all Vince Cable's words and no reactions to them.
      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40842017

      Delete
    2. I don't understand why Vince Cable should say the the over 65s have disadvantaged the 'young of the UK' by their Leave vote. Are these not the same 'young of the UK' who have been seduced by Corbyn without realising what the outcome of a Corbyn led Government might mean?

      Far from 'disadvantaging the young of the UK', I would say that the over 65s, who do remember the 90% upper tax rate and the dreadful economic performance under Labour Governments of the 1970s, are using their experience to avoid the pitfall of continued EU membership.

      Delete
    3. Young Mr. Cable swung by my stand at Expo a few years back when 'something big in government', accompanied by a coterie of bright young things whose interests he doubtless had and still has at heart.

      He almost came out with 'You are all doing very well[' verbatim. I did not corpse. he is totally ga-ga. Diane Abbott seems almost sharp and on brief in comparison. Almost.

      One sPad peeled away from the herd as he wafted on, to ask me if I was important as the great man had shown interest.

      I said 'to whom?', and that was that.

      Delete
    4. Weird how it's not a big joke at the BBC that the Lib Dems are now the party of old, white men. Being anti-Brexit absolves all sins, apparently.

      Delete
    5. Certainly given a pass on being 'a problem' in some quarters.

      Delete
    6. As well as Sunday's R4 News, Cable's remarks were reported on Sunday's R5 News at 9 am and TWTW News at 1 pm. Each time without comments or "balancing reaction".

      It's clear to me that the BBC is part of a coordinated Remain strategy to make voting or supporting Leave in the next referendum/election as socially unacceptable as racism.

      Leave voters are consistently portrayed across all the BBC platforms as out-of-date, selfish, ignorant, xenophobes.

      Delete
  5. The lower education / old age stat is an interesting one, it just proves to me that older people had less opportunity to go to uni but are in no way less able to make an informed decision.

    Nor are questions being asked about the "brain washing" of the young uni graduates....surely it's an issue if we've produced a generation who can't think for themselves and all vote the same way...

    ClockworkOrange
    30 something, BSc, MSc, Chartered something.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Never mind the real point, then, that it's only recently that 'refugees' are the one issue where the bien pensant Left aren't insisting that we shouldn't interfere and that it's an African problem which should be solved by Africans.

    ReplyDelete

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.