Britain's Hidden Presenters

Toby Young in The Spectator discusses the Cassian Harrison affair. 

Cassian, if you recall, is the white, middle-aged and male editor of BBC Four who says that the era of "white, middle-aged and male" standing on a hill and "telling you like it is" has "passed".

Toby offers three possible explanations for Mr. Harrison's controversial comments:

• That he genuinely believe there should be more black and brown faces on the BBC.
• That he was sending a signal "that he has fully embraced the left-wing identitarianism that is fast becoming the official ideology of the liberal establishment". 
• That he was "simply trying to get across that he’s a member of the media’s Brahmin class" - "In this light, Harrison was advertising his status as an ‘upper-white’ by attacking his own racial group, something a ‘lower-white’ would never do. You know the type — the kind of knuckle-dragging troglodyte who voted ‘Leave’ in the EU referendum"

Whatever the reason, here's something a commenter wrote below Toby's article:

Here's Cassian's statement rewritten, to reflect how the majority of people in this country feel when they switch on their TV sets:

"There’s a mode of programming that involves a presenter, usually non-white, young and female, standing on a hill and talking absolute gibberish about a subject they clearly know nothing about, clearly having got the job because of their identity at the expense of people far better qualified and more able to do the job,’ he said. ‘We all recognise the era of that is well and truly here to stay.’"

Well, quite. 

One BBC Four programme I've been watching is Britain's Hidden Masterpieces. I suspect it directly shows the handiwork of Cassian Harrison in action. 

The hour-long programme alternates between its two presenters.

The first, Bendor Grosvenor, is "white, middle-aged and male" and knows what he's talking about. He's a proper expert with expertise directly relevant to the subject at hand and a first-rate communicator.

The second, Emma Dabiri, is "non-white, young and female", an "author, TV presenter, model" and a postgraduate student with some teaching responsibilities at SOAS, University of London who the BBC presents as a "social historian". She seems more suited to The One Show. 

The result is a real curate's egg of a programme, which should have been two separate programmes.

In the first episode of the latest series, for example, you have Bendor being informed and fascinating about Rembrandt and Emma learning to play golf and saying it's a great shame that some golf clubs still don't allow women in.

And in the second episode of the series, you have Bendor telling us about the German painter Johann Zoffany, a favourite portraitist of the royal family under King George III, while Emma is getting excited about a portrait of a black man because it's a portrait of a black man. The bits about Zoffany were some of the best BBC television I've seen this year while Emma's bits were just the usual, run-of-the-mill BBC social justice warrior stuff.

It's a shame.

Incidentally, if you've not seen Britain's Hidden Masterpieces but recognise Emma's name or her face from the image at the top of the post that might be because you've seen her recently on Newsnight saying that Justin Bieber shouldn't wear dreadlocks because that's "cultural appropriation".