A sizeable iceberg beneath the surface

🚨🆕 PODCAST🚨Panorama’s John Ware on #LabourAntisemitism
1️⃣”livid” at Labour claim he’s “motivated to mislead”
2️⃣”sizeable iceberg beneath the surface” for Labour
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🎧 SPOTIFY https://t.co/7MsiIKtiix pic.twitter.com/EwewrorzL8

— Jonny Gould’s Jewish State (@jonnygouldpod) July 24, 2019

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Extra footage represents a "sizeable iceberg beneath the surface” according to John Ware.

Legendary documentary maker John Ware talks to me about his findings and if he's changed his view of both Labour and Jeremy Corbyn in the weeks since his documentary, "Is Labour Antisemitic?" aired on primetime BBC1. 

In this candid interview, John reveals how "livid" he is at Labour's allegations that he was motivated to mislead, predicts how it'll pan out in the coming months - and delivers his own verdict on whether the Labour leader is anti-semitic.

It’s reassuring to know that the Beeb’s legal eagles passed John Ware’s film for veracity and impartiality. It would also be useful to know whether the BBC’s legal team took the opportunity to scrutinise John Sweeney’s “Tommy Takedown” Panorama before it was postponed or abandoned. Perhaps this kind of scrutiny is carried out at the last minute,  say when the programme is edited and ready to go on the air.
However, if they’ve also given Sweeney’s dubious methodology the nod, it makes a mockery of John Ware’s assurances, much as I don’t want to doubt John Ware.

Litigious news and other stories

This on antisemitism by @afneil was a depressing, yet informative, explanation on how it spreads on the Left and in so-called academia. pic.twitter.com/RGFdiJeDTa

— Darren Grimes (@darrengrimes_) July 25, 2020

So the BBC is cancelling Andrew Neil to make way for more diversity and youth-orientated content. Well, there does seem to be support for left-wing, antisemitic-flavour broadcasting.  Jeremy Corbyn’s go-fund-me pot has reached a quarter of a million pounds and rising, so the demand is obviously there.

‘Adolf Hitler’ and ‘B’stard Son Of Netanyahu’ help fund Corbyn’s legal costs  by Adam decker

A Go Fund Me page set up to finance the former Labour leader's court battles has raised £231,000 due in part to the generosity of self-proclaimed racists.

[…]

“Among the most generous donors are former deputy leader of Liverpool City Council Derek Hatton who’s given £1,000, prominent anti-Israel campaigner and Labour member Susanne Levin who’s offered £500 and music producer Brian Eno, who’s provided £500.”

Update! As you were! The fund has so far reached  (a staggering!) £300,000 

Strangely, the BBC seems to be embroiled in a complicated tangle of litigation, would-be litigation and counter-litigation. Who’s suing whom? It’s as farcical as one of those ‘you couldn’t make it up’ farces that cry out for the erudite clarification of a Captain Blackadder.

Panorama has been going since 1953! In all that time the BBC has exposed many scandals and injustices, but I have found just three litigious cases involving something that could be interpreted as vaguely ‘philo-Semitic’. 

In 2005 a case involving the BBC’s John Ware drew a complaint from the Muslim Council of Britain. 

From the BBC report:

"MCB secretary general Sir Iqbal Sacranie complained the show was "purposefully trying to sabotage" the progress Muslims were making in the political mainstream.

Panorama reporter John Ware also found groups affiliated to the MCB promoting anti-Semitic views, the belief that Islam was a superior ideology to secular British values and the view that Christians and Jews were conspiring to undermine Islam.

MCB secretary general Sir Iqbal Sacranie complained the show was "purposefully trying to sabotage" the progress Muslims were making in the political mainstream.

"John Ware's team have made a deeply unfair programme using deliberately garbled quotes in an attempt to malign the Muslim Council of Britain," he said.

The BBC rejected that complaint.

Another case followed a couple of years later when the BBC was made to pay damages. 

BBC's Panorama in libel payout to Islamic charity boss (May 2007)

"The former general manager of Islamic Relief UK, Waseem Yaqub, today accepted undisclosed libel damages and a public apology from the BBC at London’s High Court over a Panorama programme called Faith, Hate and Charity.

Mr Justice David Eady was told that the programme was broadcast on BBC One and investigated the London-based charity Interpal which gives funds to charities on the West Bank to help needy Palestinians.

It was said to reveal that some of the charities were linked to Hamas and helped build support for the movement by spreading Islamist ideology.

22nd July 2020  and we’re back in the room. John Ware is at the centre of a sue-storm; a blizzard of articles appeared in the press. Who’s suing whom? I can’t reliably put the articles in chronological order, but things are happening. 

'That Panorama’ was aired on BBC Two one whole year ago.  “Is Labour Anti-Semitic?” A bit like this blog - the question is rhetorical. David Collier had already exposed the tsunami of Corbynite/ Momentum antisemitic material that had engulfed Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour, both in real life and on social media. A certain amount of momentum had been created, a demonstration had occurred in London and more and more ‘incidents’ were being unearthed. Yes, we all knew the answer to the question. Labour definitely is antisemitic,  but the Panorama exposé was still unexpected.  The BBC allowing such an overt critique of their beloved Labour Party?  Whatever next?” 

Here’s what was next. The Labour Party’s vengeful treatment of the “Panorama whistleblowers” became the subject of a court case resulting in Labour being forced to apologise and to pay damages to the seven former employees appearing in the programme. The BBC published this report, no byline:

Anti-Semitism: Labour pays damages for 'hurt' to whistleblowers 

The party has issued an unreserved apology in the High Court for making "false and defamatory" comments about seven whistleblowers who spoke out in a BBC Panorama programme last year.

The individuals had criticised the then leadership's handling of complaints.”

Laura Kuenssberg also produced a report. 

Labour’s agony over anti-Semitism far from over

Astonishing still that the Labour Party, a political movement based on fighting for equality and against racism, found itself in a situation where its members and officials have been playing out a battle over anti-Semitism for so long - on the airwaves, in constituency meetings, in executive meetings and also in the courts. The argument is not settled.”

You can say that again! Next, still on 22nd July, an indication that a challenge is in the offing; The Guardian,

Corbyn-era Labour figures may challenge antisemitism settlement by Jessica Elgot and Lisa O'Carroll

Senior party members understood to be mulling legal action over verdict on treatment of whistleblowers

“Key figures in Labour when Jeremy Corbyn was leader are mulling a challenge to the party’s settlement with a BBC journalist and seven of its former staff over a libel case relating to a Panorama programme last year about its handling of antisemitism.

It is understood the former Labour leader himself as well as his former director of communications Seumas Milne have taken legal advice about the settlement and apology set to be read at the high court on Wednesday.”

and also from The Guardian:

Antisemitism settlement plunges Labour party into civil war 

“Jeremy Corbyn’s statement caused astonishment among litigants in libel action.

Labour’s decision to pay a six-figure libel settlement to ex-staffers who claimed the party was failing to deal with antisemitism has plunged the party back into civil war, with Jeremy Corbyn publicly condemning his successor’s decision to settle the case.

Corbyn’s statement caused astonishment among the litigants in the libel action, with the Panorama journalist John Ware confirming to the Guardian that he was “consulting his lawyers” and raising the prospect of another costly court battle over Labour and antisemitism.

[…]

Mark Lewis, the solicitor who acted for Ware and the whistleblowers, revealed to the Guardian that he had been approached by 32 individuals who want to take action against the party for a range of allegations, mainly centring on the fallout from the leaked report.

On the same day (22nd July) The Jewish Chronicle came out with:

The Corbynites have lied with impunity - now they face the legal consequences

"John Ware explains why he sued the Labour Party - and why his case is merely the first of several against alt-Left sites and individuals who lie

A year ago, the Labour Party declared all-out war on the BBC. Why? 

I was the reporter on a Panorama programme in which seven former Labour staffers blew the whistle about antisemitism in Corbyn’s Labour Party. They explained how they felt a growing factionalism had created a safe space for antisemitic views inside the party.

Labour responded by accusing me of having flouted journalistic ethics. I had, Labour alleged, knowingly promoted falsehoods and invented quotes. I had misrepresented and fabricated facts.

You don’t need much experience of television to know that the BBC’s editorial processes simply don’t allow for such mammoth corruption of the editorial process, especially a programme that examines such an incendiary subject as the relationship between the leader of the Opposition and antisemitism. Every line of my commentary was trawled over by the editor, lawyers and the BBC’s editorial compliance panjandrums. The whistle-blowers were also extensively cross examined."

Also on 22nd July 2020, Jewish News printed this:

Panorama journalist John Ware planning to sue Jeremy Corbyn By Jack Mendel

The journalist behind BBC Panorama’s on Labour’s antisemitism row is planning to sue Jeremy Corbyn for libel.

Labour falsely accused Ware of “deliberate and malicious misrepresentations designed to mislead the public” regarding the show.

Media lawyer Mark Lewis said: 'I can confirm that I have been instructed to pursue claims' against the former Labour leader

It’s irritating when journalists like Philip Collins allude to 'journalistic ethics' as if the BBC were a paragon of excellence in the journalistic ethics department. In one paragraph in an otherwise laudable essay, titled “Time to root out Corbybites once and for all” Collins wrote:

“The response of the Corbyn team to the allegation that Labour was not really serious about investigating antisemitism was to pour scorn on the journalistic ethics of the BBC.”

If it weren’t for the fact that this particular Panorama was a remarkably unrepresentative example of the BBC’s normal output, ‘journalistic ethics-wise’  Collins would have had a valid point. 

I can think of but one or two other exceptions to the BBC’s default Labour-leaning perspective, one, in particular, comes to mind.  Jane Corbin’s Panorama titled “Death in the Med’ where she quite rightly sided with the Israelis over the Mavi Marmara affair. If I’m mistaken and the other cases I’ve cited were in fact ‘the norm’ for Panorama, the BBC in general and not exceptions at all, please forgive me. I had the impression that Panorama’s output since 1953 has generally been in accord with the BBC’s left-wing ethics rather than plain and simple ‘journalistic ethics’.

“To declare war on all of the mainstream media is a disastrously stupid strategy for any political leader. In due course, Sir Keir will be well advised to be much more forensic than this in his choice of media enemies. He will need some — a media bogeyman is always handy in politics — but it most certainly ought not to be the BBC.”

..adds Collins. Why ever would a self-proclaimed Labour supporter like Philip Collins suppose Starmer is likely to alienate the BBC? The BBC loves Labour under Starmer and I daresay it’s mutual.

I have no idea what Seumas Milne and Len McCluskey are up to, but if antisemitism is really going to be deemed beyond the pale they’ll have to carefully consider the best use of the monies generously donated by ‘Adolf Hitler’ and ‘B’stard Son Of Netanyahu’

The BBC is dumping Jane Corbin I hear, as well as Andrew Neil. I rest my case. (M’lud.)

Credit where credit's due

The BBC isn't exactly covering itself in glory at the moment, impartiality-wise, but it's always right and proper for a blog like this to pay credit where credit is genuinely due.

This piece of credit-paying comes courtesy of Douglas Murray at the Spectator and goes to one particular BBC reporter, Panorama veteran John Ware, for his exposé of Lutfur Rahman's misrule in Tower Hamlets:

The other person who deserves credit is the BBC’s John Ware. The BBC gets a lot of flak these days as well, but John Ware is the sort of reporter that enemies of the license fee should think on. At Panorama, among other places, Ware exposed the corruption going on in Tower Hamlets when central government was wholly missing in action. It was Ware’s Panorama on the corruption in Tower Hamlets that bounced Eric Pickles into ordering an audit of the council’s activities, and it was this that has now directly led to the judgement in court.

Another of John Ware's Panoramas - The Battle for British Islam - was similarly brave and uncompromising. At the time we called it "an outstanding piece of reporting". It went places the BBC very rarely goes. 

His 'rarity value', however, does rather make him the exception that proves the rule, doesn't it?

Well, Is Labour Antisemitic?

As ITBB’s resident antisemitism geek it’s a matter of duty for me to discuss the John Ware Panorama. 

The problem is where to start. A difficulty that constantly dogs my blogging life is the question of background; how much to include and how much to leave out.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, how can you make sense of what I write? Lacking the ability to summarise complicated and nuanced history succinctly yet fully, I’m left with a choice between laboriously reiterating material that becomes more meaningless with each repetition or just skipping it and assuming that it’s a simple matter of ‘any fule kno'.

For similar reasons, I found some of John Ware’s examples of antisemitism from Labour Party members rather tedious. The Ken Livingstone - John Mann shouty contretemps on the stairs, that mural, etc, seemed like a blast from the past. How many more times do we have to sit through that?

But I suppose they had to be in there to substantiate the existence of the antisemitism in question. (Even so, on the ‘day after the night-before’ edition of the Victoria Derbyshire show it was clear that denial of substantive evidence of antisemitism still thrives in Corbynista land.) 

“All one needs to do,” asserted audience member Salma Karmi-Ayyoub “Is to make an allegation of antisemitism, which then becomes the truth” she opined. And Ms Karmi-Aayyoub has apparently seen no compelling evidence of antisemitism whatsoever.  Yet we’re supposed to believe she watched the programme. 

As far as that viewer and her ilk are concerned Panorama needn’t have included evidence in the shape of Ken and his absurd interpretation of the Havaara agreement and his obsession with Hitler, or heard about the more recent activities of the NCC and various heavy-handed and autocratic individuals - or even the verbal insults and abuse of staff trying to do their jobs, because people see and hear only what they want to see and hear. The antisemitism evaporates into the air like a mist of particles from an aerosol can.

The revelations of the greatest significance in John Ware’s programme concerned interference with the disciplinary process and the testimony of young, ‘disaffected’ Labour members, which was riveting in terms of ‘televisual’ impact and for its political significance. The NDA hypocrisy, too.

(How strange that the media hasn’t yet managed to lure Seumas Milne into the studio for a good grilling. Alistair Campbell and Peter Mandelson were never off our screens back then. Why so shy?)

 Throughout this programme, and even more so throughout the subsequent forum within the Victoria Derbyshire programme - there was a gigantic mammoth squatting menacingly in the room. So massive that one dare not speak its name.

Victoria Derbyshire kept trying  to trip people up by asking “When did this institutional antisemitism arise and why?” ‘Where does it come from?” She was virtually begging for someone to commit ‘Islamophobia’, whilst the participants, panel and audience, stubbornly refused to do so. 

She asked the same thing over and over again, but they all kept schtum. But how can you, now that any negativity about of Islam is off limits? How mischievous of Ms Derbyshire to try that on.

The other elephantine but invisible presence in the room is this thing about Israel. The default position, thanks to years of partial reporting which keeps the majority of concerned citizens in a state of ignorance of 90% of the aggression directed at Israel, is that one has to state one’s abhorrence of “What Israel is doing to the Palestinians” before throwing in one’s twopence-worth of opinion on antisemitism. It’s related to the ‘bad Jew’ syndrome where the only good Jew is an anti-Zionist 

At one point in the programme, an audience member announced that he was a Palestinian whose people were ‘ethnically cleansed’ on the establishment of Israel. Predictably, Victoria Derbyshire let that pass unchallenged.

This post has turned out to be more concerned with Victoria Derbyshire’s de-briefing of the Panorama than the Panorama itself. That’s the way these things go. 

I must say that I’m not one of those who dismiss Ash Sarkar as stupid. She’s obviously sharp and bright, but her ideological principles force her to defend the indefensible. She and Owen Jones are passionately opposed to racism (they’ve been fighting it all their lives, you know) and their dogged anti-racism compels them to ignore the racism that emanates from the ‘race’ of people they’re so focused on protecting.  You can’t oppose antisemitism properly if you’re blind to the primary perpetrators of it.

I will also add onto the tail of this post that over on Harry’s Place Sarah AB has effectively equated Islamophobia with antisemitism.  I doubt that she reads this blog these days, but just in case, Sarah! No! You’re better than that.

'Panorama' and Jeremy Corbyn

Last night's Panorama on the rise of Jeremy Corbyn provoked massed howls of outrage from the battalions of Corbynistas on Twitter - and, according to Mr Fawkes, from Mr Corbyn's own team as well. 

The terms "character assassination" and "hatchet job" were widely banded about. 

Even some people on largely right-wing forums are saying that the BBC appeared to be trying to stick the knife into Jeremy Corbyn here.

And I have to say that I think they're right about that. (And, from my own biased point of view, quite right too!)

Of course, Panorama isn't averse to putting out hatchet jobs. (The makers of Panorama do seem to like the odd hatchet job from time to time.) 

Panorama attempted a particularly brutal one on Nigel Farage just under a year ago. And it (twice) attempted another (one last year and one in April this year) on Lutfur Rahman in Tower Hamlets. The BNP got the Panorama hatchet job treatment in 2011 and the DUP's Iris Robinson got it in 2010.

The thing that connects those politicians is that they aren't establishment ones, so that could indicate a pro-establishment bias on the BBC's part....

....except that twice, in 2010 and 2012, Panorama doggedly went after a top Conservative donor, Lord Ashcroft. (Complications, complications!)

Now, both Sue and myself have had good things to say before about the Panorama reporter responsible for last night's Jeremy Corbyn report, John Ware. He's a BBC reporter who often goes where most other BBC reporters wouldn't dream of going. 

His pursuit of Mr Corbyn's dealings with Islamist terrorist groups and his linking of Mr Corbyn with a conference in Cairo which advocated attacks on British troops fighting in Iraq were, to my mind, worthwhile but, it has to be said, I really don't think he got very far at all. Jeremy Corbyn said enough not to come anywhere near close to incriminating himself, and didn't look at all rattled by John Ware's questioning. 

And John Ware couldn't get anywhere beyond those statements from Jeremy Corbyn, other than by asserting that Mr Corbyn didn't give a straight answer to the Cairo question....

...A bit of what I, in my younger years, might have called 'a damp squid' then.

Except for some pro-Corbyn vox pops and a pro-Corbyn comedian, all of Panorama's 'talking heads' were from what might be called the 'Labour establishment' - Bob Roberts, David Blunkett, Charles Clarke, Chuka Umunna and Tristram Hunt. Their message could hardly have been clearer: Don't vote Corbyn! Even the only other talking head, Chris Mullin, who had some nice things to say about the hero of the Corbynistas, didn't think Jeremy Corbyn could win an election.

At this point in a blog post, of course, a conclusion should come. Unfortunately, I don't have one, so please make of this mess of impressions what you will.

Panorama's John Ware sues the Labour Party for libel

John Ware's damning 10th July 2019 Panorama on antisemitism in the Labour Party provoked a predictable outcry from furious Corbynistas. 

Some complained to the BBC - including the Labour Party itself, which compiled 28 objections to the programme. This then went through to Ofcom. 

Well, Ofcom has now thrown out Labour's complaint declaring the programme to have been duly impartial. 

John Ware and some of the whistleblowers featured in the programme are now suing the Labour Party and some of its 'outriders' (gobby people on Twitter no doubt!) for libel.

They've hired Mark Lewis QC.

I wish them all the luck in the world.

Is the BBC impartial?

I’ll reserve judgment on tonight’s Panorama till it’s all over, but there is plenty of pre-emptive activity around. (The Times) (£)

In case it seems hypocritical to put one’s faith in any episode of Panorama in the light of the infamously aborted Tommy Takedown, it does seem that there is justification for doing so sometimes.  

The upcoming programme about antisemitism in the Labour Party is the creation of John Ware, who has a uniquely non-BBC outlook, while the aborted Tommy-bashing episode was concocted by John Sweeney, whose agenda is typically Beeb. 

I don’t claim that either of these men is bias-free or that their programmes could be scrupulously impartial and/or agenda-free, but at least John Ware is prepared to go against the grain.

Unlike Dominic Casciani, whose Tweets are ‘deffo’ BBC through and through. (H/T Monkey Brains in a btl comment)

Are these shoes worn by Stephen Yaxley Lennon at his court case last week a posh designer brand? Any tips gratefully received! pic.twitter.com/1dF33pZNoh

— Dominic Casciani (@BBCDomC) July 8, 2019

What started out as a stupid and weirdly snobbish remark from Casciani turned into a massive sneer-athon by a trail of Tommy-bashing sycophants - half of them accusing TR (aka SY-L) of squandering £500 (of donors’ hard-earned dosh) on a pair of Gucci loafers, while the other half sneering that they were obviously only a ‘knocked-off” version.

Deffo that shoe or a knock-off. Thanks for your help.

— Dominic Casciani (@BBCDomC) July 8, 2019

(Yobbo! Know thy place!)

Unfolding story

Labour pays out six-figure sum and apologises in antisemitism row.

The BBC and the Guardian are reporting this as if butter wouldn’t melt. I can’t fully access the Guardian’s article now unless I register, and I can’t say I want to do that at the present. However, when I saw it earlier today (when I could access it for some reason) their report looked extensive. That’s one thing one can say about the Guardian; unlike the BBC whose write-ups always sound so non-committal, as if they’re walking on eggshells of their own making - the Guardian goes into detail. The general effect of the BBC’s über brevity is that anyone can project their own meaning onto any given story.

Anti-Semitism: Labour pays damages for 'hurt' to whistleblowers

After Jeremy Corbyn's statement, which said Labour settlement was a 'political not legal' decision, journalist John Ware understood to be consulting his legal team

— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) July 22, 2020

BREAKING: I am told that journalist John Ware is planning to sue Jeremy Corbyn.

— Oz Katerji (@OzKaterji) July 22, 2020

According to a few Labour sources this morning, it's "very possible" and "highly likely" that Jeremy Corbyn will have the whip removed very soon, as a result of some of the recommendations in the EHRC report.#LabourAntisemitism

— Adam Cailler (@acailler) July 22, 2020

That sinking feeling is back

That sinking feeling is back. Glastonbury time again.

As if Glasto dominating the airwaves wasn’t bad enough, the thought of Ed and Yvette Balls queueing up for the showers and Jeremy Corbyn appearing on the pyramid stage, (presumably to rapturous applause) hearing that Radiohead had been heckled with shouts of  “Free Palestine”  was just about the last straw.

I see Malia Bouattia signed off her NUS presidency by shouting “Free, free Palestine”, doubtless to similarly rapturous applause from her student fans; but a glimmer of light is here, in the form of a lone voice at the BBC, John Ware, who happens to have noticed the Al Quds Day March, even if his BBC colleagues didn’t.

"How's this for hate?
"We are fed up of the Zionists, we are fed up with all their rabbis; we are fed up with all their synagogues; we are fed up with their supporters."
Or this?
"Zionists. are responsible for the murder of people in Grenfell Tower - the Zionist supporters of the Tory Party."
I went to the annual Al Quds Days march in central London last weekend to watch several hundred supporters of Hezbollah, the "Party of God." [...]

“Please welcome Nazim Ali, the Al Quds' Master of Ceremonies for the march, organised by the Khoeminist oxymoronically named Islamic Human Rights Commission
Here's another of Nazim's gags. 

While presenting the IHRC's "Islamophobe of the Year" award shortly after the 2015 massacre by jihadists of 12 journalists and a policeman at the Paris-based satirical Charlie Hebdo magazine, he said: "No one from Charlie Hebdo could make it" (to the awards ceremony). 

Are you cracking up? No? How 's this then?
"We've always been a peaceful, family-friendly, humanitarian protest" Nazim shouted to the marchers. "That's what we're about." 

And then pointing to the protestors, he said ""Do not react to these people... Do not react to the IDF." 

Judging by the frenzy Nazim had worked himself into, my impression was that "react" was exactly what he hoped the Jewish protestors would do. "You've hit the nail," a police officer said. 

"Bye, bye Zionists, bye bye bye" taunted Nazim, waving his hands as the march prepared to move off. 

"Free, free Palestine" he chanted which got the ritual response: "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” [...]

"The march was nothing short of a three-hour public hate fest against Jews who regard themselves as Zionists – who are the vast majority of Jews. Nazim Ali repeatedly referred to the only "real Jews" being those marching with him, the tiny fringe from Neturei Karta. "Zionists are the imposters" he said ".Do not talk to them.they like to show themselves as 'victims': 'Oh, we're Zionists; we're victims; we've only killed 10 children today; we're victims - we didn't get a chance to kill 20'." 

So much hate in just 24 hours both in Finsbury Park and central London. It shows just how difficult some of these "difficult and often embarrassing conversations" in countering extremism, are going to be.

They say ‘we mustn’t let the terrorists divide us” but their refusal to connect the causes they support with the terrorism they say they wish to defy, means they themselves perpetuate and exacerbate the division.

Another piece in the JC explains where our government could ‘do the right thing’ if it had a mind to.

"The issue of government subsidies for Palestinian terrorist salaries has returned to the international spotlight. What began in November 2013 as a barely believable revelation — that taxpayers in Britain, the US and other Western nations were bankrolling terrorist salaries — has now become a universally-acknowledged, impossible-to-deny and impossible-to-defend embarrassment for governments.

"A recent in-depth study has calculated that all terror incentives and rewards paid by the Palestinian Authority over the past four years total a mind-numbing $1 billion. 

As more citizens are murdered by Islamist terrorists in Great Britain, Europe, the US and elsewhere, Western donor governments have found their financial involvement with the Palestinian Authority terrorist salary programme increasingly indefensible.

‘The Palestinian “Law of the Prisoner” openly rewards those convicted of even the most heinous attacks with generous monthly “salaries” and a phantom job in the PA government. 

The salaries increase on a sliding scale. The more carnage inflicted and the longer the prisoner sentence, the higher the salary. 

Terrorists receiving a five-year sentence are granted just a few hundred dollars each month. The bloodiest murderers are paid as much $3,000 monthly. Cheques are sent directly to the prisoner, who appoints a power of attorney to distribute the funds.”

What about the BBC doing an in-depth study of that preposterous situation? I’m sure John Ware would be up for it.

Not making friends with Nigel

Continuing to catch up, this week's Panorama on Nigel Farage seems to have caused the biggest hoohah among BBC watchers. 

From Twitter to Biased BBC (where you'd expect the reviews to be hostile) to Digital Spy (where you'd expect the reviews to be much less hostile), the overwhelming body of opinion is that Darragh MacIntyre's report was "anti-UKIP" and showed "left-wing bias" on the BBC's part. 

[The Digital Spy responses are especially interesting, given that a good proportion of those claiming "anti-UKIP" bias on the programme's part claim to be non-UKIP people themselves.]

I won't rehash a lot of points you've probably already read about it but, having now watched the programme [and then had a shower to wash it off], I think it's fair to say that the programme was unambiguously intended as a hatchet-job on Nigel Farage and his party.

The line from Darragh MacIntyre that stood out for me came during a darkly-lit ambush of Nigel Farage [of the kind you usually see in reports of this kind], namely that Panorama has merely...

...been carrying out a normal investigative journalistic process, as you would expect. Well, you'd expect to be subject to the same degree of scrutiny as other political parties?

Nigel Farage didn't reply - but probably should have said: "Yes, but does Panorama subject other political parties to the same scrutiny as us? Have you investigated Ed Miliband's Labour Party, Darragh? The Green Party and their record in running Brighton? Respect? Have you investigated them the same way you've investigated us?" 

Many of us may remember the way dodgy UKIP candidates were spotlighted by the BBC and much of the British press during the European elections, while 'breaking news' of equally dodgy candidates from the 'Big Three' parties were cast as mere footnotes (if mentioned at all). 

Such a bias is understandable in pay-for-your-own-bias newspapers, like the Conservative-supporting Daily Telegraph. They can slam errant UKIP candidates' and ignore errant Tory candidates to their hearts' content, as they are under no legal obligation to be fair - unlike the BBC, which ought to be scrupulously fair. The BBC, therefore, shouldn't have allowed itself to be seen behaving like the Torygraph.

The question for Panorama specifically is, 'Was this hatchet-job on UKIP just one among many such pieces that have targetted other parties?' If Panorama has done similarly 'bashing' exercises against the other parties then, yes, Darragh M's question is a valid one and the BBC can ease itself off the hook of bias. If not, then the charge of anti-UKIP bias stands.

So has Panorama devoted any of its editions to similar investigations of the other political parties? To find that out would entail a trawl through the Panorama archive.

Such a trawl reveals that most of Darragh MacIntyre's Panorama reports have been about 'tax dodging', though there's also one in his portfolio called Hungry Britain? (about "the dramatic rise in the number of food banks in Britain") and an exposé of the BNP entitled BNP: The Fraud Exposed.

Looking at comparable Panorama reports into the UK political parties since the MPs' expenses scandal, there has been an exposé of Tower Hamlets First (Lutfur Rahman) in 2014, the Conservative Party (Lord Ashcroft) in 2012, the BNP in 2011, the Conservative Party (Lord Ashcroft again) in 2010, and the DUP (Iris Robinson) in 2010. There have also been a few 'cash for questions'/expenses editions targetting a number of political parties (one in 2013, two in 2009). Before the archive runs out, there was also one about the Conservatives (David Cameron) in 2008 ("Has Conservative Party leader David Cameron got what it takes to be prime minister?" and one about Labour (Gordon Brown) in 2007 ("Reporter John Ware investigates Gordon Brown's involvement in past New Labour spin").

So, though rather rough-and-ready, the number of exposés/hatchet jobs for each of the UK political parties since 2007 stands as follows:

Conservatives - 3

Labour - 1

UKIP - 1

DUP - 1

BNP - 1

Tower Hamlets First - 1

The Liberal Democrats, Greens, various nationalists and Respect have emerged unscathed. Labour hasn't been 'exposéd' since 2007. The Conservatives have fared worst (due to the programme's interest in Lord Ashcroft).

Though the terminology of Left and Right gets controversial with some of the parties involved (particularly the BNP), conventional BBC wisdom (and, sometimes, the parties' own self-estimations) would suggest that the list above shows that 6 programmes have 'exposed' parties of the Right and 2 have 'exposed' parties of the Left.

Make of that what you will.

So the UKIP hatchet-job isn't a complete one-off.

Anyhow, it probably backfired. (Well, if the internet response is anything to go by it certainly did!)

People can spot a smear a mile off and they don't seem to be on the same page (or even reading the same book) as Darragh and the BBC when it comes to thinking that politicians saying very un-BBC-like things about immigration must automatically make them beyond the pale for the British public as a whole. If enough people watched it, then maybe UKIP will have gained an extra percentage point or two!

Talking of Panorama and failed hatchet-jobs, and moving on to a genuinely sinister party...I thought John Ware's attempted take-down of Luftur Rahman's party earlier this year might have finished the Tower Hamlets' caliph off, being broadcast just before the mayoral election there and being (as I thought) so damning about him, but, no, LR is still there, after Labour failed to wrest power from him (for whatever reasons) and in spite of all Panorama's hard work. 

Things I've read (and can remember)

Having (it appears) become merely a weekend blogger, Friday night now seems to mean catching up with all sorts of things - and trying to remember all the other things about the BBC which have flitted across my mind in the past five days. 

(I wish the world would slow down. There's been far too much going on and my brain isn't what it used to be.)

Among the things I've read this week have been the following:


1. THE CONSERVATIVE WOMAN: Biased BBC will load the dice against Brexit and Cameron’s claim he has banished “ever closer union” is a legal fiction - both by former BBC producer David Keighley.

The first piece looks at the BBC Trust's slippery behaviour - first, in slipping out the BBC's editorial guidelines on the corporation's EU referendum coverage and, second, regarding the Trust's offhand rejection of MPs' concerns about monitoring BBC bias.

The second piece includes a striking example of pro-EU bias from the BBC News website, awarding "a win" to David Cameron for 'exempting us from ever-closer union'. Whether the PM has actually done so (legally-speaking) is disputed, so the BBC awarding him "a win" might be premature (and biased).


2. THE NEW STATESMAN: The BBC has never been a natural home for Eurosceptics – just ask the young Michael Gove - a piece by former BBC head of television news/former Today editor Roger Mosey.

Mr Mosey, as might be expected, puts a generally pro-BBC case, but admits:

(1) that he "came across vanishingly few EU withdrawalists in [his]broadcasting life". 

(2) that BBC colleagues would 'hear' "the flapping of white coats" when "Tory Euro-bashers" and UKIP's Lord Pearson denounced the EU and BBC pro-EU bias. 

(3) that he thinks the BBC is too London-centric and, thus, thinks too much like pro-EU London than the rest of the country. 

(4) that like the rest of the Westminster Bubble, the BBC tends to concentrate more on "process" than "policy" (hence, presumably, all the 'splits' stuff).

(5) that BBC staff are "much more In than Out".

3. THE SPECTATOR: Who will watch for BBC bias in the EU referendum campaign?  - by Charles Moore...

...in which Mr Moore hopes that pro-Leave campaigners will be monitoring the BBC for bias (I think his wish will come true!) and where he recalls a couple of hours of biased (pro-EU) BBC broadcasting on Today (a classic example of what I've recently been calling a 'snapshot').

An incidental moment in Charles Moore's piece recalls another Speccie piece by Rod Liddle (prior to Nick Robinson's arrival). Rod strongly suspected that John Humphrys was the rumoured "Tory" on the Today team. Charles suspects that John Humphrys might be the one non-Remain member of the Today team.

(That might explain the otherwise baffling series of features slagging him off over the past year or so on Roger Bolton's Feedback - a series of attacks that has always felt oddly personal to my ears.

Well, if the BBC can fill its airwaves with endless speculation, so can I!)


4. THE JEWISH CHRONICLE: Israel must stop making it easy for the boycotters - by John Ware.

The headline doesn't tell the full story here. The veteran BBC Panorama reporter lands a few solid punches on the strange and frequently antisemitic BDS brigade.


5. THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: The media is twisting the knife into Israel over the 'lone wolf intifada' - by Eylon Aslan-Levy.

Those notorious BBC headlines make their appearance here, and Eylon makes a strong case against the media in general. 

The alliance between the hard, secular left and political Islam.”

I've been keeping half an eye on the ups and downs of the Jewish Chronicle. The FT reported the situation while it was still unresolved - I can’t give you the date of publication because won’t let me back into the website now - but here’s the excerpt I managed to grab, explaining the way things stood back then:

“The Kessler Foundation, a charitable trust that has owned the Jewish Chronicle since 1984, submitted an offer to the proposed liquidators Begbies Traynor this week, which would have seen them acquire the assets of both publications and run them as a merged publication. 

But a rival bid from a consortium through lawyers Osborne Clarke has also been submitted, according to two people familiar with the matter. 

The rival consortium is being fronted by former Downing Street head of communications Robbie Gibb, biographer William Shawcross, former Labour MP John Woodcock,
Rabbi Jonathan Hughes of Radlett United Synagogue, and prominent broadcasters John Ware and Jonathan Sacerdoti.”

Most of whom have been featured in this blog - (funny that.) The consortium’s bid was successful and they reinstated Stephen Pollard as promised. 

Those of you who take the Spectator might have read an article by Charles Moore in the magazine.

“………a new consortium moved fast to intervene, and outbid the existing management in order to reinstate Pollard, see the staff right, pay off the debts and secure the future. Headed by Sir Robbie Gibb, a Gentile, the consortium is serious about reinforcing the Jewish Chronicle’s strength rather than shutting it down. Behind all this I detect a battle for leadership in the community. Those who are braver about confronting Islamist anti-Semitism have prevailed over the outdated establishment view that the greater threat to British Jews is from the far right and that Islamists should be appeased in the name of ‘interfaith dialogue’. 

The consortium’s victory is good news. It would have been a weird epilogue to the successful exposure of Labour’s anti-Semitism under Jeremy Corbyn if the most prestigious Jewish paper in Europe had then folded. As the general election result proved, the supposedly anti-Semitic white working class saw through Corbyn. The rising danger to Jews — as, though more surreptitiously, to Christians — comes from the alliance between the hard, secular left and political Islam.”

Ah, the last few words open a Pandora’s box of inconvenient and hard to answer questions.

The reason for this post is simply this. (And it’s even BBC related) 

Stephen Pollard says:  ”According to the BBC, antisemitism is just a political choice”. 

A particularly annoying photo of the BBC’s Fran Unsworth illustrates the piece. In it, she’s looking both startled and extremely pleased with herself all at once. 

The issue concerns a knotty problem. How much does political or personal prejudice affect one’s professional credibility? We’re talking about renowned antisemites being invited onto the Beeb to opine about supposedly unconnected matters. Notably but not exclusively, as per that Panorama.

Maybe there’s an element of  ‘intersectionality’ here? To what extent does a person’s race, class, and gender prejudice create a unique mode of discrimination dent one’s entire credibility? 

Can one’s irrationality in the form of racial hatred - viz  “the cognitively dissonant alliance between the hard, secular left and political Islam” be completely divorced from other areas of one’s personality. For example, does it affect one’s expertise in a seemingly unrelated sphere? Does that make sense?

Let’s temporarily forget Professor Ashton, whom Fran Unsworth says is “eminently well qualified to speak about this subject [public health]”. Let’s examine her reasoning, by using a more extreme example like, say, the late Stephen Hawking. 

Stephen Hawking was so highly regarded as a theoretical physicist, cosmologist and author that his reputation as such is untouchable and sealed forever. But even he fell foul of pressure from the hard, secular left and political Islam in his irrational decision to  join the academic boycott of Israel by rejecting an invitation to attend a conference there (despite relying on Israeli sourced technology  to help keep him alive.)  That was just common or garden hypocrisy, but we’re not concerned with that at the moment.

NYT has:

The conference, called “Facing Tomorrow 2013,” is billed as a meeting place for exploring the developments shaping the future of Israel, the Jewish people and the world. Its program includes former heads of state, academics, artists and business executives. Former President Bill Clinton is to receive an award from Mr. Peres.
Also listed among the speakers is Munib al-Masri, a Palestinian tycoon from the West Bank city of Nablus who has been working to promote internal Palestinian reconciliation.

If that is indeed an accurate description of the event that Hawking boycotted, doesn't the decision to boycott it look a bit stupid and ill-conceived? It does to me. 

However, as I know quite a bit more about factually and historically illiterate antisemitism than I do about theoretical or any other kind of physics, all I can possibly ask is ‘does a specific demonstration of irrationality and prejudice dent one’s whole credibility? A little bit? Not at all?  Does stupidity, prejudice and irrationality run through one like the proverbial stick of rock?

What I do know is that Stephen Hawking’s and professor John Ashworth’s reputations are seriously flawed in the eyes of this non-expert, and as far as Fran Unsworth's reputation is concerned, wheeling out the ‘Freeze Peach’ argument certainly dents the remaining dregs of it.

The issue here is that while antisemitism under the accepted definition is not actually illegal, and we don’t want to create a bespoke version of a blasphemy law to make it so, what can most effectively be done to show disgust and disapproval where anti-Jew prejudice raises its head?

For the BBC, maybe keeping known antisemites out of the limelight would go along with the spirit of the zeitgeist. However, as we’ve been saying for the last umpteen years, the BBC is not minded to keep antisemites out of the limelight. The BBC has tacitly taken the side of the antisemites and promotes the hard, secular left and political (and particularly cultural) Islam at every opportunity. It has made antisemitism a political choice and it’s not afraid to say so.

Zoe v Ken

Credit where credit's due to Today's Zoe Conway. 

Supporters of Tower Hamlets mayor Lutfur Rahman held a rally last night. The speakers included Ken Livingstone and George Galloway.

Zoe made it clear from the start of her package on this morning's Today that the audience was "overwhelmingly" from the Bangladeshi community. Mayor Rahman is frequently accused of favouring that community.

She also described the speeches as "arguably rather provocative", specifically citing Livingstone's call to "fight on all fronts". (Her cautious BBC-style use of "arguably" didn't disguise the fact that she clearly thought it was provocative.)

That is really was provocative is, I would say, undeniable - though the word I'd use is "inflammatory". This is what 'Cuddly Ken' said:

When these commissioners [from PricewaterhouseCoopers] turn up, find out where they live and then have a peaceful demonstration outside their homes so their neighbours know these are the kind of people who overturn a democratically elected mayor. Make their lives intolerable. This is an appalling situation.

[If people can be hauled in by the police for tweeting derogatory comments or reading Churchill speeches in public, then how on earth can Ken Livingstone be allowed to get away with that?]

Zoe next pulled the rug out from under Lutfur Rahman's defence:

In terms of what Mayor Rahman's defence is, he's arguing that Pricewaterhouse has found no evidence of criminality or fraud. But there is a problem with that argument, and that's that Pricewaterhouse said there is evidence of possible fraudulent payments by the council to nine organisations but they've decided to step back and let the police pursue. 

And what followed was even more remarkable.

Braving what must have been a highly intimidating atmosphere, Zoe challenged Messrs Livingstone, Galloway and Rahman. She completely exposed Livingstone's bullshit, beginning with the words, "That's not true! That's not true!" (I've never heard a BBC reporter speak to Ken Livingstone that way before) before taking on Galloway and Rahman. By simply repeating her point that the auditors had found evidence of possible fraud, their guff fell flat. Good on her!

"This is much more than a local news story", she then told Justin Webb, proving her point by pointing out the frankly staggering fact that Tower Hamlets council has a budget of £1 billion. 

Her discussion with Justin ended with the following damning words:

We would like our own interview with the mayor but unfortunately so far Mayor Rahman has not agreed to an interview. 

Now, I suspect the presumption of many of us would be that the BBC would have inclined towards lending Lutfur Rahman, Ken Livingstone and George Galloway a sympathetic ear. They are left-wing, pro-Islamist, pro-racial identity politics after all. Zoe Conway gave us a good counter-example here. (As did John Ware's Panorama some months ago). 

I'm not the only one impressed by Zoe's report though. The genuinely indefatigable Ted Jeory of Trial by Jeory was impressed too:

brilliant report just now on @BBCr4today by @zoeconway1 on last night's Water Lily event. Put Ken, Lutfur & Galloway on spot over PwC report
— Ted Jeory (@TedJeory) November 13, 2014

A fatal act of self-harm

Tom Mangold, back in the day

Tom Mangold's Mail on Sunday piece headlined "I fear that my beloved BBC’s bizarre obsession with a toxic culture of wokeness will end as a fatal act of self-harm" ought to matter to the BBC because Mr Mangold isn't just any old BBC veteran. He was Panorama's lead investigative reporter for many years and has always been held in high esteem. So for him to speak out in such an outspoken way about "the greasy slope down which [the BBC] is sliding faster every day" is really something, and a major sign of just how bad things have got recently. 

While expanding on his excoriation of Yogita Limaye's "biased, partial, unbalanced, filled with spite and venom" anti-Churchill report (see previous post), he adds the words "Never mind the truth". I doubt he would never the phrase, of course, but essentially what he's saying is that it was 'fake news'. 

'What on earth has happened?', he wonders. After all, the BBC's charter remains "unequivocal" on its statutory commitment to impartiality. Well, he says, the "holy contract" is now "well and truly broken". 

He seems to believe that Ms Limaye's late evening report, given the full backing of the News at Ten and Huw Edwards's "authority and credibility", was a bone deliberately thrown to the BLM movement. 

And the BBC's doing it, he says, because of its "bizarre obsession with youth, diversity and the ever-growing pressure of woke argument" and because BLM - and "the Twitter trolls, the social media addicts, the young, the immature and the often daft" - have become "the BBC’s recruitment and audience target." 

Why this "'threatens to become [the BBC's] final act of self-harm" is because such people are a "minority audience". 

He also quotes another wise old head, Trevor Phillips, saying that "the increasingly woke behaviour by the Corporation is endangering the central justification for special treatment, which is its universal reach." 

All of which is very true. The BBC is alienating its core audience in pursuit of a small demographic that probably won't be watching it regardless. It's a sign of the state the BBC's in at the moment that it doesn't even seem to see the folly of its position. 

The present situation with over-75s having to pay the licence fee from next Saturday is relevant here because 66 Conservative MPs  signed a letter to Tony Hall last week objecting to the BBC's decision over the licence fee, and added: "We question the need for the BBC to allocate the enormous sum of £100 million on diversity, which with strong management could be achieved for minimal cost". 

Tom Mangold in this article makes a related point: "Tony Hall has found £100 million in an ever-ready slush fund to increase diversity in the BBC. Meanwhile it gets rid of talent such as John Ware and Jane Corbin as permanent reporters from Panorama, presumably to save a bob or two". 

Why is the BBC splashing out such huge sums on diversity? After all, as the Observer observes today, it's devoting £12m of its commissioning budget "to making diverse and inclusive content" for the next three years, and devoting £100m of the current television commissioning budget to "on-air inclusivity", and bringing in a mandatory off-screen target for "20% diversity across the networks for new commissions" from April 2021? Because it's signalling to its new target audience. 

Tom Mangold goes on to quote Trevor Phillips saying, "The BBC has to recognise social change, sure, but it is not the institution’s role to lead it." Well, yes, but that's not how the young Turks who have been silently taking over at the BBC see it. To take just one example, on being appointed the BBC's first LBGT correspondent Ben Hunte said "There are a lot of marginalised voices that need to be given a mouthpiece" when he was appointed. He clearly meant that he intended to be that "mouthpiece". There's a lot of that about at the BBC now. 

Wonder what the bulk of the BBC will think about this? I'm guessing a huge chunk of them are too far gone to care what one of the old hands thinks, especially if it's in the Mail on Sunday. But some might take it as a proper, serious wake-up call. If they love the BBC as much as Tom Mangold does, what are they going to do about it?

Panorama: The Battle for British Islam

Credit where credit's due.

Tonight's Panorama by John Ware was an outstanding piece of reporting. 

Although some will doubtless carp and quibble...It didn't pretend that the attacks we've seen on the streets of London and Paris have nothing to do with Islam. It fully faced up to the fact that Islam is the problem, and that a radical reformation of Islam is needed. It showed us just how bad the situation really is. It showed the very ugly things influential British Muslims say behind closed doors. It confronted the 'grievance narrative' of non-violent Islamists that excuses the crimes of violent Islamists, including all that blaming of Western foreign policy. It showed how small the gap is between those two kinds of Islam. It confronted the Trojan Horse Affair and took on the 'Islamophobia' narrative that developed around it. It gave the lie to the 'Islamophobia' narrative as a whole. It showed the grievance mongers for what they are, and gave voice to those Muslims who want to fashion a genuinely moderate, reformed, pro-British Islam that none of us need fear (though how representative these voices are is a moot point). It even showed the most famous Charlie Hebdo cartoon of Mohammad, holding it in focus for several seconds..

It was a very big step forward for the BBC, broadcast at peak viewing time on BBC One. Please watch it if you can.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b050nj0z/panorama-the-battle-for-british-islam

Lazy, dishonest and biased.

I’m very sorry but I hardly watch the BBC these days. It’s not really a question of aligning with the ‘defund’ or ‘defend’ side of the argument or whether I think the BBC should be ‘reformed’ or ‘removed’. It’s partly because of the increasingly desperate pandering to a demographic…. 

“Generation Z, or Gen Z for short, are the demographic cohort succeeding Millennials and preceding Generation Alpha” 

 …..that has moved on and doesn’t watch TV! And now, neither do I. (Well, I do, but rarely the BBC) The bias looks more and more entrenched. Who is in charge of this ‘unconscious bias’ training they’re talking about? 17 minutes to 9 (2:44) If the bias is unconscious, then how can the trainers know whether they too are suffering from it? It’s those wretched unknown unknowns again.

This @Guardian article is based on a @BBCArabic hatchet job. The program fails to note that the neighborhood only became 'Palestinian' after Jewish residents were driven out in the 1930s, or that the Sumarin family was evicted because it stopped paying rent.#InconvenientDetails pic.twitter.com/dCpBHlHcFE

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) September 22, 2020

I didn’t want to watch Panorama last night - I haven’t watched it for years, the exception being the controversial John Ware episode that shed light on the Labour Party’s malevolent racism. However, the programme was on when I walked into the room just in time to see Richard Bilton cycling, W1A style, through deserted city streets. (why?) 

Well, it seems that he had unearthed some dirty dealing, which could be summed up as:

BREAKING NEWS: A man living in Israel donates large amount of money to an Israeli organisation based in the capital of Israel.

Surely worth a Pulitzer no? https://t.co/NHZg4lDNhI

— SussexFriendsofIsrael (@SussexFriends) September 21, 2020

And the reason I’m even bothering to mention this is simply to point out that Bilton’s emotionally loaded language epitomises bias, be it conscious or unconscious, but not only the conscious/unconscious/subliminal repetitious utterance of trigger words like ‘settlers’ and the BBC/ Guardian’s casual scattering of “illegal under international law” and “Palestinian land” etc etc, this emotive background nagging demonstrates how effortlessly ‘unconscious’ or bog-standard ‘conscious bias’ is slipped in, enabling Richard Bilton and his unconscious mates to virtue-signal rather than apply the rigour of genuine curiosity and self-examination to his research.  (Research? What research?)