On Twitter (again)

And talking of DB and Hugh Sykes, DB caught a particularly revealing example of the BBC veteran's exemplary opinions over the weekend weekend.

The wildly popular moat of poppies outside the Tower of London prompted an attack from the Guardian's Jonathan Jones, who called it "a UKIP-style memorial" and didn't mean that as a compliment. Even the Guardian's own readership objected to the piece's liberal hand-wringing about us "inward-looking" Brits.

Of course, Jonathan Jones is fully entitled to his views and the Guardian is to be commended for giving them space, but should a BBC reporter openly back them?

Here's Hugh:

@tobiasboes He should 'win': it is insensitive to have 888,246 #poppies memorialising #British #Empire dead & ignoring the other millions.
— HughSykes (@HughSykes) November 1, 2014

And talking of senior BBC figures with big Twitter mouths, Bishop Hill caught a couple of blatant examples from the new Deputy Editor of BBC Earth, Michael Marshall:

Shock: Tory MP is ignorant about climate change RT @James_BG: Ann Widdecombe's attack on Climate Change Act http://t.co/V55Fl7aPbv
— Michael Marshall (@m_c_marshall) October 31, 2014

[One of the ironies there, of course, is that that Michael Marshall is accusing Miss Widdecombe of ignorance whilst calling her a "Tory MP". As you will all know, she stopped being an MP in 2010.] 

The good bishop also spotted this:

Yup RT @ZacGoldsmith: The Greens deserve to be in the Leaders debate. Same number of MPs as UKIP; higher in the polls than the LibDems.
— Michael Marshall (@m_c_marshall) October 31, 2014

Hmm, a senior BBC mocking Tory MPs and backing the Greens? How very impartial!

Until reading this I wasn't even aware of the existence of BBC Earth - a branch of the BBC's commercial arm.