Saturday 10 January 2015

Coming up shortly...


A heads-up for today's Dateline London...

The guest-list is a familiar one - U.S. liberal Michael Goldfarb, French left-winger Agnes Poirier, Algerian-born French journalist Nabila Ramdani and British conservative Alex Deane. 

I guessed two of those in advance. Agnes Poirier is the first person the BBC turns to whenever anything major happens in France. And Nabila Ramdani was an inevitability. She has been all over the BBC in recent days. 

Her latest Guardian article, Charlie Hebdo: Don’t blame this bloodshed on France’s Muslims. We were appalled by the murders yet now find ourselves facing a violent backlash, stresses Muslim grievances and slams the "prejudice" of the murdered writers of Charlie Hebdo. The overwhelming reaction of the Guardian commentariat was hostile - and rightly so. 

She will, no doubt, start shouting at several points during today's programme. Michael Goldfarb and Gavin Esler will doubtless mouth the usual liberal platitudes dressed up as insights. Agnes Poirier, however, will, hopefully, stick to her French left-wing secularist guns and not get waylaid by the inevitable invitations to criticise the French far-right and 'Islamophobia'. Alex Deane remains the best hope Dateline viewers have of  hearing a contrary point of view in a discussion that's likely to be very right-on. 

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