James O'Brien gets shirty (again)

There's been quite a lively Twitter spat today between Newsnight's Ian Katz and Conservative MP Daniel Kawczynski over the programme's coverage of the Saudi-led strikes against Iranian-backed Houthi fighters in Yemen.

A report by Gabriel Gatehouse on last night's Newsnight assaulted the Saudis for their actions in Yemen, especially as regards civilian casualties.

I saw that, and then saw Conservative MP Crispin Blunt lavishing praise for GG's report in the interview which immediately followed it.

Mr Blunt's colleague, the pro-Saudi Mr Kawczynski, took a very different point of view though. 

The Spectator's Steerpike reported Mr K's criticisms of Newsnight for being biased and amateurish, a Twitter spat having (as I say) previously ensued between Tory Daniel and the BBC's Ian ...

...the outcome of which, as far as I could see, was that Mr Kawczynski would be appearing tonight (after the second instalment of Gabriel Gatehouse's report) to put 'the other side of the argument' and also, I presumed, his criticisms of Newsnight.

Now, I have to say that, having read the Steerpike piece and having watched last night's programme, I wasn't sympathetic to either Steerpike or Daniel Kawczynski. I thought Mr K was wrong and that Mr S was just slinging mud at the BBC - and I was also pleased that the BBC appeared to be going after Saudi Arabia so strongly.

However, I could have been wrong about that and Newsnight absolutely disgraced itself tonight when Mr Kawczynski duly appeared to put 'the other side'...

Whether Ian Katz put him up to it or not (and I wouldn't be surprised if he did), presenter James O'Brien went at the Tory MP like a bull terrier with rabies (and a bad headache, and a sore tooth, and, very possibly, an ingrowing toenail too). 

What a spectacle! 

JO'B talked loudly over Mr Kawczynski. Mr Kawczynski tried to talk over him back but, not being in the studio and being at a lower level of volume throughout, failed to bluster anywhere near as loudly as the BBC man. 

And on and on it went, JO'B's loud voice running amok.

Yes, Daniel Kawczynski may have been wrong in this case (if probably right about the BBC having an agenda, especially over its determined framing of the British government) and Newsnight may have been right to challenge him in this case (on the Saudi issue)...

...but was it really right for James O'Brien to constantly yell down his interviewee like a pub drunk with a loud microphone?

And it certainly didn't seem at all professional to me that JO'B responded to Mr Kawczynski's criticisms of Newsnight by delivering a long, doubtless pre-prepared rant in defence of the programme.....before immediately switching away from that back to the Saudi question and refusing - yes refusing - to allow the Tory MP to respond in any way to that rant, and then repeating talking over Mr K's determined attempts to keep doing so. 

The interview rampaged on until it ended in mutually-agreed (or disagreed) acrimony. (Mutually Assured Destruction, in interview form).

Yeesh!

Incidentally, the whole shebang (or 'ambush', as it was probably meant to be) got off to a cracking start with James O'Brien getting his facts wrong. 

He introduced Daniel Kawczynski as the "chair of the all-party group on Saudi Arabia". Mr K's first response was to say:

Well, first of all let me correct you. I'm not the chairman of the all-party group on Saudi Arabia. That's a Labour MP called Yasmin Qureshi.

Whoops!

P.S. Ian Katz, after midnight, has continued his spat with his Tory opponent. This, it seems, is what football pundits like to call "afters" (and philosophers "the ad hominem fallacy)" :

My goodness, Newsnight aren't happy about Mr K!

As football pundits also like to say: Handbags at dawn!

Should the BBC be behaving in this way?

P.P.S. Of course, James O'Brien and the Twitter-obsessed Ian Katz will be checking out the Twitter response (as if that's representative of anything) and dismissing any of this kind of criticism. The left-wing Twitterers absolutely loved this interview: A Tory was being bashed. JO'B is a legend. Apparently.