Oh dear. All the lovely English Spring sunshine we've had today, with the daffodils gleaming and the newborn tulips beaming, and children laughing, and power-drills roaring, and all the birds twittering away like a thousand Hugh Sykeses. It's been lovely (if slightly nippy), but not so good for blogging. So I'm still stuck on Sunday.
No, must move on, move on...
The Andrew Marr Show.
It seems to be becoming something of a reflex action at the BBC that presenters and reporters feel they must begin anything that's going to about the EU referendum by commiserating with what they must obviously believe to be an already-completely-bored-rigid British public.
Like you (I suspect), I've heard so many examples of this recently, but here are some just from the last couple of days (one of which you already know about):
We've had Tim Harford on Radio 4 putting on a slightly bored voice and saying he sometimes wishes his programme could forget the EU referendum.
And we've had Carole Walker opening her BBC One News at Six report marking the official start of the referendum by putting on a slightly bored voice and saying, "You may have thought you'd heard a lot about the EU referendum but both sides are now stepping up their efforts to persuade you of their arguments".
And this morning we had Andrew Marr opening his show by putting on a slightly bored voice and saying, "I know it's hard to believe but the EU debate only officially started this week".
Should we officially call it "the BBC yawn"?
It's only boring because it's not going according plan, I think. Don't recall the Beeboids ever thinking the first 100 days of The Obamessiah's reign was boring, or that talking about Trump is boring. The public is demanding they talk about it, and the Beeboids don't like not controlling the agenda one little bit.
ReplyDeleteThat French minister Marr chatted with couldn't have been a better example of Project Fear if he tried. The next PM of France is going to cast Britain out in the cold and stop French farmers and vintners from selling to Britain! Still, I guess you wouldn't have to worry any more about finding horse meat in your burgers and sausages.
At least Grayling wasn't falling for it.
They certainly never seem to tire of talking about Trump, that's for sure. If he falls by the wayside, they'll have nothing much to say about the US election until November. Only joking, of course. They'll just move into overdrive against Ted Cruz. (I bet they'll love bashing Ted Cruz.)
DeleteI've not got to the French economy minister yet. The introduction showed him threatening us with "consequences" if we leave. While driving home from work and hearing Hollande use the same word a few weeks back, I immediately thought of the kind of threats you hear in gangster films. 'Do as we say or there'll be consequences'. In a sane world such comments would backfire badly.
Be well worth while logging all the BBC-compliant French journos and commentators that they`ll be asking.
DeleteSaw a Marc Roche on Dateline...and I`ve seen him before alright.
Ditto with Ann Marie Moutet, Christine Ockrent , Edith Cresson, Jacques Lang, Dominique Vilpain etc...professional lefties on the lam here when not hovering around the bookstores and TV studios here-and always on manoevres.
As for Le Pen-niece or daughter-well, you can go take a hike if you think the BBC would ask THEM about the consequences of staying in the EU.
Usual lefty liberal bias-and as for Hollande threatening us...he`ll fit into Ian Bothams turnups, the little squit of aimless merde.
Indeed, chris. If you're holding up the French as the trusted voice on what's best for Britain, you've got bigger problems.
DeleteOther things the BBC don't find boring at all but 95% plus of the population do:
ReplyDelete1. Transgender issues.
2. Muslim women in Hijabs doing very unexceptional things. (Case in point on the website today about a Muslim woman leading a self defence class - an opportunity also to throw in a line about increased attacks on Muslims, without giving any supporting evidence.)
3. The Leveson inquiry.
4. Women's cricket.
5. Women's football.
6. Gay this, gay that, gay everything.
I feel a yawn coming on...better stop.
What? Not even women's crick.....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
DeleteIt's amazing what the BBC chooses to focus on. A counter terror march in Brussels attended by a pathetic 7000 people gets top treatment on the BBC website (Europe page). But there's no coverage about the comments of the Belgian minister who indicated lots of Muslim were happy with the attacks. Likewise no coverage of the riots between migrants and far right activists in Paris.
ReplyDeleteThat Brussels march was also reported on tonight's main evening news bulletin on BBC One. The other two news stories you mention weren't.
DeleteDimbleby was also claiming that people are bored with the EU referendum debate. That was on Thursday's Question Time, part of which some enterprising individual uploaded to YouTube.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious as to how this works. Do they come up with these ploys in meetings and then send out memos?
Unable to influence opinion to side with the Remain camp so pretend to be bored when reporting on the EU
No, Dimbleby was expressing his and the BBC's boredom, and surprise (and maybe a little dismay) that the public are very interested indeed. The Beeboids are bored because they've essentially been covering it and debating it for months already, and now their carefully planned pantomime isn't going according to plan.
DeleteOr, Our bias in favour of the Remain camp has been noted so let's pretend to be disinterested.
ReplyDelete