 |
| Here's Jonny! |
Today's The World This Weekend began with Brexit, and Jonny Dymond's introduction struck me as being exactly the kind of thing that the BBC's Newswatch programme was on about a week or so ago: the sense viewers have that BBC reporting "is constantly knocking British negotiators, looking for failure".
Please see what you make of Jonny's framing of the issue:
The clock was set running last Friday. 10 days, said the European Union Council President, for Britain to make progress on all issues if it wanted to get on with the trade talks bit of the Brexit negotiations. Ireland got an especial mention, just in case it had slipped the memory of the British government that the Republic and its border with Northern Ireland were one of the big 3 issues of the pre-trade negotiations stage. Both sides insist they don't want a resurrection of any kind of border but Britain says that Northern Ireland must, as a constituent part of the UK, follow England, Scotland and Wales out of the Single Market and the Customs Union. That, says nearly everyone except Britain, means a border - certainly not Cold War style, probably not in the way it was during the Troubles, but a border nonetheless. That the Irish government does not wish to see. Suggestions waft over from Irish politicians only to be met with silence from the British government.
Now, I must admit that I heard the bits in bold after thinking, 'So the EU sets a clock running and we're just meant to jump, are we Jonny?'. Then came the bits I've highlighted in bold.
Both struck me as "knocking British negotiators".
Am I right about that? Should I put in a complaint about it to the BBC?
