Good grief! It's coming beyond a joke. Whenever The World This Weekend focuses on Brexit Mark Mardell's framing introduction almost always goes something like this:
Welcome to The World This Weekend. This is Mark Mardell. Push is about to come to shove as the Cabinet finally plans to talk about what they hope to get out of Brexit.David Davis: Canada, plus, plus, plus.But one Canadian negotiator tells us it won't be easy.Jason Langrish: This is a very unconventional negotiation. You're going backwards, not forwards. You're not integrating, you're de-intergrating.
Why is this programme so relentlessly negative about Brexit so often?
It then followed its usual template. We got three experts - Dr Lorand Bartels of Cambridge University, Canadian trade negotiator Jason Langrish and Allie Renison of the Institute of Directors - who all offered shades of much the same opinion on Mr Davis's Canada+++ model: They all poured various amounts of cold water over it. There wasn't a fan of Brexit in sight or sound, and very few rays of sunshine came from Mark himself, who framed and amplified their 'remoaning'.
Then came an interview with Ken Clarke, who said much what you'd expect him to say and kept up the programme's relentless 'remoaning'.
Finally, as usual, came the 'balancing' interview with a Brexit fan - this time Lord Lamont.
This is where Mark usually begins interrupting and challenging - and he didn't disappoint this time either. The contrast between this interview and all that went before was striking.
This is where Mark usually begins interrupting and challenging - and he didn't disappoint this time either. The contrast between this interview and all that went before was striking.
This must be a very easy programme to edit. Just do the same thing week in, week out! (That also makes it easy for me to blog about it too!)
P.S. In the closing headlines, guess who Mark quoted, Ken Clarke or Lord Lamont? You won't be surprised to hear that Ken was given 'the last word'. Poor Lord Lamont!
Still, the closing interview with marine biologist Steve Simpson, who worked as a sound recordist on Blue Planet II, was very good. We heard the sound of coral reefs, damsel fish, clown fish and humpback whales, plus the love song of the British cod (which Mark thought sounded like "a mechanical foghorn"). Professor Simpson explained that males have about ten seconds to sing a song to a female while they swim towards the surface from the seabed at night.
P.S. In the closing headlines, guess who Mark quoted, Ken Clarke or Lord Lamont? You won't be surprised to hear that Ken was given 'the last word'. Poor Lord Lamont!
Still, the closing interview with marine biologist Steve Simpson, who worked as a sound recordist on Blue Planet II, was very good. We heard the sound of coral reefs, damsel fish, clown fish and humpback whales, plus the love song of the British cod (which Mark thought sounded like "a mechanical foghorn"). Professor Simpson explained that males have about ten seconds to sing a song to a female while they swim towards the surface from the seabed at night.
My take from the Open Thread (I didn't think MM's heart was in it - wind taken from sails):
ReplyDeleteTWTW - Mardell sounding like someone had taken the puff out of him, but still soldiering on with a little bit of bias here and there but his heart wasn't quite in it...he gave Norman Lamont quite a lot of scope to get his points across, unusually. Perhaps the BBC Remain Service realise the game is up? Still, having interviewed both Clarke and Lamont, the final headlines chose - surprise, suprise - to highlight a point made by Clarke about May having to take on "hardline right wing Brexiteers"...bless! They haven't given up entirely.
You've rather taken the wind out of mine! I was all fired up there :-
DeleteThe closing headline was typical though. All those things Norman Lamont had to say and not one of them made the grade as far as TWTW was concerned.
I think it's all relative! It was biased...just not as biased as Classic Mardell in all his Righteous Anger, "Hate Crime Britain", Remainer Glory of a few weeks ago. I think people, including Mardell, are starting to get the message that the anti-Brexit campaign is finished and all that Irish stuff in the agreement is just aspirational verbiage. We are going to end up with the CETA Plus option (Canadian trade agreement with knobs on). That's what I predicted originally, so I am happy with that.
DeleteFrom Have Your Say on the BBC Website: "Brexiteers=OAP maggot food in a few years time." This the BBC have not censored - they clearly think this sort of hate crime is within their house rules, which it is since you can be as rude as you like about Brexiteers, old people, and Tories.
ReplyDelete