Mad World

The BBC has been under attack for bias again this week.

You can probably put aside the celebratory bottles of Prosecco or (for Nigel Farage fans) magnificent English beer though.

The attacks have been without substance. (You might even call them 'fake news'.)

Nonetheless, the BBC has been preoccupied with them and heavily on the defensive against them. 

Examples? 

Well, there was Kirsty Wark on Newsnight on Friday night getting slammed by one of her guests after he'd appeared (at Newsnight's invitation) on her programme - namely Cadwalldrista Chris Wylie: 

Was just on BBC Newsnight and yet again they try to shut down an established fact: Vote Leave cheated and broke the law in the referendum. That's not an 'allegation'. That's a fact. That is the finding of the Electoral Commission and is why Vote Leave was referred to the police.

Thousands of #FBPE types, along with Carole Cadwalldr, Alastair Campbell and the other usual suspects (even Nick Cohen), then amplified this charge and it spread (like myxomatosis in the 1950s) across the interweb.

And yet it was all 'fake news'.

Christopher Wylie, Carole Cadwalldr, Alastair Campbell and all of the pandemomic legions of #FBPEs had either misheard or misunderstood (or deliberately misinterpreted) what Kirsty had said.

Even I grasped straightaway that their complaints were nonsense-on-pretentious-stilts on watching the interview after reading their complaints.

(P.S. I'm slightly stunned to be defending Kirsty Wark on a question of bias).

Kirsty Wark hadn't said what the Cadwalldristas claimed she'd said. Kirsty was talking about Chris Wylie's claims about Facebook not about Vote Leave.

As former BBC man Gavin Esler (now a fervent anti-Brexit Twitterer) accurately put it in a response to the head of the Cadwalldr community: "Carole, I am a great admirer of you work but Chris said Facebook acted illegally - that is an allegation. The FACT is that they found Vote Leave broke the law. My former colleague Kirsty Wark was being rigorous and accurate".

An entire Twitterstorm was therefore based on few thousand very vocal people (including at least two journalists at a respected Sunday newspaper, The Observer) either not understanding or not wanting to understand Kirsty Wark's questions and crying 'BBC bias!'

(Whither English Comprehension these days? Or can it all be blamed on Kirsty's habit of slurring her words slightly, as she's wont to do?).

BBC editors scrambled onto Twitter and the BBC Press Office was pressed into a rebuttal:

Naturally the #FPPE brigade didn't accept any of the BBC's rebuttals, even though the rebuttals were correct, and the storm has gone on and on, like...simile alert!...a mad rabbit hopping its way up Mount Everest without an oxygen mask. 

This stuff and nonsense is taking up a lot of the BBC's time at the moment. 

A second (related) example from this morning, with some typical and some untypical responses:

PETER JUKES: Arron Banks is believed to have donated £8.4m to the leave campaign, the largest political donation in British politics... “He failed to  satisfy us that his own donations had, in fact, come vrom (sic) sources within the UK.” Says  Damian Collins, Washington Post. This should be BREAKING news on the BBC. A cross party parliamentary select committee has concluded that Britain's biggest ever political donor could well have been funded by a foreign power. This is illegal. It's also treacherous. Silence in the face of this is complicity.
GUY LAMBERT: We won’t have a BBC in 10 years time. Endless tweets like this will kill it. Every day it’s “why isn’t the BBC doing what I want it to do in the exact way I want them to do it?” Most of them turn out to be untrue anyway. Peter Jukes will one day wake up without it and wonder why.
SCOTT MATTHEWMAN: Indeed, Damian Collins has just been on Radio 4 talking about these very issues.
GUY LAMBERT: Oh really? What show? I’d like to hear that ta.
SCOTT MATTHEWMAN: Broadcasting House. And his comments then made one of the lead items in the 9:30am news summary.
TOM JAMIESON: Was one of the lead stories on BBC news all day yesterday - interview on Today etc etc.
ROB BURLEY: Also, the DCMS Committee story is on the front page of the BBC website.
NIK MORRIS (to ROB BURLEY): Nice of you to catch up. Who forced your hand?

Ah, but to our old friend Scott's point that Damian Collins was on Broadcasting House slamming Arron Banks and Dominic Cummings (and thus debunking Peter Jukes's complaint), there's always something else for the #FBPE crowd to come back with and defeat Scott with. Here's one of their other leading Twitter voices, Tim Walker, reacting to that very same interview: 

Absurd larky isn’t-this-all-a-laugh tone to the Broadcasting House report on @BBCRadio4 on the fraudulent win of Leave in the EU Referendum.

Well, it wasn't a 'report'; it was an interview. And it was with Damian Collins, the man Carole Cadwalldr & Co. are praising today. And it was the programme's lead story. And it wasn't larky. It was just Paddy O'Connell doing what he always does in his usual manner.

So, yes, even when - as on Newsnight or Broadcasting House - such people are seeing their favourite stories get prominent and extensive BBC treatment - and, in BH's case, just seeing someone from their side of the argument being interviewed, it still isn't enough. The tone has be how they'd like it too. Paddy has to stop being Paddy just for them.

And there's more - again from this morning:

HELEN TROY: BBC News gives more prominence to possible cheating in Football World Cup award to Qatar than Leave fraud and cheating in 2016 referendum.
TIM WALKER: Every day now, the BBC allows Rupert Murdoch’s Brextremist newspapers - and the Daily Mail - to decide what is news

Of course they are, Tim, of course they are! (Nurse, nurse!)

And it goes on. The World This Weekend this weekend has been under sustained rocket attack from the same social media crowd for not going with the Arron Banks/Dominic Cummings Leave fraud story and, worse, for going instead with the possible suspension of Ian Austin from the Labour Party and making antisemitism in the Labour Party the programme's main focus.

Please gird up your loins in advance because here's a flavour of those complaints (without corrections to spelling or grammar!):

• Utterly appaling extended hatchet job on Corbyn and abour by the BBC on #wato starring critics of Corbyn including Ian Austin.
• #wato had nothing on Banks, Leave campaign after Joe Cox's murder and nothin on the threats to our democracy today. Again. Come on @BBC stop failing Britain.
• #wato talking to a Jewish Family this is sounding very rehearse and very political this isn’t a Vox Pop, But an Attack On Lab allows no new nuance allowed on #wato 25 Mins in examples of AS thin on the ground BBC Making a Martyr Of Ian Austin #really
• Serious concern re fake news, Facebook and Fascist Banks and the threat to democracy, major discussion on BBC Radio 4 lunchtime news, er no. Programme devoted to @jeremycorbyn anti-antisemitism smear campaign.
• This is only an 'ongoing controversy' because #wato and #bbcnews keep up their trolling and abuse of Jeremy Corbyn.
• 25minutes of anti Corbyn and AS... seriously our country is not being governed, we’re being warned of food shortages and this is what the bbc chooses to lead with......
• What other program would give one hand picked Jewish family from North London the right to "speak for all Jews"? #wato also Diamond just this minute substituted Ms Schindler's word "discrimination" for "persecution". This is propaganda.
• #WATO 30 mins of prime @BBCNews spent on anti semitism in Labour. Is this a legitimate way to spend licence payers money?
• Why didn't Johnny Diamond interview Michael Rosen and his family? Why is he so keen to misrepresent what Jews believe? This looks like an attempt to corrupt democracy.
• It would appear that @BBCRadio4 has decreed that the whole of #wato will be nothing but #torypropaganda on AS and Corbyn. Utterly incredible.
•  Ian Austin is charged with being abusive. Why does @bbcnews grant several minutes of prime BBC Radio 4 lunchtime news to give his side, but the other side or witnesses not heard? Balance, impartiality? 
• This is one of the worst examples of #bbcbias I have ever heard on #wato and I have heard plenty. #bbcstatepropaganda, #bbctorypropaganda

Not content with having their story of choice as the lead item on Broadcasting House such people also wanted it to be the main story on The World This Weekend.

And they must definitely don't want antisemitism in the Labour Party to be made a made topic of conversation on the BBC, even on the day when Ian Austin MP followed Margaret Hodge MP down the disciplinary route.

Yes, they want it all their own way. 

The extended feature itself was scrupulously 'balanced'. First came Ian Austin MP and then the Schindler family. They were in the anti-Corbyn camp. Then came Professor Geoffrey Bindman QC and Richard Burgon MP to represent the pro-Corbyn camp. 

However, after all of this onslaught of foolishness from 'the other side', what do you make of this framing narrative from Jonny Dymond (aka Johnny Diamond) prior to his interview with Mr Corbyn-friendly Sir Geoffrey Bindman? (The emphases underlined here are Jonny's, though the bold emphases are mine):

Cathy Schindler there referred to the ongoing controversy over Labour's adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition of anti-Semitism. The refusal to adopt the definition and working examples in full has caused some to doubt the party's commitment to the battle against anti-Semitism. That refusal was in part of the reason why, this week, three Jewish newspapers put on their front pages a statement of their deep concern about Labour's position on anti-Semitism. Why? They said that Jews faced an existential threat if Labour came to power. But the party has adopted the code in full and, in effect, all but one half of the examples that were issued alongside the code. The single sentence that it has not adopted from the one working example has been admitted, it says, so as to allow for legitimate criticisms of Israel. The adoption of the code has yet to be voted on and is still up for consultation.

What do the Twitter crowd (who seems to have missed) make of that?

There's the BBC's Jonny telling The World this Weekend listeners that Labour has basically adopted the IHRA in full, except for "all but" half the added examples and a "single sentence" that sounds entirely reasonable. And it's all up for discussion.

So what's the problem, eh?

And that statement was immediately followed by Jonny introduced Sir Geoffrey, who reinforced this message about the good will and good wording of the Labour re-working of the IHRA definition of antisemitism.

And how did Jonny introduce the controversial QC?

Sir Geoffrey Bindman is a senior barrister, human rights lawyer and visiting Professor of Law at University College London.

Aha, an expert (of a certain kind)!

Is this a case of me being as silly and partisan as the Corbynista/Cadwalldrista crowd? Or am I being reasonable in my criticism of the BBC while the others are being unreasonable?

You decide!

Meanwhile, I'm going back to my early teens and a favourite pop song of mine at the time. (Will it finally overpower the overpowering voice of Comrade McDonnell on this blog?...Update: Aargh, no. It looks as if we're cursed with Old McDonnnell for a view days more yet!

Radical chic at the BBC

Rod Liddle is on fine form in The Sunday Times this morning, accusing the BBC of "radical chic attitudinising" for broadcasting Raja Shehadeh's Where the Line is Drawn as Radio 4's Book of the Week this past week.

Sue described the same Book of the Week earlier this week as "unadulterated pro-Palestinian propaganda in the form of the creepiest passive-aggressive grievance-mongering" and having heard it myself now I know she's got it spot-on.  

Responding to the chap at the BBC Press Office who sends out a weekly bulletin about what the BBC's up to, Rod replied:

The BBC responded with "a two-line reply" stating that its coverage is "impartial". (What a surprise!)

Rod's point isn't that Raja's "lamentations" shouldn't have been broadcast, it's that "the other side will simply not be put". This one-sided Book of the Week will never be balanced by an opposite point of view. There will never be a  pro-Israel Book of the Week giving the Israeli side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The 'radical chic' BBC are, Rod says: 

...naive middle-class liberals who believe the Palestinian cause is unequivocally just and there is no real argument about that. Which is why, when Hamas rains 200 rockets and mortars down upon Israel, you hear nothing on the BBC. You hear about it only when Israel responds. 

Rod's piece ends with a powerful question and a powerful answer:

It's well worth reading in full (if you can, as there's a paywall). 

Blow me down (updated)

Remember I told you I haven’t been watching much TV lately? Well, blow me down, no sooner had I (recklessly) switched on the BBC news channel this afternoon than I was confronted with an appalling report fronted by Paul Adams. 

Even Happy Goldfish flagged it up, which is unusual.  Usually, H.G’s posts are merely ‘alerts’ to programmes with any Jewish or Israeli content.

I must admit I missed the Today Programme this morning, and as the website no longer publishes the Running Order I haven’t time to fish it out amongst all the other silly-season dross. In any case, I don’t know if I could stomach it. Even for you, dear reader. (But you could  follow the link) 

It seems that this bizarre topic (Why?) is being presented to us at this particular time for no particular reason. A slow day at Broadcasting house? I think not. There’s tons of real news. 

Yes, there probably is mental illness in Gaza. So there undoubtedly is in Pakistan, where they blow each other up a great deal; and I’d wager most Islamic hell-holes have more than their fair share of mental disorders, psychosis, paranoia, suicidal and homicidal mania due to the oppressive nature of their unnatural religion and the ever-present threat of violence and murder.

Of course, if the BBC were suddenly to become honest, or impartial, or competent, or observant, or unbiased it would report, in full, exactly what has brought about this sorry state.

( ok, it’s sorry, but it's not a state.)

the Palestinian Authority and its leaders are opposed to any humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip because they fear that this would embolden Hamas by encouraging it to maintain its tight grip on the Gaza Strip and absolving it of its responsibilities towards the residents living there. Once others start providing the residents of the Gaza Strip with aid, Hamas would be able to continue investing millions of dollars in building tunnels to attack Israel and smuggling more weapons into the Gaza Strip. Hamas would no longer have to worry about paying salaries to Palestinians or purchasing medicine and food. 

The Palestinian Authority is hoping that conditions in the Gaza Strip will get so bad that the Palestinians there will rise up against Hamas. It is worth noting that the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah itself has imposed severe sanctions on the Gaza Strip in the past year. 

These punitive measures include halting payments to thousands of civil servants and suspending social welfare assistance to hundreds of families. The sanctions have triggered a wave of protests throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip in recent weeks, prompting Abbas's security forces to use force to disperse the protesters.

But it’s worse than that. Why the sudden interest in this subject from the BBC? At a time when the Labour Party’s credibility is crumbling, has the BBC, literally, joined forces with Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell? Or has it joined the foreign office and become full-frontal Arabist? They can’t report Syria properly and they can’t get their heads round the reality of the situation in the Golan. 

All they can do is emote about self-inflicted immiseration (Great word, meaning economic impoverishment - thanks Douglas) in Gaza, and, through not telling the truth, i.e., through actually withholding the truth, blame Israel by inference. And get away with it.

It’s so blatant, so biased, so gratuitous, so untimely and completely indefensible.

Update:
After I posted the above, I saw this piece by Sean Durns which further advances the point I’m making. It sets out some pertinent facts about the nature and origins of the distress suffered by the inhabitants of Gaza, which, if he’s anything at all of a reporter, Paul Adams must know. Mustn’t he?

“In fact, many in the media—and the policymakers and pundits that they influence—tend to ignore internal Palestinian issues when Israel can’t be blamed. And recent events prove it.”

Having read Matti Friedman’s (essential reading) lament about his battles with Associated Press, detailing the deliberate suppression of stories that didn’t suit their preconceived Israel-bashing agenda, perhaps it’s not Adams, but someone higher up the chain that deliberately ignores awkward facts.
It has to be one or the other.

This particular report by Paul Adams (aired across the BBC) is just one example of the BBC’s crusade-like mission to acclimatise us to some kind of New Order. Delegitimise one group, appease another - ‘for social cohesion’ I think is how they see it. We are all Hezbollah now, don’t forget.

Anyway, it seems deliberately designed to inflame the existing animus towards Israel. As Billy Bragg might put it - “pouring petrol on the fire”.

“The Palestinian Authority, dominated by the Fatah movement, rules the West Bank. Under PA President and Fatah head Mahmoud Abbas, the authority has enacted punitive measures towards Gaza in an attempt to apply pressure on Hamas, Fatah’s rival that rules the Strip. Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group with a fiercely antisemitic ideology, has controlled Gaza since besting Fatah in a short but bloody civil war in 2007.” 

Among other actions, the PA has cut salaries to its employees living in Gaza, suspended social assistance to hundreds of families residing there, forced the retirement of thousands of civil servants, and reinstated the collection of taxes from previously exempt Gazans. The PA also quit paying Israel for the electricity and fuel that it provides to the Strip—resulting in severe power shortages for Gazans. 

For its part, the misery endured by the average Gazan—misery that is not shared by their leaders, many of who live in luxury in Qatar —is a frequent media topic. Many journalists, however, blame Israel’s security blockade for Gaza’s troubles, often failing to note that it exists only because Hamas expends international aid and resources on rockets and terror tunnels to attack the Jewish state.  [...]

When Walid Al-Duheini of Rafah dared post on Facebook that Hamas was both stealing from and using the Palestinian people, operatives of the terror group murdered him. On June 22, 2018, the Israeli Prime Minister’s spokesperson, Ofir Gendelman, posted pictures of Al-Duheini, saying that ‘There must be international outcry over this.’ Yet, the media couldn’t spare a word. 

Poetic justice

When stuff comes back to bite you on t’bum

Sarah Champion c. 2014.

Terror police boost security for MP Sarah Champion over criticism of Asian sex gangs (£)

Everyone’s entitled to change their mind, but really, I had to smile at this prescient comment on HP: “Karma’s a bitch.”

This may only be tangentially related to the BBC, (until one remembers the way it “champions” all things Muslim) but the BBC hasn’t so far mentioned the fact that ‘terror police” have boosted security for Rotherham MP Champion, which one might consider newsworthy. The Times seemed to think it was.  

This next bit is laugh-out-loud bonkers. (You don’t think it’s anything to do with Sacha Baron Cohen, do you?)

“The strongest public attacks on Ms Champion, who campaigns for the victims of child sexual exploitation, have been made by a Rotherham-based racial justice charity, Just Yorkshire. 

The charity’s leader has accused the MP of “industrial-scale racism” and “inciting and inviting hatred against minorities”. One of its leading figures is a radical academic, Waqas Tufail, whose research speciality is Islamophobia and the “racialisation of crime”.

Compare and contrast

An interesting difference of priorities at the moment...

First, Sky News:

Then BBC News:

And an interesting contrast in terms of headlines:

First Sky News:

Then BBC News:

Oh Jeremy Corbyn

Being a bit of an Islamophobe I used to regard Maajid Nawaz with a cautious amount of suspicion. Or a suspicious amount of caution - as you would, considering his history.

All those naive Glastonbury-goers who sang for this man. He’s nothing but a Brexiteer fronting an anti-Semitic populist hard-left party, with utter creeps like ex-Guardian USSR-apologist Seamus Milne lurking behind him in the shadows https://t.co/NfRw0xs2ZB

— Maajid - (Mājid) [maːʤɪd] ماجد (@MaajidNawaz) July 24, 2018

 Yes, I know, I know. But with one outstanding tweet, he’s brought me round. Hats off to you sir.

It seems that while his underlings were wrestling with the semantics of bespoke definitions of antisemitism that allow antisemites to be antisemitic without being racist, Dear Leader was elsewhere. Unless Guido was having a laugh with one of those Alison Jackson parody photos, Corbers and a companion were spotted carrying a pallet, the sort of thing one does when preparing for a house move.  Watch out, Theresa and hubby. (I’ve temporarily forgotten his name. It’s not Brian, is it?) 

I was thinking, long and hard (in the manner of a deeply introspective intellectual like James O’Brien) about self-inflicted wounds, some real, some not so much. 

In my (pretty little) head I was playing with the idea that the Labour Party’s shilly-shallying over these four examples of antisemitism that they find so troublesome, has become a self-inflicted wound, which appears as unnecessary and self-destructive as Israel’s recent Nation-State bill; the law that has caused so much consternation.

Labour says the NEC’s position is that it wants to strengthen the party’s ability to eradicate antisemitism in their ranks, rather than weaken it. They say the IHRA definition is all well and good, but it’s flabby, open to interpretation and unenforceable.

They claim that their ‘improved’ version tightens everything up and sets out what is and what isn’t acceptable. Clarifying their red lines, if you like, and creating a more enforceable mechanism for rooting out antisemitism in the party.   If that were the honest, sincere and genuine aim for rejecting the IHRA definition as it exists, it would be worth giving this argument the time of day, or even the benefit of the doubt. 

That excuse is weakened by the slightly contradictory claim that adopting the full IHRA definition of antisemitism would stifle legitimate criticism of Israel’s policies, which is such demonstrable clap-trap that I hardly need link to demonstrations by Israelis themselves against the Nation-State bill.

The Labour Party has yet to prove, or indeed show, that the intent behind this fiasco isn't just what I said before. Creating a bespoke version of the definition of antisemitism tailor-made to allow antisemites to be antisemitic without being thought racist. 

As Kier Starmer said the other day, why not just accept the one-size-fits-all definition and move on? If one agrees with that, this whole business is an unnecessary and self-inflicted wound and quite pointless. And obviously dumb enough to hand a propaganda victory to the other side.

There are two things that need pointing out here. Number one. The BBC has used unnecessarily inflammatory language when reporting the Israeli bill. Deliberately? Who knows.

They initially reported that the bill characterises Israel as an exclusively Jewish state, rather than a principally Jewish state, (which they duly amended on their website following a complaint.) The way the bill is being reported by the BBC clearly herds the viewer firmly towards one conclusion; that it’s an apartheid law - an apartheid law for an apartheid state.

I concede that we haven’t heard a great deal from Labour’s NEC in the form of justification for their apparently self-destructive stance, but we do at least know that they have some sort of defence, albeit one that lacks credibility.

I have yet to see much (anything at all) in the way of justification for Israel's Nation-State bill in the mainstream media.

Apart from on blogs. Don’t forget, Israel cannot afford to be as complacent about its national character as Britain appears to be (more fool Britain.) Britain assumes its ‘values’ are a given; now and forever. It’s not surrounded by openly hostile adversaries (arguably) and doesn’t feel threatened. At least it’s not being bombarded by hundreds of projectiles or hearing calls to wipe it off the map. It hasn’t got hundreds and thousands of Hezbollah rockets pointed at it, poised, ready to go, at the whim of the Ayatollahs. So far Britain hasn't got quite so many potentially hostile inhabitants who just might, one day, overturn its precious values.

However; much as we might understand the rationale behind such a bill, it is a slap in the face for diaspora Jews, and people like me who support Israel and have to defend it with the odds heavily stacked against us and exacerbated by inflammatory language and one-sided reporting from the BBC.

It’s interesting to see that, to date, the comments under each article are a mixed bag. The thing that the BBC never dares to mention (file it under ‘unmentionable’) epitomises double-standards and comes in the form of whataboutery. One example below:

Egypt, which defines itself in its constitution as an "Arab Republic" and an "Arab nation", with Islam as the state religion and Arabic as the only official language, criticises Israel's Jewish nation state law. #think https://t.co/2wKpivtQ0X pic.twitter.com/VGHyQ7Ov6Z

— Eylon A. Levy (@EylonALevy) July 22, 2018

Nothin like a dame

Is the BBC’s bias against Israel a niche subject? I only ask because I do worry that I’m getting boring. Harping on about it morning noon and night; I even bore myself.

It’s only when someone like Margaret Hodge who happens to be a dame (there is nothin’ like a dame) gets up and utters a naughty word that everyone sits up and goes “eh, what?”

What if I self-identify as a dame? I might try that later.

Anyhow, it seems that a combination of Labour’s machinations over creating a bespoke definition of antisemitism, and the incongruity of that effing word from the mouth of an effing dame has caused enough of a stir to startle even the BBC. 

Had Dame Margaret not sworn at the dear leader, this might not have attracted very much media interest because this antisemitism malarkey is becoming boring; everyone’s heard it all before and what about the poor Palestinians.

Following a link from a commenter on Harry’s Place, (yes, that’s niche. For niche people) I listened to an LBC phone-in programme, hosted by James O’Brien.  I’m not very familiar with LBC but I have heard the odd snippet from Iain Dale or Nick Ferrari’s programmes, and of course, we all know James O’Brien from his abbreviated stint on Newsnight.  

I have to ask any James O’Brien aficionados out there, do these broadcasts always start off with a protracted rant? Or was this one extra lengthy and extra ranty because the public couldn’t be arsed to phone in? 

Anyway, our host spent what seemed like eternity expounding on a revolutionary theory he’s thought long and hard about, concerning the antisemitism within the hard left; the Corbyn faction.

I’ll summarise:  these people have fought against racism all their lives and sincerely believe they can’t be antisemitic. Their (antisemitic) remarks (about Jews and Israel) are merely The Truth and Anything Different is Fake News.)

James O’Brien obviously thought this theory was very controversial, and he preempted the anticipated Twitter-storm by reminding us that he was by no means a fan of Israel, despite the outrageous fact that he has been accused (by Corbynista types) of being a Zionist shill.

A caller was chastised for alluding to “things we’re not allowed to say” and another, who momentarily referred to media bias was severely reprimanded for straying from the core topic (James O’Brien). Throughout, the Thing we’re Not Allowed to mention was not mentioned.

I have to say that this problem might never have grown so huge, nor become so entrenched, had the media not spent the last fifty years regurgitating Palestinian propaganda. 

Anyway, I’ve seen Luciana Berger and Dame Margaret Hodge on the BBC and Sky, so it seems the F-word is still effective, provided it’s uttered by someone other than Frankie Boyle and the like.

But...

Martine Croxall giving the trumbs down to Brexit?

And now, before I go and lie down, here's a link to last night's paper review on the BBC News Channel which will bring us back to the reality of BBC bias:

The Papers, BBC News Channel

Please watch BBC presenter Martine Croxall and pro-EU former Lib Dem spokeswoman Jo Phillips gang up on the pro-Brexit-sounding chap from the Evening Standard, and just savour the moment when Martine seems to realise that she'd gone too far in defence of the EU and makes an 'off course that's not my opinion' comment to camera before then, very soon after, returning to the fray with Jo and defending the EU against the chap from the Evening Standard who spent most of the episode saying he didn't agree with that. 

In less than 15 minutes this programme provided a classic demonstration of BBC bias in action. Listen to it while you can. Maybe complain to the BBC while you can. (Not that it will do you any good). 

Interesting times

Fascinating

This wouldn't be a credible blog about BBC bias if we didn't note that the BBC has been under relentless fire this past week or so for that very thing: bias. 

Sir Cliff's victory over the Beeb may have grabbed the headlines, but the BBC's senior reporters and editors (including News Editor James Stephenson and Editor of BBC Live Political Programmes Rob Burley) have also been fending off attacks from the pro-EU Left. 

BBC press releases have gone out, put lots of Twitter rebuttals and Feedback appearances, and it's felt almost like a fight to the death.

I'd been brooding for days on on a far-too-long, ultra-detailed piece about it but simply don't feel up to writing it at the moment, so all I'll say is that the BBC is now under concerted attack from three specific groups: (1) pro-EU fanatics, (2) Carole Cadwalladr groupies and (3) Corbynista goons. 

(Like the BBC and its use of words like 'hardline', I may not have been entirely neutral in my descriptive language there!)

Their charges are utter nonsense (and I'd happily spend hours debunking them, had I enough hours and if enough people wanted me to) but they are absolutely hammering the BBC with complaint after complaint after complaint after complaint. And the BBC is listening.

It's wearying to deal with their nonsense as a blogger. And why should I? 'Our side' has been diligently publishing heavily detailed evidence for well over a decade showing, among other things, hugely overwhelming BBC 'pro-EU membership' bias and has received nothing but brush-offs and snide dismissals and little attention...

...but now, within the last year or so, former staunch defenders of the BBC like Nick Cohen and Andrew Adonis have turned anti-Brexit crusaders and taken to Beeb-bashing with a vengeance and, with nothing more than wild assertions and dubious anecdotes, succeeded in sending the BBC into a tailspin, with rebuttal after rebuttal pouring out of the BBC in response to their (to my eyes) groundless criticisms. 

And it's obviously wearing the BBC out too. Even Rob Burley - the BBC's most indefatigable batsman - seems to be drowning in a sea of lunacy.

The loons are winning on Twitter (if, perhaps, nowhere else) by dint of exhausting everybody else with their fiery tomfoolery.

The Andrew Marr Show this morning saw Andrew putting questions that reflected the concerns of the Cadwalladristas, and it sounded (to me) as if Andrew Marr and Co. were going out of their way to prove to such people that they were doing 'the right thing', but (checking Twitter) it still wasn't enough. 

I used to think such things were helpful to the BBC in advancing their silly 'complaints from both sides' defence but I really don't think the BBC is enjoying it at all.

Like robotic entities in Star Trek, they just can't compute it and are starting to blow up. 

If they blow up fully, the BBC will fall even more into the hands of the pro-EU fanatics, Carole Cadwalladr groupies and Corbynista goons. 

We live in interesting times.

Falling fog

This week's The World This Weekend focused on the issue of a second EU referendum. It looked at it through the lens of Labour Party divisions. 

Cue complaints from Corbynistas and Cadwalldristas:

• The World This Weekend featuring bumper poll lead for Labour as Tories crash and burn? Course not - bashing them over their Brexit policy (if you cover Labour it must be negative - that’s the BBC way)!
• Again the twisting the truth from The World This Weekend that "many Labour supporters voted leave". Maybe technically true "many" did, though TWO THIRDS voted remain! 
• The World This Weekend has just had vox pop about  Peoples Vote with NO MENTION of Vote Leave’s criminality.  So that’s all right then, eh, BBC Radio4?
• "We dredged the crowd for vox-pops and these are the ones we selected to use".
• The World This Weekend Labour MPs Chris Leslie (Remain) and Graham Stringer (Leave) being interviewed! Both united in their hatred of Corbyn - the BBC call that balance?
• The World This Weekend devoting so much to Labour. Maybe someone should tell them Tories called Brexit, it is their mess, don't try to make it Labour's. Jonny Dymond follows all the other BBC mob. It is the Tories' problem. Geddit Jonny?
• With govt in collapse & catastrophic No Deal #Brexit in prospect, The World This Weekend chooses to dig around for Labour divisions. Neither Leslie nor Stringer is representative of opinion in the party. They're intent on undermining the leadership when our goal is a Labour govt.

And cue other complaints, more attuned perhaps to 'our way of thinking':

• The World This Weekend. During EU ref BBC used our licence money to give more time & weight to remain & project fear, now BBC in full force to push for a second referendum. How many times Polly Toynbee & co remoaners & word 2nd referendum were repeated on BBC platforms in the past 72 hours? 
• Why doesn’t presenter of The World This Weekend challenge  Chris Leslie MP's false use of the word “ideological” to describe Graham Stringer MP  stand to, constitutionally correct, insist on implementing the decision of the people which cannot be overruled by parliament?
• The World This Weekend. BBC  proceeding w Matthew Parris' plan outlined in the Speccy to start flying a kite for a "2nd Referendum" - but FAIR PLAY TO JOHNNY DIAMOND, he interviewed the brilliant Labour For Leave MP, Graham Stringer . . .
• Graham Stringer MP bloody brilliantly on Brexit in a deeply biased anti Brexit The World This Weekend now- a lone voice and he is holding out.

Classic 'complaints from both sides', eh? 

I was thinking of posting something complaining that the BBC was pushing a second referendum myself here but after reading the above started doubting myself: Am I as bad as everyone else?

Well, if anyone's interested, I've got a cunning plan and I almost half-believe it too. I'm going to reconcile the Corbynistas and the Brexiteers, though sadly I'll be disappointing the pro-EU Cadwalldristas in the process:

Yes, the BBC was pushing for a second referendum here and it was going after Labour divisions in order to pressure Corbyn & Co. into supporting one too. 

Or maybe it wasn't, and was simply reporting the news and chose to focus on the second referendum question because it's been widely discussed by parliamentarians this week, and chose to focus on Labour this time because the programme has already done so much about Tory divisions over Brexit in recent weeks (as it has), and chose Graham Stringer and Chris Leslie not because they both hate Jeremy but because they represent the opposite polls of opinion about Brexit within Labour.

I'm sorely tempted to add 'Whatever!'.

I've got a temperature, my head is whirling like one of Recep Tayyip's dervishes and my brain cells are functioning on low battery. What do you make of this, O clear-headed, non-dancing ITBB reader?

Some sort of agenda

Don’t you just hate hearing people saying would when they “really meant” wouldn’t.
Ditto, people saying anti-Semitist when they “really meant” anti-anti-semitist  (or something). 

That’s pretty silly stuff, with a distinctly humorous tinge. Far less amusing is the BBC‘s crass insensitivity (!) in choosing to broadcast unadulterated pro-Palestinian propaganda in the form of the creepiest passive-aggressive grievance-mongering from: 

Raja Shehadeh, the award winning Palestinian writer, lawyer, and founder of the human rights organisation, Al Haq recollects a humiliating experience on his way home to Ramallah. Read by Peter Polycarpou.

What timing. Why, anyone would think whoever commissioned this virtually unlistenable drivel for this week's  Book of the Week (BBC Radio 4) had some sort of agenda.

********

The only reason I subscribe to the Times these days is that I can see the comments below articles such as  Daniel Finkelstein’s. (£)

Jeremy Corbyn is blind to the racism in his party. Here’s a taster:

Complacently, I had always assumed that what happened to my parents couldn’t happen to me or my children. There were too many liberal, progressive people who wouldn’t allow it. I no longer believe this with the same confidence. (I found it really painful to write those words. I deleted the last sentence twice, but I left it in because, sadly, it’s true.)
It’s less the antisemitism itself that has induced this fear. It is the denial of it. The reaction I expect on the left to the rise of antisemitism — concern, determination to combat it, sympathy — is not the one I’ve encountered, at least not from supporters of the leadership. Instead there is aggression, anger at the accusation, suggestions that the Jews and zionists are plotting against Jeremy Corbyn.

Even though a few notable Jewish figures have started expressing similar concerns to the ones outlined above, their ambivalence vis-à-vis “the case for Israel” shines through. Maybe it’s partly a fear of falling foul of ‘rule 1a’, (dual loyalty) but I think it’s much more likely that it's down to pure ignorance, or (in other words) a lifetime of being under/ill-informed by biased reporting.

Looking quickly through the comments, I spotted Ian Hislop’s name. Not that the views of smug arbiters of moral righteousness through the medium of satire particularly interest me, but Hislop leaps straight to the Nation-State law, and cites Daniel Barenboim’s dodgy Guardian op ed, to boot.

One ambivalent asaJew refers to “incessant land-grabs by Israeli settlers.”  Incessant land grabs? Now, there’s a typical example of the effect of absorbing a listening-lifetime of selective, misleading, partial and agenda-driven journalism.

Everyone's a critic!

Listeners to BBC Radio 4 this week won't have failed to hear the endless adverts for a new Friday night comedy panel show with the 'edgy' title Where’s the F in News?

I think there is a feeling in certain quarters now that women are everywhere, that we've become rather uppity, what with our demands not be groped at work and whingeing on just because there are more men called Dave in boardrooms than there are women. We're out of control. Well those people had better brace themselves for a brand new topical comedy show which is all female but - and this is the extraordinary thing - it is still going to be funny.

Well, on the last point there it's time to quote Evelyn Waugh and say "Up to a point Lord Copper". The social media reaction to it has been overwhelmingly uniform. Here's a flavour of it:

Tim Footman: I was never under the misapprehension that women aren’t funny. Until a few minutes ago.
SwaziRodgers: It was dire, wasn’t it? I’m handing back my feminism in protest.
Tim Footman: Zoe Lyons can be bloody hilarious in the right context. Here, it was tumbleweed city.
SwaziRodgers: It was so disappointing after all the hype they put behind it
ρhαετhøṉ: I got to the 13 minute mark, a full 12½ minutes after I first thought 'Delivery is awful...". The kind of voice & cadence you use to read out the nutritional information on a pack of bran flakes.

Sue: Really not sure about BBC Radio 4 new 6:30pm Friday comedy slot "Where's the 'F' in news?". What do you reckon?
Moira Walton: Synopsis : shite.
and_the_like: It's worth trying but the test of success can only be "is it funny?", and in my view it failed that test.
Graham Bolton: Still waiting for the political balance. No doubt the cast and producers were too busy blowing up baby Trump balloons. 

Bev: This is appalling. All the reasons why all female line ups do not work. There’s nothing new in this programme that isn’t on other, progs which include women panellists. Switched off. 

Mrs Trellis: I don’t know who the woman yelling about avocados is on BBC Radio 4 is right now but she needs to shut the F up. 

Andrew Booton: I've endured 9 minutes of this all-female tosh that's supposed to be comedy but even by BBC Radio 4's low and still-falling standards, it is dire. Ooh they're all so edgy and incisive and... so predictably London middle class Grauniad. Wake up Radio 4 and get a grip of this shit. I think almost everything trumps quality on the BBC now, especially on Radio4. The comedy is so edgy, they've actually taken the funny bits out to make it even more profound. Damn, I'd forgotten #c4news was on. This is even funnier than BBC Radio 4 comedies. That's not hard.

Tosh: They're making a great point about why they should not be given their own show.  

Ms Person: Getting really tired of this Radio 4 programme. Is it all going to be about Donald Trump? Is it all going to be this smug?  

Ed ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°): BBC Radio 4, can you get this anti-Trump bullshit off the radio? It isn't even at the point where its funny anymore. Give it up. It's absolute trash, not informative, not entertaining and definitely not factual. Absolute joke.

kmj: BBC Radio 4, what is this rubbish on at the moment? How about a bit of balance? The centre of your crass humour is a democratically-elected president. I’m seriously thinking about skipping my tv licence. Shite radio.

Les Busson: BBC Radio 4 'comedy' show consisting of 20 min of anti-Trump rants. Where's the effing comedy? How about impartiality rules?

Ellen Le Brun: If this is the best of all female comedy please bring back the men! Despite the mediocrity of many recent so called comedy programmes we could always rely on the BBC Radio 4 Friday 6.30 slot...Not any more!

titter an' bwisted: Where's The F In News? New 'comedy' described as: 'An energetic, intelligent female-anchored show with a female panel'. More like shouty women shouting shoutily at each other.

FLATTLINER: Checked out new BBC Radio 4 “comedy” tonight - Where’s The F In News? Didn’t even smile once. Once again, they’ve managed to sacrifice humour on the altar of political correctness. Reminds me of when The Now Show became more representative…and less funny.

Ian: I’m sorry but this is shite.
George Cook: I'm trying to enjoy it..  It's not well written. I really like Zoe Lyons tho. Lol.. I'm sure she neither knows not cares...
Ian: I really wanted this to work. The trailer was brill. By minute 3 I knew it was a sham. There’s already so much of this crap format on R4.
George Cook: I concur. Maybe it'll evolve.... I think comedy on radio has to be about quality writing. Sitting and chatting shit/trying to be clever doesn't work.. it's a TV thing.

Still at least someone (who works for the BBC) liked it:

Anita Rani: Love this new all woman panel show. 

Getting Labour to adopt the full IHRA definition of antisemitism is not the answer.

Brexit aside, I’d quite like to see a job-swap between Theresa May and one of the three main Leave Guys whose appeal lies mainly in the plain their verbal agility. Boris, the Gover and J R-M.

Come on. Think about all the fun and jokes at PMQs. Corbers would be demolished. With luck and a following wind, he might shrivel up and atomise into very fine particles or droplets. Jus’ like that.

On a closely related theme - verbal agility, f**king antisemitism, the prospect of Corbyn as your PM  Melanie Phillips has written a penetrating piece about Corbyn’s Labour junta. "Institutionalising Antisemitism in the British Labour Party"

Melanie’s verbal agility is so hypnotic that one often finds oneself agreeing with everything she writes. But I have one quibble with supporters of Dame Margaret Hodge “whose relatives were murdered in the Holocaust”.  It’s that label. It’s always, always present in the preamble and I find it gratuitous. Labels are often used to delegitimise the subject. This time it’s there for the opposite reason; to give her accusation legitimacy.

The horrific fate of Dame Margaret’s relatives is not a necessary factor in this context.  Or shouldn’t be. It looks as though one needs an extra justification to make accusations of antisemitism. It’s another version of AsaJew. 

I have no record of murdered relatives. In fact, there are no available records at all, probably because they perspicaciously fled from Eastern Europe in the 1800s. Hence me.  My ‘who do you think you are’  would end abruptly two generations back.

But whether or not any of one’s ancestors were unfortunate enough to have been caught up in Hitler’s industrialised genocide, it doesn’t give me, you or the lamppost more ability to recognise an antisemite when we see one.

Apart from that, I wholeheartedly commend Melanie Phillips’s words to this house.

Getting Labour to adopt the full IHRA definition of antisemitism is not the answer.

“It has not prevented the media failing to report the hundreds of rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and weeks of incendiary airborne devices setting fire to acres of Israeli farmland, while misrepresenting Israeli air strikes in response as aggression. It did not prevent an interviewer on BBC Radio’s Today program the other day berating an Israeli spokesman for killing children in Gaza. 

The key point is the refusal to acknowledge that the campaign of irrational, mendacious and obsessive incitement against Israel is the new form of antisemitism. 

Yet although Israel has been attacked in this way for years, virtually no one has called this out. The Anglo-Jewish community leadership ran a mile from it. […] 

“The real agony for them is that the climate in Britain has deteriorated to such a point that Labour feels licensed to treat British Jews – as Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis has said – with unprecedented contempt. 

They plan a continuing campaign to get Labour to adopt the full IHRA definition. But that is to continue to avoid confronting the elephant in the room. 

This is the fact that so many on the progressive side of politics have swallowed the Big Lies about Israel. […] 

“ The real task, therefore, is not to adopt the IHRA wording. It is to start telling the British public that virtually everything they hear about Israel from the media and intelligentsia is a lie; that anyone who supports Palestinianism is endorsing the most profound and demonic kind of antisemitism;”

Unhealthy diet

BBC Watch has published a detailed two-part examination of the connected items on the Today Programme broadcast 16th July 2018. Here and here This was also the subject of our earlier post “imagine”.

Hadar Sela offers a fact-packed synopsis of Chris Gunness’s lies and omissions, so I thought it was worth revisiting the topic in the cold light of three days’ hindsight. (Three days ago is the past, in terms of news broadcasting and the past is another country.)

Heavily biased broadcasting by the BBC (and media outlets of the same mindset) has produced the entrenched anti-Israel feeling that’s everywhere nowadays. Biased broadcasting has had such a pernicious influence that hating Israel is the default position in Corbyn’s Labour Party. This resonates with the current fiasco, with the NEC quibbling over the definition of antisemitism. Rather than accepting the internationally recognised definition, the NEC wants to exclude segments they believe would preclude or limit ‘legitimate’ criticism of Israel. They want to be free to criticise Israel, no holds barred, from its right to protect itself to its right to exist, while reserving the right to boast that they haven’t a racist bone in their body. For some reason, they don’t want to be seen as antisemitic and they don’t want to think of themselves as antisemites.

No wonder so many of them respond to what they’ve absorbed from the ‘news’ this way, with loathing, indignation, and ire. They think railing against Israel is synonymous with virtue and humanity. Being fed on a diet of lies and half-truths gives you acute outrage. The pro-Palestinian pandemic has spread to the anti-Trump protests. Wrong-headed social justice warriors get big thrills from the illusory satisfaction of self-righteousness. 

Considerable damage is done through interviews with the likes of fanatical Israel-hater Gunness when venomous fantasies remain unchallenged. Gunness knows he can get away with it because ‘man-of-all-trade’ anchors such as John Humphrys and Justin Webb are inadequately briefed and couldn’t provide factual rebuttals - had they the appetite to do so.

The BBC evidently considered the item newsworthy because two Palestinians were killed in the incident, and they were children. Teenagers.

 “As was the case in BBC World Service news bulletins, while listeners had heard plenty about two teenagers – or “children” – killed in Gaza, they were not told that the wounded in Sderot also included people in that age group.”

Gunness got away with describing the location of the incident as “a popular gathering place in Gaza City, a park where many families go” when in fact the location was an “urban warfare training facility that includes access to Hamas’ tunnel network”.

Humphrys let Gunness waste our time with his histrionic invitation to British listeners to ‘imagine’ themselves in a string of invented, dishonest and irrelevant scenarios, which were clearly dreamt up to elicit empathy for the helpless and innocent Palestinians.

But facts and statistics are available,

“in April, May and June Palestinians engaged in Hamas facilitated violence at that border carried out, inter alia, 294 attacks with petrol bombs, 20 shooting attacks, 35 IED attacks and 5 grenade attacks.” 

should a BBC researcher supply them. But they don’t, and multiple misrepresentations and factually inaccurate allegations pass by, uncontested. I’m sure even John Humphrys knows that Gaza isn’t occupied, but he let it go when Gunness said it because he very likely feels that ‘everyone knows’ it ‘kind of’ is. 

I’d go further. I think Humphrys is in awe of Gunness. Perhaps he’s wary of triggering an emotional meltdown to the embarrassment of us all.

Just as the Labour Party bows to their supporters in the Muslim community, the media kowtows to the anti-racists who require smelling salts at the merest whiff of Islamophobia. They don’t admit that the Islam-friendly anti-racists who condemn Israel so vehemently are actually racists. Perhaps it was on their behalf that Justin Webb gave the Israeli spokesman Lt-Col Peter Lerner a hammering during his attempts to make a very reasonable rebuttal.  You can almost picture Webb looking around for approval after each ham-fisted interruption.

When Tom Bateman was asked to give an account of what the Israelis were saying -  the word on the street, so to speak - he chose to give the Israeli perspective through the prism of BBC groupthink, and the ‘Israel says’ qualifier was uttered with a discernible air of cynicism.

What made me almost lol was hearing Jeremy Corbyn accuse Theresa May’s government of being ‘divided’.
Heal thyself! was the tacit chorus from the watching nation. The Hodge affair has brought a few of the formerly silent Labour MPs out of the woodwork. I heard Kier Starmer tentatively venture the proposal that the Labour Party could staunch the wound by adopting the full-frontal internationally recognised definition of antisemitism and pretend they meant that all along. Where were all these people when Shami first came up with her whitewash? 

And now…heeerrre’s Seamus:

I hadn’t seen this. It’s frightening. x pic.twitter.com/YN9JJ76UUs

— Basil Bruschetta (@SirBasilBrush) July 18, 2018

Knock knock

I might as well go proper far-right and link to this comment by ‘namenotnumber’ on the Biased-BBC blog. It’s a list of tweets by Ezra Levant which highlight some of the hypocrisy surrounding the Tommy Robinson fiasco.

The reason I’m doing so is that although there are undoubtedly legitimate technical reasons for the current Tommy Robinson situation, (his imprisonment and so on, which certain admirable people have defended and taken pains to justify) the individual who blogs as “The Secret Barrister” has let himself/herself/xeself down by using some emotive, nay, pejorative language when recounting the background to the affair. 

I can even detect a whiff of  disdain in the first sentence: 

Today the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) heard the appeal of Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (AKA Tommy Robinson).

The fact that TR uses a pseudonym (and we all know what his real name is) dwelling on it in that particular way seems gratuitous and a little bit rich coming from The Secret Barrister who wishes to remain pseudonymous.

Call me an ignorant fool who's indulging in a bit of whataboutery, but although I see (and sympathise with) Melanie's point, I have to say that if Tommy Robinson jeopardised the trial of the “men” accused of grooming and raping young girls by using pejorative language while live-blogging in the vicinity of the court, what does that say about the TSB and the reporter from the Independent he/she/xe praises :

“The excellent Lizzie Dearden of the Independent who provided a comprehensive live-blog of the hearing from the Royal Courts of Justice,”

...who seems to be doing something very similar (and, arguably, influencing TR's trial.)

Now that the police have been instructed to concentrate on hate-crimes far-right extremists like myself are apprehensively listening for the knock on the door. What hate-crime have I committed? I think being far-right is one.

Didn't Gabriel Gatehouse let his agenda hang out on Newsnight last night? If that’s impartiality, I’m a Dutchman.

The BBC in the witness box - a judge rules

It's not been a good day at the office for the BBC today after a High Court judge ruled that the BBC's coverage of the arrest of Sir Cliff Richard was an invasion of his privacy. Sir Cliff has been awarded £210,000 in damages. 

The BBC's response to the judgment has been widely characterised as "sorry, not sorry". They are even thinking of appealing. (At what cost to the licence fee payer?)

Here are BBC Director of News Fran Unsworth two major statements today. The first was sent to the world:

The second was sent to BBC staff:

Reading that and then reading the judge's opinion on his BBC witnesses, as laid out here, it seems to me that Ms. Unsworth's comments are rather tinged with wishful thinking - especially as far as the BBC journalist accuracy and honesty goes. (I've highlighted the most damning passages):  

That...

...and particularly the comments about BBC reporter Dan Johnson "twist(ing) matters in a way that could be described as dishonest" and about him "letting his enthusiasm...get the better of his complete regard for the truth on occasions"...

...pulls the rug from under Fran Unsworth's claim that "the judge...was clear that what we broadcast was accurate". 

The judge, in fact, appears to have been "clear" that what the BBC broadcast was far from being wholly accurate.

As for the senior BBC editors involved, Fran Unsworth herself came out best. The judge evidently liked her and found her to be honest, thoughtful and conscientious. But his comments that, during the trial, she'd engaged in "wishful thinking" and "ex post facto convenient rationalisation" still sounds pretty damning. 

Gary Smith - now BBC Scotland's Head of News and Current Affairs - comes off worst. The judge found him to be an unreliable witness at times. 

And Jonathan Munro, the BBC's Head of Newsgathering - a familiar 'we got it about right' BBC defender on the likes of Newswatch and Feedback -  appears to have found that his 'we got it about right' spiel fails to wash with High Court judges. Though Mr Justice Mann liked his thoughtful manner, he found him "overly guarded" (Welcome to our world Mr Justice Mann!) and said he was "almost wilfully failing to acknowledge inconsistencies and refusing to acknowledge the plain effect of some of the emails in the case". (Again, welcome to our world Mr Justice Mann!).

There's an expectation floating around that, in true BBC style, assistant heads will roll over this. 

Update: In a fine example of that internet law (Muprhy's? Skitt's?) which states that any post criticising someone else's inaccuracy of another will contain an inaccuracy itself, I don't think I was entirely factually accurate in this post.

Looking at it again (with a little prompting!), it was the section on Dan Johnson which I read as being critical of the accuracy of the reporting itself. All the other criticism of the BBC here relates to their testimony only. 

Reading that section again and then reading on, the bit about Mr Johnson "twisting" things "in a way that could be described as dishonest" relates to his behaviour in getting the report - specifically twice giving "false impressions" to South Yorkshire Police - rather than the actual content of his report. Indeed, the judgment later goes on to say:

The veracity of the published information in this case is not in issue. What the BBC published was accurate. What is more questionable is the method of obtaining the information.

So Fran Unsworth's carefully worded statement is correct when she says "the judge...was clear that what we broadcast was accurate".