Saturday 11 August 2018

Friends Re-United





And what is it exactly that Newnight's Emily Maitlis thinks her now-openly anti-Brexit former colleague has "nailed" in his article in the anti-Brexit New European and that pro-Brexit Tim so objects to? 

Well, Gavin's piece is a "blast" against the EU referendum result. He used to accept it, despite being a Remain voter, but now he doesn't. And, more importantly, he now rejects the idea of "supposed balance" and, already aghast at the BBC for allowing Lord Lawson onto their airwaves to be 'sceptical' about climate change,  now wants a re-think. He 'sees' that the referendum result was built on lies and manipulation and must be repudiated. Plus the leading Brexiteers are bad people. And the Tax Payers' Alliance are bad people. And so are the IEA. Brexit will make us poor and 'Project Fantasy' must be stopped. Evidently, he wants broadcasters to say so and put the baddies in their place. The mask couldn't be more 'off' with Gavin. 

It's a funny thing. I used to feel a bit silly and unkind for banging on so often about how biased Gavin Esler was on the BBC News Channel, especially on Dateline London Even other stern BBC critics seemed to pass over the mild-mannered Mr Esler (friend and promoter of Palestinian extremist Abdel Bari Atwan, for many years his programme Dateline London's most regular guest). This New European piece of his, therefore, comes as absolutely no surprise to me though it's tone, should you read it, might still shock you - especially if you still think Gavin Esler is simply a nice, moderate, inoffensive guy. This is not a nice piece. (Check out his bit on Chloe Westley of the TPA if you still doubt that).

Still, that's not what matters. Gavin is gone from the BBC. Like Æthelred the Unready or Qin Shi Huang (China's first emperor), he's history.

What about Emily Maitlis though?

Her Newsnight performances are becoming increasingly James O'Brien-like (and he parted company from Newsnight last year over the very issue of impartiality, with him thinking - like Gavin Esler - that 'correct views' must be expressed and the bad guys exposed). 

How is it in any way compatible with BBC editorial guidelines on impartiality that she should say that Gavin has "nailed something critical here" when pretty much everything Gavin wrote in that New European piece is (openly) impartiality- free and aggressively anti-Brexit? 

What is Emily Maitlis up to by so openly agreeing with her former Newsnight colleague that broadcasters like the BBC have failed to expose "Brexit fantasies" and the wicked ways of the Brexit fantasists?

And what is her much-applauded-by-the-pro-EU-Twitterati newly-hyper-aggressive interviewing of the very people Gavin so objects to all about exactly?

Is she merely following through on the same thoughts Gavin Esler was expressing here and she was endorsing in that tweet?

She is clearly on manoeuvres, for some reason.

Will Newsnight's new editor Esme Wren tolerate this?

10 comments:

  1. I still have the government leaflet that was issued when we joined the EEC. We were assured that 'freedom of movement' had never actually been exercised in the past between 'the six' and wasn't expected to happen in the future. We were also assured that we could veto new rules. Then the East Europeans joined with wages a tenth of ours and one by one our national sovereignty was given away to qualified majority voting. So did the 'joiners' lie? Why should we believe the 'remainers' now, (have they actually said anything positive about the EU? Isn't it all 'Project Fear'?).

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  2. I agree the Referendum result was built on lies...had we not had the lies about (a) Cameron staying on as PM to implement the Referendum decision (b) there being no plans for an EU federal military force or (c) that Turkey was not a serious applicant member....then it would have been 60-40 in favour of Leave!

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  3. That last question is rhetorical, right ?

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  4. I read the Estler 'article'. Is that the best he can do? We are given a collection of other things he doesn't believe in and that he wouldn't like to see a 'balanced' discussion about, so what? Then there is a string of personal attacks on the proponents of Brexit, again how does that advance the argument? Priti Pritel is singled out for helping someone with their legal costs; doesn't that make her a caring individual? What has it got to do with Brexit. Finally he tells us that Brexit is a fantasy, the 'leavers' are like those communists that tell us that Russian and Chinese communism isn't real, not like their vision, (he mocks 'vision' too, can't anyone have a plan, some idea even vision of the possible future?). This is a completely false argument, only 28 countries are members of the EU, 150 plus aren't. Not only that but the UK wasn't a member once and some people can even remember when that was so.
    His only valid point is that the negotiations are a mess, but it isn't the 'leavers' doing the negotiating so it is hardly fair to blame Boris, Farage or Reece-Mogg. If he likes 'holding power to account' shouldn't he be looking at the way that the BBC has been acting as the publicity agent of the EU?

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  5. I don't know about bland and inoffensive. Perhaps there was a clue in the way he used to hiss his name when he was on the BBC: Gavin Esssler, with a letterbox mouth. Did someone once call him Ezler or Exler or Éclair? I wonder if he says Bregsit or Brexit.

    In any case what is he on and why the anger? I've come across Remain voters who were perfectly calm and happy and willing to discuss their point of view. I know he writes novels but that is one seriously long rant. It's not original in ideas or expression but definitely fictional in places. Why does he claim we are post-Brexit? We haven't left yet, as far as I know. And post-Trump? He hasn't left either. More novel writing?

    What is the big problem with having Lawson on the BBC when there are so many eminent climate scientists - he claims - who could challenge and argue against him? How hard would it be to get one or a handful of them on to show him up if he's so ignorant or so wrong? Similarly with the Taxpayers Alliance or whoever else expresses views that do not accord with Esssler's and that he doesn't like.

    Read this kind of stuff and you do wonder about some of the people on the BBC. Remember another former Newsnighter, the ecomonics editor, no less? I noticed with surprise
    a few weeks ago that Jo Coburn described Paul Mason as "left-wing activist and journalist". Did this signal some sort of change in the BBC? Then last week something caught my eye on Guido: a headline saying that Paul Mason had been reported to police. It was alleged that he'd been getting stuck into some activism in a very active kind of way. Makes you wonder how such an 'extreme' activist lefty got such a prominent position on the public broadcaster.

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  6. DL was one of the nails in the coffin of my being banned from complaining for two years, when I took issue with Gavin and posse deciding that the British government improving defences after the latest nut job Kirchner threat was ‘sabre rattling’.

    He’s gone but the whole head rotting cabal remains. How the likes of Fran Unsworth or Tony Hall can look in the mirror much less chant out clearly untrue mantras is beyond me.

    Considering all that is going on, that neither is to be seen or heard is unsurprisingly typical.

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  7. Esler has nailed his thumb to the wall, it's such an inept piece.

    The article is shot through with deception. Take the issue of Turkey...this was a perfectly legitimate issue for Leavers to raise. Turkey had been accepted into the application process by the EU. That was a fact. More than that, Cameron was on video several times expressing his support that the prcoess be speeded up and that Turkey be admitted! It wasn't a case of pretending Turkey was going to admitted the next day. It was a case of making it clear there was nothing to stop them joining if they met the conditions.

    He criticises prominent Brexiters for having links with the rest of Europe! But Leavers have always emphasised they have no problem with foreigners or mainland Europe...many have expressed their great love of Europe and its culture. So they are being entirely consistent.

    He claims no one is interested in trade deals with a Brexit Britain, but the Trump administration has made it very clear they would like to do a trade deal with a properly Brexited Britain.

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  8. According to the blurb on the cover of a paperback I recently browsed Emily thinks that its author also "nails it".

    The writer in question is her BBC colleague Jon Sopel and the book is his latest anti-Trump diatribe.

    How cosy of her!

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    1. The only time Emily would "nail it" would be in a nail bar being attended by Vietnamese slave workers, allowed in under our lax migration policies.

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    2. Clearly Emily has ‘nails it’ to Katty’s ‘OMG’.

      They is so woke.

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