Saturday 8 September 2018

Jenny Goes to Sweden


Jenny Hill, in the dark with a female Syrian migrant to Sweden

Writing on Twitter, Spectator editor Fraser Nelson had this to say this morning:
Some UK newspapers today run pictures of a nutty skinhead rally in Sweden as if to illustrate a nation going Nazi. A myth hard to puncture as no one wants to say a good word about the Sweden Democrats, but it fundamentally misjudges what’s going on over there. Even BBC News describes Sweden Democrats in one sentence “has roots in neonazi movement”. Ã…kesson has not a single policy that is more extreme than, say, UKIP, that so recently finished no1 in UK euro elections. This is populism, but certainly not Nazism.
Indeed, the party, as per Wikipedia, has moved so far away from its Neo-Nazi beginnings that it now sits in the same group as the UK Conservative Party in the European parliament. 

Regardless of that though, the BBC's new bulletins today have been saying things like: 
Opinion polls suggest that the Sweden Democrats, who have roots in the Neo-Nazi movement, will take about 20% of the vote. 
(That was from Today's 8 o'clock news bulletin.)

You say "Even BBC News" as if it comes as a surprise to you. Their portrayal of anything outside of the political norm and not of the left is described as far-right. The report by Jenny Hill was the usual one-sided garbage. 
Jenny Hill's report on Today this morning began with Peter making jokes about elections and ended with a Swedish woman who "worries about where the country is going" and, with a little prompting from Jenny, classes the Sweden Democrats as one of the "evil forces" in the country. 

In between came a short interview with a councillor for the Sweden Democrats, which, Jenny said, "began life as a Neo-Nazi party. It doesn't like the EU and it doesn't like migrants". 

She asked him such questions as:
Is it responsible as a political party to spread this kind of message of fear?
and, concerning the party's desire for a Swexit from the EU:
And having seen the political complications that Brexit is involving, does that not put you off?
Does that count as "the usual one-sided garbage?"

Jenny Hill, in a car with a Sweden Democrat politician

Well, for a fuller taste of Jenny Hill's reporting from Sweden, here's her report for last night's BBC News at Ten

It is textbook Jenny Hill, from the labelling to the undercutting of the right-wing politician ("even though its falling"), the loaded questions, the contrasting treatment of the two politicians,  the talk of "hundreds of thousands of people...seeking asylum on Sweden's shores" (when many if not most were migrants not asylum seekers), the choice of a sad-looking, young female Syrian refugee (rather than a male migrant) to illustrate the migrants' side of the story, and the closing imagery of a "rich, secure" Sweden imperilled by 'dragging' right-wing currents:

Viking battle re-enactor: Today we fight. 
Jenny Hill: And it's a battle for the soul of this country. As they recreate Sweden's past, populists fight the establishment for its future.
Bjorn Buttler Jakobsen, Viking enthusiast: They are the voice of the people. They are sort of taking the people's voice and putting it into politics. 
He's talking about the Sweden Democrats. Once a neo-Nazi party, they don't like the EU and they don't like migrants.
Helmuth Petersen, Sweden Democrats: This is where they live, where they live. They put cars on fire. It's very common. 
They blame them for crime, even though it's falling.
Helmuth Petersen, Sweden Democrats: If they say it's more safe now it's false, because there is much more of the gang violence, the gang rapes. Some things wasn't before, but now it's all the time. All the time.
Jenny Hill: Is it responsible as a political party, to spread this kind of message of fear?
Helmuth Petersen, Sweden Democrats: Yes, yes.
Jenny Hill: Why?
Helmuth Petersen, Sweden Democrats: It's information for the citizen.
Jenny Hill: And have you met any of the asylum seekers who still live in the town?
Helmuth Petersen, Sweden Democrats: No, no. I'm not interested. 
It's three year since hundreds of thousands of people began to seek asylum on Sweden's shores. Other issues, health, the environment dominate now, and yet it's migration which could yet change the political landscape.
Torbjorn Karlsson, Trelleborg mayor: Apparently, classical parties like we, we do not provide a vision of the future, which is really attractive, so we are doing something wrong.
Jenny Hill: Is Sweden changing as a country?
Torbjorn Karlsson, Trelleborg mayor: Well, perhaps not more than other countries, I would say. Maybe we are turning to be more like a normal European country. 
The Vikings are long gone. Perhaps Sweden's liberal era is ending too. This Syrian refugee is now part of the Viking clan. Even so, Manal knows, she tells us, there are people who don't like foreigners. "When I meet them", she says, "I tell them I'm learning Swedish, I have a job here." As political currents drag Europe to the right, even Sweden, rich, secure, may not be able to resist. Jenny Hill, BBC News, Trelleborg. 

13 comments:

  1. I watched that 10pm News report last night. Quite shockingly biased. The images they showed of immigrants were all of women (and smartly dressed ones at that) even though the majority of migrants are young men.

    The reporter stated that crime rates are falling (clearly intending to undermine the SD representative she was interviewing). I have not seen any statistics that this is the case - quite the opposite in fact. Was this an outright falsification by the BBC? I suppose it is possible that overall crime is falling, but it is certainly spiking in rape, robbery and sexual assault.

    There was nothing at all to tell the causal viewer why many Swedes are concerned about immigration - no shots of the rioting, car burning, grenade attacks, no go zones; no mention of the massive spike in rapes, the murders of Swedish women.

    If you have not been following these issues you would get the impression from that Beeb report that Sweden is a harmonious, peaceful country with no problems, yet mystifyingly facing the rise to power of a Neo Nazi party.

    Then I suppose that's the point.

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    1. Don’t look to the BBC for truth. It goes through the filter first to remove any nasty bits that cloud the elite liberal worldview. What comes out the other end is cleaned up and clear PC propaganda.

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  2. On a different point, I heard that report on Today and thought, not for the first time, about the poor quality sound they consider fit to broadcast these days, in this case with some highly intrusive background noise. You get it more and more on Today as they do interviews with people speaking on their mobiles where the sound is patchy and hard to listen to.

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  3. Jenny went to a fee-paying school in Jersey, that hotbed of inward migration...of very rich people and multicultural influences...they even speak a bit of French now and then, you know. She's well placed to judge what happens to a country when it opens its doors to undocumented migrants from some of the most culturally backward parts of the world, isn't she?

    After her huge journalistic success in 2015 telling the whole of the UK about just how much the Germans were rolling out the red carpet of welcome to receive the one million migrants with open arms, she now gives us the gen on Sweden.

    Has she learnt anything? Not much it seems, except perhaps that mass immigration is not necessarily that popular.

    She still thinks it's enough to be supercilious in her attitude to anyone who doesn't think mass immigration, especially by undocumented migrants from places like Africa, South Asia and the Middle East, isn't a marvellous and obvious benefit to any European country.

    Notice how countries get "dragged" to the right. Ever heard a BBC journalist talk about a country - let's say Venezuala, Bolivia, or the UK being "dragged" to the left? No neither have I.

    I lost all respect for Fraser Nelson many years ago, for his banging the drum for mass immigration, promotion of the Sharia religion (particularly within the Conservative Party), propagation of the myth of the Arab Spring being a democratic movement and PR for the Swedish political-economic model (well haven't heard him do that for a while).



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    1. Yes, that term "dragged" is very telling here. And "supercilious" is spot-on regarding her adopted attitude in interviews with anti-mass immigration people - an attitude she adopts because, as you say, she obviously believes it's self-evidently true that mass immigration is 'a good thing'.

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  4. From the EU's own stats
    80% of asylum seekers are aged under 34.
    75% of those are male.
    So the vast majority are young males. Thats not what the BBC portray.

    EU stats link.
    https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Asylum_statistics

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    1. Yes, the BBC are knowingly dishonest about that. They know the power of images - we can at least grant them professional expertise in that field - and how they can manipulate opinion.

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  5. Jenny's job is to tour European cities and then report lies to the UK that immigrants are women and children, mass immigration is a wonderful benefit with no downsides and any indigenous who questions it is a Nazi.

    What an unfortunate circumstance for a well-educated, well-mannered girl to fall into. In her decline she epitomises the decline of the BBC.

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    1. Yes from jumping up and down excitedly at the Berlin main rail terminus shouting "Wilkommen" to the undocumented migrants, thus heralding in the shiny New Europe that was about to be born, now reduced to telling rotten pungent lies to an unbelieving population...what a come-down.

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    2. She was just on Sundays BBC News saying Sweden’s far right party are anti -immigration and anti-EU and it looks like liberal Swenden is going to take a move to the right (with intonation and pitch at the target words).

      Ok, I see ...so now we know what makes someone/thing far right..

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    3. Why doesn't she go back to Jersey and spread the gospel? I can't imagine that the Jersey fraternity are anything other than "far right" in their outlook...low tax, no offer to Calais migrants to come and settle in Jersey, and adherence to obscure historical traditions...

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    4. There is a very interesting graphic on this story. It goes from 'left/centre left' to 'far right'.

      There is no far left. No such thing in liberal politics.

      https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/09/despite-making-gains-swedens-far-right-party-remains-out-of-power

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  6. Another Jenny Hillism:

    "Looks like high turnout - may suggest greater resistance to Orban" -

    He won his fourth term with another massive majority that UK politicians can only dream of.

    She's not exactly on the money is she? I mean apart from the licence fee payer's money, that is.

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