It's all Andrews at the moment:
Channel 4 News: This is what happened when we asked Arron Banks if he would appear on Channel 4 News to answer questions over Brexit funds and claims of misleading MPs.
Andrew (Lord) Adonis: BBC, this is introducing you to a JOURNALIST. You used to have some.
Andrew Marr, BBC: Theatre not journalism. Not a shred of new fact. Andrew, you wouldn’t know the difference if it crept up your tummy & flossed you.
Does anyone think that Adonis might actually be a certified lunatic, escaped from one of our secure institutions? The evidence certainly points that way.
ReplyDeleteBut Marr's response shows what a lazy thinker he is. How does a "difference" creep up your tummy and floss your teeth even in terms of surreal imagery? Differences are differences, not things in themselves. And if "it" crept up your tummy it still wouldn't be close to your teeth would it? Had he said something like "You wouldn't know real journalism even if it crawled up your front and began flossing your teeth." it would have made more internal sense. Still wouldn't be very good though.
Of course, the BBC never engages in what Marr calls theatre does it, John Sweeney?
Interesting fact I just discovered about John Sweeney. Despite all appearances to the contrary, apparently he is NOT a BBC employee. He stopped being one in 2014. Isn't that odd? To be embedded so deeply in a programme like Newsnight but not be a BBC employee...But I supposed there is the James O'Brien precedent...but this is where it all gets so murky. I heard the VERY opinionated Afua Hirsch presenting a programme on the BBC World Service today. Last week I heard Bridget Kendall, now retired from the BBC, present a BBC programme, just like the old days.
How do these "contractors" work in relation to the BBC's impartiality rules? Are they bound by them at all?
The whole thing is becoming a nonsense.
Sarah Pennells, an ex-BBC financial journalist, was back on Money Box at the weekend. When she first went freelance she was never off, then she fell out of favour. This time she was just telling us things that anyone or Money Box could have found out for themselves. No doubt a nice little earner and the BBC gets to bounce its own voice off a willing (one of their own) stooge.
DeleteMarr appears to have used a polite version of a much coarser phrase that I believe is commonly used in certain circles. I suppose “it” would have, albeit rather circuitously, eventually reached the Adonis teeth. But on the other hand, as you suggest differences don’t really crawl anywhere let alone floss. I have always thought of “tummy” as baby talk, which probably does say something about Marr.
DeleteYes, I believe I've said it before. He appears unhinged, parted from reality. It has become very disturbing to watch the antics of senior politicians and ex-politicians these past two years. They really are not proper people to be trusted with anything let alone the fate of the country. Our troubles are far from being over once we leave the EU. How is it ever going to be sorted out?
ReplyDeleteWe have to drain our own swamp...not easy but necessary.
DeleteIt would begin with reasserting the supremacy of Parliament. Ensure the judges are subservient to legislation to begin with, not the other way around.
Repealing the Human Rights Act would be a good start. That Act is really a kind of Enabling Act, of the sort we saw in Germany in 1933, allowing judges simply to make up the law as they see fit.
A lot of other things on the to-do list.
I would hope that one of the first acts of a populist government would be to introduce a very strong element of PR into our electoral system. That would shake things up hugely.
And then build a referendum democracy on the Swiss model, to ensure the political elite know the public can take up a role in legislation if they stray away from the interest of the people.
Gradually you could change the political culture so you got responsive and intelligent politicians in power rather than the conceited asses and mares we have now.
It's an extremely difficult task but it is not an impossible one I would say.
I would add abolition of the whip system to your 'to do' list.
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