Saturday 1 December 2018

All Gas and Gaiters



Elsewhere, of course, #VicarGate is still raging. 

For newcomers to this latest Newsnight 'scandal', here's a summary of what happened:

Earlier this week Newsnight staged a discussion about Mrs May's Brexit deal involving "members of the public", one of whom, 'Reverend Lynn', urged us to “have faith in the government”.

Some viewers, however, smelled a unholy rat and claimed that 'Reverend Lynn' is actually a professional actress called Marina Hayter, who has been an extra in Eastenders and a Star Wars film, as well as playing "Bar Worker, Chemo Patient, Wedding Guest and Fun Fair Attendee" in various other things.

Many started accusing the BBC of deliberately hiring an actress to pretend to be a Brexit-Deal-backing pro-Government pastor on Newsnight.

The BBC, of course, denies this:


Some familiar faces appeared among the conspiracy theorists. Hear the word of the Lord, for example!:


Enter Emily, stage left:


And a little bird tells me that Newsnight editor Esme Wren started twittering too:


Cue Paul Mason, ex-Newsnight master of impartiality, entering stage far-left:


And on it goes...

7 comments:

  1. For once Paul Mason makes an intelligent observation!

    The BBC has billions of pounds at its disposal. It can afford to get "representative panels of voters" right.

    Putting a pastor in per se is not a good idea in my view. I think if you have such a small panel, you have to go for the median population...so call centre workers, IT technicians, sales people, health and local government workers, single parents, retired people etc. Your average Joes and Janes - not whacky online pastors. And then on a Brexit issue, you definitely have to have the right balance of Remainers v. Leave (50-50 on a panel of 10).

    It is a scandal that the BBC pays people to create these panels and they do such a p poor job.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Meant to add - whatever we might think of Adonis (and not many here think he is a fine model of honesty in modern politics) I don't think it's the job of BBC presenters to lecture senior politicians. Next time Maitlis has to interview Adonis, what are we supposed to think - she's got beef with him?

      Delete
    2. Emily says, "we need our parliamentarians to be more trusted than ever." Does she mean like Theresa May, the PM who deceived two Brexit secretaries, her Cabinet, the House of Commons and the British people? - the PM who betrayed the trust of 17.4 million people; the PM for whom the impartial BBC has been fighting tooth and claw since Chequers was launched upon an unsuspecting nation?

      Delete
    3. Remember Damian from 'Drop the Dead Donkey'? Well, some people are saying that Emily & Esme wanted to headhunt him as an investigative - sorry - INVENTIVE journalist on Newsnight. They were very disappointed to discover he's really a Catholic priest, living in the Republic of Ireland - a little place called Bally-something.

      Delete
    4. Great Posts Sisphyus...

      Honesty is important issue in politics as it is in all our other important dealings like house purchase, car purchase or renting, banking and so on.

      If you have clear evidence of serious and serial dishonesty by your PM, you are under no sort of compulsion to believe them about anything they might ask you to believe.

      The very sad fact is we have the evidence of serious and serial dishonesty.

      May did clearly deceive the Brexit secretaries, House of Commons and certainly the people about who was conducting negotiations with the EU. I think it is also fair to say that through her previous statements she deceived us about what sort of a deal she was trying to negotiate...the truth is she has entered a deal that has a very narrow escape tunnel but that tunnel could be closed down by the ECJ at any time. The ECJ, like all human beings, is capable of irrational judgment but under this deal there is no appeal against their judgement. May is asking us to trust the ECJ to handle our sovereignty with care!!!

      Only fault with your post is I think you mean "fighting for" May rather than "fighting" (since Chequers).

      The BBC's only concern now is to get the deal over the line and on to the ballot paper for the Second Referendum they are so desperate to see happen.

      Delete
  2. Dimbles!

    And speaking of on, and on, and on....

    <a href="https://twitter.com/Edsbrown/status/1068565590217056256”> Ed for the hills. </a>

    Ed seems new at this. Rob will set him straight, and never using the word 'assume' when defending woeful BBC activity is likely high on the list.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Clearly my template has been hacked!

    ReplyDelete

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.