Impartiality? Forget it. Let’s ditch all this impartiality nonsense, both in our expectations and in the BBC’s charter-embedded claim. No-one can boast a truly open mind. Even newborn babies are pre-programmed with one distinctly partial aspiration; stayin' alive. (The Beegees did that?)
We all come to the table with our biases and prejudices, but there is a more achievable, and more realistic aspiration available for the BBC. (Balance.)
For we bloggers, there is no need to bother with any of that, but nonetheless, we do actually try to stay reasonable. That is why, say, Rob Burley is prepared to listen to Craig’s well-founded correction on the Twitter rather than just uttering the well-known working-class expression “Fuck off”.
You might find this hard to believe, but Craig and I are more dedicated and staunch in our research than you might think. We’re on a kind of self-imposed zero-hours contract, like those poorly rewarded carers who are paid for ‘hands-on client time’ only. Or like peripatetic teachers.
Anyway, there’s much work going on below the water-line what with the challenge of checking, checking, checking, while trying to keep topical. When mistakes creep in, as they will, it’s often down to haste. No proof-readers, no editors. We have agendas, but they’re our own agendas, and we are attached to them.
That’s part one of my preamble. Actually, this is still preamble. I just wanted to say that, at heart, we’re on the side of Tommy Robinson (versus the Islamisation of the Western world.)
We can’t understand how things have got like this. Why has the so-called liberal left decided to herd the general public into a kind of docile acquiescence in the creeping Islamification of the civilised world? Just why? Having just started to become enlightened, humankind is back-tracking toward the dark ages of old.
We can’t understand how things have got like this. Why has the so-called liberal left decided to herd the general public into a kind of docile acquiescence in the creeping Islamification of the civilised world? Just why? Having just started to become enlightened, humankind is back-tracking toward the dark ages of old.
It would appear that the person taking credit for the draconian Facebook/Instagram ban on Tommy Robinson is Mohammed Shafiq. If that is true, I really do despair. Mr Shafiq is no stranger to this site. He used to be a regular guest on The Big Questions, very shouty, very dogmatic and very Islamic.
Has this odious person really shouted himself all the way to acquiring the influence and the clout to stifle criticism and impose a virtual blasphemy law upon the internet, while the likes of Hamas are free to spout their racist bile on the same platform? How did it come to this?
Has this odious person really shouted himself all the way to acquiring the influence and the clout to stifle criticism and impose a virtual blasphemy law upon the internet, while the likes of Hamas are free to spout their racist bile on the same platform? How did it come to this?
That is why we are on the side of Tommy Robinson. But Tommy Robinson is flawed. We have to acknowledge that, otherwise our credibility is shot.
Do you want me to go into it all? Craig advised me to let it lie for a while, but I’ve started, so maybe I should finish.
To be honest (always try to be) I was very sceptical of Lucy Brown. What was that spectacular row in Woburn (?) High Street all about? It must have been something important. She said she had Tommy’s prison number tattooed on her wrist! Who would even do something like that? So why did she suddenly decide to abandon her enmity and work with Tommy again? There seemed to be something altogether disingenuous about Lucy Brown. But then, what did I know? I had only seen selected clips of her contributions within the actual PanoDrama.
Now I’ve heard her interview with David Vance, all is forgiven. Well, nearly all. I’m still sceptical, but that’s embedded in my suspicious and ever-wary DNA.
Ignore Vancey’s melodramatic opening jingle, and if I may say so, his ever so slightly sycophantic interviewing technique, but the upshot is that Lucy Brown has engaged her brain and realised that the PanoDrama is a massive curate’s egg. (soundcloud H/T StewGreen / B-BBC)
Much of the evidence against Sweeney that Tommy and his ill-advised editors have pounced upon is incredibly weak. It leaves one wondering when Tommy Robinson went all politically correct. I mean, the word ‘woofter’. Is that really evidence of homophobia? Come on! The word ‘honky’? No no no, don’t be silly, please.
There is also the matter of the retracted statements by two of his former Rebel Media colleagues, which were so convoluted and dubious that I couldn’t be bothered to decipher them. They should have been left on the cutting-room floor. Same goes for the confused interpretation of Sweeney’s promise to disguise Lucy Brown’s identity. He was probably describing the thing they do to disguise voices by slowing the recording down to deep bass. Rumour has it that there may be more to the chap who was sacked "for his right-wing views" than meets the eye, and if so, that’s another weak link.
Even if one genuinely believes that these flaws were merely a deliberate attempt to mirror the BBC’s own flaws, I’m disappointed that they bigged-up and exaggerated the wrong stuff, which leaves a massive weak link and positively asks, nay begs for the BBC to demolish the entire case for the prosecution.
This video is worth watching.
This video is worth watching.
I blame the team. The editorial team that threw the virtual baby out with the bathwater. They could have administered a seismic shock, but instead, they’ve defused their own bomb.
At most, the BBC could throw Sweeney to the wolves. If they do, much as I dislike his 'investigative journalist' persona, I’d think of it as an injustice. I might even feel sorry for him.
However, there is one massive ‘gotcha’ that Tommy’s ruse really did capture, and that is the BBC’s ill-advised collaboration with Hope-not-Hate. In other words, the BBC routinely sets out with a pre-conceived agenda and proceeds to seek out and cherry-pick from any source that fits the bill in order to hammer home whatever self-serving message they choose to send. There’s an extreme example of the BBC using very questionable sources on BBC Watch.
I'll repeat; I could have written the previous paragraph without Tommy Robinson’s Docudrama, but here we have a flawed, yet a potentially useful example of the BBC’s duplicitous methods. Even worse, we have a terrifying example of Islam’s ability to impose de facto blasphemy laws. We have Mohammed Shafiq apparently closing down Tommy Robinson’s Facebook and Instagram sites and currently endeavouring to close down his YouTube one too.
The only consolation is the thought that this ridiculous capitulation to the likes of Shafiq will prove to be a gigantic own goal - the injustice of the ban is quite enough to increase Tommy Robinson’s profile and it also goes a long way to making up for the deficiencies in PanoDrama.
Meanwhile, in other news, we have the malicious Corbynist MP Chris Williamson pandering to antisemitic members of Momentum, and the Labour Party opposing Sajid Javid’s decision to ban Hezbollah (Hizb’allah) together with its gaily gun-emblazoned flags.
Just imagine. If the BBC hadn’t spent the last six or seven decades concealing the malicious, stultifying, racist nature of the so-called Palestinian cause - more pro-Palestinian than the actual Palestinians - half today’s antisemitism disguised as anti-Zionism wouldn’t be the problem it is.
Please. Bring your agenda alongside my agenda and at least meet me halfway.
