Whataboutery

I was curious to see what Jeremy Paxman has made of the Royal Family after reading a review of the programmes he’s been making for channel 5.

The first episode of the series featured poor unhappy Prince Charles, whose childhood, seen from the perspective of the present day, didn’t look exactly like a bed of roses. Where were social services?

Paxman was a wee bit sneery, but perhaps not all that much more than your average narrator on your standard retrospective documentary; a bit nostalgic, a bit “look how weird we all were back then”.  

Next, I watched the 3rd episode of “The real Tommy Robinson” which included a clip of the Newsnight interview between Paxman and Tommy Robinson. The topic was grooming gangs, and it showed Jeremy Paxman ineptly trying (failing) to (metaphorically) destroy Tommy Robinson. You might call it “The Original Unsuccessful Tommy Robinson Takedown.’’ Paxman’s only strategy was to sneer Tommy Robinson into submission. His counter-argument relied completely on whataboutery “So you’ve never heard of white paedophile gangs?“ was about the best he could muster. 

It would be fun to arrange a nostalgic, “look how dumb we were back then” viewing of Paxman’s shambolic interview and run it past Jeremy Paxman himself, just to see if he has changed his tune in any way at all now that Pakistani rape gangs are, unfortunately, an established ‘thing’. 

Another parallel with the BBC’s current Great Sweeney Takedown exercise is that Paxman, like Sweeney, had written off Tommy Robinson before the cameras even started rolling. Because Paxman regarded Tommy as inferior and far too inarticulate to defend himself, he hadn’t bothered to research the topic or prepare any kind of argument  - he just assumed he could sneer it all away. But he was mistaken. And, unlike Sweeney and his mates, he hadn’t even taken the precaution of recruiting reinforcements from Antifa 'in for the kill.' (metaphorically)  

Paxman says he used to be a Republican but is now a Monarchist. Wouldn’t it be sweet if he reflected bashfully that he used to think Tommy Robinson’s campaign was beyond the pale but now he’s not so sure?

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This is weird. I clicked on a link in our sidebar.

Guido Fawkes: Luciana Berger’s CLP Chair Loses Job After Appearing on David Icke’s Show.

There it was. 

“The Chair of Liverpool Wavertree Labour Party, Dr. Alex Scott-Samuel, has lost his job over his appearance on a show broadcast by anti-Semitic conspiracist David Icke. He remains in the Labour Party, attempting to deselect his CLP’s Jewish MP Luciana Berger…”

However, about ten minutes later I clicked again and - there it was, gone! Error 404. 

Conspiracy! I thought. “Guido’s been Silenced!” After all, I’d just seen Politics Live, where Labour’s latest antisemitism shenanigans were mentioned briefly, equated with “other forms of racism” and ‘whatabouted’ dismissively, as in: “what about the Islamophobia in the Tory Party?” 

Sky, on the other hand, featured a long interview with Louise Ellman MP. Why was Guido’s antisemitism-related article pulled? Sinister thoughts. Then I clicked again, and it was back. 

As you were.