Brand Tommy. "A new way of making money"

I should say something about Tommy Robinson, shouldn’t I? 

Almost everyone who isn’t a diehard Tommy fan has reservations, and their comments usually start off with “I’m no fan of Tommy Robinson, but”  - then they go on to express views that look, to varying degrees, just like fandom.

'I’m no fan of Tommy', but I too harbour worries about the Islamisation of Britain and Europe. 

There are so many contradictory messages about the latest Tommy calamity that I can’t be sure what to think.   I admire Tommy’s efforts to acquaint himself with the Koran and to expand his knowledge of Islam, and while I can see that without the stunts fewer people would take notice of him and his campaign, his impetuousness constantly lets him down and damages his ‘brand’.

People are afraid to be seen to agree with him, and he’s kind of toxified his own image with unintended acts of self-harm.

He was quite right to make a fuss about the grooming gangs, and more importantly to draw attention to the way the authorities disgraced themselves by brushing it all under the rug for years. Their stubborn refusal to recognise or acknowledge the abuse that was going on before their very eyes amounted to such gross denial that it was effectively more racist than the racism they themselves were trying so very hard to avoid committing. Extreme avoidance of committing racism just looks racist. 

Could SYL have done all this without resorting to the clumsy live-streaming stunt that ultimately handed officialdom the peg with which to hang him?  After all, the grooming gang scenario is only one branch of the tree, and it is, at long last (and very belatedly) being dealt with. Meanwhile, all the other stuff goes on, while the focus is directed at this incident alone.

The BBC is still bombarding us with its 'normalising Islam' campaign - introducing headscarf wearing at every turn, normalising it and giving it a ridiculous amount of approval. Personally, I dislike the hijab. Wearing it sends a holier-than-thou message; the material surrounding the smug little face signals virtue with added sanctimony. The scarf acts as a frame to the wearer’s sense of superiority. I think I’d even rather have the letter-box. At least it’s comical and makes the wearer look ridiculous.

  

Brand Casciani, BBC

Now, since this is a blog about BBC (I often forget that) I would like to examine Dominic Casciani’s response to the news that Tommy Robinson is back inside.

Tommy Robinson: The rancour, rhetoric and riches of brand Tommy. We can’t know if Casciani wrote the header himself or if someone did it for him, but let’s just state the bleeding obvious. The title alone implies that Tommy Robinson (whose real name is etc etc) is a cynical, self-promoting spiv, with a chavvy taste for bling who is primarily motivated by greed and now styles himself as a ‘brand’ 

Casciani seems particularly rattled by Tommy’s ‘wealth’, which he sees as ill-gotten gains deviously extracted from the working class poor, their well-meaning contributions selfishly squandered on tasteless frippery. The Twitter thread we addressed previously (about the Gucci loafers) was just a taster. It reveals much more about Casciani himself than about the target of his ire. In the article Casciani indulges in an orgy of sneers

But while Tommy Robinson was rousing the clutch of onlookers in this deprived corner of Greater Manchester, his four-bedroom country home was on the market for £900,000. The estate agency pictures show a Range Rover parked on the driveway, a hot tub in the garden and a TV above the bath

bolstering his theory that Tommy is getting above himself with nouveau riche aspirations; out of his class and tasteless with it.  How snobby and sneery can a BBC journalist get?

Casciani reinforces his theory that Tommy is motivated by greed.

“He became obsessed with his belief that Muslims were predisposed to violence because of the Koran. It was his ticket to a new way of making money.”

Rather spiteful, I'd say. Even if that sentence had a grain of truth in it, its inclusion cries out “deflection!” Casciani is steering the spotlight away from Islam-related scandals and diverting the reader towards  a scandal out of his own imagination - Tommy’s materialistic motive:  “His ‘ticket’ to a new way of making money.”

I don’t know what this is. It’s not news. It’s not strictly an opinion piece. I think it’s supposed to be a kind of backgrounder, but nasty, gossipy and hateful as well as sneery. 

Why do BBC reporters automatically assume such a hostile attitude the minute they detect some criticism of Islam? Is Casciani a follower? Has he ‘reverted’? He’s obviously a defender of it as well as a class-snob. You could cut the air of superiority in this piece with a blunt knife.

I really wonder what has happened to that well-known leftie mantra and favourite saying of Michelle Obama: “you go low, we go high”   I thought that was the kind of thing the BBC was keen on! Dominic Casciani seems to have got it the wrong way round. 

I didn’t have the stomach to fully concentrate on the piece all the way through, but I persevered long enough to recognise the envy and resentment running through it. A wave of nausea came on at about the halfway point and defeated me. I wish someone would take it up where I left off.