Wednesday 28 August 2019

Mid-week mixed bag

The Times online hits my inbox at various times of the morning - I’m not complaining - but it’s interesting (to me) that this morning, at about 6:45 am the number of comments below Hugo Rifkind’s piece (£) about Boris Johnson and Donald Trump had already reached three-figures, yet there were none at all below Melanie Phillips’s excellent article (£) about a sensitive topic - the siting of the proposed Holocaust memorial and learning centre near the Houses of Parliament.


I’m about to make a superficial kind of statement, but here goes: I live hundreds of miles away from the capital and won’t experience the feeling of being visually assaulted by a grim-looking structure in the way that perhaps regular passers-by might - according to their architectural preferences. Nor will I be dismayed at the thought of a dramatic and unwanted change to my personal environment in the way I was when I first saw the hideous and incongruous plans for a carbuncle of a supermarket in my patch, yet I have to admit that now it’s real and it’s there, in yer face, I’m used to it and I have been known to pop in for a few bits of shopping without giving it a second thought. (I do have some second thoughts, but they are fleeting and getting fleetinger by the week)

What’s the point I was about to make? Oh yes, it was that the Times must have held back before publishing the comments - weeding out the virulently antisemitic ones presumably - but now they’re here. And largely supportive I’m pleased to see.

I think Melanie has nailed it again. Like her splendid analysis of President Trump’s remarks about US Jews who vote Democrat (loyalty and antisemitism) her sensitive response to the Holocaust Museum debacle is spot on. 

At the risk of feeding people who like to complain that any negative thoughts about Jews, Israel or anything remotely connected has become unsayable (because ‘antisemitism’) and that the whole antisemitism business has had a chilling effect on free speech, or that ‘you can’t say anything these days” - all of that - I can see that there is an element of truth in there. 

I can also see that it’s a lot easier to dismiss all negativity as prejudice at a time when it takes a huge effort to clarify any subtle and nuanced position, especially in consideration of the battle against intransigence and ideological resistance that comes with the territory.

However, handing ammunition to the enemy works both ways. The chilling effect is totally reversible like a coat you can wear inside out if you want. Now you can’t say anything is antisemitic just as you can’t say anything isn’t, without causing offence. It’s a shame that some commenters felt the need to call Melanie Phillips ‘brave’ for saying it what she said. 

There was one little segment that touches on an unpalatable truth, which loyalty to this country makes it hard to acknowledge. 
“Even fewer are prepared to acknowledge that, despite having stood alone against Hitler in 1940 and accepting 10,000 Jewish child refugees in the 1938 Kindertransport, Britain during the Holocaust barred Jews from pre-Israel Palestine. This flagrant denial of its legal undertaking to settle the Jews in the land caused untold numbers trapped in Europe to perish. 
The very mention of this tends to provoke frenzied outbursts about Jewish anti-British terrorism at that time, as if that negates the shocking British record.
The King David Hotel affair is something that sets off an internal conflict in many supporters or defenders of Israel who aren’t fully aware of the historical and political context in which it took place. To somehow reconcile the contradictions within their consciences they settle for supporting Israel’s right to exist ‘despite the King David Hotel affair’. 
This is about clarification, not about justifying violence or terrorism - and already we’re deep into the kind of mire you can see thrashed out everywhere and anywhere that Israel-related controversies crop up. 
  
 **********

I thought I’d recommend a comment I just read on Harry’s Place. I’m so jealous. I wish Anton Deque would notice ITBB. But never mind. 

My reaction to John Wall’s article was exactly the same, but it’s AD’s remarks about the BBC that gives his comment a good bit of relevance to this blog. If reproducing this transgresses blogging etiquette I apologise most sincerely.
“Another curious piece about Brexit on Harry's Place. Having read it I cannot decide what Mr Wall's point is apart from explaining the obvious long after it entered the realm of last weeks chip's wrapper. 
"I suggest anyone goes and looks at the quartet that the B.B.C., never neutral, put up on its web page this morning to show the 'party leaders' coming together to discuss how to avoid a 'no deal'. Look at these mediocrities and ask not why but how. How do such figures become the political leadership anywhere? I have thrown away brighter light bulbs. 
"Brexit was not about a deal. There was no mention of a deal at the time of the vote and no party has a mandate for any such deal. There was no mention of 'hard' or 'soft'. The tensile strength became an issue only when the side that lost insisted on a deal. Each and every variant of this deal, regardless, has been to devise a way in which the U.K. does not shake itself self free – not from Europe, but this apparatchik United States of Europe. 
"The likelihood is that Johnson will fudge and cobble something together to save his party – pro tem. We shall then see a swarming to Farage and his far right (©B.B.C. passim) Brexit Party. It is even possible the U.K. will then have a very strange Parliament indeed, Rump Tories, Brexit, Liberal-Labour and Nationalists. 
"I watched Johnson give us his "Hugh Grant in mop wig' from the G7 press conference. Having beautifully yorked* the truly appalling Robert Peston over an invented remark Peston attributed to Trump, Johnson was asked in passing to make a comment about England's latest 'Great Escape' from the jaws of an Aussie shark; Johnson made a joke about Ben Stokes' performance being worthy of a dukedom. The B.B.C. gave this obvious joke 'Breaking News' status on its strapline. There's a certain uniformity about that dying corporations reporting of all things Brexit.

*******



I know this has already been promoted on GF’s blog, but this piece by Douglas Murray resonates. It’s all about Channel 4, which is a good deal more biased than the BBC and getting worse with every passing moment. In this piece, he asks why Boris should trust Channel 4 in response to Dorothy Byrne’s  MacTaggart lecture in which she criticises the PM and the leader of the opposition for avoiding being interviewed by the likes of Jon Snow and Cathy Newman. They’re frit, she thinks, of being held to account.

If you listen to Dorothy Byrne - her speech is all over the interweb  - you might wonder how she got to where she is today, as Reginald Perrin used to say. The comments below the YouTube version of it are a mixed bag - it seems you either love her or loathe her, but the lack of self-awareness in her guff about honesty, integrity and ‘good faith’ is staggering. 

As Douglas Murray says: (and this equally applies, across the board, to the Beeb)
“Boris Johnson may or may not be correct in choosing to avoid being interviewed by Cathy Newman or Jon Snow on a regular basis. But he is certainly right if he presumes that such an interview would not be conducted in good faith. It would be conducted by an interviewer who is known to have particular political biases.

“It is almost certainly fair to say that ‘holding Boris Johnson to account’ would consist of haranguing him constantly, rarely allowing him to get more than a sentence out uninterrupted, accusing him of terrible things to his face, trying to embarrass him and – dream of dreams – getting him to say something embarrassing or wrong which could subsequently be reported across the world’s press as ‘Boris Johnson exposed as liar in Channel 4 News interview’. That is the story they want, and there is ever-less effort at Channel 4 and other channels to disguise that fact.

13 comments:

  1. Oh Sue. You wish for Anton Deque but you are stuck with me, Monkey Brains and the rest of us deplorables.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh Arne. Call me Hillary if you must, but can someone who confines his own input to our open threads really blame me for 'what I wish for'?

      Delete
    2. Dragging me down to your level now, Arne, I see... lol

      Delete
  2. "The Edinburgh International Television Festival is an annual media event held in the United Kingdom each August which brings together all parts of the television and digital world to debate the major issues facing the industry.

    The Festival draws about 2,000 delegates from the major networks and production companies internationally. Although the festival is held in Edinburgh, its headquarters are in London"


    These are the people who run the MacTaggart Lecture. The London Media Bubble speaks to the London Media Bubble: "What we need is more like-minded BAME/LGBQWERTY people to join our London Media Bubble so that we look more representative of the wider society whilst excluding most of the viewpoints of the wider society".

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. When did telefolk lose contact with realpeeps? I'd say somewhere around 1963. But it could have been earlier... :)

      Delete
  3. 1. I was always uneasy about the sudden undebated promulgation of Holocaust Memorial Day. Only about 300 UK citizens died in the Holocaust - less than those who died in the Spanish Civil War. Whilst the event certainly has huge cultural significance at a European and global level, and must of course be memorialised through cultural activities - films, histories, novels etc., introducing a "compulsory" day of memory has been predictably disastrous in its effects. There has been unseemly "genocide-bidding" with others, such as Roma, Gays, Armenians, Tutsis, descendants of Black slaves and (most bogusly) Palestinians demanding that they be remembered as well.

    It seems to me that, in the UK, as holocaust memorial has become more official, formalised and bureaucratic, anti-semitism has - against the claimed impact of HMD - been on the rise, thanks to PC multiculturalism, mass immigration and the increasing influence of Islam in our country.

    2. Clearly the Zionist interpretation of the British League/UN mandate in Palestine is not the only one that might be valid. The British government had its own view which enjoyed a cross-party consensus of our democratic representatives, over a couple of decades. That can't just be dismissed out of hand. As far as I know the League or UN never crticised the British interpretation of its mandate...is there any evidence they ever did?

    3. The Gruesome Foursome...Jo Swinson seems to be mentally unbalanced. I heard her arguing this morning that it would be undemocratic to allow people to vote in a General Election and express their opinion on how the parties were handling Brexit...that follows on her stating that we needed to have a second referendum but that she would not respect the result if it went against what she wanted! She's truly unbelievable...nothing liberal or democratic about her.

    4. Dorothy Byrne is a disgusting individual a kind of anti-journalist. Simply an ideologue who sees events through the prism of her isms but one who is clearly in love with her own, very juvenile, "whackiness". This is how far we have fallen.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Agree with your No. 1. Didn't this memorial craze lead to Margaret Thatcher changing the law re. WW2 'war crimes' i.e. being a prison guard. I think we lost an important principle of UK law there regarding retrospective legislation. Arguably that encouraged the 'reformers' to change the law in an attempt to imprison someone for killing Stephen Lawrence. Making law for special cases is never a good idea. ("upskirting" - did we really need a law against that?).
    Agree with your Nos. 3 & 4 too. (Don't know enough about No. 2 to comment).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. As Meatloaf sang..."Three Out of Four Ain't Bad". :)

      Delete
  5. Boris is good enough! Nicely played six flying over the boundary into the spectators, landing squarely on the BBC's bonce.

    When it comes to Brexit the impartial Speaker of the Commons is about as impartial as the impartial BBC. They will be making common cause.

    The dangerous lunatic Clive Lewis seems to be calling for insurrection against the Crown. Last time I checked, I think that is a treasonable offence punishable by not less than ten years in the Tower! One does wonder if they are going to be any other crazies following him on to the barricades...

    Perhaps Jo Swinson will call for the formation of a Remainer Liberation Front?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The BBC have spoken. The move to prorogue Parliament is apparently "controversial" which we all know is a "bad thing" in the BBC lexicon. Had it been something they liked it would have been "radical", "game changing", "novel" or "robust".

      Delete
    2. Oh yeah and the BBC keep referring to this as Parliament being "suspended". That's what military juntas do. Parliament is not being "suspended" it is being prorogued prior to a new session beginning on a stated date.

      Delete
    3. Owen Jones is calling for the masses to take to the streets in protest at the (usual, unremarkable) proroguing of Parliament. I looked out the window. There were people on the streets...going about their normal business.

      Leftists' only answer to losing an argument is the threat of escalating violence.

      Delete

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