Saturday, 21 September 2019

John Simpson - the best bits


All the views it's fit to print

And to end, here's a selection from the transcripts below containing John's most quotable quotes from his latest podcast:


"And, so, when Trump says in those ineffable tweets...I mean, you know, I use the word 'ineffable' because it sounds, you know, like the f-word...that he does, apparently at two o'clock in the morning, propped up in his lonely bedroom with nothing to do except tweet..."

"And he claims to stand up for the little man...I mean, you know, a multimillionaire - how much money he has is in question - who's never been bothered about any little man in his life before and has, in fact, screwed plenty of little people over the decades."

"And, of course, America in the past has made us feel rather superior and inclined to pat ourself on the back. That, I have to say, I think is over now. I don't think Britain has anything much to pat itself on the back for at present."

"I find myself, against my will really but, thinking and arguing in favour of the old ways where an elite is responsible for putting out the news."

"And all of that sense that an elite is telling you what it is its interests to tell you, all of that is now very much on the back foot, and it indeed may be disappearing, and, well, you know, I'm a child, a product of that kind of elite. It's not a social elite. It's a sort of intellectual elite. And we're losing it. We're losing it everywhere. And I'm not sure things are any better."

"Just the general thing about 'the BBC bias' and so on - and, God, you see it everywhere and it's so bloody boring - but the fact is that there isn't an editorial line that the BBC takes. The heads of every programme, the presenters of every programme, are given complete freedom to do and say what they think ought to be said. So you get different versions of these things from different programmes, both on radio and on television and online as well. And there are things, you know, that I think go too far in one direction or go too far in another."

"But what I am really not happy with is a kind of timidity that I feel the BBC in particular has shown at times. And there is, I think, an institutional timidity and I think the BBC has really has got to understand that and fight against it."

2 comments:

  1. The BBC should produce the thoughts of Chairman John as a Little Pink Book.

    Then they could hold rallies at Broadcasting House rythmically chanting "Death to the counter-revolutionaries! Death to renegade John Humphrys!! Death to running dog Rod Liddle!!! We are impartial. We are more than impartial and will crush anyone who disagrees!!!"

    This could be followed by a revolutionary opera held in the courtyard, starring Ash Sarkar, Rachel Sylvester, Paul Mason and Owen Jones and entitled "Brexit Is A Plot By Reactionary Elements That Will Be Defeated by the Glorious Proletariat Under the Wise Leadership of Chairman John".

    PS This is what is so good about those Humphrys' revelations. Simpson is now effectively in the position of calling Humphrys, a respected BBC journalist with a career as illustrious as his own, a liar, plain and simple.

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  2. Parts of that disgraceful diatribe are verging on self pity. The liberal elite that Simson thinks he belongs to, haven’t been abandoned by the so-called populist vote. It is liberal left who have abandoned the very people they once stood up for. And they still don’t get it. They have have for all intents and purposes created Trump.

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