Here's a selection from BBC World Affairs Editor John Simpson's Twitter feed this week. Enjoy!:
- 80 years ago today my dear friend Clare Hollingsworth, on her first real story for the Daily Telegraph, sat in her hotel room & watched the German tanks crossing into Poland — & neither her boss, nor her foreign desk, nor the British (or any other) embassy would believe her.
- Went through the rite-of-passage experience this morning of delivering my son for the first day at his new secondary school & have been feeling thoroughly melancholic ever since.
- I’ve reported on ten consecutive British prime ministers. None of the other nine made anything like as bad a start as Boris Johnson has. Margaret Thatcher, whom I came to know well, would I’m certain have been furious at his performance.
- Broadcasting all morning about Robert Mugabe. Having visited Matabeleland after his forces, backed up by the North Korean army, murdered 20,000 of his political opponents, and spent time 11 years ago reporting on the collapsing economy, I find it hard to be too positive. Just found in my notes that in November 2008 the year-on-year inflation rate in Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe was a shade under 90 sextillion per cent. Soon afterwards his wife Grace beat up a British photographer who snapped her buying expensive jewellery in Hong Kong.
- No wonder the Afghan govt feels it’s being abandoned by Pres Trump & the US - he now reveals he was planning to meet the Taliban! They must think they’ve got America on the run.
- Heading off to Iraq for a couple of weeks’ reporting. I’ll get away from political extremism, threats against decent moderate politicians, anxieties that the govt will break the law, & a sense of despair about the direction the country is heading in. Yes, Iraq will be a doddle.
1. I thought that Clare Hollingsworth story sounded dodgy. Here's the Wikipedia version:
ReplyDelete"While driving along the German–Polish border on 28 August, Hollingworth observed a massive build-up of German troops, tanks and armoured cars facing Poland, after the camouflage screens concealing them were disturbed by wind. Her report was the main story on the Daily Telegraph's front page on the following day.
On 1 September, Hollingworth called the British embassy in Warsaw to report the German invasion of Poland. To convince doubtful embassy officials, she held a telephone out of the window of her room to capture the sounds of German forces.[6][9] Hollingworth's eyewitness account was the first report the British Foreign Office received about the invasion of Poland."
Not quite the Simpson version is it. The Wikipedia version makes clear she was a serious journalist tgaken seriously by both her paper and diplomats.
2. "Went through the rite-of-passage experience this morning of delivering my son for the first day at his new secondary school & have been feeling thoroughly melancholic ever since."
Could explain (s) why he's clinging on to his BBC job despite being well beyond pensionable age...elite private schools can be v. expensive and (b) why we hardly ever hear from him in his official role as "World Affairs Editor" if he's actually at home looking after the kids.
3. "I’ve reported on ten consecutive British prime ministers. None of the other nine made anything like as bad a start as Boris Johnson has. Margaret Thatcher, whom I came to know well, would I’m certain have been furious at his performance."
Yes, such a bad start he's opened up a 14 point lead over Labour in the polls. Well spotted, John. Shouldn't you be getting on with the ironing?
4. " Broadcasting all morning about Robert Mugabe. Having visited Matabeleland after his forces, backed up by the North Korean army, murdered 20,000 of his political opponents, and spent time 11 years ago reporting on the collapsing economy, I find it hard to be too positive. Just found in my notes that in November 2008 the year-on-year inflation rate in Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe was a shade under 90 sextillion per cent. Soon afterwards his wife Grace beat up a British photographer who snapped her buying expensive jewellery in Hong Kong."
That's nice John that you are trying not to be too positive...given you should never speak ill of the dead racist/Marxist revolutionary terrorist leaders of Africa.
5. "No wonder the Afghan govt feels it’s being abandoned by Pres Trump & the US - he now reveals he was planning to meet the Taliban! They must think they’ve got America on the run."
Er - wasn't Obama desperate to get out of Afghanistan?
6. "Heading off to Iraq for a couple of weeks’ reporting. I’ll get away from political extremism, threats against decent moderate politicians, anxieties that the govt will break the law, & a sense of despair about the direction the country is heading in. Yes, Iraq will be a doddle."
Oh God, means not only will we have to endure more lunatic comparisons between Britain and Iraq (tell us John how many British applicants for asylum Iraq had last year) but we'll also get a does of all that romantic Arabist stuff about the fantastic hospitality of the locals (unlike us cold, stand-offish unwelcoming Brits).
He managed to be positive about Mugabe on Jeremy Vine, Radio 2. "It wus the whites wot dunnit". (A standard line by the BBC decades after the natives get to be the government).
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