Sunday 8 December 2019

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Following though, as a blog like this must do, I think that Andrew Bomford's The World This Weekend report on Labour's nationalisation plans was well-balanced, with plenty to annoy both sides and plenty to think about. 

Then, at the programme's climax, came a discussion involving Nicola Adam of the fabulous Lancashire Evening Post...

... (I never myself read it these days, but it's a local paper for local people up 'ere, and the BBC usually ignores it, so go local girl! Me and Tubbs are rooting for you!)...

...pro-Brexit Iain Martin of The Times, and Professor David Egerton, "an historian and author of The Rise and Fall of the British Nation" (a Corbynista academic, by the sounds of it). 

I thought I'd transcribe all of Jonny Dymond's questions, as I've focused in closely on this edition of The World This Weekend and was curious about what he'd ask:

  • (To Nicola) Nicola, let me start with you if I may. We're constantly being told that the north is the area that will probably decide this election - this Tory ambition to break the so-called red wall, these constituencies that have been held for so long by Labour. Is that sense of importance, that focus on the north, felt up in the north?
  • (To David) David, it's not just the north that's feeling that way, is there (sic)? There is a...er, er, er... malaise, a concern about turnout, for you?
  • (To Iain) Iain, what strikes me, and has struck me for weeks, is we have these very different visions of what the country might be after the election from Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats, particularly with Conservatives and Labour, and yet the discussion, the debate that they're been, has been largely focused around claims of antisemitism in the Labour Party and these three words - Get Brexit done - and whether or not he'll do an interview, and the Conservative Party. It's been a curious debate, hasn't it?
  • (To Nicola) Nicola, do you get that sense of exhaustion with politics? Even a shrug of the shoulders, a bit of despair about the whole business for where you are?
  • (To Iain) Iain, Iain, you wrote this week - and I did engage with your article - that they'll hang a portrait of Nigel Farage - Brexit Party leader - in the National Portrait Gallery one day. This general election was presented as 'the Brexit election'. Is that the case? Is it still the case?
  • (To David) David, whether or not there's a picture of Nigel Farage in the National Portrait Gallery - a beer in one hand and a fag in the other - the Brexit Party is struggling, isn't it? It say four MEPs desert it this week and it appears to be bumping along the bottom in the polls. Is it over?
  • (To Nicola) Nicola, is the Brexit Party over in the north?
  • (To Nicola) OK, Nicola, I want you to tell me, can anything shift in this last week and will you please call the election, briefly.
  • (To Iain) Iain Martin, one last push? Any chance of a change? Call the election!
  • (To David) And Professor David Egerton, you're a professor so you must get this right, do you think things can change in this last week and can you call it?

Let's channel my inner Prof Mike Berry of Cardiff University here and look, professorially, at the BBC presenter's questions there.

Does this list of questions prove, as per my imaginings of far-left Prof Mike Berry's response to answering this question, that BBC Jonny really is a Brexit-supporting, Faragist Tory? 

No, to be fair, it doesn't.

Fans of Nigel Farage will doubtless note that BBC Jonny didn't just openly invite two people unsympathetic to the Brexit Party to slam the Brexit Party, he also, himself, actively played ringmaster to the chorus of mockery towards Nigel Farage. 

All of which is to expected from the BBC.

But please just look again at this:
(To Iain) Iain, what strikes me, and has struck me for weeks, is we have these very different visions of what the country might be after the election from Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats, particularly with Conservatives and Labour, and yet the discussion, the debate that there's been, has been largely focused around claims of antisemitism in the Labour Party and these three words - Get Brexit done - and whether or not he'll do an interview, and the Conservative Party. It's been a curious debate, hasn't it?
Why does Jonny think that "claims" of antisemitism in the Labour Party form part of "a curious debate"?  Aren't they, in fact, absolutely central to the debate? 

1 comment:

  1. Your post led me to this...

    Femi is standing for the Nuanced Party.

    https://twitter.com/Femi_Sorry/status/1203383861834657795

    Like all political narratives now, this one has a bus: a lot of people don't want to be thrown under Femi's bus...

    ReplyDelete

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