The BBC arrives at self-parody

Continuing on from an earlier post...

If the BBC wishes to take issue with and disprove Ben Harris-Quinney's claim that the BBC has a preference for guests that are "embodiments of the liberal metropolitan establishment" and that the corporation constantly draws on a limited pool of comment ("the same people with the same views over and over again"), they shouldn't refer him to this morning's Broadcasting House or they'd end up with egg on their faces.

The press panel today was firmly in 'you couldn't make it up' territory. Ben can use it as Exhibit A from now on.

The three guests were Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, Stephen K Amos and Salma Shah, and - among other things - they discussed the BBC, the government and the BBC licence fee. 

As was openly admitted, Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson sat on the board of the BBC for many years, Stephen K Amos has worked for the BBC, and Salma Shah used to work for the BBC.

What are the chances of that happening!

It's as bad as the Ofcom board.

''BBC Hit By New Bashir Shame''

“The BBC has a really grim bit of reading in The Mail on Sunday. This is another Martin Bashir-related story. Goes on for pages and pages and it is tough stuff for BBC people to read”, said Andrew Marr this morning. 

He didn't elaborate, or mention the story again. 

This morning's BBC News Channel paper review also merely mentioned it, with Victoria Derbyshire laying heavy emphasis on her own words, “it claims”.

The Mail on Sunday's remarkable investigation into how Martin Bashir took the Babes In The Wood victim's bloodied clothes from her mother, and then lost them, focuses on how that was followed by “derisory” efforts to find them by the BBC. 

The loss, the Mail reports, was only found out when the mother asked for them back to help police review the evidence and help convict the chief suspect.

As with the Princess Diana scandal, it's the allegations of a cover-up by the BBC that are particularly telling:

At the time, a BBC spokesman announced 'extensive inquiries' had been made to find them. 

But we can reveal today that the Corporation failed to even carry out the most basic checks, including speaking directly to Bashir. 

Key journalists who worked alongside him on the Babes In The Wood documentary also said they were never contacted. 

Nor were the families of Karen and fellow victim Nicola Fellows, nor a forensic scientist named by the programme's editor as an expert who could analyse scene-of-crime material. 

The acting director-general of the BBC at the time, Mark Byford, has also admitted no 'formal investigation' was held into the missing clothes.

Well might Julian Knight MP say in reaction, “These allegations, if proven, would amount to one of the most shameful episodes in the history of the BBC. This could be the BBC's Milly Dowler phone hacking moment.” 

His Commons Culture select committee will be interviewing Tim Davie on Tuesday. 

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Update - The story was discussed during this morning's Broadcasting House paper review. Only one guest commented on it, namely  former Conservative MP for North Devon Peter Heaton-Jones, who also previously worked for...guess who?...yes, the BBC:

Paddy O'Connell: What is the front page of the Mail on Sunday, Peter?

Peter Heaton-Jones: Well, yes I thought I should dip into the world of journalism from my previous life Paddy, and so...the Mail on Sunday is obsessed with the BBC, has been for some time, shows no signs of waning. So you can read about the BBC and the Mail's view of it on pages 1, 2, 6, 7, 8 and 26, should you be so disposed. I love the BBC. I worked here for 20 years and I think that the licence fee is the right way to fund the BBC. Let me get that out of the way first. But the Mail says one thing in its editorial which I think has some substance to it, and it's this: They...quote, “The BBC's closed and haughty elite with its insistence on being judge and jury in any case where it comes under criticism, ploughs on regardless”. And I just think if there's one lesson for the BBC to learn, it's you can get it wrong sometimes, don't always defend yourself to the hilt if someone accuses you of getting something wrong. 

Paddy O'Connell: And this front page is another scandal involving the disgraced journalist Martin Bashir.

Peter Heaton-Jones: Yes, “BBC hit by new Bashir shame”, they say on page 1 - and about 18 other pages. It's not a good story, which I don't think I want to go into detail about Paddy, but it's another example of how I think the Mail and certain other newspapers will try to find any chink in the BBC's armour. They are there, but they find them very actively.

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Further update [Sunday evening] -  The BBC has radically undermined BBC apologist Peter Heaton-Jones tonight. 

He said it wasn't a good story, but the BBC obviously disagrees. They've taken onboard the Mail on Sunday's investigation.

As a result, the BBC has now issued an apology, saying they're “extremely sorry” over the loss of the murdered schoolgirl's clothes. 

This is important, and needs exploring further, though the BBC website report - true to form - spins the 'cover-up' claim as wrong, to the BBC's advantage.

Maybe time will tell, or maybe it won't.

Whatever, well done to the Mail on Sunday, however many pages they took over it.

Broadcasting Reclaimed

 

A prominent story in the Sunday Telegraph today, Top scholars launch fightback against woke brigade’s ‘blatantly false’ reading of history, tells how ''leading academics'' [e.g. Prof. Robert Tombs and Andrew Roberts] are ''joining forces'' for a campaign called History Reclaimed which is ''aimed at calling out misleading narratives about historical figures'' in the light of ''growing consternation at the steady march of “woke” ideology which has seen statues pulled down, university degrees “decolonised” and museum exhibits relabelled or removed altogether''. 

The Telegraph report was discussed on this morning's BBC Radio 4 Broadcasting House paper review and all three of Paddy's guests mocked it, presenting it a non-story, and dismissing concerns about “woke” as right-wing nonsense. 

It's the BBC, so who's surprised at this very BBC meeting of like minds? 

As Rod Liddle once put it, ''On Radio Four, you get the bien pensant toss rammed down your throat, almost without variation''. 

And that, ladies and gentlemen and others, is why GB News - or something like it - is needed. 

P.S. The young ''social justice''-focused pro-''woke'' woman on Paddy's wholly likeminded panel, Swarzy Macaly, turns out to be ''the official young voice of BBC Sounds''.

Naturally.

Book plug?

Hmm. What to make of this morning's Broadcasting House devoting a full twenty minutes to an interview with John Bercow? 

It was certainly a nice book plug for the anti-Brexit former Speaker. His book got several mentions.

But Paddy did well in challenging him on the bullying allegations and on picking up on his ad hominem mode of defence, deployed with no little malice against two alleged victims and other former colleagues during the interview, and pursued the bullying question further. 

Mr. Bercow is more Marmite than Marmite (calamari?), it seems. Twitter Remainers thought he came across brilliantly. I thought he came across as a thoroughly nasty piece of work. 

And lead me not into temptation

Talking of Broadcasting House, the paper review today featured Richard Wilson. 

The famous Labour-supporting actor told the programme, with passion: 

What always upset me during the election was that Corbyn must have known how hated he was and yet he decided to carry on. That's what I can't forgive. 

Now, having posted that tardy scoop, I really need to just leave it there and not continue this post. I mustn't let Sue down, myself down or you down by giving in to base temptations. But it's so hard. Yet I must stop myself. I so, so, so desire to rewrite the above as:

What always upset me during the election was that Corbyn must have know how hated he was and yet he decided to carry on. I couldn't BELIEEEEEEEVE it! 

...but I really, really mustn't. It would be such an obvious thing to do. So I mustn't.

"The hard Brexiteer of the ERG who insults Muslim women in print or the centrist London mayor who marches with Gay Pride?"

As regular readers will know, I don't mind a bit of Paddy on a Sunday morning, but not even I can defend him over this part of his narrative this morning:

After millions of us picked a candidate, so too must the Prime Minister. Which Boris Johnson will he choose? The hard Brexiteer of the ERG who insults Muslim women in print or the centrist London mayor who marches with Gay Pride?

How's that for a loaded dichotomy! 

And, of course, Boris was actually defending Muslim women's right to dress as letterboxes in that article, and he was actually joking about the item of clorhing they wore, but Chris Morris is otherwise engaged so probably won't be reality-checking Paddy over this. 

Easy hits

The weekly 'special advisors' election segment on Paddy's Broadcasting House has, as you know, been controversial - well, with us anyhow. 

The first issue concerned representation, with question marks hanging over the presence of a weekly Liberal Democrat former advisor alongside the former Conservative and Labour advisors. Was that over-promoting the Lib Dems? Well, this week the Lib Dems were dropped and a former SNP advisor (Geoff Aberdein, who was - to Paddy's delight - in Aberdeen) brought in instead. Wonder which other parties will appear? (If Raheem Kassam, former advisor to Nigel Farage, appears I'll eat George Galloway's hat). 

The second issued concerned the 'supporter' status of the Conservative and Labour former advisors, in that the the Conservatives are represented by somewhat who doesn't support the Conservatives while Labour is represented by who supports Jeremy Corbyn. 

Jo Tanner and Simon Fletcher were back again this week, Simon being pleasantly on-message and positive for Jeremy and Jo being all 'detached and impartial' and downbeat about the Tories. 

Cue a post I prepared yesterday, before unexpectedly having to go out and party, but which l plonk here instead:

*******

Regular readers might be delighted to learn that today's weekend edition of the BBC's would-be-hip Electioncast podcast, presented by The Great Chris Mason, featured two guests - former Gordon Brown/Ed Miliband advisor, no Labour Party peer, Stewart Wood and former advisor to Boris Johnson, Jo Tanner. 

Yes, that Jo Tanner - the one Paddy's Broadcasting House is using as 'the Conservative-supporting special advisor', despite her not being a Conservative or a Conservative supporter. 

Here again, Jo emphasised the fact that she doesn't vote 'Tory' and doesn't support the 'Tories'. Stewart, as I may have mentioned, is a serving Labour Party peer. 

Go figure how that works, BBC impartiality-wise!

On Electioncast, she criticised Boris's reponse to the London terrorist attack on several fronts, calling him "opportunistic". She didn't think he was "quite right" to say what he said and didn't think bringing up police numbers was "necessary" either. Labour's Lord Wood agreed that Boris's response "left a bad taste in the mouth", though he was less strong in his criticism of Boris, saying we "shouldn't overegg" it.

Really, BBC?

*******

It's quite something really, isn't it? Wonder where Jo will turn up next on the BBC? Somewhere with Ash Sarkar perhaps?

*******

I must say though that former SNP chief-of-staff Geoff Aberdein was very engaging. I hope he reappears.

Paddy: Geoff Aberdein, do you think that the leader of the SNP would have given an interview to the BBC is she thought that the leader of the Conservatives was not going to? 

Geoff: Well, yes I do. And the reason I do is because, as somebody that advised the SNP for a number of years, it's a great advantage to being a Scottish politician going on a UK-wide TV audience (sic) because you get much more coverage. But, also, you can bank upon - and I'm sorry to be a little bit rude here - hoping that the interviewer doesn't know much about the intracacies of Holyrood politics as much as they do about Westminster politics. We very much viewed it as an easy hit.

I've seen so many UK-wide BBC interviews with the SNP over the years (Andrew Neil excepted) that that's not exactly news, but it lays out a real failing in our Westminster/Salford-dominated BBC. 

"A message of hope?"

Talking of rum decisions...

I can see why - in the wake of the British government's decision to take in orphaned Islamic State children and Paddy's mention that charities are calling for "everybody's child to be brought back home" - Broadcasting House chose to interview a woman who took in refugees (from the likes of Eritrea and Chad) and one of the young refugees she took in. It helps the cause. 

The rum thing is that, as Paddy (properly) pointed out, she's a Liberal Democrat candidate in the general election. She's standing in Luton North. 

Isn't it a bit unfair to the candidates standing against her to have her selflessness paraded before the public? Wouldn't it have been better to tell her story after the election? 

Fairness at 'Broadcasting House'

In a post last Sunday, we discussed the decision by Radio 4's Broadcasting House to choose a former advisor to Boris Johnson, the second a former advisor to Jeremy Corbyn and the third a former advisor to Nick Clegg - i.e. a Conservative, a Labour supporter and a Liberal Democrat supporter - to be their 'special advisors' throughout the general election. and wondered how fair that was (i.e. did it overpromote the Lib Dems?). 

There's another problem. It turns out, as revealed this morning (out of her own mouth), that the former advisor to Boris Johnson (Jo Tanner) is not a Conservative at all. She said she'd never been in the party and tended to take a "neutral" position on things like manifestos. She then poured a huge bucket cold water over the manifesto of "the Tories", and Paddy then noted her as describing herself as "not a natural Conservative".  The former advisor to Jeremy Corbyn (Simon Fletcher), in contrast, is a Labour Party member on the far-left of the party and close to Mr Corbyn, so guess what? Yes, he pronounced his party's manifesto "a big success" and praised Jeremy Corbyn. Is that fair?

Is Broadcasting House going to keep Jo Tanner for the duration of the election, knowing what they now know (if they didn't already know)? Shouldn't they replace her with a Conservative supporter?

Paddy's Choice

Paddy's Broadcasting House has, quite rightly, stood down its long-serving election generals, Lord Peter Hennessy and John Sargeant. Their openly-expressed strong contempt for Boris Johnson would have made them difficult to justify, impartiality-wise. 

So a new trio of election generals have been promoted: One's a former advisor to Boris Johnson, the second a fotmer advisor to Jeremy Corbyn and the third a former advisor to Nick Clegg - i.e. a Conservative, a Labour supporter and a Liberal Democrat supporter. 

And they'll be reappearing each week throughout the election. 

Now, the question - as per the broadcasters' difficulties over the leadership debates shows - is: how impartial is this? 

Should the Lib Dems be on every week? Why give them such a priveleged platform? How about a Green, or an SNP, or a Brexit Party major every so often instead? 

I bet they've closely debated that behind the scenes. They've certainly reached a decision. 

It was horrible

The BBC's Royal Correspondent Jonny Dymond is probably not going to get a Christmas card from Prince Andrew and his family after his Broadcasting House review of that Newsnight perfomance:

Jonny Dymond: Well, he got the message out. You know, he got the denial, the acknowledgement of having made a mistake vis a vis seeing Epstein, he sowed a bit of doubt about the photo. But, I thought, at nearly every turn that was undercut by the tone. It was a sort of mix of 'Je ne regrette rien' and 'Do you know who I am?'. The lack of regret over the friendship was breathtaking, I think, for most people. The question of whether he'd testify if he was asked to, he said, 'Well, I'd take legal advice and if they told me I would have to, if push came to shove, I would'. And then there was this horrible tone-deaf description of how this predator, Jeffrey Epstein, behaved:

Prince Andrew: Do I regret the fact that he has quite obviously conducted himself in a manner unbecoming? Yes. 

Emily Maitlis: 'Unbecoming'? He was a sex offender.

Prince Andrew: Yep. I'm sorry. I'm being polite. In the sense that he was a sex offender.

I mean, who's he being polite to? The dead friend? I mean, 'manner unbecoming'! It was horrible. So much of it felt as if he simply could not apologise, and I think if he had gone in with a different tone the messages that he got out would have been that much more successful. But it was, as I say...it was undercut, I thought, by this tone of having nothing to apologise for.

Classical matters

Lord Lucan in disguise?

I saw a plug for a forthcoming book on Twitter this morning by an American academic called John Kyrin Schafer. 

He's about to publish a book about the Roman poet Catullus. 

That led me, on a whim, to his university website and this description of one of the courses he runs - '"Lucan Bellum Civile" - Readings in Latin Literature'.

That doesn't sound particularly scintillating, but then came the details of the module.

Strap yourself in Boris and let the Hans Zimmer soundtrack begin:

Once dismissed as second-rate bombast, Lucan's epic poem of the civil war between Caesar and Pompey has enjoyed a remarkable comeback: these days, "Lucan" is probably your average Latin hipster's expected answer to the question, "who's the best Roman poet?" From the time-delayed murderousness of his rhetoric and the shocking grossness of his violence to the eternal emptiness and infinite perversity of his world gone mad, Lucan's is an aesthetic of unremitting bleakness, and you'll love it. Extensive readings of his soul-scouring Latin.

Now that's how to sell a course!

Naturally I tried some Lucan and dived to the last book and Caesar and Cleopatra (and Ptolemy):

Now from the stream Pelusian of the Nile,
     Was come the boyish king, taming the rage
     Of his effeminate people: pledge of peace;
     And Caesar safely trod Pellaean halls;
     When Cleopatra bribed her guard to break
     The harbour chains, and borne in little boat
     Within the Macedonian palace gates,
     Caesar unknowing, entered: Egypt's shame;
     Fury of Latium; to the bane of Rome
70   Unchaste.  For as the Spartan queen of yore
     By fatal beauty Argos urged to strife
     And Ilium's homes, so Cleopatra roused
     Italia's frenzy.  By her drum she called
     Down on the Capitol terror (if to speak
     Such word be lawful); mixed with Roman arms
     Coward Canopus, hoping she might lead
     A Pharian triumph, Caesar in her train;
     And 'twas in doubt upon Leucadian waves
     Whether a woman, not of Roman blood,
80   Should hold the world in awe.  Such lofty thoughts
     Seized on her soul upon that night in which
     The wanton daughter of Pellaean kings
     First shared our leaders' couches.  Who shall blame
     Antonius for the madness of his love,
     When Caesar's haughty breast drew in the flame?

That last bit, in Latin (which I've never learned), is "quis tibi uaesani ueniam non donet amoris, Antoni, durum cum Caesaris hauserit ignis pectus?". I might try to learn that.

*******

Such Latin thoughts were also on the mind of this morning's Broadcasting House on BBC Radio 4...though they came at the end.

More on that story later....

*******

#MeToo

The programme began with a surprisingly gentle interview with Sam Gyimah by my old favourite Paddy O'Connell.

Sam, as you may be aware, is the until-very-recently tax-slashing, ultra-Thatcherite, globalist, Brexit-disliking Tory leadership contender and potential Conservative PM who's now suddenly transformed himself, within the two-month wink of a butterfly's eye, into a Lib Dem MP (and who everyone, it seems, likes and thinks is a nice guy). He's now claiming that liberal Tory Boris (a socially liberal, pro-immigration, pro-public spending Tory) is far too right-wing for him.

I'd have liked Paddy to tease some of those contradictions out with Mr. Gyimah but such teasing-out never came.

*******

The BIG story though for BH was the David-Cameron-book-launch-related news.

This, after a tiny clip of Tim Waterstone spreading ordure over it, resulted in a weird discussion between former Labour spinmeister Ali Campbell (of 45 minutes/dodgy dossier/Dr David Kelly fame) and self-confessed Lib Dem voter Iain Dale, who were in almost total agreement about how great and important David Cameron's new book is - so much so that they kept on pointing out how much they agreed with each other.

Please allow me then to quote an alternative point of view, tweeted last night by Helena Morrissey DBE (any relation to THE Morrissey, who really ought to be knighted, then made PM?):

One of the many issues people have with the media & the BBC is the “news” is so often just about the predictable media/political bubble. BBC is paid for by taxpayers - how many taxpayers think the D Cameron book is the most important news for them? It is the lead story tonight.

I'm betting that D Cameron is going to be top news for the BBC all week. 

*******

Back to Latin matters and, after a later onslaught from Quango Queen Dame Louise Casey (who mounted a massive stallion over Boris's Hulk comments, as if humour shouldn't be permitted while homelessness exists on the streets of Britain), the programme climaxed in a mini-lecture from one of the BBC's highest profile experts, Prof. Mary Beard, on the uses and abuses of historical (especially Classical) references by politicians.

Despite promises that politicians across the spectrum fell under her scrutiny, only one politician was held up to the full glare of Prof. Mary's magnifying glass.

Can you guess who? (Clue: He has blond, tousled hair).

Mary Beard, courtesy of Radio 4, 'debunked' Boris three times over his "half truth" and "extremely conservative version of the ancient world".

The first, I think, she showed he didn't get quite right. The other two I think she didn't prove at all, beyond ringing a bell to signify her disagreement with PM Boris.

She also said she'd "been fighting for most of (her) life" against the impression that Latin and Greek is "something that Tories do". (Very Radio 4!).

Two Beards

The weirdest thing, despite Mary not noticing it, is that - despite Prof. Mary conceding that he was right on some thing - the errors made by "Johnson" 'prove' him to be a liberal Tory.

Yes, Mary conceded, Boris got it broadly right about Sparta being a xenophobic, militarist regime but, aha, he was so wrong about (approvingly) claiming that Athens had a "welcoming" approach to immigrants. Athens wasn't "welcoming" to outsiders, Prof. Mary said. And I believe her.

The second example was Boris contrasting Jesus Christ and the Emperor Augustus. Boris said that Augustus was "all about glory, competition and success" and Jesus Christ "believed in turning the other cheek and kindness and compassion" and, thus, appealed to women, slaves and the non-winners of the Roman Empire. Prof. Mary called this "a classic howler", saying that - despite Christianity appealing to some women and slaves - it was mainly down to rich people and Roman emperors that Christianity became successful because "it plugged into the power structure". Now, I know she's an expert but I've read so much about the origins of Christianity and I think I know that until Constantine (some 300 years after Jesus) turned the Roman Empire into a Christian empire, Christians were (with intermittent savagery) often heavily persecuted. Yet they grew and grew. And they did include women and slaves and poor people. And Prof. Mary's objections rather sound to me like ideological hair-splitting.

And the third example, contrasting Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great, saw Prof. Mary grudgingly confessing herself "pleased" with Boris that he'd called Caesar being "an absolute b****" for his mass-murdering of the Gauls, yet still damning Boris for saying that Julius Caesar was, despite that, greater than Alexander the Great, her buzzer ringing with resentment. Her reason? Well, she didn't say, and we were left none the wiser. She thinks "neither of them deserve to be in pedestals". So was Boris wrong, as Prof, Mary buzzed in, to say that Julius Caesar, progenitor of the long-lasting Roman Empire that reshaped so much of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, and who inspired the Holy Roman Empire and titles such as Shah, Tsar and Kaiser, was greater than the semi-ephemeral, ultra-violent, magnificent shooting star that was Alexander the Great? I'd say 'no', and that Mary Beard was wrong to ring her buzzer. And that the BBC was wrong to grant her an uncaveated authority to bluff her way through another BBC-licensed denunciation of Boris Johnson.

Now, yes, the BBC may be right to take Mary Beard as an interesting, free-thinking historian, but it doesn't mean that her expertise in the earlier Roman Empire necessarily makes her an expert on the rise of Christianity, or an unbiased arbiter of historical truth, or a commentator capable of completely debunking a Classics-taught PM she deeply disapproves of over Brexit.

But here's where we are. Is there a Latin phrase out there to sum all of this up?

Free Speech

It’s all very well arguing about free speech, no-platforming, diversity, safe spaces, being/not being triggered, positive discrimination and having the chance to see and hear others’ points of view before making up your own mind about controversial issues. I get all that, and I do realise that you can’t have everything your own way. (Bit like Brexit)

However, the BBC’s over-exposure of Ash Sarkar is verging on ‘diversity of opinion too far’.

First there was saturation-point Paul Mason, a subversive hard-left pundit whom the Beeb couldn’t seem to get enough of - but his appearances have thankfully subsided, (although he was on this morning’s Broadcasting House) but even he seems more moderate these days, perhaps in comparison to the likes of Sarkar, assorted Asian women and that weirdo from Squawkbox. 
I feel triggered by Ash Sarkar, with those terrifying talons that she keeps waving in the air, although I suppose I must defend her right to wave them. 

Talking of Broadcasting House, they too touched on the aforementioned Rod Liddle, namely his recent, controversial article about missing dads. Absent dads, I mean - and to be more specific, absent black dads.

So they brought along that internet sensation of a black dad who made a video that went viral, in which he stated what could be described as the bleedin’ obvious, which is that if someone threatens you with a knife, if possible, scarper! Do as the Satnav says, and turn around where possible.

However, to most victims of the stabbing epidemic, not losing face seems to have taken priority over not losing your life. (Which would you rather save?) 

That inability to lose face reminds me of the continuing conflict in the Middle East - peace or intractability, that’s the choice. I digress.

Anyway, the wise dad, whose video stating the bleedin’ obvious went viral, has plans. He wants to set up youth projects to give kids something to do. Excellent! But not new.

Remember Camila Batmanghelidjh? I think I’m her one remaining supporter. Yes, she messed up, but her original approach to feral youth was promising.

See the way the BBC’s Chris Cook completely vilifies her. His article drips with rancour.  He states that the service she provided was unnecessary. 

“As its end approached, local charities, councils, child psychiatrists and officials all steeled themselves for the end of a £20m-a-year enterprise that had said it was in the same business as them. 

But the flood of need never came.”

“We can also now definitively say that local youth crime statistics have given the lie to a prediction from the charity that its collapse would lead to a descent into "savagery". None of the ups and downs coincide with the charity's collapse. Changes in city-wide crime, policing approaches and gangland economics matter much more than Kids Company did. 

I would suggest that this is a matter of opinion. The spate of knife crime, gangs, drugs and absent dads is hardly consistent with “The flood of need never came”.

I do know this viewpoint won’t go down well with many of you but there it is. I claim it in the name of free speech.

Meetings of minds

Helen Pidd (for old time's sake)

As raised by Ozfan on the open thread, the opening stretch of this morning's Broadcasting House consisted of two interviews, one after the other - the first with Ian Hislop, the second with Helen Pidd of The Guardian - both essentially focused on the 'bored with Brexit/let's move on and focus on other issues' theme which the BBC has been raising a lot recently. 

Some say (as they say on the BBC!) that this is also a key theme for the Government in its bid to get the public and, therefore, MPs to 'move on' too and accept Mrs May's Brexit deal. 

Conspiracy, or mere coincidence of interests?

And then the programme used the Kindertransport anniversary to draw an equivalence between Jewish children fleeing the Nazis and today’s refugees and economic migrants. 

In fairness though, during the paper review later Peter Hitchens objected that "it doesn't really do" to compare or equate the persecution of the Jews by the Nazis and present-day largely economic migration. 

Mr. Hitchens, one of the BBC's right-wingers of choice, was on alongside new BBC regular Grace Blakeley of The New Statesperson. She was displeased by his objection here, though they had a strong meeting of minds over the need for rail nationalisation and the wickedness of "the man who calls himself Tommy Robinson/Mr Yaxley-Lennon, who calls himself Tommy Robinson" and the "insane, racist" leftovers of UKIP. 

Still, we did get to hear some boiled eggs boiling, and the bit on the Shipping Forecast was pleasant, moderate becoming good later. 

Generals on Parade

Cheltenham Town Hall

This morning's Broadcasting House took us to Cheltenham town hall for an audience with Peter Hennessy and former BBC political editor John Sergeant, umpired by Paddy O'Connell and focused squarely on Brexit. 

And very interesting it was too. (I do like listening to the pair of them.) 

They'd been the programme's referendum 'generals', as well as its election 'generals, giving their weekly takes on the progress of the campaign. I was intrigued but not surprised that they both said they'd voted Remain, and that Lord Hennessy remains a Remainer. John Sergeant, however, has changed his mind. He said that because of the behaviour of the EU's politicians over the Brexit negotiations he's now moved to the Leave side of the argument. An interesting development.

The audience in Cheltenham was meant to be balanced between Remainers, Leavers and Don't Knows, though - as is the way of such things - those who asked questions all sounded like Remainers. It's that 'BBC audience thing' again. 

Anyhow, it's well worth a listen. 

Soon after came Mark Mardell, previewing The World This Weekend. I smiled when he said, "And we'll add to the mood of pessimism you've been creating in Cheltenham by looking at the future of Brexit talks, which are coming to a really critical point in Brussels this week, and we'll be talking to a former Finnish prime minister about where he thinks we're going". 

When did Mark Mardell's The World This Weekend ever not seek to "add  to the mood of pessimism" over Brexit? 

Adverts on the BBC

I had to grin, while listening to this morning's Broadcasting House paper review, when  Anneka Rice took the BBC to task for product placement on Strictly Come Dancing:

I noticed on Strictly Come Dancing last night that they mentioned The Bodyguard three times, which is extraordinary, and it just makes me wonder where it will all end. Will we have Craig Revel Horwood saying "I'm the best a man can get" while he uses a Gillette razor? 

It's long been a (minor) bugbear of mine that the BBC boasts, at it's rivals' expense', about being free of irritating adverts yet you usually get 2-4 irritating adverts between every BBC TV show. The fact that they're all adverts for the BBC itself can't hide the fact that they're still adverts. 

It was even funnier as Broadcasting House itself had done a Bodyguard-related feature just a few minutes earlier, thus doing its own bit of BBC self-advertising.

And guess what happened on today's The World This Weekend? Yes, the starting point for its final feature was also Bodyguard. 

I'm only surprised that Radio 4 didn't ask the The Rev. Dr. Peter Stevenson to slip in a mention of Bodyguard during his sermon on this morning's Sunday Worship:

But that doesn’t exhaust the meaning of this exciting and hopeful  message. For when the apostle Paul uses that particular phrase he’s trying to convey the mind-boggling truth that Bodyguard on BBC One is the one to watch tonight. And with an awareness of a world in anticipation of its final episode we pray as Jesus taught his disciples to pray. Our father, who art in Heaven, etc...".

OK, let me just end this section by by reading what the Labour spokesman's told the Telegraph...

Professor David Abulafia

Yesterday Sue mentioned some comments during the newspaper review on yesterday's Broadcasting House, discussing an article in the Sunday Telegraph by former British diplomat Sir John Jenkins.

I did think myself of posting about Paddy's behaviour here. He often jumps in and challenges or changes the subject (or both) when something controversial-sounding comes up or when he thinks the guest is going too far - and he did it last week when Chris Neal began ranting wildly about Boris Johnson (as I commented here at the time) - but, yes, this was a particularly 'edgy' interruption and a particularly determined change of subject.

As well as being interested in what historian David Abulafia had to say about the story, I was also struck by Paddy O'Connell's dramatic first interruption and then his swift 'moving on' from the story:

Paddy O'Connell: David Abulafia, you want us to start...wherever you like.

David Abulafia: I'd like to start with the Daily Telegraph, at page 17, where there's an excoriating article by John Jenkins, who was British Consul General in Jerusalem earlier this decade, this century, and it's called "To Islamist Jeremy Corbyn is just a useful idiot", Now, the Consul General in Jerusalem - very interesting post, because he's not accredited to the government of Israel. He's effectively ambassador to the Palestinians - and here is somebody who really takes issue with Corbyn over his contacts with Hamas and who particularly takes issue over the fact that, well, if you're trying to talk to one side but you're not talking to the other at all. And indeed the moderates, Palestinian moderates, get totally left out of this as well. And he makes the same point about the Ulster Unionists as well...

Paddy O'Connell: (interrupting) So do you think all politicians should disclose that talks with everyone in the past. I mean, what's the point? How far to go back? And then do we look at everyone? What's the public record? What should it be?

David Abulafia: I think when one's looking at the leader of a major political party and when some of these contacts are with groups which are frankly terrorist groups - I mean, the IRA and Hamas - then it is a matter of very great public interest.

Paddy O'Connell: OK, let me just end this section by reading what the Labour spokesman's told the Telegraph: "Jeremy's a long record of campaigning for peace, democracy and helping to end conflict through dialogue and negotiation, while John Jenkins has argued against Saudi Arabia introducing democratic elections". So we can see that this argument will be back with us next Sunday. Thank you very much. Marie Le Conte, where first for you?

Kathy at The Conservative Woman has taken Paddy to task for this:

At which the programme’s presenter Paddy O’Connell, with an edge to his voice, asked: ‘Do you think all politicians should disclose who they talk to in the past?’ 

If you listen, you will hear Abulafia standing his ground. With significant weight, he said that when it comes to the leaders of major political parties, and some of these contacts are with terrorist groups, ‘then it is a matter of very great public interest’. 

Amen to that, I thought. But not so Paddy. Was he content to let it rest there? What, let a guest malign the Left’s leader without a comeback? ‘Ok,’ he said dismissively, ‘let me just end this section by reading what the Labour spokesman told the Telegraph: “Jeremy has a long record of campaigning for peace and democracy and helping to end conflict . . .”’ and so on, as though this was necessary balance to a slightly off-the-wall opinion. 

So is this ‘balance’ now the norm when it comes to Mr Corbyn, used to cut off criticism of him? 

And is this the exercise of impartiality or the abuse of it? Are BBC executives using a perverted notion of balance to dissociate themselves from criticism of Corbyn when what they should be doing is investigating and reporting on his known terrorist sympathies? 

I did think myself of posting about Paddy's behaviour here yesterday. He often jumps in and challenges or changes the subject (or both) when something controversial-sounding comes up or when he thinks the guest is going too far - and he did it last week when Chris Neal began ranting wildly about Boris Johnson (as I commented here at the time) - but, yes, this was a particularly 'edgy'-sounding interruption and a particularly determined change of subject. 

And, moreover, it struck me as very odd that in being 'balanced' over 'controversial' remarks about Jeremy Corbyn here (especially as Mr. Corbyn wasn't present to defend himself), Paddy then read out the Labour spokesman's claim that "John Jenkins has argued against Saudi Arabia introducing democratic elections" (without Sir John being present to defend himself). 

And that is 'controversial' too. 

As far as I can see, the Labour assertion is based on something put about by an online London-based news portal called Middle East Eye. (According to Wikipedia, it is Qatari/Muslim Brotherhood-linked, despite its denials.)  That said, the writer is none other than Peter Oborne.

Looking at a transcript of what Sir John Jenkins actually said his point is that the Arab world is a hard place for democracy to grow, that elections there tend to produce "tribal, reactionary, sectarian and unstable governments" and that Islamism and democracy aren't easily reconcilable. I don't get the slightest sense that Sir John would be unhappy if a genuine stable democracy was achieved in Saudi Arabia. 

So, after then reading Peter Oborne's less-than-nuanced take on it, it suggests to me that the claim the Labour spokesman regurgitated wasn't at all fair to Sir John (to put it mildly).

And yet Paddy simply passed it on.


P.S. Here's another Middle East Eye writer tweeting about a "hidden hand" (a phrase with a strong antisemitic pedigree) behind the criticism of Jeremy Corbyn over antisemitism, and a reply:

One-track Broadcasting

This morning's Broadcasting House on Radio 4 was quite something.

It began: 

It's 9 o'clock. Hello. Good morning. This is Broadcasting House. I'm Paddy O'Connell. Here are the headlines: A campaign to force a public vote on the Brexit deal has been given a £1m boost....

Yes, the programme had made the People's Vote story its main headline. After reading out the headlines, Paddy said:

Ahead. Europe, past and present. 

Theresa May: The Article 50 process is now underway and in accordance with the wishes of the British people the United Kingdom is leaving the European Union.

Well hang on! The man who wrote Article 50 is here to talk deal, no deal or delay.

Hmm. Well, that's arch-Europhile Lord Kerr, someone who has publicly backed the People's Vote campaign.

I could guess where this was going, so my eyebrows were moving skywards even before Paddy mentioned who would be reviewing the papers later: 

On the newspaper review the Conservative peer Patience Wheatcroft, the film fan Gaylene Gould and the comedy writer Chris Neal. 

Yes, that's Baroness Wheatcroft, another leading figure in the People's Vote campaign! 

After the news, which, of course, featured the £1m donation People's Vote story, Paddy conducted two interviews on the Brexit issue.

The aforementioned interview with Lord Kerr, former UK ambassador to the EU and a long-term cheerleader for British membership of the EU, came second. Lord Kerr said that Article 50 shouldn't have been triggered so early, should now be delayed and can be taken back.

But Lord Kerr's interview was preceded by an interview with....yes, another Remainer: Ian Birrell of The Mail on Sunday. He passed on an overheard conversation between an EU ambassador and a senior British diplomat saying that a second referendum is now more likely than not.

I could hardly believe my ears by this state, but it got worse...

During the paper review Remainer Baroness Wheatcroft and comedian Chris Neal, who expressed his support for "ardent Remainers", both got to denounce Boris (though Chris's rant was quickly brought to a hold by Paddy, the latter doubtless thinking it was getting a bit too wild), and Lady Wheatcroft got to talk about the £1m donation, calling it "a great good news story", and to promote her People's Vote campaign ("...the People's Vote media hub, the campaign I'm involved with, where we are really, really striving to get a People's Vote on the deal over Brexit"). 

And, yes, there really were no pro-Brexit voices to be heard across the entire programme. It was pro-second referendum, anti-Brexit voices from start to finish.

Oh and for good measure Matthew Price came on to preview The World This Weekend, and guess what? Yes, he promised us more of the same:

We've got an expert today but we are giving back control to the ordinary, everyday experts. There's a man called Kevin Hopper. He lives in North Ferriby in North Yorkshire and he's an expert in the road haulage industry. He started when he was 15. He's now 60. He met the Transport Secretary about a week ago and he told him how it works now and how he's really worried about what happens if we drop out of the European Union with there being no deal whatsoever. According to his account, which you'll hear at 1 o'clock this afternoon, the Transport Secretary didn't really get it. So we'll be talking about that and wondering what would happen to Britain's road haulage industry if there is no deal.

Hmm.

Was this edition of Broadcasting House guest-edited by Lord Adonis perchance? Is Alastair Campbell going to guest-edit The World This Weekend today? I think we should be told!

P.S. Here's a tweet where the hashtags make the bigger point:

P.P.S. Lol. An #FBPE is happy:

Of errors and stealth-updates

The co-founder of Superdry is giving the People's Vote campaign a £1m donation. 

Following an article in today's Sunday Times, his move has become a main story on the BBC this morning, though Sky and ITV are also covering it prominently. 

However, there's more than a whiff of churnalism about the BBC's reporting of it. Their website report includes the line:

The People's Vote, a cross-party group including some Labour and Lib Dem MPs, want a vote on the final Brexit deal.

And on Radio 4's 9 o'clock news bulletin (during Broadcasting House) BBC political correspondent Leila Nathoo said:

...the People's Vote campaign, an umbrella group also backed by the Liberal Democrats and some Labour MPs, is holding a series of events across the country to try to rally support for the idea. Now it has received its biggest donation yet...

But that is factually incorrect. The People's Vote campaign also includes Conservative and Green MPs. Indeed, one of its Conservative founders is cock-a-hoop this morning:

Quality reporting, eh?

Ah, as I'm typing, I see the BBC's website article has been updated and the incorrect information has been removed. The offending line now reads:

The People's Vote, a cross-party group including some MPs, want a vote on the final Brexit deal.

Naturally, there's no acknowledgement of the update at the bottom of the BBC article.

Mad World

The BBC has been under attack for bias again this week.

You can probably put aside the celebratory bottles of Prosecco or (for Nigel Farage fans) magnificent English beer though.

The attacks have been without substance. (You might even call them 'fake news'.)

Nonetheless, the BBC has been preoccupied with them and heavily on the defensive against them. 

Examples? 

Well, there was Kirsty Wark on Newsnight on Friday night getting slammed by one of her guests after he'd appeared (at Newsnight's invitation) on her programme - namely Cadwalldrista Chris Wylie: 

Was just on BBC Newsnight and yet again they try to shut down an established fact: Vote Leave cheated and broke the law in the referendum. That's not an 'allegation'. That's a fact. That is the finding of the Electoral Commission and is why Vote Leave was referred to the police.

Thousands of #FBPE types, along with Carole Cadwalldr, Alastair Campbell and the other usual suspects (even Nick Cohen), then amplified this charge and it spread (like myxomatosis in the 1950s) across the interweb.

And yet it was all 'fake news'.

Christopher Wylie, Carole Cadwalldr, Alastair Campbell and all of the pandemomic legions of #FBPEs had either misheard or misunderstood (or deliberately misinterpreted) what Kirsty had said.

Even I grasped straightaway that their complaints were nonsense-on-pretentious-stilts on watching the interview after reading their complaints.

(P.S. I'm slightly stunned to be defending Kirsty Wark on a question of bias).

Kirsty Wark hadn't said what the Cadwalldristas claimed she'd said. Kirsty was talking about Chris Wylie's claims about Facebook not about Vote Leave.

As former BBC man Gavin Esler (now a fervent anti-Brexit Twitterer) accurately put it in a response to the head of the Cadwalldr community: "Carole, I am a great admirer of you work but Chris said Facebook acted illegally - that is an allegation. The FACT is that they found Vote Leave broke the law. My former colleague Kirsty Wark was being rigorous and accurate".

An entire Twitterstorm was therefore based on few thousand very vocal people (including at least two journalists at a respected Sunday newspaper, The Observer) either not understanding or not wanting to understand Kirsty Wark's questions and crying 'BBC bias!'

(Whither English Comprehension these days? Or can it all be blamed on Kirsty's habit of slurring her words slightly, as she's wont to do?).

BBC editors scrambled onto Twitter and the BBC Press Office was pressed into a rebuttal:

Naturally the #FPPE brigade didn't accept any of the BBC's rebuttals, even though the rebuttals were correct, and the storm has gone on and on, like...simile alert!...a mad rabbit hopping its way up Mount Everest without an oxygen mask. 

This stuff and nonsense is taking up a lot of the BBC's time at the moment. 

A second (related) example from this morning, with some typical and some untypical responses:

PETER JUKES: Arron Banks is believed to have donated £8.4m to the leave campaign, the largest political donation in British politics... “He failed to  satisfy us that his own donations had, in fact, come vrom (sic) sources within the UK.” Says  Damian Collins, Washington Post. This should be BREAKING news on the BBC. A cross party parliamentary select committee has concluded that Britain's biggest ever political donor could well have been funded by a foreign power. This is illegal. It's also treacherous. Silence in the face of this is complicity.
GUY LAMBERT: We won’t have a BBC in 10 years time. Endless tweets like this will kill it. Every day it’s “why isn’t the BBC doing what I want it to do in the exact way I want them to do it?” Most of them turn out to be untrue anyway. Peter Jukes will one day wake up without it and wonder why.
SCOTT MATTHEWMAN: Indeed, Damian Collins has just been on Radio 4 talking about these very issues.
GUY LAMBERT: Oh really? What show? I’d like to hear that ta.
SCOTT MATTHEWMAN: Broadcasting House. And his comments then made one of the lead items in the 9:30am news summary.
TOM JAMIESON: Was one of the lead stories on BBC news all day yesterday - interview on Today etc etc.
ROB BURLEY: Also, the DCMS Committee story is on the front page of the BBC website.
NIK MORRIS (to ROB BURLEY): Nice of you to catch up. Who forced your hand?

Ah, but to our old friend Scott's point that Damian Collins was on Broadcasting House slamming Arron Banks and Dominic Cummings (and thus debunking Peter Jukes's complaint), there's always something else for the #FBPE crowd to come back with and defeat Scott with. Here's one of their other leading Twitter voices, Tim Walker, reacting to that very same interview: 

Absurd larky isn’t-this-all-a-laugh tone to the Broadcasting House report on @BBCRadio4 on the fraudulent win of Leave in the EU Referendum.

Well, it wasn't a 'report'; it was an interview. And it was with Damian Collins, the man Carole Cadwalldr & Co. are praising today. And it was the programme's lead story. And it wasn't larky. It was just Paddy O'Connell doing what he always does in his usual manner.

So, yes, even when - as on Newsnight or Broadcasting House - such people are seeing their favourite stories get prominent and extensive BBC treatment - and, in BH's case, just seeing someone from their side of the argument being interviewed, it still isn't enough. The tone has be how they'd like it too. Paddy has to stop being Paddy just for them.

And there's more - again from this morning:

HELEN TROY: BBC News gives more prominence to possible cheating in Football World Cup award to Qatar than Leave fraud and cheating in 2016 referendum.
TIM WALKER: Every day now, the BBC allows Rupert Murdoch’s Brextremist newspapers - and the Daily Mail - to decide what is news

Of course they are, Tim, of course they are! (Nurse, nurse!)

And it goes on. The World This Weekend this weekend has been under sustained rocket attack from the same social media crowd for not going with the Arron Banks/Dominic Cummings Leave fraud story and, worse, for going instead with the possible suspension of Ian Austin from the Labour Party and making antisemitism in the Labour Party the programme's main focus.

Please gird up your loins in advance because here's a flavour of those complaints (without corrections to spelling or grammar!):

• Utterly appaling extended hatchet job on Corbyn and abour by the BBC on #wato starring critics of Corbyn including Ian Austin.
• #wato had nothing on Banks, Leave campaign after Joe Cox's murder and nothin on the threats to our democracy today. Again. Come on @BBC stop failing Britain.
• #wato talking to a Jewish Family this is sounding very rehearse and very political this isn’t a Vox Pop, But an Attack On Lab allows no new nuance allowed on #wato 25 Mins in examples of AS thin on the ground BBC Making a Martyr Of Ian Austin #really
• Serious concern re fake news, Facebook and Fascist Banks and the threat to democracy, major discussion on BBC Radio 4 lunchtime news, er no. Programme devoted to @jeremycorbyn anti-antisemitism smear campaign.
• This is only an 'ongoing controversy' because #wato and #bbcnews keep up their trolling and abuse of Jeremy Corbyn.
• 25minutes of anti Corbyn and AS... seriously our country is not being governed, we’re being warned of food shortages and this is what the bbc chooses to lead with......
• What other program would give one hand picked Jewish family from North London the right to "speak for all Jews"? #wato also Diamond just this minute substituted Ms Schindler's word "discrimination" for "persecution". This is propaganda.
• #WATO 30 mins of prime @BBCNews spent on anti semitism in Labour. Is this a legitimate way to spend licence payers money?
• Why didn't Johnny Diamond interview Michael Rosen and his family? Why is he so keen to misrepresent what Jews believe? This looks like an attempt to corrupt democracy.
• It would appear that @BBCRadio4 has decreed that the whole of #wato will be nothing but #torypropaganda on AS and Corbyn. Utterly incredible.
•  Ian Austin is charged with being abusive. Why does @bbcnews grant several minutes of prime BBC Radio 4 lunchtime news to give his side, but the other side or witnesses not heard? Balance, impartiality? 
• This is one of the worst examples of #bbcbias I have ever heard on #wato and I have heard plenty. #bbcstatepropaganda, #bbctorypropaganda

Not content with having their story of choice as the lead item on Broadcasting House such people also wanted it to be the main story on The World This Weekend.

And they must definitely don't want antisemitism in the Labour Party to be made a made topic of conversation on the BBC, even on the day when Ian Austin MP followed Margaret Hodge MP down the disciplinary route.

Yes, they want it all their own way. 

The extended feature itself was scrupulously 'balanced'. First came Ian Austin MP and then the Schindler family. They were in the anti-Corbyn camp. Then came Professor Geoffrey Bindman QC and Richard Burgon MP to represent the pro-Corbyn camp. 

However, after all of this onslaught of foolishness from 'the other side', what do you make of this framing narrative from Jonny Dymond (aka Johnny Diamond) prior to his interview with Mr Corbyn-friendly Sir Geoffrey Bindman? (The emphases underlined here are Jonny's, though the bold emphases are mine):

Cathy Schindler there referred to the ongoing controversy over Labour's adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition of anti-Semitism. The refusal to adopt the definition and working examples in full has caused some to doubt the party's commitment to the battle against anti-Semitism. That refusal was in part of the reason why, this week, three Jewish newspapers put on their front pages a statement of their deep concern about Labour's position on anti-Semitism. Why? They said that Jews faced an existential threat if Labour came to power. But the party has adopted the code in full and, in effect, all but one half of the examples that were issued alongside the code. The single sentence that it has not adopted from the one working example has been admitted, it says, so as to allow for legitimate criticisms of Israel. The adoption of the code has yet to be voted on and is still up for consultation.

What do the Twitter crowd (who seems to have missed) make of that?

There's the BBC's Jonny telling The World this Weekend listeners that Labour has basically adopted the IHRA in full, except for "all but" half the added examples and a "single sentence" that sounds entirely reasonable. And it's all up for discussion.

So what's the problem, eh?

And that statement was immediately followed by Jonny introduced Sir Geoffrey, who reinforced this message about the good will and good wording of the Labour re-working of the IHRA definition of antisemitism.

And how did Jonny introduce the controversial QC?

Sir Geoffrey Bindman is a senior barrister, human rights lawyer and visiting Professor of Law at University College London.

Aha, an expert (of a certain kind)!

Is this a case of me being as silly and partisan as the Corbynista/Cadwalldrista crowd? Or am I being reasonable in my criticism of the BBC while the others are being unreasonable?

You decide!

Meanwhile, I'm going back to my early teens and a favourite pop song of mine at the time. (Will it finally overpower the overpowering voice of Comrade McDonnell on this blog?...Update: Aargh, no. It looks as if we're cursed with Old McDonnnell for a view days more yet!