Glad to be back?

It goes to show that you can't keep a not-so-good man down...

Back in April, Sue wondered whatever happened to Dateline London favourite Abdel Bari Atwan, the Palestinian journalist with a very, very deep hatred of Israel?

We dared to hope but, alas, he was back on Dateline London today, being invited to talk about Israel.

He's back in the BBC fold then.

He was on his best  behaviour though. No praising terrorism, or wild ranting, and laughs and sweetness and light with Shaun and 'Abdel Bari'.

His comeback tour won't last long though as the show's being cancelled by the BBC.

Back on my hobby-horse

 

The BBC's flagship international affairs programme Dateline London [the one hardly anyone in the UK watches] reminds us why the BBC is the BBC and not, say, GB News.

This week's guests - two of the mainstays of the programme, the third the BBC's Asia/Pacific editor - said many interesting things.

I was particularly intrigued by mainstay Ashis Ray saying that Pakistan played a major part in getting North Korea's nuclear programme going. 

But it's long been typical of the programme that the majority of the people who the BBC invites to appear on the programme end up saying pretty much the same thing on most subjects, and there's too much agreement.

It's an extension of BBC groupthink.

One example...

What with all that's been going on with Joe Biden's hapless, dubiously honest administration at the moment, quite why this week's trio of guests kept taking potshots at Donald Trump seemed odd - especially as it's been eight months since Mr Trump was last in office. 

And, even odder, they barely even mentioned Joe Biden and gave him a free pass.

The reason is pretty obvious though, surely. 

These invited BBC guests have a particular outlook on the world - one shared by the biased BBC - and when they all get together they naturally bond by doing familiar mutual-grooming things...

...and also by very much not talking about certain other, uncongenial things - like how 'Crap hat. No rabbit' Magic Joe has been.

So what's more natural, when appearing on the BBC's Dateline, than to have a dig at the previous US president? 

Mutually-reinforcing digs at The Donald have been as regular on Dateline as even numbers in a list of numbers for well over five years now, and they've scratched themselves to happiness so many times that today's outbursts were merely par for the course. 

In presenting a weekly snapshot of world opinion, Dateline remains very selective. If there's just one Indian regular guest for well over a decade, for example, let him be strongly anti-Modi and not for one second think of inviting a new, pro-Modi voice in all that time. 

Very BBC.

A second example....

On the question of the UK government and Covid, all sang from the same medical sick note. 

The two non-BBC mainstays said that the UK government is being reckless by being so soft. They both want face masks made mandatory in the UK. And the BBC Asia/Pacific editor [Celia Hatton] wants the UK to do its international duty and cough up money and vaccines to vaccinate the world's poor. 

And BBC presenter and blog favourite Martine Croxall added to the unanimity by posing her questions from the 'Is the UK government being reckless in taking a light touch approach to Covid given how bad things are already getting and how much worse it could get this winter?' angle,

Here are all her comments and questions on the matter:

• Hello, and welcome to Dateline London. I'm Martine Croxall. This week we ask, has the UK Government announced enough measures to protect people from Covid, flu and a National Health Service crisis over the winter?
• Boris Johnson has revealed a light touch plan A and a tougher plan B to tackle Covid in England this winter. And many suspect that the UK is bracing itself for another grim few months. But is his plan enough? Hospitalisations are up. Diagnosed cases of Covid are still high. Parts of the National Health Service already say that they are under strain. It is worth repeating that the different nations of the United Kingdom run their own Covid policies because health is part of their devolved powers. Henry, looking into what Boris Johnson is trying to do to get Britain through relatively unscathed this coming winter, how well does it look like he is doing?
• Ashis, we have also seen several countries have been told that they are going to come off Britain's so-called red travel list, which will be music to their ears. A clear signal from the UK Government that they really do want to be open for business again but how wise is it, given the rates in some parts of the world? 
• Celia, here in the United Kingdom, there has been a massive push for people to be vaccinated. Adults first, then older teenagers and now young teenagers, 12-15. We are seeing massive differences though around the world, particularly the parts of the world that you cover in how much vaccine is available. 

Such uniformity of thinking is very BBC, and the mirror image of the uniformity of thinking that sometimes afflicts GB News and this end of the social media spectrum - though, of course, neither of the latter are licence-fee funded so their biases are far less consequential.

I prefer Dateline London when the people invited to appear on it don't agree about everything. [Bring back Alex Deane!]. But editions where that happens have been the exception rather than the rule for well over a decade now. It's why the BBC is as bad as it is, and why urgent action is needed and why alternatives are vital.

Not controversial, apparently

 

There was a revealing comment, in passing, from BBC presenter Martine Croxall to Dateline London Canadian regular Jeffrey Kofman this weekend:

What Extinction Rebellion are saying, Jeffrey, isn't exactly controversial, is it? 

Hm. 

Some - at the very least - of what they're saying is certainly controversial - e.g. their claims, and their targets, and the possible economic impact of their proposals.

Is this rosy view of XR common at the BBC?

Is Bari at the BBC no more?

 

Israel today is in a state of confusion, in a state of panic. They know very well that what happened in Kabul Airport will repeat itself at Ben Gurion Airport. But Ben Gurion Airport will be closed, there will be no planes in it…. Israelis should listen to the advice of [Hezbollah leader] Hassan Nasrallah and start learning how to swim, because their only option will be Cyprus, their only option will be the Mediterranean Sea.

Abdel Bari Atwan, Lebanese television station Mayadeen TV, 18/8

Sue and I have spent many years writing, on and off, about Abdel Bari Atwan.

'Who's that?', recent newcomers might ask.

Well, he's a Palestinian leftist journalist based in the UK who sports a fulsome Saddam moustache and loathes Israel and is/was a favoured BBC go-to voice.

My main encounter with him was via watching the BBC's foreign flagship Dateline London and counting the number of appearances of each and every panellist on every episode over several years, and regularly posting an ongoing tally and analysis.

Every single year, without fail, Abdel Bari Atwan - came top of the tree as the most-invited panellist on the Dateline London panellist charts. 

He was the programme's most regular guest, frequently ranting away like an ill-informed maniac on most subjects yet being treated, on matters Middle Eastern, as if he were the expert's expert. 

It was weird.

The main Dateline presenter throughout most of that time, Gavin Esler, called him 'Bari' and even hosted Bari's book launch. He wanted his friend on the programme, he said, because he was ''subversive''.

And Bari was always a highly controversial figure, having made statements openly rejoicing in terrorist attacks against Israel and fantasising about dancing ''with delight'' in Trafalgar Square if the Iranians attacked Israel - something Gavin Esler and the BBC knew, yet evidently let pass.

Has he been finally dropped? I've searched via various methods and not found him on Dateline London recently.

He's evidently not been quiet though. As ever, he's been ranting away, away from UK television, recently expressing his hope that what happened at Kabul Airport will repeat itself at Ben Gurion Airport, and that Israelis should learn to swim like “rats fleeing a sinking ship".

https://twitter.com/MEMRIReports/status/1429762087950163973

To sum up: The man who the BBC made their MOST-frequent guest on their flagship foreign affairs panel programme over the course of several years - and treated with love and kid gloves - was an Israel-hating zealot, and the BBC knew this and kept him on, continually inviting him on more than anyone else.

So have they finally dropped him though? 

The marriage of true minds

Meanwhile, over on the BBC News Channel's Dateline London Shaun Ley promised us they'd be discussing "business blues over Brexit", and the programme didn't disappoint on that front. 

This was his introduction:

If you are watching anywhere in the world, have you eaten Cornish sole? If you live in continental Europe you'll know it as Megrim sole. Renaming is the fishing industry's response to trading obstacles encountered since Brexit. Nor is it just exports to the EU. Consumers in Northern Ireland can no longer buy some products produced elsewhere in the UK. And financial services are also being affected. The Governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, warned this week there were signs the EU it was going to cut the UK off from trading shares on the continent where, before Brexit, the City of London did 40% of its share trading business. That has now been overtaken by Amsterdam. Stefanie Bolzen, we have the same standards as the European Union because we have only just ended the transition a matter of weeks ago. What's gone wrong? 

Stefanie Bolzen and Steve Richards, both unsympathetic towards Brexit, then piled on the agony, along with the BBC's Clive Myrie (though Clive mainly stuck to criticising the Johnson government for not warning the public how bad it would be).

They all kept saying that they agreed with each other too, so it was all a bit relentless. 

Correcting and Clarifying

 

For fans of the BBC's Corrections and Clarifications page, here are the two latest arrivals:

BBC News Persian, 19 October 2018

In 2018 BBC News Persian published an article (in Persian) which used an inappropriate word to refer to homosexuality. This word should not have been used and the article has now been corrected. We apologise for the offence caused.

11/02/2021

Quite a time lag there! 

Dateline London, BBC News Channel, 16 January 2021

We suggested that under the Oslo Accords, Palestinian healthcare is ultimately the responsibility of the Israeli government.

Although there is a wider dispute over the issue, the Accords - which Israel signed with the Palestine Liberation Organisation - give the Palestinian Authority oversight of public health under the principles of self-determination.

09/02/2021

It was presenter Shaun Ley making that error. He even added a "very clearly" to the thing the BBC has now had to clarify. 

For many

    

Talking of Dateline London, here's today's introduction, featuring a fine example of vocal and facial choreography from Geeta Guru-Murthy:

I'm Geeta Guru-Murthy. 

[Cheerful tone.] This week, we heard President Biden's new take on US foreign policy - ending support for the Saudi offensive in Yemen, a tougher line on Russia and a still strong stance against China. 

[More serious tone, knitted brow.] The challenges ahead are many. In the last few days alone, we have seen protests crushed and heard deeply unsettling evidence of the human capacity for evil. 

[Even more serious tone, even more knitted brow.] In China, horrifying news emerged of atrocities against the Muslim Uighurs. In Russia, thousands were arrested for protesting in support of Alexei Navalny. And in Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi and civilian leaders were put in detention in a military coup. 

[Brighter tone, shoulders rising, eyebrows shooting up.] But - there is a new leader in the White House, which, for many, is grounds for hope, and across the world we see almost unbelievable acts of individual bravery from those who will not be cowed.

In which Craig remounts his hobby-horse

If you've been reading this blog since the start you'll doubtless recall that I used to incessantly count the number of appearances of each guest on the BBC News Channel's Dateline London to show that the programme's panels were massively stacked against people with right-leaning views. 

I did that for years - so much so that one contributor would email me to ask me for the latest stats to see if he was getting more or less invites than other guests. 

And then, finally, I gave up counting.

Apologies to my Dateline friend - though, fear not, our Alex is still doing splendidly, and making the Sky papers scintillate alongside the delightful Polly MacKenzie, and brightening up Twitter, and much, much else besides - but years of proving a programme to have a very heavy inbuilt political bias left me thinking that I'd flogged that particular equine to death. Especially as I had proved it.

(I'm squeamish about The Grand National, so I'm all for not flogging equines to death).

Plus, I'd like to think that when the programme began to balance its panels better that my shaming stats had helped make that so.

*******

Back in the day, Dateline's main presenter was Gavin Esler, a man whose biases I also tracked. 

As could have been predicted from his biased behaviour and comments as presenter - a bias somewhat disguised by his mild-mannered 'nice guy' TV persona - he went off and tried to get elected in the European elections last year, standing for the pro-EU Change UK in London. I'm sure he thought he'd win, but he lost. The tone of his public pronouncements, especially on Twitter, was a million kilometres away from his 'nice guy' TV persona. He turned into a sort of less pleasant version of Alastair Campbell. He even made his former Newsnight colleague Paul Mason sound gentle, kind and reasonable in comparison. He's now Chancellor of the University of Kent.

His replacement, Carrie Gracie, is much better - a consummate professional. (I do hope she's paid more than he was.) I like her.

*******

But, as noted on an earlier thread, it looks as if I might need to start counting again. (It would be no hardship.) 

Today's panel used to be typical. But, maybe since I've stopped chronicling it (a pathetic fallacy on my part?), it's slipped back again because today's panel was a violent throwback to Classic Era Dateline.

Every single member of today's panel - Michael Goldfarb, Yasmin Alibhai Brown, Abdel Bari Atwan and Eunice Goes - comes from the left side of the usual political spectrum. There wasn't a right-leaning guest in sight. A clean sweep.

How can the BBC justify that?

*******

P.S. Wonder if Bari is still the 'most regular' guest (not necessarily involving prunes)? 

For those not overly familiar with the programme, Palestinian 'journalist' Abdel Bari Atwan was the most regular guest every year, for years, despite being an extreme Saddamite loather of Israel with a record of highly incendiary remarks hoping for the end of Israel and lots of deaths in Israel - a very controversial man.

Gavin Esler was his friend and used to help promote his books. 

Despite Gavin going, the indefatigable Bari is still clearly in with the BBC. Him and that other flame-thrower Yasmin can shout away at each other to their hearts content forever for a licence-fee-funded fee no doubt - unless something is done about it. 

*******

Recommendations to BBC? 

First, one they'll like: Send in David Dimbleby to play all three monkeys, maybe?

Second, one they ought to like: Think! If you have a panel of four left-wingers people might think you're biased and want to punish you by taking away your public funding or abolishing you. So balance your panels!

Wonderfully balanced echo-chamber

Well, yes, Adel, but 'twas ever thus:

Adel Darwish: Again publicly funded by force of law BBC News Channel host an entire panel of four lefties (with two known for anti-British views) bashing America, Donald Trump and even prime minister Boris while defending Iran more passionately than defending UK!!

He's talking about Dateline London of course. I spotted Bari and Polly and thought I'd give it a miss.

I've also just spotted a sarcastic tweet about it that catches it very nicely: "Wonderfully balanced echo-chamber!". 

Harping on

On an old theme, probably harped by bards these days, today's Dateline London on the BBC News Channel was one of those editions where a right-leaning, pro-Brexit guest is let in and allowed to counter the programme's' usual, sometimes suffocating left-liberal, anti-Brexit bias. 

Today it was blog favourite Alex Deane. 

Alex - as ever on Dateline the doughty Christian in the lion's den - not only didn't get eaten but repeatedly bopped the three opposing lions on the nose as well. 

Our Alex, in a good way, never disappoints. 

One of those ravenous lions was another of our blog favourites, Nabila Ramdani. She never disappoints either - though in a less good way. 

Our Nabs went off on not just one but on several. Yes, the new Boris Johnson-led government, according to Our Nabs, is sinister, far-right, extreme, freaky, etc, etc. 

And she really, really, really had it in for Priti Patel. (Hmm. Wonder why? Is it cos Priti is right-wing and pro-Israel, or is it cos Priti is Hindu?). 

All of this said, I'm pleased to be able to say something wholly positive. Carrie Gracie is much, much better at chairing the programme than once-nice Gavin Esler. He was Change UK's spokesman on the BBC long before he left the BBC or before Change UK was even formed.

Same old same old

Today's Dateline London gave us a double treat today - both Abdel Bari Atwan and Yasmin Alibhai Brown. (It still amazes me that they can rant so outlandishly without literally frothing at the mouth.) Adel Darwish, for one, wasn't impressed. He sums it up very well:

Waste of licence money, Dateline London (BBC News Channel), an entire anti-British panel, the only difference is the degree of anti-British & anti-American fanaticism among them. Presenter? Not challenging their idiocy that Iran's terrorism & piracy was Donald Trump & UK's fault!

Carrie Steps In

Carrie Gracie

Carrie Gracie made me grin on Dateline London today. The subject had turned to Brexit and, as so often, the uniformly anti-Brexit panel was making all their usual anti-Brexit points, when Carrie stopped Isabel Hilton just as she was getting into her flow (after both Adam Raphael and Amir Taheri had had their turn at bewailing Brexit) and said, "We don't have a firm Brexiteer on this panel today, so I'm not going to let you make any Remoaning speeches." I was rather too late by then, but at least she tried! Isabel slagged off Boris instead. 

Confession time

I've been blogging about BBC bias, on and off, for nearly ten years now, and I think it might be starting to skew my political priorities. 

This week's European elections may or may not have transformative effects on UK and EU democracy, but none of that matters to me anywhere near as much as the fate of Change UK's lead candidate in London - ex-BBC megastar Gavin Esler - because I really, truly, madly want him to fail. Hopefully very badly. 

I know I should be ashamed of myself, but if my dream comes true and he loses I'll be cracking open my bottle of Jane Garvey 1997 Vintage Champagne overnight on Sunday night/Monday morning. 

I will now say two dozen Hail Marys. 

A non-sarcastic post

A piece of news tonight...

...and a tweet from former BBC presenter/reporter Gavin Esler...

These two things have jointly spurred me on to totally re-think my world view.

In that spirit I wrote the following earlier this evening:

I see that Turkey's President Erdogan is giving the people of Istanbul a confirmatory vote on their recent municipal election.

That was supposedly 'won' by the opposition CHP (who funds them?) via the so-called ballot box. 

Some might say that Mr. Erdogan is simply re-running the election because he lost and that he's a bad loser and anti-democratic. But, despite all the evidence, that's surely nonsense. He's only re-running the election because he rightly thinks that the people of Istanbul deserve a people's vote and a chance to re-visit their earlier (wrong) decision.

All those anti-Erdogan types claiming that they are the democrats ought to be made to answer this simple question: How can anyone who claims to be a democrat say that re-running an election won by the opposition isn't democratic? What could be more democratic than holding another vote? 

And Turkish TV must stop giving airtime to the 'village idiots' of the CHP - the dubious Gulanist supposed "think tanks" and pseudo-experts among CHP MPs who simply haven't a clue what the implications of not voting for President Erdogan's AK party truly are. (Catastrophe for Turkey).

It would be truly democratic to ban them completely (especially as they are like the Nazis, despite being nothing like the Nazis) so that they can't mislead the public any longer, but excluding them from the airwaves would be a good start, and something a properly impartial media would and should do.

And, pace the BBC's John Simpson regarding the UK's EU referendum, Turkish media should provide "clear guidance about what to do" during public votes, to counter the "lies" of the likes of the CHP. The Turkish media certainly didn't give them clear enough guidance about the lies that were being told by the pro-democracy opposition. I suspect that if people had known the facts and had judged in a more balanced way the outcome would have been a bit different, yes. They let their viewers and listeners down.

*******

So, yes, inspired by former BBC man Gavin Esler, I myself now finally see that democracy means stopping wrong-thinking people from being heard, including 'elected' MPs guilty of bad-thinking.

Like his BBC programme Dateline London in its heyday, a true democracy should carefully control the range of voices allowed and ensure that bad-thinking people are either marginalised or excluded.

Bad-thinking is, by definition, bad. Gavin Esler is a good-thinker and knows what good-thinking is. Therefore, Gavin Esler must know what's right.

And if we disagree and think he's a not as good a thinker as he believes himself to be, well, we should just shut the flip up and simply accept his proposed ban on anyone who thinks too differently from him on the subject dearest to his heart from the BBC's airwaves. Because, obviously, Gavin's a good-thinker.

QED.

I was looking at him speaking at a Change UK rally on my widescreen TV and I gazed up at his enormous face on my screen. Over ten years of blogging it has taken me to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath Gavin's bright-eyed, biased TV persona. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two wine-scented tears are at this very moment trickling down the sides of my nose. But it's all right, everything is all right, the struggle is finished. I've won the victory over myself. I love Gavin Esler.

Our weekly date

Today's introductions on Dateline London ran as follows:

• This week... The caliphate is over but the carnage continues. After losing its last strongholds in Syria and Iraq, will Islamic State go global? And last time President Trump visited London, he criticised the Prime Minister, he kept the Queen waiting and he was stalked by protestors and a giant inflatable. This time it's a state visit. Will the pomp and ceremony keep things on track or will the UK's drawn-out political crisis leave even more things to go wrong? Also I only promised you one Brexit-free programme, and that was last week, so be warned.
• Last week we marked Easter by discussing the impact of religion on our world, including how faith can be manipulated for a message of hate. And then we got a demonstration. One synchronised moment of horror in Sri Lanka which left hundreds of lives destroyed, thousands shattered, a Muslim community in fear of backlash and a tourism-dependent economy reeling.
• Right now we have to talk about President Trump's visit to the UK. It's now official. He's coming in early June. Cue protocol rows, a carriage ride with the Queen and a 20 foot inflatable with tangerine-coloured skin, a shock of gold hair, and a nappy. Protestors say the Trump baby blimp will fly again along with other "creative interventions".

Very BBC!

I don't think Adel Darwish enjoyed it very much: 

Time to tune away from the BBC News Channel. Useless, Americanised waste of time show Dateline London. The entire panel are lefties, europhile, anti-Trump... in short reflects BBC groupthink. Instead of depriving elderly people from free BBC Licence it is time to abolish it altogether.

Thomas Keilinger of Die Welt doesn't really count as a lefty, but otherwise that sums up the 'range' of opinions on offer today.

That said, how could anyone not really enjoy it when it had everyone's favourite Dateline regular on? My heart leaped and I emitted a joyous 'Yabba dabba doo!' as Yasmin Alibhai Brown's ever-cheerful face and wildly gesticulating hands returned to brighten up our screens. Seriously, who doesn't enjoy listening to her unpleasant and unreasonable rants? (Now, where are my happy pills again?)

No more Mr Nice Guy

Gavin 'BBC impartiality' Esler

As regular readers will know, I've spent years on various blogs chronicling in often tedious detail  and, if I may so, proving beyond doubt the chronic left-liberal, pro-EU bias of one particular BBC News Channel programme that barely anyone in the UK actually watches - namely Dateline London. 

For most of those years the programme was hosted by Gavin Esler, whose 'nice' TV persona never entirely disguised the fact that he was a left-liberal, pro-EU presenter heading a left-liberal, pro-EU-biased programme and skewing it towards his own point of view. 

Let's recall again some of Gavin's highlights as a licensed 'impartial' BBC presenter.

And, yes, he also used to brazenly scoff at critics of his 'impartiality' on Twitter during the latter stages of his Dateline days. 

On Donald Trump:

Donald Trump really is a fat-shaming, ill-informed, tax-avoiding misogynist who routinely insults people of other races. Why is this election even close? And why could Mr Trump still win?

On Boris Johnson:

...a man with a reputation for being born with a silver foot in his mouth...

On the EU referendum:

But what you might see is, broadly, the centre-left and the centre-right coalescing on a 'yes' vote and others towards the left and towards the far-right will say 'no'...

On the perpetrators of the Charlie Hebdo atrocity:

...fringe figures in French society...two orphans (in) dead end jobs...

On the perpetrators of an Islamist atrocity in Brussels:

You could almost have written the script beforehand in a way: that they were people on the fringes of society with very little stake in that society, which they obviously hate.

On the 2015 migrant crisis:

There's been a lot of talk here and elsewhere about 'pull factors' - why people come - but actually the 'push factors' are the ones that seem to be in the case of the horrible case in Austria and those coming from Syria. That's what's moving people. They're being pushed.

On antisemitism and Islamophobia:

That's a very interesting point, Nesrine, because, in fact, there are a lot of parallels between anti-Semitism historically and Islamophobia now. There's absolutely no question of that. And that's the, quote, "perceived threat" of a particular minority.

On Hillary Clinton:

Hillary, who's one of the brightest women around... 

On immigration:

I've conducted some public meetings and ordinary members of the public have said precisely that, our health service could not exist without people who are migrants.

On Tony Blair and the Chilcot Inquiry:

This inquiry, they ask a question, they get an answer, they move onto something else, and that seems a bit feeble. There are all kinds of problems I've suggested here. There are people who watch this, who just want...who already loathe Tony Blair, and who just want to see that he's got fangs, horns and a tail, and all he said was 'this was a decision, it wasn't a conspiracy, I said pretty much public what I said privately'.

On the EU and Eurosceptics:

One way of looking at it is that Sarkozy and Merkel, and maybe Brown and Berlusconi and the others, want it to be - what did the French used to call it? - a 'union des patries', a union of sovereign states, which is what it is. So it's shot the idea that there's some federal superstate in the offing. I rarely hear the federalist superstate argument except for people who say they're opposed to it. You never hear anyone saying they want it.

All of those quotes came from him whilst he was serving as an 'impartial' BBC Dateline London's presenter.

And here he is today, post-BBC, openly being left-liberal and pro-EU and speaking for 'the entire country':

You could say that he's now 'showing his true colours' but, in truth, he showed them over his many years of hosting Dateline London.

And, despite all my endless chronicling, he got away with it. 

And the BBC got away with it too.

Indeed

Carrie steps in

Parliamentary lobby correspondent Adel Darwish has just tweeted a familiar sentiment (at least to readers of this blog):

Even when the BBC News Channel gets foreign correspondent (& the token home one) in their awful programme Dateline London, they have three Remoaners and one Brexiteer. I know this tweet states the known obvious...but, just saying.

Well, it sounds as if Adel has actually caught Dateline London on one of its better days, because quite often it's four Remoaners and no Brexiteers. 

I bet I can guess the Brexiteer. It's probably Alex Deane or Janet Daley. (Checks the BBC iPlayer: Yes, it's Janet Daley).

I would add that I still rather enjoy it, but the uniformity of thought revealed by many a Dateline panel even extended to the Israeli elections today, and Janet Daley surprised me by channelling her inner Yasmin Alibhai Brown with a brief diatribe about how Donald Trump "is a fascist of sorts" who is "so unattractive to enlightened voters of every description".

Now, it was at that last point that presenter Carrie Gracie literally raised her hands (as if alarmed) and said, "It's worth saying that obviously a lot of viewers are not going to agree with the "almost a fascist" line and the "undesirable to many enlightened voters", etc. We're not going to get into that", so at least she was conscious of her duty to say something along those lines after such a rhetorical outburst. 

Yabbing

Yasmin, in mid yab

Ah, Sue did warn me that YAB was going to be on, so I thought I'd give it a miss but, like some hopeless addict, I tuned in to watch Dateline London after all.

YAB (also known as Yasmin Alibhai Brown) has an effect on me, and it's not a pleasant one. And she was certainly on form today. (Oh, the horror!). 

I could write something about the programme as a whole, but I think I'll just leave it to one of the fine citizens of Twitterland to sum it up with this pointed question: 

Is there a world shortage of people for the BBC to find that are not Trump-bashers, and not Brexit-haters to appear on Dateline London?

And now, to calm me down again after all that hectoring from Yasmin (should we coin a new word for it, like 'yabbing'?), here's a lovely soothing photo of Ribbleshead Station set against the backdrop of Ingleborough:

An old theme

People watching Dateline London and commenting on it whilst so doing are usually politically-partisan twitterers - or fair-minded bloggers. 

😇

Today's Dateline London had two fairly standard Dateline balances -  (1) one right-leaning guest (Alex Deane) versus three left-leaning guests (Nabila Ramdani, Eunice Goes and Michael Goldfarb), and (2) one pro-Brexit guest (Alex Deane) versus three anti-Brexit guests (Nabila Ramdani, Eunice Goes and Michael Goldfarb) - but the politically-partisan twitterers only had eyes for "far-right" Alex Deane. 

They were aghast that he was on and are screaming 'BBC bias!'. 

Yes, some of the loudest anti-BBC, left-wing mouths on Twitter have been in action, as ever expressing their views in their own distinctive ways. 

So we hear that Dateline has "more Conservatives than at a Bankers Fraud" and that Dateline is "Tory excrement", etc. 

And when the discussion turned to Venezuela, and criticism of US foreign policy flowed, and everyone (including the estimable Ms Gracie) piled in on Alex Deane to stop from him criticising Jeremy Corbyn (and even defended the Labour leader against Alex), one of those loudest Twitter mouths turned potty-mouthed and declared (for the 500th time) that the BBC can go away in no uncertain terms and shove the licence fee up their police state posteriors for being so right-wing because he's not going to pay for such faecal output anymore [I may have toned it down somewhat there], while the other one opined that Carrie Gracie was "desperate" to "steer Tory discussion" of Venezuela against Chavez and Socialists and that she "allowed" attacks on Corbyn by "Far Right Alex Deane", with "no right of reply" - something that could hardly be further from the truth. 

Of course, such Twitter foolishness should be neither here nor there, but it's symptomatic of the behaviour of a certain, very loud kind of BBC critic who strikes a chord with a small but influential subset of the population. 

And, given the oft-cited 'complaints from both sides' argument, it remains important to point out that it doesn't hold if one side's complaints are utter drivel.

Blessings counted

Today's Dateline London was presented by that nice Shaun Ley, and various voices from a tightly-chosen spectrum of opinion from the centre to the centre-left (the soggy left) discussed Saudi Arabia and Brexit.

They largely agreed about everything but, whilst being as like-minded as a murmuration of Brexit-loathing starlings in their negativity about Brexit, they unexpectedly disagreed over the effectiveness of a Second People's Vote about leaving the EU.

Thank Heaven for small mercies then! Shall I hire some celebratory trumpets?