Get offa ma TV!

The Sunday Times reports that Eastenders has dipped below one million viewers for the third time this month - “ratings to make BBC bosses quake” - and quotes former producers, writers and directors describing it as in “terminal decline”; “unsalvageable”; “toast”. 

The problem with pulling the plug though is that the BBC overspent to the tune of £86.7 million on a new set, which one former executive calls “the broadcaster’s HS2”. 

What's the issue? Well, here are some suggestions from the Sunday Times report:

There is a disconnect between the audience and those making EastEnders. One called it “a series for Brexit Britain written by Remainers”. He says: “There are too few people sympathetic to the concerns and experiences of characters in the show — they don’t know what it’s like to sign on or do a manual job.” Another former producer adds: “EastEnders is no longer a show reflecting audiences lives back to them . . . It has lost its identity. It’s also sensationalised.”

I did watch it for the first ten years then gave up because it was so miserable - which, to be fair though, it always had been.

Of 'EastEnders' and James Purnell

The Rise and Fall of the BBC Empire

Talking of Toytown, I see that some MPs have taken time out from mismanaging Brexit in order to condemn the BBC for mismanaging the building of a new Eastenders set.

The £87 million project is running £27 million over budget and five years behind schedule. (I'm tempted to say 'very BBC').

This is costing BBC licence fee payers money. (I'm again tempted to say 'very BBC'). 

The Public Accounts Committee accused the BBC of "complacency". According to the Telegraph:

A BBC spokesman said: "We welcome the committee's recognition of the importance of the E20 project. However, we strongly reject the notion that there has been any complacency.".

So said a blatantly complacent BBC spokesman. 

Richard Morrison, writing in The Times, calls it a "fiasco":

To put this fantastical figure in some sort of real-life context, with £87 million you could build 250 affordable homes for actual East Enders. And to put it in another sort of context, this jaw-dropping overspend comes as the BBC is trying to make £800 million of savings. True, that’s partly because it will soon have to pick up the bill for free TV licences for the over-75s, but it also lavishes millions each week on astronomical fees for “talent” and inflated salaries for its executives, 100 of whom earn more than £150,000 a year.

He continues:

Then there’s the £10 million spent on promoting the new BBC Sounds app. That’s the BBC’s belated and (so far) blundering attempt to woo more young listeners by breaking into the streaming market dominated by Spotify. BBC Sounds is the pet scheme of James Purnell, a failed politician whose 15 minutes of fame as culture secretary was chiefly notable for the mind-boggling revelation that he had claimed £247 in expenses for 3,000 fridge magnets. Now he’s on a tolerable £315,000 a year as the BBC’s director of radio and education.

Harsh but true about the ex-Blairite minister now in charge of BBC radio? 

Well, whatever. But wild BBC profligacy where wild profligacy isn't remotely needed and brutal cost-cutting where brutal cost-cutting probably isn't needed seems to be becoming a hallmark (LordHallmark?) of the present-day BBC. 

BBC One (Monday to Friday): A Brexit Survey

As I said in the previous post, it's us who claim that the BBC is biased against Brexit who have the evidence. 

And here's some more...

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Using TV Eyes, I've tracked every mention of Brexit on BBC One over the past week (Monday-Friday).

As TV Eyes uses the London version of BBC One, the following includes BBC London news programmes too. 

65 results came up.

And here's what BBC One has been up to...

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Monday began (overnight) with two reports on a campaign by anti-Brexit campaigners to have a second referendum.

And then came a Hardtalk interview with an anti-Brexit Northern Irish politician (Monica McWilliams of the Women's Coalition (Sample - BBC interviewer: "Maybe one reason, for more than a year, it hasn't worked is because Brexit seems to be directly affecting the mood of people in Northern Ireland, because one of the biggest controversial and unknowns right now about Brexit is what it's going to do to the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. How big a factor is that, do you believe?" Monica McWilliams: "Huge, and it's - you've put your finger on it, it's unknown. It's the uncertainty, it has driven us back into silos that we did not need to go back into"). 

Further repeats of both followed. 

BBC Breakfast discussed Brexit in the course of a segment on farming. The BBC interviewer's question was "And that is one element of the cost, that the weather has been so bad when there is extra bedding and feed to pay for. A lot of uncertainty as well around Brexit, which will affect what farmers invest in" and the reply came" and the reply was negative and about the problems faced because "our biggest market is Europe". No one said anything optimistic about Brexit.

A later interview with the Manic Street Preachers promised they'd be "political" about Brexit, but, oddly, they didn't mention Brexit. So that was a damp squib (probably thank goodness). 

BBC One's News at Six cryptically tied in Brexit with the Windrush controversy. (John Pienaar: "This department is under pressure. Brexit is coming and they will be watched very closely as they deal with people in this country, individuals and families, many of whom have been here for you is").

BBC London's local news programme majored on "a senior business group [the Institute of Directors]...warning there's an "information drought" on Brexit - making it hard for companies to plan ahead". A company worrying about access to the Germany market was its focus. It wants something like the Single Market we have now to continue. Opposing voices weren't featured.

Soon after the same BBC London local news programme discussed the pressure on secondary school places in London. "All this is a real headache and a constant balancing act. House prices have an effect, Brexit has an effect", we learned. Quite what effect Brexit was having wasn't explained, but it was obviously somehow adding to the "real headache".

Next came this gem from Eastenders:

How can I say it? ..a con woman. Yeah! Ye... No, it's nothing to be proud of. I've been called worse. Well, why not try to prove them wrong by boosting the local economy, providing employment during these tough Brexit times, eh? I can get you your money, Mas. All of it. In a week. 

BBC London's late night news bulletin repeated the 'worried about Brexit' company and the IoD's concerns.

A repeat of Have I Got News For You mocked David Davis over his negotiations with the EU.

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And God saw that it was biased and the evening and the morning were the second day, Tuesday.

And Tuesday began with some early morning good news:"The British pound has hit its highest level against the US dollar since the Brexit referendum in June 2016".

There was nothing else Brexit-related until a Stephen Lawrence documentary that evening featured  clips of a small white supremacist group in the UK chanting for repatriation and a black man saying that "Brexit has changed the nation" and "brought back these feelings of, 'Maybe I'm not part of this community'", thus tying Brexit to racism.

That night's News at Ten had John Pienaar on again, relating Brexit to the Windrush controversy. ("More broadly, this could make harder her mission of protecting Britain's standing and influence up to Brexit and beyond. A member of the negotiating team says that Europeans may fear harsh treatment when they assert their rights to stay in the country. Ministers would deny that, as they you would expect, but this has all come with a cost in moral authority, certainly to the Government, possibly also to the country").

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And God saw that it was biased and the evening and the morning were the third day, Wednesday.

Overnight came extensive clips from a parliamentary committee interview about Cambridge Analytica, Brexit, Arron Banks and Leave.EU featuring the testimony of someone highly critical of the aforementioned. 

A business interview around 5.45 featured a newspaper report saying that if we get a decent Brexit deal it could see the UK outstrip the Eurozone. The response? It's all about uncertainty. It's "difficult to predict". Will we get a decent deal? That's "the big thing here". 

For Wednesday's BBC Breakfast, the Windrush-related angle was:

Questions about the competence of the Home Office and this morning. Also questions from Brussels about what all this says about how the Government will handle the registration of EU citizens who will be staying here after Brexit.

A business guest at 6.45 am was optimistic that we will get a Brexit deal and said "that has given a short-term slight stability to the outlook for Britain versus what we've had in the past." The BBC interview (looking on the dark side!) responded, "We know how quickly that can change, so if we're looking at this and thinking we're in a good position right now, how do we make the most of it and bank that rate?" 

A BBC Breakfast interview with Bill Gates about malaria saw the BBC immediately reminding him about his earlier plea that Brexit shouldn't lead to UK aid budgets to tackle malaria dealing slashed and asking him if he was "still concerned about that happening". Mr Gates refused to be drawn on that into making further derogatory remarks about Brexit.

A very brief news report then said:

British firm De La Rue has said it will not appeal against the Government's controversial decision to choose a Franco-Dutch company to make the new blue UK passports after Brexit. De La Rue, the current passport provider, said that it had "considered all the options", but would not challenge the move, which will see the half a billion pound contract handed to Gemalto, which has its headquarters in Amsterdam.

On BBC One's News at One we were being given the EU's perspective on the Windrush controversy: 

In Brussels, officials are watching with concern. The government's handling of the Windrush fiasco has not filled them with confidence about how EU nationals will be treated in the UK after Brexit.

That evening's BBC One News at Six covered the House of Lords voting down the government and demanding that the UK stay in the EU Customs Union. (The word "unelected" wasn't used). It wasn't good news for the Government and John Pienaar concluded by saying, "You may have thought the Battle of Brexit had gone quiet, but there are plenty of battles still to come. And the shape of Brexit and the authority of the government and the Prime Minister rest on the outcome". 

The same story was covered on that night's BBC One News at Ten with the same report.

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And God saw that it was biased and the evening and the morning were the fourth day, Thursday.

Naturally, overnight the BBC continued reporting the pro-EU Lords' defeat of the Government over the Customs Union.

And then a BBC Click episode about automation on farms. This was classic BBC as far as language about Brexit goes - e.g. (from the BBC presenter):

1. "Brexit threatens to cut down the number of people available to work on the land"
2. "There are fears about the availability of migrant workers post Brexit".

Brexit also got a mention on that evening's BBC One News at Six. Kamal Ahmed has been talking to Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England:

He said why this is a big year for Brexit and that would weigh heavily on their decision-making. The big picture, for people watching, is that, yes, prepare for a few interest rate rises over the next few years.

The story that a cross-party alliance of MPs will follow the Lords in forcing a vote to make the UK stay in the EU Customs Union was also a story on BBC One News at Six.

The One Show had a Brexit-related quip:

It would be nice if it was cold during the week and hot at the weekend. We should make that a condition of the Brexit deal .

Mark Carney was a lead story on BBC One's News at Ten that Thursday:

The Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, has told the BBC that a rise in interest rates this year is still likely, but that any increases will be gradual and will depend on progress in the Brexit negotiations. 

The phrase "Brexit uncertainty" was used repeatedly.

This Week featured Richard Madeley (of Richard and Judy fame) reviewing the week. He covered the latest calls for a second referendum and the Lords' defeat of the government over us staying in the EU Customs Union. Quite what Richard's view of Brexit it I'm not sure after this. Pro-EU Alan Johnson and anti-EU Priti Patel then debated it. (Fair enough).

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And God saw that (except for This Week) it was biased and the evening and the morning were the fifth day, Friday. 

The early hours saw an airline business owner being asked by a BBC reporter, "How worried are you and your clients about the Brexit effect and the open skies agreement?". The businessman said his company had "prepared to switch to other countries" but his "personal opinion" was that "I don't think [the worst case scenario] will happen".

A review of parliamentary proceedings included a section beginning, "The Transport Secretary has dismissed the idea that holiday-makers could face air travel delays after Brexit". An SNP MP had raised a scare story. 

By the time of BBC One's News at One, James Lansdale was back linking Brexit to the Windrush debacle:

Theresa May had hoped to use this summit to highlight Britain's global ambitions after Brexit. But the row over Caribbean immigration has made that harder.

The same bulletin later including a segment beginning:

Newsreader: The EU's chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, has warned there is still a chance that talks on Britain's withdrawal deal from the bloc could fail. Mr Barnier said that while three-quarters of the deal had been agreed, the Irish border issue remained a key stumbling block. Our correspondent Gavin Lee is in Brussels for us with the latest. Tell us more. 

Gavin Lee: This is the EU's chief negotiator for the EU making crystal clear that whilst three quarters they are pretty much in agreement on what the Brexit deal or the withdrawal agreement of both the UK and the European Parliament have to ratify by March next year, the last 25% come because of the series issues involved, said could be problematic and risks failure, he said. 

BBC One's News at Six was back at it too, linking Brexit to the Windrush debacle:

Newsreader: The meeting of the Commonwealth leaders was supposed to be a chance for Theresa May to talk about matters such as trade but instead it ended up being overshadowed by the row over the Windrush migrants.
John Pienaar: That's right. This week, the Commonwealth Summit was supposed to be a show of Britain's weight in the world. Instead, we saw the Prime Minister saying sorry for the mistreatment of Commonwealth migrants and their families by a country once known as the mother country. And not just the government, the Home Office, which Theresa May lead for years, reflecting her own unyielding approach to immigration control in a way that her successor Amber Rudd described as appalling. Mrs May was meant to be standing tall among Commonwealth leaders but we saw her saying sorry again and again to leaders of countries Britain wants to have as friends and needs as trading partners in the world beyond Brexit. 

The latest Have I Got News For You - just like the previous week's edition - made a joke at David Davis's expense, EU-negotiation-wise, and a passing quip at some comedienne insulting a pasty eater saw a comedian quip "This is how Brexit happened".

Finally, BBC One's News at Ten saw John Pienaar continuing the BBC Theme of the Week, Brexit-wise, over the Windrush affair:

Downing Street clearly wanting to be seen to be making amends. Climbing out of that hole. Maintaining Britain's influence and standing and its weight in the world with Brexit approaching, that was always a challenge, and there will be many more challenges as time draws by. But I think the Windrush scandal may just have made that mission that much harder.

Just read the language of that! I don't think Lord Adonis would mind it one bit.

Indeed, Lord Adonis has nothing to complain about as far as any of this is concerned.

That said, there's certainly been plenty of bias on display here, and it's all gone the other (anti-Brexit) way.

Seriously, can anyone read the evidence I've detailed here and still content that the BBC isn't biased in a negative way about Brexit?

I know the dangers of confirmation bias, but this is a list covering every mention of Brexit on BBC One over five days and the evidence couldn't be clearer, could it?

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Despite what we heard on Feedback, the BBC still has a case to answer. 'Complaints from both sides' won't wash.

The Adonis/Campbell side has nothing substantial to go off.

This side has. 

More random thoughts

I was driving to work yesterday morning and switched on Today just at the moment where a voice I didn't instantly recognise was interviewing a BBC reporter and describing Brexit supporters in the Conservative Party as "hardliners". I thought, "A clear example of 'bias by labelling' there from a BBC presenter". Then I remembered reading about CNN's Christiane Amanpour being a guest presenter sometime and realised it must be her enjoying her moment in the Today sun. She's certainly no fan of Brexit.

Having her and Remain campaigner Stephanie Flanders as guest presenters isn't helping Sarah Sands give Today a neutral tone on Brexit (or Trump), is it? At least the consummately professional Carrie Gracie (the last of these Three Guest-Presenting Graces) should know how to conduct herself. 

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David Keighley's latest piece provides the kind of detailed overview that (alas) I can only dream about offering you at the moment. (So please go and read it, if you haven't already). Its main focus is the BBC's coverage of those 'hate crime' figures, and the way the BBC keeps plugging the alleged link to Brexit. The BBC stood out from most of the other reports I saw in that by not balancing those figures about rising 'hate crime' cases with other figures showing a fall in 'hate crime' prosecutions, making the BBC appear particularly biased (and irresponsible) in this respect. David (naturally) also spotted that, summarising the main BBC website article on the story in this way:

And the reaction? This BBC report emphasises in great detail the rise in number of recorded ‘crimes’, does not enumerate the fall in prosecutions, and has a long sequence about a Muslim ‘victim’ who concludes: ‘I really think it's important for us to report, no matter what.’ Of course.

Of course.

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I'm looking out of my window at the wet and windy weather of Storm Brian (yes, it does sometimes stop being sunny in Morecambe, as surprising as you may find that) and I'm thinking, "This doesn't look like a 'Brian' to me". It's more a 'James' I think. (It's making me think of James O'Brien for some reason).

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According to the Daily Mail's media editor Katherine Rushton, the BBC has fought "a furious battle" to keep to itself the number of complaints it receives each day. Unfortunately for the BBC, it's now lost that battle and been forced to admit that it gets "nearly 1,000 complaints every working day". Also:

The Corporation would not give a breakdown but last week Ofcom chief executive Sharon White said three out of ten of the complaints it receives about the BBC centre on bias and inaccuracy.

It didn't surprise me in the least that this information had to been extracted from the BBC against the BBC's wishes and with the BBC dragging its feet every single step of the way. It did surprise me a bit that it was only "nearly 1,000 complaints every working day".

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It is becoming impossible to keep track of BBC bias. I was reading some comments recently about all the messaging that Eastenders puts out. I haven't watched Eastenders for over twenty years (except a couple of episodes for the sake of this blog), but messaging on Eastenders has long been a given. It sounds to be getting worse though. 

I suspect that lots of BBC One drama comes with added messages (the usual BBC messages) - just like Radio 4 dramas (and The Archers) - simply because on the occasions when I have watched them I usually get the feeling of being whacked over the head with some clunking great fist of a message, as well as countless more subtly inveigled messages (though not subtle enough not to be noticed). Watching them and detailing it is something that I couldn't face doing, even if I had the time (which I don't). And then there's the transgender agenda and the feminist agenda and the race-baiting agenda...and how many more? 

It's all too much. I need to lie down. 

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On a brighter note, you really can't beat In Our Time with R Melvyn. This week it was the Congress of Vienna. Tim Blanning of the University of Cambridge was so infectiously enthusiastic (and darned interesting) that I feel he really ought be given a BBC programme of his own. (Watch him turn out to be a fanatic for some cause I don't like, the BBC take up my suggestion and ask him to bang on about that cause, and me repent at leisure). Next week it's 'Feathered dinosaurs'. God bless Lord Bragg, and all who sail in him!

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Yes, Newsnight has covered some of the big stories of the week - President Xi (all hail!), murder in Malta, Brexit, party political goings-on, etc - but it definitely does seem to be going down the celebrity interview route more and more often. We've had Mary Blige, Trevor Noah and Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden just this week. (The Bruce interview was the only one I didn't really inclined to run to the hills at the mere thought of). Plus, they really do like talking about race. They've been at that a lot again this week.

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This is a bit old now (dating from June this year), but people are still furiously tweeting about it, and it remains a truly startling tweet from BBC Three - and a truly startling article on the BBC website:

Most sexual taboos from earlier ages have become acceptable, with the BBC's ardent blessing, but a few still remain - such as zoophilia and paedophilia. Infamously in the 1970s some socially-liberal voices, particularly on the Left, briefly flirted with pro-paedophilia campaign groups (and the BBC was then at the height of its Jimmy Savile era). Surely even the BBC won't dare to go down that route? 

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Terry, in an earlier comments thread, reminded me of a curious omission from Suzy Klein's otherwise excellent Tunes for Tyrants: Music and Power with Suzy Klein. As the final episode looked at the Second World War, whatever happened to the most famous WW2 symphony of all, Shostakovich's Seventh (the Leningrad) - a work with a back story of the utmost drama and relevance to the series's main theme? I was expecting it, yet it never came. Yes, I understand the relevance of Walton's glorious Spitfire Prelude and Tippett's pacifist curate's egg A Child of Our Time but to miss out the Leningrad Symphony was a very curious omission indeed. 

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Meanwhile back at the Today ranch...

The power struggles and back-stabbing at Today are beginning to make Games of Thrones seem like Last of the Summer Wine. They just can't stop sniping at each other. I'm running out of popcorn.

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And as Saturday night is music night and Radio 3 has Uncle Jim Naughtie presenting Verdi's Otello, here's Placido and Katia with the love duet from the end of the first act. If you don't know it, it's very, very lovely (and the nearest Verdi got to sounding like Wagner).

New batteries

I watched the programme about Christie’s auction house the other day. It just shows how appalling the art market is. A bunch of people with more money than brains being bamboozled into spending great wads of it while funding the lifestyles of another bunch of jumped up salespersons who know next to nothing about the subject they’re pretending to know about. They all seemed to be winging it. Well, they know about selling; just not about art.

I did enjoy those Arab princes squandering zillions of their unearned wealth on a pile of pretentious junk though. Probably more harmless than coming to London to show off their ridiculous cars.

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Unfortunately I didn’t look at the schedules and missed the BBC Four documentary about the  Kanneh-Mason family and their 17 year old son Sheku, the winner of BBC Young Musician 2016. 

 I caught up on iPlayer, and I enjoyed it bigly. They are an amazing family, every single one of them is good looking, hardworking and extremely gifted. 

 The documentary did leave me with certain questions, as Marina Vaizey has articulated here: 

“The story had some fascinating omissions. The father, Stuart, worked away from his Nottingham home Monday to Friday but we were not told what he did; was the family always Nottingham-based, and how and when did classical music become the centre of all their lives?”

What a pity this programme was on BBC Four rather than One or Two. It wasn’t particularly elitist or highbrow, and the fact that it involved such cool children and teenagers made it an ideal taster, or vehicle, for sparking a wider interest in classical music. Programmes that emphasise the importance of hard work, determination and training are usually confined to documentaries about elite sports like swimming or gymnastics and I see no reason to hide away a film with a similar theme on BBC Four.

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Last night I was really really tired. Couch potato tired. Our new BT remote control only seems to work if you get off your arse and fire it directly at the TV from point blank range - not very remote if you ask me - so I failed to execute my lightening response to the warning wail of impending EastEnders. Consequently I sat through it all. OMG. Do people really and truly watch this?

Who are all those identical blonde actresses who seem to be emotionally connected to Phil Mitchell and where are they flocking from? Phil has learned he’s probably gonna die before he can get a liver transplant. His acting technique, which involves delivering his lines through heavy “back-of-the-throat breathing” has developed a lot since I last watched EastEnders and now his lines are all but inaudible. He does act irritability pretty convincingly, if you like that sort of thing. (What’s the betting he gets his transplant before he dies?) Anyway I won’t be sticking around to find out.

I don’t know if putting new batteries in would help. (In the remote, not me; though, come to think of it…)  It seems like only yesterday that I replaced them, but surely… isn’t battery life a binary thing? 

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Anyway, since this has turned into a review, I must mention the Today Programme on “Health tourism.”   The Website:

“Hospital patients could soon be asked to show their passports before they're seen. A senior Department of Health official confirmed yesterday the government is considering introducing the ID check nationwide to tackle so called ‘health tourism’. Professor J Meirion Thomas is a former cancer surgeon at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London and Dr Mark Porter is chair of the British Medical Association.” 

It was an interesting discussion. Professor J Meirion Thomas, a former cancer surgeon at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London defined health tourism as people with pre-existing conditions coming to Britain from overseas to take advantage of free NHS treatment. He set out a list of abuses, particularly maternity cases; the problem being that once they’re here, they’re here. Heavily pregnant ladies can’t be deported by air as no airline will take them.

It morphed into a political broadcast on behalf of unlimited access to the NHS at the point of sale, and free access for all who need it.

Many questions were left hanging. The first thought that occurred to me is what happened to our National Insurance numbers? Aren’t we all registered on some NI database? I suppose some incompetent NHS employee has put the file in the wrong pigeonhole. Surely NHS numbers are a better form of ID than a passport and a utility bill?

Chair of the BMA Dr. Mark Porter’s argument against the motion seemed to be based on the principle that making genuine NHS beneficiaries carry ID was an erosion of personal liberty, and a disproportionately heavy-handed remedy for the relatively small cost of health tourism. The amounts of money involved were so large, he went on to say, that being obliged to carry ID amounted to a sledgehammer to crack a nut. John Humphrys reminded him that it was quite a considerable nut and every little helps. 

Apparently existing rules are already in place, but are not being enforced. I don’t know what the rules are about foreigners’ access to the NHS, and how and when they are expected to pay for it, and I would have appreciated someone explaining it to me properly.

I had a mental image of Nigel Farage being roundly condemned, nay, virtually crucified for mentioning people with pre-existing conditions abusing the NHS. In particular, those arriving here with HIV. What’s the difference? I wish John Humphrys had been a little more persistent.  I wanted to hear Dr. Porter explain how the NHS is supposed to cater for health tourists, especially at a time when the BMA (whom he represents) is angling for more money for junior doctors for working through weekends and all. Calling for strikes one minute, and offering freebies for all and sundry the next does not compute.

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A little later in the programme there was an item about the dire conditions in Aleppo. Because of the similarity between these reports with reports from Gaza in 2014, my sympathy was tinged with cynicism. They brought on Dr. David Nott who is quite a celebrity these days. http://davidnottfoundation.com/ He goes to war-torn hell-holes and performs surgery in the most unimaginable conditions, and very admirable that is too. However, and this is going to make me sound nastier than I really am, he got involved in actively blaming Israel for the plight of the injured children in Gaza, and his saintly persona gave his words undeserved credibility, and I can’t help wondering if his tendency to hold only Syria and the Russians responsible for what’s happening in Aleppo is as sound as it should be.  

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There. that’s me saying something controversial. Or is it? I have noticed that views like mine are not quite as unique as they used to be. Soon Craig and me will be redundant. We can sit back and smoke our pipes and (why not?) possibly  recharge our batteries.

Pro-suicide bias

Talking of the BBC's deeply ingrained social liberalism, here's Peter Hitchens in today's Mail on Sunday:

There's no heroism in suicide

Why do BBC bosses love suicide so much? Every hard case of a sick or injured man or woman wanting to end it all gets sympathetic top billing on BBC bulletins. And now the propaganda soap, EastEnders, has treated the fictional suicide of the fictional Peggy Mitchell (played by Dame Barbara Windsor) as a moment of heroism and dignity. 

How can I break it to them that this is only one opinion on a contentious subject, and that they are yet again breaching their obligation to be impartial? 

Suicide leaves many hard wounds behind, and many people still believe it to be wrong. Much can be done to prevent the dying from suffering, the hospice movement needs all the help it can get, and the BBC could do a lot to promote it.

Though I'm a social liberal on such things myself, I can see PH's point about BBC bias here - if he's describing the programme (which I didn't watch) correctly.

If he is describing it correctly, then it's a case of bias (whether we personally care about the bias or not), isn't it?

Whether it's a simple failure to even consider that there could be another perspective on the issue or, perhaps even more worryingly, an unwillingness after recognising that there is such a perspective to duly provide 'balance', Peter seems to have a point here, doesn't he?

Cultures of fear; one exposed / one pending

It seems like an ominous coincidence that today’s blanket coverage of Dame Janet Smith’s review  of the BBC’s Savile scandal comes on the same day as reports on the Rotherham abuse trial:

Both cases involve people in authority turning a blind eye to the terrible abuse that was going on virtually before their very eyes.

Both cases involved  ‘cultures of fear’, and we’re now seeing remorse, regret and attempts to apologise to the victims, or ‘survivors’.

At the BBC potential whistleblowers were afraid to act in case doing so would damage their job prospects; in Rotherham everyone was afraid to speak out for fear of being found guilty of a crime more heinous than any other.... racism.     Yet several truly vile individuals were left, unhindered and unchallenged,  to carry out unimaginable crimes - in Rotherham with the collusion of corrupt members of the Police and Rotherham council ad in the BBC, where there undoubtedly was collusion, but by individuals as yet unnamed.

Rotherham - from the BBC website:

“This is the first trial to come to court since the revelation that 1,400 children in Rotherham were groomed and abused. Even more stunning was that the authorities had ignored repeated warnings.
They preferred instead to protect the reputation of the town, or to avoid rocking race relations in Rotherham but in doing so police officers and social workers missed many opportunities to investigate abuse on a huge scale. 

“A youth worker in the town, who wrote an unpublished report for the Home Office in 2002 on child sexual exploitation, said the men had considered themselves above the law.Adele Gladman said: "They were being allowed to do it completely unchallenged and I think that did definitely give them a feeling of invincibility."I don't think I have ever encountered the levels of sadism and torture and sheer cruelty that we were encountering against children."

At the BBC, back then, Savile and Hall, (and now perhaps assorted other “talent”)  were also considered beyond criticism. Their status bestowed infallibility upon them.

Tony Hall’s apology seems futile, like governments apologising to the descendants of victims of historic abuses by cultures gone by. All his promises not to let it happen again and his proposals about how to go about ensuring that it won’t, don’t seem enough, somehow. 

I’m sure others will have a lot more to say about this, but I would like to highlight a parallel problem, which I hope will one day be resolved.

It concerns the BBC’s arrogance, its overbearing certainty that it is right and you are wrong.  In the Q & A session following the prepared speeches, a question addressed to Tony Hall stressed that contemporaneous complaints about Savile and Hall had been dismissed and batted away by the BBC. Tony Hall duly batted it away; I don’t think the irony was missed.

The missing question most urgently begged concerns the BBC’s bias. What would Tony Hall have to say about that? 

The BBC’s political and cultural biases are well documented, as is the reflexive batting away of complaints and complainants.

Just as the levels of corruption and collusion in the cases of Rotherham and the BBC are finally coming to light, I hope one day the extent of the BBC’s antisemitism masquerading as anti-Zionism will be seem for what it is.

Many viewers have noticed the BBC’s systematic downplaying of the Islam factor in sex abuse and other cultural practices that contravene British cultural norms, and the insidious normalisation of Islamic religious rituals and superstitions that are superimposed on all genres of broadcasting.

No doubt the message surrounding the new mosque in Albert Square will eventually be one of good Islam triumphing over evil Islam. 

“There is a great opportunity here to dispel misconceptions about Muslims and their faith, and we know that EastEnders has done this in the past through its Muslim characters.  

“However, there is a worry if this set is built to pursue a particular storyline along the lines of extremism, which would in fact further denigrate the Islamic faith and play into the hands of negative stereotypes that are unrepresentative of the majority of Muslims living in Britain.”

I haven’t watched Eastenders since the Vic was run by Den and Angie, so I don’t know if the plot-lines have reflected the Rotherham issue. 

I have already mentioned the frequent guest appearances of well-known antisemites as panellists and experts on the BBC’s political, religious and ethical programmes. Abdel Bari Atwan, George Galloway, umpteen pro-Palestinian activists - nearly always without the health warning that accompanies individuals or bodies considered right-wing.

Then there’s the unexplored territory of antisemitism in the new left. Jeremy Corbyn has never been truly challenged by any of the BBC’s rottweiler-like attack dogs over his association with antisemites and supporters of terrorism. 

Douglas Murray.  “Britain’s New Mainstream Racists?”

“Of course the Labour party has responded in the usual way -- split between expressions of concern and those of outright denial. But the real question is: when did this type of behaviour break out into the open and become acceptable? The answer is obvious to me. From the accounts of those in the OULC and elsewhere, it is clear that anti-Semitism surfaced in the Labour party at exactly the moment the party started to be led by a man who, throughout his political life, had demonstrated extreme comfort with anti-Semites.”

and Tom Harris in the Telegraph:

There’s no shame in Zionism: we must reclaim the word from anti-Semites

“........ the onslaught against Israel from the broader Left of British politics is real, aggressive and worrying.
Michael Dugher, the former Shadow Culture Secretary who was recently sacked by Jeremy Corbyn, made a speech to a Labour Friends of Israel meeting last year in which he declared: “I am proud to call myself a friend of Israel. I am proud to call myself a Zionist.” 

“ Not only do we have a leader who can’t even bring himself to utter the word “Israel” when he’s attending a reception organised by Labour Friends of You Know Where. But we also have a leader who calls the terrorist, anti-semitic fanatics of Hamas his “friends”.”

At present the BBC overlooks antisemitism. Many of its employees are Islamophiles and Israelophobes.  Accusations of bias are there to be batted away. Antisemitism has become mainstream. 

As a whole the BBC supports Labour, is tolerant of the religion and culture of Islam, and hostile towards Israel accordingly. Its Middle East reporters and journalists are ignorant about Israel’s history and in denial about the similarities between Israel’s situation and our own, vis a vis Islamic terrorism. They tend to see ‘all Jews’ as capitalists; greedy, manipulative and self serving. This is the opposite of the truth, frightening and quite scandalous. 

So. One cover-up exposed, at least one more to go.  

"Yes, you can stay in this stable because Islam welcomes all faiths"

A proud moment

Given the recent Eastenders plot line involving Nancy and her nice Muslim boyfriend Tamwar storyline - where (so far) Tam has got to deliver a nice-if-somewhat-truncated verse from the Koran on one episode and Nancy has praised Islam for giving Tam "simplicity, peace and answers" on another episode - let's engage in a little Boxing Day fun and imagine a Christmas Eve Eastenders episode showing a Nativity play, involving the children of Albert Square. How would that turn out?

Something like this maybe?:

Mary: I'm tired. I need to sleep.
Joseph: Don't worry, Mary! We'll get a room at Bethlehem. There's a B&B over there. Let me see if there's anywhere for us.
Innkeeper 1: No.
Innkeeper 2: No.
Innkeeper 3: No.
Joseph: All the rooms are full.
Mary: Why don't you ask that innkeeper over there? See if he has free wi-fi? What did he say?
Joseph: Yes, you can stay in this stable because Islam welcomes all faiths.
Mary: A stable?!
Joseph: The one with the bright shining star above it.

That, if you didn't see it, is exactly what did happen. When 'Mary' asked 'Joseph' what the innkeeper said, 'Joseph' did indeed reply, "Yes, you can stay in this stable because Islam welcomes all faiths".

Now, that turned out to be a little tweak to the script by a Muslim Eastenders character, who was shown enjoying her little triumph before the camera showed the other parents beaming on, blithely accepting this little moment of pro-Islamic 'agitprop'. 

No Eastender heckled. No one cried, 'Oi, leave it ahhhtt!!'. No one even pointed out that Islam wasn't actually around at the time of Mary and Joseph - and wouldn't be around for another 600 years either.

What that Eastenders character did is precisely mirrored by what the Eastenders writers who wrote that scene were doing. They were doing to their audience (the BBC audience) just what their character was doing to her audience (the audience at the nativity play). They were cheerfully propagandising on behalf of Islam and hoping everyone would beam on, blithely accepting the Eastenders writers' own little moment of pro-Islamic 'agitprop'.

As our reader Gareth notes (and a big hat-tip goes out to him for pointing this example of BBC bias out to us), this was broadcast on the same day that three more Muslim countries (Brunei, Somalia and Tajikistan) banned Christmas celebrations to protect Islam.

BBC Trending

There was quite a strong Twitter reaction to one particular scene in this Thursday's Eastenders. During a Carter family meal, tensions erupted over Nancy's relationship with quiet, geeky Muslim Tamwar:

Nancy: I'm not reading the Koran because I'm thinking of converting or getting married. I just want to understand why Tam sees the world a bit better. Like, he's a good man and he's got good morals...

Babe:  What? And we 'aven't?

Linda: Mum!

Nancy: All right, look, Islam brings Tam simplicity and peace and answers, and looking into the way the person I'm with sees the world feels like the right thing to do. And if - the massive if - I ever did think about converting - or, an even bigger if, getting married - that I would tell you because you're my family and I wouldn't keep something like that from you.

As the BBC's own 'BBC Trending' didn't cover this one, Is the BBC biased? will have to do it for them. Unlike a lot of 'BBC Trending' posts, what follows will be a wholly fair and impartial representation of what was tweeted about the scene!:

The true face of Islam on 'Eastenders'

Eastenders has received praise from the Independent, the Guardian and people on Twitter for showing "the true face of Islam" on Monday night's episode.

As the Guardian put it:

It’s not often you turn to EastEnders for a little nuance – let alone a crumb of spiritual comfort. But in a particularly bleak week, when the news was filled with terrifying details of the Paris atrocity, the show offered a quiet moment of respite. In a short scene, one character, Tamwar Masood, gently tried to explain his religion to his girlfriend Nancy.

Reciting a passage from the Qur’an, he translated it as: “Do good to relatives, orphans, the needy, the neighbour who is near of kin, the neighbour who is a stranger, to the companion at your side and to the traveller.” Haltingly, he explained: “That, to me, is what Islam is about. Be kind to people, family and strangers alike, and love them.”

A lovely sentiment.

The passage from the Koran in question comes from Surah an-Nisa 36.

Transliterated that comes out as:

As you'll hear though (if you watch the above video), Tamwar stops short straight after saying "waibni alssabeeli" and doesn't add the next phrase, "wama malakat aymanukum". 

Curious.

Well, "wama malakat aymanukum" translates literally as "what your right hand possesses" and, according to most traditional translations, this means "your slaves". 

Curiouser and curiouser.

So what Tamwar probably ought to have said here - were he not cherry-picking the nicest bits of his sacred book that is! - is therefore:

“Do good to relatives, orphans, the needy, the neighbour who is near of kin, the neighbour who is a stranger, to the companion at your side and to the traveller and to your slaves.”

So why did Tamwar - or, more accurately-speaking, the writers of Eastenders - choose to miss off the next words of that Koranic passage - the bit about doing good to your slaves? 

Answers on a postcard to the Queen Vic, Albert Square, Walford E20 6PQ.

EastEnders is 'twice as depressing' as the real East End warns BBC Trust boss

According to the Daily Mail.... 

EastEnders is 'twice as depressing' as the real East End warns BBC Trust boss as she calls for 'a less miserable portrayal of modern Britain'.

EastEnders is 'twice as depressing' as the real East End according to the head of the BBC Trust, who has called for the corporation to do more to 'provide a less dispiriting portrayal' of modern Britain.

Acting head of the BBC Trust Diane Coyle, said the unfathomably popular BBC One soap is also too badly-acted and has too many 'kitchen sink' style plot lines to be an accurate reflection of an area such as Walthamstow, one of the boroughs on which the fictional Albert Square is based.

In her first public speech since taking over as char wallah of the BBC’s governing body Mz Coyle - who is in the running to replace Lord Patten as head of the trust - said the programme was 'crap' and 'lacked a sense of British fun'.

She also said: 'BBC Central Committee figures suggested that there are almost ten times as many white gangsters living in fictional E20 as in real life E17 and that the criminal population of EastEnders tends to be more Kray Twins-like than their real life counterparts and much more likely to have been born in the UK than real-life East End criminals'.

Mz Coyle said the BBC's Central Committee for England 'compared the population of Walthamstow in East London with Walford - the fictional home of EastEnders'.

She said it would be 'daft' for the show to be a 'perfect replica' of the real world, but said it was 'important to ask whether the BBC can do more in its popular output to provide a less depressing vision of life in modern Britain'.

Philip Mitchell, a spokesman for EastEnders, said in response, 'Leave it ahrrt, you slarrgg!', and suggested that Mz Coyle might be better advised to go and chuck herself 'darrrnn them stairrrrs'.

The BBC said they would ‘advise and support the BBC on diversity’.