How would the BBC have reported the US airstrikes on Iran-backed targets if Donald Trump had launched them so early in his presidency?

Did you know that President Joe Biden has already bombed Syria? 

It's something that could easily have been missed if you simply relied on BBC TV/radio news. 

Here's Rod Liddle in The Sunday Times this morning: 

Joe Biden’s kinder, gentler America fired a number of missiles into Syria last week, killing an estimated 22 people. I assume it was some kind of goodwill gesture towards foreigners. Certainly that’s how it was reported by the BBC. Whenever Trump did anything similar it was presented as “fascist madman murders civilians and starts Third World War”.

That sounds like the sort of thing the BBC would do, but did they? I've searched via TV Eyes and I can only find one reference to the US airstrikes on Syria on BBC One or BBC Two or the BBC News Channel, at around 5am on Friday morning - which is quite some feat of under-reporting. 

  

I see Radio 4 reported the US strikes though, intermittently, throughout Friday and Saturday. Except for a brief mention during a news bulletin, Today ignored the story, as did The World at One and The World Tonight. However, Friday's P.M. asked one question about it. Rod must have heard it somewhere on Radio 4.

How did they report it then? 

• 2am, Friday: The Pentagon says the US military have hit facilities in eastern Syria used by Iran-backed militias in retaliation for recent rocket attacks on US troop locations in Iraq. A defence spokesman said the air strikes were carried out following a directive from President Biden.
• 6.35am, Friday: Joe Biden has authorised his first known air strike since becoming US President. It targeted facilities in eastern Syria used by militias backed by Iran and was in retaliation for recent rocket attacks on American targets in Iraq.
• 11.02am, Friday: The US says its air strikes on targets in eastern Syria have destroyed 9 facilities controlled by Shia militia. It's the first US military operation since Joe Biden became president. The attacks were ordered after a civilian contractor was killed by rockets fired at US positions in Iraq.
• 5.50pm, Friday: Evan Davis: Now, the first military action of the Biden administration was carried out last night - an air strike targeting Iran-backed militias in Syria. That came 10 days after Americans were targeted. A civilian contractor was killed in a rocket attack on US targets in Irbil. Syria has condemned the attack as "a bad sign" from the new US administration. But are we able to say much about American foreign policy under Joe Biden? As we speak in fact, lines are coming out of the White House. It has just said "strikes were necessary to reduce the threat of further attacks" and the Americans have also said they will be releasing later today their evidence, their intelligence, on the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, that killing. We can talk to Karin von Hippel, who's Director General of the Royal United Services Institute for defence and security studies. This strike last night, Karin, some might say it shows a a willingness to get dragged back in. I don't know. What did you make of it? Karin von Hippel: I actually think it was a targeted and limited strike and, in a sense, a response to say 'you can't attack American bases or American personnel or troops' and also a message to Iran, that's getting involved in a lot of proxy conflicts, or has been, for a very long time in the region and Biden is very desperate to get back into an Iran deal, the JCPOA plus whatever the new version will be, and there's a big debate going on about whether or not Iran's involvement in the region should be brought into the deal or not. So this is sending a message to the Iranians essentially. Evan Davis: Great.
• 4.04am, Saturday: President Biden has said that Iran cannot act with impunity, and he warned the country's leaders to be careful. He was speaking after US warplanes attacked facilities in eastern Syria controlled by Iran backed Shia militias. At least 17 people were reported killed. With more detail, here's Gary O'Donoghue. Gary O'Donoghue: The Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said two F15 aircraft dropped a total of 7 precision-guided munitions totally destroying 9 facilities and partially destroying two others. Battle damage assessment, he said, was still being carried out and he would not confirm reports that 17 people have been killed on the ground. The strikes, he said, were justified under both US law and United Nations statutes and were directed at Iran-backed Shia militia groups.

As well as a few other short summaries overnight on Friday night and Saturday morning, that seems to have been it. 

Even the likes of Jeremy Bowen have kept quiet on this story.

It's as if, without Donald Trump, the urge to report - and denounce - certain actions holds less appeal.

30 Conservative MPs spurn Radio 4's 'PM'

It's a while since I've listened to an episode of (The Evan Davis Show) PM all the way through. 

Does it always have two items on climate change these days?

I learned along the way that Our Evan is quite the Banksy fan. He declared the graffiti artist to be "a national treasure", and wished aloud that Banks would do something on the wall of his house some day. (And so say all of us).

Meanwhile Polly Toynbee revealed that the programme had called up to 30 Conservative MPs to come on and discuss the Government with her, but none of them accepted. A chap from Unherd (Freddie Sayers) appeared instead. 

"It just seems weird that you would want to go out there and bait and insult other people"

Paddington Bear-loving Evan Davis certainly went to town on Harry Miller on PM yesterday. Evan later defended himself on Twitter, maintaining that he was being impartial. Others, however, disagree. 

A transcript is needed.

Here's how Evan began the programme:

Evan Davis: Hello there. The High Court has ruled in this man's favour, saying the police went too far in defining his anti-trans tweets as hate rather than legitimate mockery:

Harry Miller: You police stand behind a chocolate fireguard called the College of Policing Guidelines. It will not shield you. You will get burned.

Well, that anti anti-trans tweeter will join us shortly. 

And this is the news bulletin:

Newsreader: The High Court has ruled that Humberside Police acted unlawfully after they visited a man at his workplace over a series of allegedly transphobic tweets. Trans activists have described the judgment as worrying because it failed to establish the threshold for acceptable speech. The Humberside force said it had acted in good faith and would learn from what happened. Here's our legal correspondent Clive Coleman.

Clive Coleman: In 2019 a transgender woman complained about Harry Miller's tweets. Humberside Police went to his place of work. He was questioned, told he could be prosecuted if he continued and a non-crime hate incident was recorded. Mr Miller argued the police guidance breached free speech and required no evidence of hate nor of a specific victim. Mr. Justice Knowles ruled the guidance was lawful but the way it was applied by police disproportionately interfered with Mr. Miller's right to free speech. "In this country we've never had a Cheka, a Gestapo or a Stasi", he said. "We've never lived in an Orwellian society".

And now comes the interview. 

It was one of those interviews where the interviewer says at least as much, if not more. than the interviewee. During it Evan described Mr Miller as "obsessed" and "weird". 

I've underlined some of Evan's most striking interventions. Was he baiting and insulting Mr Miller?

Evan Davis: When does mockery become hate speech? The issue is alive today after that High Court judge ruled that Humberside Police had gone too far in deeming tweets mocking the whole idea of trans people changing their agenda. The police had not said the tweets were a crime but they did visit the man responsible for them and log his words as a non-crime hate incident. Many think the police are hopeless at judging these issues, going way too far sometimes in a wokely direction. In this case it was all the more interesting that the man doing the tweeting was in fact himself a former policeman. And we can talk to him now: Harry Miller, who founded the campaign group Fair Cop. Thank you for joining us on PM Mr Miller. Can I just first ask, do you accept there are limits on free speech and it can at some point turn into hate speech and could be reasonably stopped by the law?

Harry Miller: We've never, ever suggested that there shouldn't be limits to free speech.

ED: Right.

HM: When it comes to harassing people, when it comes to malicious communications, when it comes to targeting people, we're not for that at all. 

ED: Right.

HM: What we are for is for free and frank and satirical discussion around a range of subjects, including the whole issue of gender identity. And I do take issue with your introduction that I was 'an anti-trans tweeter'. I'm not anti-anything. I am pro-women, and I'm pro-democracy, and I'm pro-discussion, and I'm pro-free speech. 

ED: OK. I think anyone reading your tweets would say you're anti-trans. Let's just call a spade a spade. I mean...

HM: No, no, what exactly...

ED: ...I might have misunderstood...

HM: No, what exactly is there in there that's anti-trans? 

ED: Well, you're mocking the idea at [sic] people changing gender.

HM: I'm mocking the idea that it is possible for an immutable characteristic like sex to change just because somebody says so. That's an idea that's worth mocking.

ED: Well, certainly the trans community feel you have mocked them and I think, you know, I've just read the tweets. I'm looking at some of them now. I think the listener would benefit from knowing it's reasonable to call them 'anti-trans'. But look, you accept the limits. You say you accept you're not against the idea that there can be something called 'hate speech'. Do you think you would have launched this kind of, if you like, sequence of tweets on an issue you might feel more sensitive about? Race, for example? 

HM: No, of course I wouldn't, because that's not an issue. Race is a thing. The notion of race is not up for discussion. The government hasn't called upon its citizens to discuss the notions of race. It did call upon its citizens to discuss the notion of gender in relation to reforms to the Gender Recognition Act reform. That's what I engage with, so it's just not a fair question.

ED: OK, can I...I don't want to put you in the psychiatrist's chair here, Mr Miller...

HM: No, go ahead, I'm quite happy. I'm relaxed.

ED: What is it? You come across as a bit obsessed about something which you could quite happily ignore. You could have your view. You're not really debating here. It's sometimes a little bit sweary, isn't it? It's quite insulting. Some of it, you could say, is satirical, you know, 'I'm a fish and I want, I regard my right, don't misspecies me'. You could call that satirical. Other bits are just very insulting.

HM: No, they're not. There's nothing in there that's insulting at all. Tell me where I've been insulting.

ED: OK, well, Adrian Harrop. You called him "a gloating bastard. Harrop doing what he does best". It that not...?  "Is Trans Day of Remembrance a thing then like an actual one?"...
HM: No, no, no, no, no...
ED: (high pitched) I'm just reading you the tweets! I mean, they're insulting, aren't they? There's no point in saying they're not insulting.
HM: No. No. I had no idea. I had never heard of Trans Day of Remembrance. I saw it on a TUC tweet and I said, "Is it a thing?" I'd absolutely no idea...
ED: (interrupting) "What's the Witchfinder General gloating about now?". That's insulting to the people who are...
HM: That was aimed at Dr...
ED: (interrupting) "Shon Faye, clothing fascist, utter...", I'm not even going to say the word. You can't pretend you're not being insulting or that you're not being anti-trans. Of course you are. You might as well be honest about it.
HM: No, I was being Dr Adrian Harrop because he was celebrating the no-platforming of the feminist Megan Murphy, and Shon Faye, I can't remember why I tweeted that. I think he compared...I think he was having a go at somebody's dress sense. So I wasn't having a go because he was trans, I was having a go at him because he made some ridiculous comment online.
ED: I don't know, do you feel like this is like engaging with the Government's debate about the subtleties of the Gender Recognition Act or is this just a kind of weird tirade from someone who's got no particular connection?...I don't know if the trans community has ever hurt you in particular. It just seems weird that you would want to go out there and bait and insult other people, even though you may have the right to do so.
HM: Right. The High Court has said that I didn't bait or insult anybody. The High Court said that I wasn't even in the foothills of baiting anybody. What I did in the public market square of Twitter was engage in a lively debate. That's what I did. I don't apologise for it, and I would encourage people to join in and do it. And I was speaking on behalf of women...
ED: (interrupting) I don't know, most of the time you don't seem to be speaking up on behalf of women. You seem to be actually putting trans people down. That's a very different thing, isn't it?
HM: No, because that was 30 tweets over a period of two months. I tweeted hundreds of things during that period. They were the tweets that somebody separated out, so you're taking individual tweets way out of context...
ED: (interrupting) I'm taking the tweets that have been the subject of the case today. But anyway, you stand by the fact...and this is. I think this is the important point of agreement, that there can be such a thing as hate speech and it is about drawing a line and the argument is about where you draw the line.
HM: Yeah, but the real story here is that Humberside Police were compared to the Gestapo and the Stasi. I think that's the real story.
ED:  Harry Miller, thank you very much for joining us. 

Here, to end, is a flavour of the online discussion about the interview:

• Sar: Evan Davis is being extremely inflammatory calling Harry anti-trans over and over. 
• Suzanne Evans: Agreed. I just listened to this and was appalled at Evan’s approach. In complaining about his interviewer being ‘insulting’ (for expressing widely-held views), he then actually insulted him again and again. Textbook example of how wrong-headed some BBC news people have become.
• Mr Misunderstood: Completely agree. Evan Davis didn't conduct so much an interview as a hostile interrogation. He kept insisting his opinion was fact by repeatedly calling tweets "insulting" and allowing no disagreement with that opinion. Typical BBC now, though.
• Karl Dunkerley: He treated an innocent man as guilty and treated a guilty police force as if it was innocent. He put the innocent man through the trial all over again. Another example of why my long-held faith in BBC News reporting has collapsed.
• Mr Misunderstood: My thoughts exactly. During the "interrogation" I kept saying to myself "cripes, Evan... are you trying this man all over again cos you didn't like the verdict? And then puffballed "Tiffany" from Cambridgeshire police! 

Ah yes, and that is the punchline of all this: As Mr Misunderstood says, Harry Miller's hostile interrogation was immediately followed by a much softer interview with Tiffany from the police.

The BBC and the earlier parts of the past week

Charles Moore's fine column in The Spectator this week also dwelt on "mainstream media triumphalism which equates its own interests with those of the general population," though he focused specifically on  the BBC's coverage of the final days of the election campaign.

As it chimed with my impressions, I hope it's OK to quote this at length from (Sir) Charles:

The following morning, on the BBC Today programme, Nick Robinson — who seems almost obsessively opposed to Boris Johnson, perhaps because of something or other in Oxford days (a failure to gain election to the Bullingdon Club?) — was riding the highest of horses. When an ITV journalist had shown the Prime Minister the photograph of young Jack on his phone, Nick complained, Boris had declined to comment and put the journalist’s phone in his pocket without looking at it. Psychoanalyst Dr Laura Kuenssberg later diagnosed this as an amazing ‘lack of empathy’. In a further act of lèse-majesté, which Nick reported in shocked tones, the Johnson entourage had somehow misled ‘some very high-profile journalists’ over an obscure related issue. Nick did not mention that, in the interview, Boris had expressed his sympathy with the boy’s case. Nor did he acknowledge that any Tory politician approached with the offer of a sight of a picture on a media phone while on camera in an election campaign would rightly have suspected a trap. Later, Iain Watson filed for the BBC a mawkish item online called ‘One sick boy and the NHS’, equating extreme protest with wider public opinion. On Tuesday’s lunchtime BBC News, efforts were made to imply that a Tory social media campaign had spread lies saying that the hospital picture had been staged. The BBC never offered a clear narrative about what had actually happened, or explained who had put Jack on the floor and why. It just wanted to keep going for as long as possible with the Jack picture.  

This contrasted sharply with the BBC’s handling, also on Tuesday, of the leaked phone conversation between Jon Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, and a Tory friend of his about how normally Labour voters in the north and Midlands ‘can’t stand’ Jeremy Corbyn, and how he would be seen in government as a risk to national security. Here it concentrated not on what Mr Ashworth had said, but on how his friend had betrayed him — not a line the BBC, with its uncritical praise for ‘whistleblowers’, usually deploys. In its PM programme, Evan Davis turned the Ashworth revelation into part of a story about ‘the fight between honesty and mendacity’, introduced with a quotation from the fiercely anti-Boris Lord Patten of Barnes, the BBC’s ex-chairman. 

Agenda-pushing or a faux pas?

As discussed on the Open Thread, here's Evan Davis on last night's PM talking to the former Assistant Commissioner for Specialist Operations of the Metropolitan Police Service Sir Mark Rowley about the terrorist attack in London. Sir Mark had to correct Evan Davis:

Sir Mark Rowley: While the ideology here looks more Islamist - that looks most likely - we shouldn't forget the sort of significant right-wing that the intelligence services are dealing with. So a big challenge.
Evan Davis: Yeah, I was going to ask you that because, I mean, I think at one point we were hearing there was as much going on in anti-terror towards right-wing, far-right, as there was towards Islamists.
Sir Mark Rowley: I don't think that's quite accurate, Evan.
Evan Davis: OK.
Sir Mark Rowley: The bigger problem has always been in recent years Islamist. The challenge though is that the faster-growing part...
Evan Davis: OK. I think that's where I'm, yeah, getting...
Sir Mark Rowley: ...the faster-growing part is the right-wing, but it's still smaller. They're both significant issues to be wrestled with - one more home-grown, one driven by international factors - but they're big challenges for the police and security services.

Language Evan!

Here's Evan Davis introducing his first guests tonight:

Let us talk to a couple of MPs: Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen - a Brexiteer, voted against Theresa May's deal three times...I think we call you 'a Spartan', don't we, Andrew?...and the Labour MP Peter Kyle, who is very keen to have a confirmatory referendum.

He's certainly trying - "I think we call you 'a Spartan', don't we, Andrew?" - but the phrase "a confirmatory referendum" didn't come with audible quotation marks, as it should have done.

Then came Evan's question to James Forsyth of The Spectator tonight:

How many of the hardline, so-called Spartans - the ERG, the people who really have always voted against the offers cos they've involved too much compromise - how many of them do you think will remain stubbornly against this?

It was good of him to put quotation marks about "Spartans", but how about putting them around "hardline" too? And what's with the editorially-loaded word "stubbornly"? 

The lad seems to be trying to do the right thing but his language keeps on betraying him.

But...

That said, Evan is being overly free tonight with the word "confirmatory" in connection with a second vote/referendum. He's used it twice so far without implying quotation marks around the word.

"Confirmatory" is not a neutral word in this context. 

"Us"

Evan Davis, on tonight's PM, has done the decent thing and admitted that he (and, presumably, his BBC colleagues) got it wrong: 

Boris Johnson got a deal that many of us thought was impossible. The EU did move, contrary to its own assertions, to those of many experts and to the assumptions of many of us in the media. 

Well done Evan!

By such things do we know them

It was a nice, quiet day at work this morning. 

After savouring its soothing delights I retreated to my car this lunchtime to check the news and listened to The World at One,

and OMG!!...

...11 unelected judges have ruled against the elected Government over its prorogation of Parliament!!!

And the BBC's Norman Smith, in his usual hyperbolic way, is calling it "catastrophic for the Prime Minister!!!!!!!!"

Really?

Despite the BBC, might not 'some say' that it could actually be much more catastrophic with regards to people's faith in UK democracy and the impartiality of Britain's major institutions?

And then, on WATO, we heard an endless parade of people opposed to Boris Johnson, exulting in the court's ruling, with just one single defender across the course of whole hour...

...which, I must say, didn't feel entirely impartial to me.

I did,  however (being ever willing to be fair to the BBC), consider that the very heavy imbalance of voices might be down to some people wanting to talk to the BBC and some people (i.e. Boris's government) not.

And, apparently, if the reporting is to be believed (and it's something Evan Davis emphasised later), Boris's Government has told its MPs to stay quiet.

So fair enough then? 

Well, in the midst of a sea of unchallenging interviews, featuring very few interruptions and an otherwise low-key interviewing technique by blog favourite Ed Stourton, came the exception to the rule.

Yes, Ed's interview with Steve Baker MP of the (anti-EU) ERG stood out like a fairly sore thumb. 

It was the only one that featured BBC Ed doing what BBC Ed does so often when he talks to people he doesn't agree with.

He began making all manner of strange, loud extraneous noises - wheezes, intakes of breaths, snorts, huffs - while Mr Baker was speaking, keeping it up throughout to a rather distracting degree, making his presence felt.

And, of course, he also made constant attempts to interrupt Mr Baker (occasionally successfully) - much more than against anyone else. 

Some analogy to a hunting hound straining at its leash with loud excitement might be made here. 

That multitude of weird noises. which never occurs during interviews with like-minded people, and the upsurge of interruptions, is surely evidence of bias (conscious or otherwise)? 

It's not major evidence, but it's surely evidence nonetheless?

(Possible rule?: If you've got one contrary voice on Brexit among six or seven other voices don't go in strongest, huffing and puffing, againt the one exception.)

As is BBC presenters' choice of language. 

Call me Chris Mason, but I'm nerdy enough to quickly pick up on Evan Davis, on tonight's PM, using the words "wheeze", "dodge" and "trick" to describe Boris's prorogation of Parliament. 

And, no, it didn't come across as him quoting others. It sounded like him entirely choosing his own words.

And what a biased choice of words it is!

Elsewhere, in the traditional BBC way, Evan put in the odd 'either/or'-type sop to impartiality and, in fairness, really didn't go 'the Full Emily' on the Boris defender (Charles Walker MP).

But just listen to him and you'll still hear him being noticeably nicer to Boris's opponents (Joe Moor and former Tory MP St. Rory Stewart) than the one-and-only pro-Boris guest (Charles Walker).

By such things do we know them.

I agree with Kate

On a similar theme:

Kate Hoey: So BBC PM news bulletin at 5pm can mention Soubry court case but not a word about the electoral commission losing case against Darren Grimes. Bet they would have covered it if judgement different.

I bet they would too.

"I feel an udder on my leg"

Oh dear, Evan Davis has fallen out with the farmers!:

What happened was that on Thursday's PM, Evan interviewed Minette Batters of the National Farmers Union - an interview he introduced by saying there was a case for eating less meat when it came to animal welfare, diet, health and the environment. Then this happened:

Minette Batters, NFU: We lead the world in animal welfare standards...

Evan Davis: (interrupting) Yes, but they are not very good, let’s be honest. You wouldn’t want us to go around showing pictures of what goes on in a farm, would you?

This led to Ms Batters tweeting "In 20 years of media interviews I’ve never been more shocked and sickened than by the interview with me today. Will you please, please apologise to Britain’s farmers?" and Evan replying "I acknowledge that my clumsy expression gave the wrong impression that I think all animals are mistreated. Fear not, I’ve been to farms and know that’s false. I’d never argue that, any more than you’d say all animals are well-treated."

On the following day's PM he called it an "excessive overgeneralisation", but didn't quite apologise, and it sounds to me as if he'd been reading an earlier piece in The Guardian (which he namechecked on Friday) before blurting out his original comment.

Hmm. Do you think that will be enough to prevent this happening?

Which UK political party's membership is over 95% white?

For our many collectors of examples of the BBC repeatedly pushing the 'maleness, paleness and staleness' of those 160,000 Conservative Party members who are eligible to choose Our Next Prime Minister, tonight's PM on Radio 4 gave us another gem:

Jeremy Hunt is still taking questions from the audience while we're on air and they are some of the 160,000 or so Conservative Party members who will decide which of the two men becomes the next Prime Minister. According to research by Queen Mary University London last year that membership is three-quarters men, while 9 out of 10 are middle-class, 97% are white, and just over half live in London and the South of England. 

That 97% figure, much quoted by the BBC, prompted me to actually find the source of it - and PM's citing of Queen Mary University of London helped me find it. 

And what an eye-opener it is!:

Yes, it does find that Conservative Party members are 97% white, but it also finds that the SNP is similarly 97% white and that the Labour Party is 96% white and the Lib Dems are 96% white.

The Lib Dems turn out to be even more middle-class than the Conservatives, with Labour over three-quarters middle-class too. 

Every party has a majority male membership too, though the Conservatives do stand out a little there.

So why are we getting BBC news bulletins (like yesterday's BBC One News at Six) and BBC reporters like Matthew Price and PM hosts like Caroline Wyatt (etc) making so much of the 'whiteness' and 'wealthiness' of the Tory Party membership when all the other big parties'  memberships are just as white and roughly as wealthy? 

And, not to be self-promoting (something it's usually hard to accuse us of being!), but why is this tiny, unfunded two-person blog able to find this out - and point this out - while the massively-funded BBC simply just parrots it about the Tories without mentioning the figures for the other parties?

I'm so glad I listened to PM tonight. I feel as if I've busted an endlessly-parroted Big Lie. 

PM

I thought I'd test tonight's PM on Radio 4 in the light of recent events.

It was typically BBC. 

Here's its introduction:

Presenter: In Sri Lanka the government says it's likely foreign terrorist organisations were behind yesterday's wave of bombings that killed 290 people. Nick Beake in Colombo brings us the latest:

Nick Beake, BBC: These attacks have stunned Sri Lanka. The scale of the murder, the planning involved and the sense of fear people now feel. They've also exposed a dysfunctional government and a factional intelligence community where key warnings were seemingly suppressed. 

"Foreign terrorist organisations" that killed "people", eh? The language is typically unspecific. 

And then it was on to 'climate change', giving primacy to the views of hardline protestors (as the BBC wouldn't put it):

Presenter: As climate change protestors discuss their next move we ask how much of this is driven by the younger generation. 

Young, female climate change protestor: I just think it's got to a point where young people see so many big issues that really have a threat to our future that actually they're now starting to be really quite public with their demands to be listened to.

And everyone's favourite BBC foreign correspondent and ray of sunshine Orla Guerin (the thinking man's Fergal Keane) was on hand to give us the (BBC) views of those opposed to Libya's dashing knight in military dictator's uniform Field Marshal Haftar: 

Presenter: Orla Guerin provides us with a special report from the frontline of the fighting in Libya:

Libyan female, opposed to Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar: He's just going to be another Muammar Gaddafi. He's going to kill. He's going to take people's properties. And people are not going to live safely. 

Oh, and as Sir Boaty and that young, female climate change protestor would doubtless approve, that Radio 4 introduction ended with a touch of climate change-emphasising frippery:

Presenter: And as this is declared the hottest Easter Monday on record across the UK we bring you the sounds of the bank holiday from around the country.

Agenda? What agenda? (as someone once said).

Agony

Across the past week, and amounting in total to almost an hour of drive-time BBC output across four evenings, Radio 4's PM has been broadcasting a series of personal reports from BBC radio presenter Adrian Goldberg...

...(a regular host on Radio 5 Live, among other things, who sounds uncannily like another Adrian: namely, Adrian Chiles).

British, and from a German-Jewish background, Adrian says he's been agonising over whether to apply for a German passport in the wake of the Brexit vote.

I suspect I can guess what some of you are thinking already (or is it just me?): Why is a BBC presenter being blatantly partisan over Brexit, and why is BBC Radio 4 airing his partial views over an entire week of BBC broadcasting?

(P.S. Adrian's written the whole thing up, in a slightly more toned-down way, for the BBC News website). 

Well, the big question on PM was: With members of his family having been murdered by the Nazis, and his father having been a refugee to the UK from Nazi Germany, would it be right for him, Adrian Goldberg, to take German citizenship because of his fears over Brexit?

I have to say that, from the moment his first report began on Christmas Eve, it was obvious (to me) that he'd end up applying for German citizenship in light of "the post-Brexit world".

After all, why would the BBC broadcast it otherwise?

And so it turned out, at the end of the fourth and final episode tonight.

His application has now gone in.

*******

The whole thing was a fascinating listen, often genuinely absorbing (especially on the Nazi-era-related material), but it was also a very strange, very BBC, listen.

Yes, the programme featured voices from 'the other side' (e.g. Gisela Stuart), but here was a British BBC radio presenter actively considering, and eventually choosing, to apply for a German passport explicitly as a result of the Brexit vote, because of his fears of a 1930s/1940s-style situation for Jews arising here in the UK, sometime in the future, because of that public decision.

(How weird is that? What evidence does he have for such a wild fear?)

And here also, of course, was BBC Radio 4's PM, ever-so-impartially, spreading his 'agonised decision' across four days. 

(How biased it that?)

*******

For, yes, despite worries about continuing antisemitism in parts of the EU - specifically Poland - and his own concerns about the rise of AfD in Germany (one of whose leaders he got into a very heated debate with, and who he openly associated with the Nazis), Adrian still decided that Germany should be his own place of safety should the UK turn dangerous for Jewish people in the wake of Brexit. 

I'd have thought that he'd have been more concerned about the prospect of a Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour government as far as antisemitism goes, but that was never mentioned, so it mustn't be much of a concern for him. (But what do I know?)

The peculiar thing is that, despite Adrian being an engaging presence and despite him being nice to everyone (except the lady from AfD, with whom he seriously lost his cool with, and with whom he took 'the low road' rather than 'the high road' - as Michelle Obama might have put it), this 'series' struck me as being BBC reporting at its most 'bubble-dwelling'.

Obviously, I could be wrong. But, seriously, how huge is the clamour among British Jews to flee to Germany to escape a 1930-Germany-style Britain emerging in the wake of Brexit? Isn't that hysterical nonsense?

And isn't a Jeremy-led Labour government more of a genuine danger?

And is Adrian Goldberg, in fact, a 'very BBC' tiny minority (of a minority) here made to seem like the voice of the people by a biased BBC?

All very BBC

Dear readers. If you want a Christmas present for yourself, I'd recommend treating yourself to David Sedgwick's BBC: Brainwashing Britain? (hot off the presses).

I'm just a few pages away from the end of a first read-through and I've enjoyed every page of it.

It's the book about BBC bias that I've been waiting for, and I wish I'd written it myself.

It covers a lot of ground (from Antifa to Israel, from Grenfell Tower to Owen Jones), with a good deal on the BBC's biased Brexit coverage, though its recurring focus is on the BBC's hostile coverage of the Trump presidency.

And I think it absolutely nails the BBC, again and again and again.

(I'll be bringing you endless highlights from it over the coming weeks).

Admirers of Monkey Brains' fabulous Festive Fifty will also find fascinating examples of various 'bias by...' types detailed therein.

And, pausing to listen to tonight's PM on Radio 4, I now hear it through David's book:

First, as the BBC presenter put it, "no one said that saving the planet would be easy". Yes, it was global warming, and an interview with the right kind of BBC guest for this issue: the intensely activist former Tory minister John Gummer (Lord Deben). He wants the present (centre-right) Australian government chucked out because of its policies on climate change. The BBC presenter didn't defend the Australian government or challenge His Lordship.

Second, delaying Brexit and that 'second referendum', and an interview with Brexit-disliking Stephen Bush of The New Statesman, who very much talked the BBC talk on the matter and was treated as if he were an impartial sage.

Third, the Yellow vests protest in France, and a BBC reporter (Hugh Schofield) giving BBC favourite President Macron a French kiss, saying that he "has diffused this", and that "it's on a classic trajectory, this protest movement. It's dying down. And I think he can be satisfied he's not going to see it up again for a while". (Carry on Emmanuel!)

Fourth, one of the BBC's main present bogey countries, Myanmar, and an interview with a critic of the BBC's fallen heroine Aung San Suu Kyi over the imprisonment of two journalists there. The BBC really do have a bee in their bonnet about Burma.

And, fifth, the usual BBC race thing, featuring an interview with a black sports reporter from the Daily Mirror who reinforced claims that racism in football is as bad as it ever was and that the media is partly responsible for that. 'Discuss?' Hardly. Just repeat and amplify instead.

All very BBC.

Making an introduction

Spot the use of labels - and the non-use of labels here - from Evan Davis on Wednesday's PM.

Well, no one can speak for the whole population of Leavers, but let's talk to Claire Fox, the director of the Academy of Ideas, who is sympathetic to the Leave cause, and political commentator Steve Richards. Very good evening to you both.

Though he does quite a bit of presenting for BBC Radio 4, Steve Richards is a Remainer who wants Brexit scrapped, but - being the BBC - was he ever likely to have been introduced as such like the likes of Evan? 

(Very interesting discussion though).

More on the BBC man who can't tell his Tolstoy from his Trollope

Back in the early summer of 2013, I launched a series of full-length reviews of Radio 4's PM, reviewing every item every day for a month or so. 

Looking back at them (examples here, here, here, here) I think they were fair - and they found that, with exceptions, PM itself (and Eddie Mair, its main presenter back then) was pretty fair too, and often highly interesting and entertaining as well.

Times change. Presenters change. 2016 happened. (Brexit, Trump). And now, out goes Eddie and in comes Evan. 

Having dipped into recent editions, I listened to it in full tonight. And what a falling-off there's been! Hyperion to a satyr!

Seriously, there's been a change, and it's not been a change for the good.

Is it a case of PBTBH (Post-Brexit-Trump-BBC-Hysteria) Syndrome? Or is it all down to Evan Davis being Evan Davis and not Eddie Mair? 

*******

Evan's introduction, for example, included the following - and this really is a genuine transcript, not a piece of satire on my part!:

On Brexit Theresa May says there will be no second public vote. But could there be a swing towards the idea? We'll get the opinions of Professor John Curtice, Justine Greening and Labour's Dame Margaret Beckett.

I laughed, rolled my eyes and gave in to my eyebrows' very strong urge to impersonate Fiona Bruce after that.

The first item though concerned Donald Trump and what Evan called an "important" development in the Robert Mueller investigation. His guest - one Angela Bernstein - was even more emphatic, calling it "very, very important". She clearly wasn't a Trump fan. 

The second item was launched by talk of a second referendum, with Evan saying "Let's focus on it". And focus on it PM duly did, with pollster Sir John Curtice, pro-Second People's Vote Remainer MP Justine Greening and Dame Margaret Beckett. Dame Margaret sounded close to endorsing a Second People's Vote too but wouldn't entirely commit herself, provoking Evan to press her and sound somewhat exasperated when she wouldn't clearly, boldly and decisively state her (obvious) view on the matter. 

Then it was onto audiobooks (good or bad?), prompted by the sainted Michelle Obama's new book, with TES editor/Radio 4 Front Row host Stig Abell and  feminist publisher Carmen Callil of Virago Press presenting both sides of the argument, and our Evan not sounding like an audiobooks fan.

And then poor Evan got Trollope and Tolstoy confused and had to excuse himself. (I kiddeth thou not).

Then Evan announced that is was important to register the moment that a second MP announced that he has AIDS. 

And the much-reported Syrian refugee bullying school story came next, with 'the bystander question' being discussed with a Canadian psychologist Linda Papadopoulos.

And, leaping one item, the programme ended with a United Nations-related celebration of reggae with a guest who called it "a music of resistance".

*******

The surprise item here for me was the latest instalment of Mark Mardell's Brexit: A Love Story? 

I thought that had finished. And it used to be on The World at One.

But, no, here was Mark Mardell back again, with the Simon Bates 'Our Tune' theme tune, and - apparently - the second episode of the second series, with more episodes to come. (Be still my beating heart!)

I noted down the contributors as I listened tonight and found that Mark had talked to:

(1) Former Mrs May advisor (and declared Remain voter) Katie Perrior.
(2) Former David Cameron communications director (pro-Remain) Sir Craig (no relation) Oliver.
(3) Former senior minister under Mrs May (and declared Remain voter), Damian Green.
(4) Former Lib Dem coalition minister (and declared Remain voter) David Laws.
(5) Pro-Brexit MP Stewart Jackson (described by Mark as being an "ardent pro-Brexit MP").
(6) Former (tricky to place) Mrs May advisor Chris Brannigan.
(7) Former (strongly pro-EU, pro-People's Vote) mandarin Lord Kerr.
(8) Former George Osborne advisor (anti-Brexit, pro-People's Vote) James Chapman, and
(9) (Anti-Brexit, pro-People's Vote) Conservative MP Heidi Allen. 

The labelling (or lack of labelling) by Mark was striking here.

I've tried to label the nine contributors mentioned as accurately and fairly as I can - via lots of listening to what they said and even more Googling about what they've previously said. But Mark Mardell didn't provide any background, Brexit-opinion-wise, on seven of them.

Heidi Allen was one exception. Mark said she'd "campaigned hard for Remain" but simply let her speak.

The other exception - the ninth was Stewart Jackson MP.

As cited above, his first contribution saw Mark describe him as an "ardent pro-Brexit MP". His second contribution saw Mark call him a "pro-Brexit MP".

I know we're getting somewhat into heavy detail here, but heavy detail counts. And Mark Mardell's 'bias by labelling' here is absolutely textbook.

More importantly, however, was Mark's narrative, and this, in large part, amounted to how Mrs May's advisors, Fiona Hill and (strongly pro-Brexit) Nick Timothy, gave uninspirational Mrs May confidence. And how, as a result, she "gave in to a hardline vision".

(Seriously Mark Mardell of the BBC? Mrs May giving in to a hardline pro-Brexit vision? What are you smoking, or drinking, Mark?)

They refused to talk to Mark Mardell - as Mark kept grumpily repeating. And they were the main 'baddies' here.

So: 9 contributors: 7 Remainers. 1 Leaver. One hard to place. And Mark Mardell.

And don't forget the 'bias by labelling' either.

Please note my list above and listen to it for yourselves. Stewart Jackson was the only obvious pro-Brexit voice here among a sea of Brexit doubters, and enemies, and Mark. Mardell.

And this whole PM was very BBC.

Viktor and George and Evan and Kevin

Continuing with last night's PM, here are Evan Davis and Kevin Connolly on Hungary's Viktor Orban. Look out for Evan's introductory remarks about George Soros, and savour the irony (perhaps) of a report about the threat to democracy in Hungary which features voices from just one side of the political divide there:

Evan Davis: George Soros is a wealthy and powerful advocate of liberal causes in the modern world. He uses his huge private fortune to promote the cause of greater openness and, somehow, he's emerged as a peculiarly intense focus of hate from right-wing campaigners, who have even been blaming him for funding the caravan of migrants making their way through Mexico from Central America to the US. But nowhere is he more controversial than in his home country Hungary, where a liberal arts university he founded says it's on the point of being forced out of business by the populist-nationalist government of prime minister Viktor Orban. Mr. Orban's critics say he's shown a pattern of trying to crush or control institution he doesn't like, including Hungary's independent judiciary. Here's the second in a series of special reports from Budapest by our Europe correspondent Kevin Connolly:

Kevin Connolly: We're on a huge Ferris wheel in the heart of Budapest which offers a spectacular perspective on the landscape of Viktor Orban's Hungary. Architecturally, it is impossible not to be charmed. The glittering Danube threads together the city's elegant parks and palaces. But somewhere down there, in the courtroom and colleges, there are growing fears that Viktor Orbán's instincts are authoritarian and that, slowly, he's moving to erode academic freedom and the independence of the judiciary and, above all, to force his least favourite seat of learning out of town altogether.

Eva Fodor: The government has forced us out of this country. It's this simple. It's very obvious that it's designed to make our lives impossible.

Eva Fodor is pro-rector of the Central European University, a graduate college established in Budapest by the Hungarian-born financier George Soros. His liberal globalist instincts seem to really rile Viktor Orban. Eva says the University is being forced to relocate to Austria next month because the Orban government won't sign the papers that would give it the legal authority to operate in Hungary.

Eva Fodor: This is an obvious and clear violation of the principle of the rule of law. The government passes ad hoc regulations without consulting people. This is an obvious and blatant restriction on academic freedom. It's actually closing a university. So this government, the Hungarian government, has designed the legislation that closes a university. This has not happened within the European Union, so it is a purely authoritarian move.

The Central European University can. to a certain extent, look after itself of course. Its students can take to the streets to denounce Viktor Orban's authoritarianism. as they did here. And, in the end, George Soros can afford to fund the move to Vienna, even if he doesn't really want to . But what of the judiciary, which feels itself to be under a similar kind of attack? Hungary's government is taking control of judicial appointments and lowering the compulsory retiring age for experienced judges to create more vacancies for its own people. Zsuzsa Sandor was forced out of her job as a judge under the new rules and says Viktor Orban's Fidesz party is putting the legal system under more pressure than the Communists did back in their day. Mrs Sandor says this is all about Viktor Orban wanting to control every area of life in a way that is just not compatible with proper democracy. Already, she says, prosecutions against Fidesz people only go ahead if the courts get the nod from someone at the very top of the party. Now, of course, no one is saying that Hungary is heading back into the kind of political darkness remembered here at the Terror House Museum, which commemorate victims of the Nazis and the Soviets. Indeed, Mr. Orban's defenders say all the complaints from academics and lawyers are just the predictable moaning of liberals who simply don't like him. But there is surely something more profound at work here. Hungary only emerged 30 years ago from a largely non-democratic history that included occupation by the Austrians, the Germans and the Russians. Small wonder, says the academic George Baron (sp?), that there's a taste for strong leadership here - a taste that brings with it certain dangers.

George Baron: In every nation they would like a strong leader, a father-like figure, but the strong institutions of democracy could make limitations to that desire. If the institutions are weak there are no limitations, and if a cynical guy with talent would like to seize total power he can do it if the institutions are not strong enough. 

The views from Budapest's Ferris wheel are breathtaking and the Budapest the tourists see is as beautiful as ever, but below the surface this is a troubled landscape, and there are real fears here the Fidesz government is eroding the strength and freedom of civil society in a manner that is disturbing and that is not pretty to watch.

"Casting about aspersions of honesty"

For your interest, here's a transcript of the PM interview last night between Evan Davis and Jacob Rees-Mogg MP:

From an earlier occasion when Jacob told Evan off

Evan Davis: Let's talk to Jacob Rees-Mogg, Conservative MP, chair of the European Research Group. Very good evening to you.

Jacob Rees-Mogg: Good evening.

Evan Davis: Let's start with the Government ones. You don't think those are fair simulations. Correct?

Jacob Rees-Mogg: There's a fundamental flaw if you read the Government's paper, which is that it doesn't take into account global economic trends. And one of the major global economic trends is that 90% of future global economic growth is expected to come from outside the European Union. So if you take out that level of growth you end up with figures that are not likely to be accurate.

Evan Davis: Except that...that to be taken out, you would have had that growth regardless of whether we're in or out, so we can sell more to India whether we're in the EU or out of the EU. So it's only the difference, which is why their report says they don't think it's very significant.

Jacob Rees-Mogg: No, I don't think that's accurate, because one of the reasons we have difficulties getting into other markets is because of the protectionist racket run by the European Union that keeps out low-priced goods of high quality from countries outside the European Union. Bear in mind, we put protectionist tariffs and non-tariff barriers on goods that we don't even manufacture in this country to protect inefficient incompetent European businesses at a high cost to British consumers. We can get rid of that once we've left the European Union. That's why global economic trends are crucial.

Evan Davis: And the Treasury thought it wasn't a very significant factor,. which is why they didn't model all that growth. Let me just ask you...

Jacob Rees-Mogg: (interrupting) Indeed, but let me just finish on that, because bear in mind the Treasury said that we would lose 800,000 jobs, up to, simply by voting to leave the European Union. That was nonsense. It said we would have a punishment Brexit [presumably he meants 'Budget' there]. That was nonsense. The Treasury's reputation has been for politicised forecasts,...

Evan Davis: (interrupting) Right, and interestingly...

Jacob Rees-Mogg: ...which is why George Osborne set up the Office For Budget Responsibility to do it independently.

Evan Davis: And interestingly, all the independent forecasts give you the same story: This isn't economic calamity, unless we have a disorderly Brexit. It's basically 1-5% loss in our kind of long-term national income. Shouldn't you just be honest and say, look, that is what is going to happen folks. It's worth it because you want to take back control or have lower immigration, whatever it is, but there's a small price to pay...

Jacob Rees-Mogg: (speaking over) No, I...

Evan Davis: ...and you will notice it after 10 or 15 years.

Jacob Rees-Mogg:  I think casting about aspersions of honesty it is an improper thing for the BBC to do. I think you have to take on good faith what people come on your programme to say, and I think it's disreputable of you to put it in that way. People have honest disagreements, and there are economists, who actually got many things right before, who disagree. And bear in mind the consensus view was that joining the euro would be good for us, being in the Exchange Rate Mechanism would be good for us...

Evan Davis: (interrupting) There was enormous division on those things and there was not the same consensus about them.

Jacob Rees-Mogg: (speaking over) Oh hold on! On the Exchange Rate Mechanism there was an almost entire consensus that us being in the Exchange Rate Mechanism was good for the country, and I think that to rewrite history in that way is simply inaccurate. And these consensus forecasts are very bad at getting inflexion points. As Andy Haldane, the senior economist at the Bank of England, has himself said - and wrote a very interesting paper about - why didn't the forecasters get 2008 right? The reason: they're not good inflexion points, and leaving the European Union is unquestionably an inflexion point.

Evan Davis: Let's get a quick reaction to the Bank of England's projection. It's a much shorter term one: Disorderly Brexit, worse economic crisis - a worse shock, than the financial crisis - economy shrinking by 8%. You just have to say everybody's biased, everybody's out for your...for your case, don't you, because this is a completely separate, independent forecast?..

Jacob Rees-Mogg: (interrupting) It's not independent. It's by the Bank of England and by Mark Carney, who has been hostile to Brexit all the way through, is a second-tier failed Canadian politician who, unfortunately, we have running one of our most distinguished institutions, who has trashed its reputation by his succession of hysterical and wrong forecasts. And for the Bank of England to be talking down the pound is, I think, unprecedented. It is not what the Bank of England is there to do. and it's deeply irresponsible of them.

Evan Davis: You can't accept?....you got cross with me when I said you need to be honest about the economic effect, you got cross with me for saying that, but you cannot accept that if the Bank of England as an institution is capable of sitting down, using a set of very conventional models - there are not outlying models. It's not like they're saying much that's different from anyone else who looks at this -  you can't accept that they just do their best to model and tell the country what it's in for if it has a disorderly Brexit?

Jacob Rees-Mogg: I think the Bank of England's activities around the Brexit debate were quite extraordinary, that it doesn't interfere in general elections but it decided to interfere in the referendum and to make highly speculative and so far erroneous forecasts, and I think it's that reputation that makes these further forecasts less than credible.

Evan Davis: Jacob Rees-Mogg,...

Jacob Rees-Mogg: (speaking over) It's a pleasure.

Evan Davis:  (laughing) ...thanks for, thanks for joining us.

Following on...

Just a few snippets of Evan Davis from last night's PM:

Evan Davis: Now you might say, well, economic forecasts are hopeless, but do bear in mind these are not forecasts. They are not saying what will happen in 2033, because lots can change. They look at what happens if you change just one or two things - trading arrangements or migration - so, to take an analogy, it's hard to predict precisely how long any of us will live but it is much easier to analyse the effects of smoking on average length of life, cos you're just changing that one thing, smoking. Also note these projections tell a similar story to others that have been done by independent economists. They're all in line. These scenarios are the economic consensus. Rebel economists have different figures, but sometimes to get them they've assumed that we changed our economy in quite radical ways.

*******

Robert Buckland MP: And there's a good reason for that. It's not about me being secretive, Evan, it's about a convention that has long existed within government, and not just this government but governments across the world....

Evan Davis: (interrupting) You can break the convention. Parliament has actually voted on this one. You didn't oppose the vote in Parliament. Why didn't you oppose the vote in Parliament if you wanted to stick by this convention?

Robert Buckland MP: I made the arguments very clearly, Evan, that the convention was there for good reason, which is about the indivisibility of collective decision-making...

Evan Davis: (interrupting) But Parliament...Parliament was aware of that when it unanimously supported the idea of publishing, on this occasion, for this particular vote, all the legal advice.

Robert Buckland MP: Yeah, but, what,what I think we are seeking to do is to strike absolutely the right balance between the need for openness and understanding by parliamentarians across the House as to the legal basis for the government's decision-making and also respecting what I'm afraid is an unavoidably important constitutional convention. If this starts to break down, then what future to we have for proper collective cabinet decision making. I shudder to think frankly...

Evan Davis: (interrupting) Oh come on! (laughing)

Robert Buckland MP: ...and that's why it's important. I'm sorry, Evan, it is...

Evan Davis: (interrupting) We're not going to have children starving if we publish government legal advice! We take your point, Robert Buckland, Solicitor General, and the Speaker may rule on whether it's a contempt of Parliament. But you've made the case for keeping some of it back. Thank you very much for talking to us this evening.