This Week's World

Talking about Emily Maitlis's new and serious Saturday evening BBC Two current affairs programme This Week's World, it struck me as being pretty good by and large.

It was stylish yet substantial, with two excellent films, an amusing little piece from architect (and wit) Karl Sharro, high-powered guests, plus Emily's new easy-going interviewing style. It had lots of jaw-dropping facts along the way too.

My big concern about it last night was the usual one: it had a very strong left-liberal bias. If every edition is going to be this strongly biased then it will be a major problem.

The main topic was migration, and it explored one main argument in the course of at least three of its sections: David Miliband's argument that Europe (including us) should take 10% of all 'vulnerable refugees' in the world (aren't there 60 million worldwide?) and that the rest should be given residency by the countries they are now living in. 

After an interview with Mr Miliband (who certainly hasn't lost his interest in advancing mass migration, including in the UK) came an interview with a Jordanian minister whose 'progressive' policy towards Syrian refugees is seen as reflecting Mr Miliband's argument. And then came an interview with Jim Yong Kim on the World Bank, who is sympathetic to Mr Miliband's argument. (Mr Kim is an Obama-supporting Democrat. Mr Miliband might get a job in a new Clinton administration).

It will be interesting to see if any future editions explore a right-leaning position so sympathetically and if a right-winger is ever interviewed whether Emily continues to adopt the same hands-off, non-confrontational approach (something she's now vowing to do - 'The aggressive Paxman era is over, says Newsnight's Emily Maitlis').

Both of the main films focused on the personal stories of migrants (Somalis stuck in a huge Kenyan camp, Cubans fleeing to the US). Both were moving. Both steered away from the issue of migration into Europe.

All the style and substance in the world isn't any good if a programme is inherently biased. We'll see if it is inherently biased over the coming weeks. (The programme's editor is Mukul Devichand, the editor of BBC Trending).

Sunday morning reading

Here's some Sunday morning reading for you, regarding the BBC's social liberal bias...

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Firstly, Ross Clark in the Spectator on John Whittingdale's White Paper "under-reported" target that 10% of senior leadership roles at the BBC be filled by LGBT staff by 2020.  His piece begins:

Of all the things wrong with the BBC, it would be hard to argue that a shortage of gay people making and presenting programmes is one of them.

He notes Andrew Marr's famous observation that the BBC has "an abnormally large number of young gay people", and calls the 10% target "bizarre", given that the ONS says that only 1.5% of the UK's population is LGBT and even Stonewall puts the figure at 5-7%. So why 10%?

Ross speculates:

So why demand over-representation of gay people – and such over-representation at that? I am speculating here, but this is all I can think of. The government is terrified of the BBC. In order to have something in the white paper which it thought might please the BBC’s liberal-minded elite – and so balance the stuff ministers knew that elite wouldn’t like – it came up with the idea of enshrining ‘diversity’ in the BBC’s charter for the first time.  Trouble is, when it looked at the figures it found that Andrew Marr’s observation was correct – the BBC’s staff is already significantly over-represented by LBGT people. And so, in order to come up with some sort of meaningful target, it came up with the 10 per cent figure.

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Secondly, Laura Perrins at The Conservative Woman on the Today programme's transgender special on Friday.  She describes it as a typical piece of "liberal media carpet-bombing" with a "hand-holding and a very emotional narrative", on "a niche subject affecting 0.01% of the population" designed to make sure we will all "have to capitulate eventually". And when that point is reached, "if you point out that, in fact, the emperor has no clothes expect to be slapped down as phobic and discriminatory".

We're already pretty close to that situation anyhow, aren't why?

And germane to Laura's point, Emily Maitlis's new BBC Two Saturday evening series This Week's World had a short discussion about the North Carolina transgender toilets row. North Carolina wants transgender people to use the toilets in public buildings schools that match the sex on their birth certificates rather than their 'gender identity'. President Obama is leading the federal U.S. charge against North Carolina. One of Emily's guests called it "the toilet insanity", the other talked of the supports "trans" people have received and Emily invited them to give credit where credit's due: "Interesting though, isn't it, that when Obama comes to the rescue in a civil right's case?" 

The BBC is nothing if not socially liberal.

Going back to Laura's piece though, it's a more general point that really worries her:

The worst part of Today is the use of children to push this dangerous narrative. One child said she found being a boy ‘a bit stressful’ so, of course, this means that adults should pump his body full of hormones so he can ‘transition’ to being a girl... 

In fact, this was the third time in two weeks that a child, a child, has been used by the Today programme. The first interview was with a child suffering from depression, the second was with a child who had nightmares from SATs exams (imposed by the wicked Tories), and now children who are uncomfortable with their bodies are asked if they are happier as the opposite gender. 

This is nothing less than child abuse by the BBC and surely unethical for children to be co-opted into this shoddy agenda.