Profiling

You may have read at Guido Fawkes or in the Daily Mail that the BBC had to temporarily withdraw their latest Radio 4 Profile of Conservative cabinet minister Kemi Badenoch.

The programme has now been edited and made available again, but the BBC is being tight-lipped about what they've changed, according to the Mail:

The BBC would not reveal what had been changed in the episode, but it is understood that a claim in the original broadcast, that Mrs Badenoch, 42, had stuck 'male' and 'female' signs on the doors of gender-neutral toilets at her leadership launch venue, was corrected.

This story has a few interesting implications, especially concerning journalism. 

Firstly, I'm intrigued that the Daily Mail couldn't find out what the BBC changed. I've been able to find out though, thanks to TVEyes.

The Mail correctly 'understood' the first change - concerning these signs:

The original broadcast said:

This summer, after Boris Johnson quit as PM, Badenoch threw her hat into the ring to become leader, sticking 'men' and 'ladies' signs on the doors of gender-neutral toilets at her launch venue.

This caused a stir on Twitter with many people quoting a Twitter thread on 12 July - the date of Mrs Badenoch's leadership launch - by leading 'gender-critical' voice Maya Forstater. This called journalists out at the time about it:

This story is not what you think: These are the toilets at Policy Exchange. I first noticed these signs on 17th of May at meeting about sex based rights with various gender critical groups. At first i thought the paper signs had been put up specifically for our benefit. What I think is happening here is that Policy Exchange (or their landlords) put in nice new gender neutral toilets and the staff don't like them. They probably feel uncomfortable. Men leave the seat up etc.. so they've put the signs up for everyone's comfort.

Yet here was BBC Radio 4 repeating this discredited claim four months on.

The edited version goes like this:

It was reported that 'men' and 'ladies' signs were cellotaped on the doors of gender-neutral toilets at her launch venue but evidence later emerged that this had been done before the event.

Even this edit risks being misleading. "Evidence later emerged that this had been done before the event" might suggest that rather than Kemi herself 'sticking' up the signs, it was done "before the event" i.e. done for the launch. What Maya Forstater, and others, showed is that those signs were up a couple of months before the launch, so not connected to Kemi Badenoch in any way.

Indeed, it's so potentially misleading that Guido Fawkes apparently misread the revised version as a simple repetition of the debunked claims from the original version:

Despite the editing, the profile still reeks of W1A’s woke inclinations. It repeats debunked claims about Kemi removing gender-neutral toilets at her campaign launch, albeit with a caveat.

Maybe the programme needs withdrawing and re-editing again to remove this ambiguous wording?

What both Guido and the Mail missed though was the second edit. The original broadcast said:

It's not just race. LGBTQ activists have accused Kemi Badenoch of being anti-trans Ben Hunte, a senior reporter with Vice World News. "I've had for a number of organisations and individuals who are really concerned about Kemi Badenoch's behaviour in government. I've exposed a leaked recording of Kemi Badenoch saying that trans women are men", the government insisting her comments had been taken out of context. "I have released a report about the equalities minister saying she doesn't care about colonialism." She's been criticised for abstaining on a vote to extend same sex marriage rights to Northern Ireland. And this week, ITV News reported that Bedenoch has now paused work on a promised ban on the use of conversion therapy. "There have been a number of situations over the past year that really do kind of raise your eyebrows about what it means to be an equalities minister when you don't necessarily believe in all forms of equality within your portfolio".

The revised version edited out this line:

And this week, ITV News reported that Bedenoch has now paused work on a promised ban on the use of conversion therapy.

That concerns a 'scoop' by ITV's Paul Brand that the Government took to Twitter to dismiss. BBC Radio 4 clearly got cold feet about Paul Brand's journalistic 'scoop' too.

Both Guido and the Daily Mail note the inclusion of the activist-like Ben Hunte. The Mail uses the c-word about him - "controversial":

That made me smile because of how Radio 4's website introduces this programme. They also use the c-word about Kemi Badenoch, asking "Is the controversial trade secretary and equalities minister a future PM?":

Another thing that struck me about controversial Ben Hunte's controversial inclusion is that Radio 4 - unlike the Mail - didn't mention that Ben used to work for the BBC [and got the Corportation into quite a few scrapes]. Profile simply introduced him as "a senior reporter with Vice World News". None of his contributions were re-edited.

A final thing is that the version you can now here on BBC Sounds - which begins by saying that the programme has been edited, but not why ["This programme has been edited since broadcast"] - ends with quite of list of BBC staff behind this edition of Profile: the researcher, producers, production co-ordinators, and editor. 

Not sure I'd have wanted my name on this piece of BBC broadcasting. Maybe they'll be tempted to edit those out next?

The BBC spinning away like a hyperactive spider

This is something Vrager 1 commented on earlier that's now been written up by The Times. 

The Times writes:

The BBC has rewritten an article about abortion that suggested the US Supreme Court referred to “pregnant people” rather than “women” in its Roe v Wade ruling in 1973. The term was also used by Sophie Long on The World Tonight on Radio 4. 

To quote Vrager 1 in full:

Somebody changed the word "women" in the first place for it to be changed back from "people" to "women" again. Fire that woke ignoramus for changing a cut and paste 1973 quote from Wade v Roe.

As for Sophie Long on The World Tonight on Radio 4, as mentioned earlier by Charlie, here things get even more interesting...

I initially read a few defences of her saying “pregnant people” that she was only indirectly quoting someone else - i.e. these weren't her own words. She was just reporting.

The Daily Mail's report on this only reinforced that and confused me even more. It directly quoted her bit on The World Tonight where she said:

The clinical director and chair of the National Abortion Federation, Lori Williams, said knowing how many women and pregnant people would now not be able to get care was “devastating”.

And the Daily Mail then quoted the BBC's response, defending Ms Long: 

Sophie Long was quoting the language used by the chair of the National Abortion Federation. 

Now, Sophie's The World Tonight bit, as quoted there, can be heard both ways. 

It's possible to hear her as using her own choice of language or - as the BBC insists - simply paraphrasing what the National Abortion Federation said and, thus, just reporting.

And I must admit I was inclined to believe the BBC's explanation that Sophie was only paraphrasing the chair of the National Abortion Federation...

...until I checked out 'pregnant' AND 'people' on TVEyes this afternoon, and up popped Sophie Long unquestionably using the phrase off her own bat elsewhere on the BBC. 

This comes from a BBC TV report from Sophie from the Mississippi Delta, broadcast repeatedly on 15 June on the BBC News Channel: 

She had no choice but to have the baby, in the poorest region of the poorest state with the lowest number of doctors per capita anywhere in America, and where a basic lack of transportation and nutrition put many pregnant people in the highest risk categories. At the Delta Health Centre in Mount Bayou, its only obstetrician tells me banning abortion will exacerbate an already desperate situation.

Oh dear, BBC, you rascals! Your defence is hanging by a far less secure thread after that, isn't it? 

Sophie Long wasn't quoting anyone else's language there. It was entirely her own woke-pleasing language. 

When caught in a tangled web of deceit you spin your 'unspun world' to us and hope we'll fall for it like careless flies. 

And why wouldn't we? You can sound so plausible, tempting us into your parlour.

I'm so glad I've access to tools like TVEyes and Newsniffer to help me glimpse you in action, spinning away like hyperactive, licence-fee-gobbling spiders.

Justin Webb knows its makes sense

The Daily Mail also quotes Radio 4's Justin Webb saying:

I am genuinely more at home with silence than I am with even informative noise. So at home, although I work on Radio 4 and it pays all my bills, my wife turns it on and I turn it off.

He does right.  

Penguins and Polar Bears

OMG The Daily Mail, bless them, give so much free content to their website users that people ought to be at least a bit grateful to them, despite everything.

So much content. No paywall. And no licence fee. And certainly no paywall/licence fee collectors.

Today, they've been reporting on immigration matters under the headline: Migrants 'are staying in four-star hotel rooms at £125-a-night on the taxpayer' as Britons struggle to afford spiralling energy bills amid cost of living chaos, saying that “more than 18,000 migrants are staying in hotels across Britain”.

Meanwhile, over at the licence-fee-funded BBC News website, 'blog favourite' Dominic Casciani has a new piece with a very different headline: Asylum seekers: The homes where ceilings have fallen in. 

He writes:

Damp, debris and falling ceilings - a BBC investigation into accommodation for asylum seekers has uncovered serial concerns about housing conditions. Refugee organisations say they hear regularly about properties residents believe are unsafe, and they struggle to get help on a national phone line.

The BBC and OMG The Daily Mail really are at absolute opposite poles on this - though I'm not sure which are penguins and which are polar bears.

The piece by the BBC's Dom C results from “a BBC investigation”. 

Or so Dom says. 

I'm inclined to agree with StewGreen when he writes, over at Biased BBC, that “since the article quotes charity Refugee Action I suspect the report actually comes from them”.

I strongly doubt that Dominic Casciani didn't do too much investigating here, and that he mainly just listened and took notes from campaign groups and talked to one asylum seeker called Adam. 

Could be wrong of course, but that's what it looks like to me.

To conclude then: I don't believe that the Daily Mail is approaching this without a biased agenda. And I certainly don't think the BBC is approaching this without a biased agenda either. 

Only one of them claims to be impartial though. And only one of them extorts a licence fee from the British public. And it's not OMG The Daily Mail. Cue RVW:

Dirty Secret

I can't find much coverage of the protest that took place outside Broadcasting House on Monday evening. The BBC rarely reports protests against itself (well, why would it?) but the only "mainstream' press report I can find so far today is in OMG The Daily Mail.

The protest, which was by all accounts well attended, was to register the anger about the BBC's biased and inflammatory reporting of an ugly incident that took place recently on London's famous Oxford Street.  Phone cameras inside the bus caught images of several angry young men spitting, banging shoes against the windows, and making hostile gestures at a group of young Jewish passengers who had just been celebrating Chanukah.

The BBC's report identified the victims as Jewish, but the identity of the perpetrators was left to the imagination. However, a specific religion was alluded to indirectly, in the form of a two-word insult that allegedly came from inside the bus, namely: "Dirty Muslims." 

The BBC chose to report this peculiar and quite unlikely (but allegedly overheard) exclamation in a way that suggested it was a provocation, impliedly an altercation between two evenly-matched rivals. That the Jews got what was coming. "They asked for it."

Originally the report read "racial slurs were heard from inside the bus" - later amended to the singular: "a racial slur."  Still a slur, but just the one.  

This allegation was vigorously denied, but let's get real. Even if someone did utter such a remark, would that amount to an irresistible provocation, whether it was uttered before, during, or after the incident? 

Come on, man!

The fact that the BBC insisted on keeping the 'racial slur' phrase in their report despite the lack of corroborating evidence was the primary reason for that protest. The whole thing has drawn attention to the BBC's covert hostility to the Jewish community and its history of one-sided, 'half-a-story' reporting of matters concerning Israel. People are once again asking to see the famous Balen report, the one that the BBC has devoted a few hundred thousand quidsworth of legal fees to keep secret.

They might as well stay quiet and ignore the protest and let the BBC keep it as "Our dirty little secret" 

Magnetic attraction

You know how the Mail Online's sidebar is so distracting that your eyes are irresistibly attracted to it against your will. I couldn't help it, but

Maybe Eddie Izzard identifies with Emily Maitlis and I think I identify with the woman standing behind him (her/them/ze).

War!

Theresa May, picking a tank to take to Salford

The Mail on Sunday says that "Theresa May has gone to war with the BBC":

Downing Street has made a furious complaint to the broadcaster after it led its Radio 4 bulletins with claims from a Left-leaning think-tank that the measures unveiled by Chancellor Philip Hammond would mainly benefit the rich. One aide described the report on Tuesday’s Today programme as ‘the most biased bulletin in history’. 

The row erupted after the flagship news show highlighted research by the Resolution Foundation without revealing that its director, Torsten Bell, was head of policy for former Labour leader Ed Miliband.

It continues:

The 7am bulletin declared that ‘an independent analysis of the Budget has said that despite moves to end austerity, low and middle income families face a continued squeeze’. 

It repeated the claim in its 8am bulletin – but minus the word ‘independent’. 

Of course "the BBC refused to apologise for its coverage", saying that the research was "the first detailed analysis of the Budget" and that it was "clearly attributed to the Resolution Foundation".

The headlines in question ran as follows:

It's 7 o'clock on Tuesday 30th October. The headlines. An independent analysis of the Budget has said that, despite moves to end austerity, low and middle income families face a continued squeeze. 

It's 8 o'clock on Tuesday 30th October. The headlines. An analysis of the Budget, which was billed as the beginning of the end of austerity, has suggested low and middle income families won't feel much of a benefit.

Both bulletins did, however, go on to describe the Resolution Foundation as "left-leaning",which is an improvement on how they used to describe it (or, more accurately, not describe it). I used to write a lot about their failure to give such context to Resolution Foundation reports (which they are unusually keen on), so that's good. 

Anyhow, with Mrs May "going to war" with them, the BBC must be trembling in its leather formal chukka boots.

Smearing Jeremy

David Collier’s exposé of the explicitly racist, closed Facebook group Palestine Live was reported by the press, but in a muted, almost off-hand manner. 

The media in general hasn’t picked it up in any significant way. They haven’t applied the level of scrutiny to the story as they routinely do to far less portentous revelations.  

Only pro-Jewish websites like Harry’s Place appear in the slightest bit interested.  One notable exception is the indefatigable journalist Dan Hodges. 

But in this case, the platform upon which he airs the matter is -  has to be - OMG The Daily Mail. 

Dismissed!

The BBC joins the usual suspects

The anti-Daily Mail campaign group Stop Funding (Free Speech) Hate has scored another victory with (Centre Parks) Center Parcs withdrawing its advertising from the hated newspaper after Richard Littlejohn published an article there expressing a widely-held, socially-conservative view on the family that children benefit most from being raised by a man and woman. Naturally, the usual suspects went into overdrive in response. 

The BBC News website has the story among its main headlines this morning, unlike Sky News or ITV News. 

The BBC's report about it reads as being unsympathetic towards Richard Littlejohn, calling him "Littlejohn" twice and failing - unlike, say, The Times - to quote the Daily Mail's response. 

The Mail rightly says that the article is not homophobic and that it's a balanced opinion piece (which it is). 

Why doesn't the BBC give the Mail's response?

Own goal

Still on the same tack, here’s the BBC’s populist historian Dominic Sandbrook opining on the Balfour declaration in the Daily Mail. 

Here’s one occasion when the Rice-Davies Formulation comes into its own (as applied to the OMG Daily Mail) and I can justifiably cite it myself. 

Honest Reporting (shut up, Mandy) has exposed this appalling article by Sandbrook and shows how and why it is littered with falsehoods and revisionist, BBC-type history.

I suspect that many of our readers are bored with this topic so I’ll reproduce Honest Reporting’s deconstruction in full over the page. If you’re one of them, DON’T click on the ‘read more”.

It’s very cheeky that I haven’t asked permission, but I’m flouting blogging etiquette on this occasion because I hope exposing Dominic Sandbrook’s sublime ignorance and ‘putting him right’  goes some way towards explaining the BBC’s bias, or rather explaining why the BBC doesn’t think its bias is bias.

Honest Reporting finishes with the following:

Remarkably the conclusion of Sandbrook’s article is dedicated to supporting Israel and denigrating those, particularly on the far-left, who deny its right to exist and wish to see its destruction as well as the anti-Semites who use the Middle East conflict as justification for their bigotry. 

At one point Sandbrook writes: “In Britain, the tragedy of the conflict is often reduced to simplistic statements.” 

How sad that he has himself fallen into this trap by making sweeping and inaccurate generalizations, historical statements lacking in context, and even falling for the very propaganda he claims to oppose.

This kind of echoes Rob Burley’s tweeted defence of Andrew Marr’s challenge. By citing egregiously biased sources to bolster his case for the BBC’s impartiality, he kind of reveals more than he intended (and effectively does the opposite.) 

Sandbrook purports to be defending Israel’s right to exist, and then cites a string of historical inaccuracies and distortions, which, if believed, effectively demolish the case for the defence. 

Please stop talking!

Did I mention that these days people everywhere are talking about BBC bias? It’s the next big dinner-party thing, after antisemitism and Islamophobia.

We’re rapidly becoming superfluous but I’m taking our potential redundancy as a sign of success; not that the trend for noticing the BBC’s bias is likely to have been due to sites like ITBB. It’s just something that is painfully obvious, and for some reason the penny suddenly seems to have dropped. It’s a national zeitgeist, and zeitgeists work in mysterious ways. 

Have you seen this piece in the Daily Mail (OMG) by Andrew Pierce? 

It’s about Mishal Husain and her miserable week:

“Day the BBC's golden girl became a spokesman for Corbyn: ANDREW PIERCE on a miserable week for presenter Mishal Husain”

I don’t know why the headline starts with “Day”, which doesn’t make sense, but some of Pierce’s observations are valid. He notes her disdainful, school-mistress manner and the imperious tone of her rude interruption of Boris Johnson in full flow:

'No, no, please stop talking.' Johnson, clearly taken aback, said: 'But you have invited me on your show to talk.’

The biggest mistake Pierce made was to ignore Husan's outrageous bias against Israel. But he’s new to this game. You can’t have everything. 

“Not giving money to so-called terrorists”

“Not giving money to so-called terrorists”

So said so-called Diane Abbott towards the end of Monday’s parliamentary debate about foreign aid, which took place at Westminster Hall.  

This was the debate that ‘we’ instigated by signing a petition organised by OMG-The-Mail-on-Sunday. 

It was brought about the Mail’s revelation that money donated by the UK through our aid programme has been finding its way into the hands of Palestinian terrorists. It funds the salaries and stipends of convicted terrorists or the families of deceased martyrs.

The petition quickly received enough signatures to warrant a parliamentary debate, but people signed because they objected far more to funding terrorism than to the principle of funding foreign aid itself. 

In other words, even though 0.7% of our gross national income might well be a big boost to our own underfunded services, the Mail’s indignation was directed against the lack of scrutiny of how the money is being spent and not against foreign aid per se.

However, as these things tend to do, the debate was diluted, a bit like the inquiry into antisemitism in the Labour Party (more of which later) which was expanded to embrace “All racism” or the Holocaust memorial commemorations which certain people insisted had to include “All” holocausts. In the spirit of inclusivity, this debate had to include “All” foreign aid.

You can read the transcript here, but I’ve just selected the bits that I deem relevant to the original petition. You can watch the whole thing here:

The debate was  opened by Steve Double MP for St Austell and Newquay. 

“Mr Double, a devout Christian and lay preacher, employs his wife as a senior caseworker alongside assistant Sarah, who is currently on compassionate leave.”

Far be it for me to cast aspersions on a devout Christian lay preacher who prides himself on  standing for”the traditional fabric of family and community life”  who happens to have been caught with his pants down so to speak, but I have to say the holier than thou stuff emanating from Mr Double Standards is a bit rich.

The debate got off to a good start with Mr. Double refusing to believe that any of DFID’s  funding goes to terrorists. 

Steve Double 

“ There are many myths out there relating to foreign aid spending. One example is that aid money from British and European taxpayers has gone to Palestinian prisoners, including terrorists. That is simply not true. Another is that UK aid to the Palestinian Authority funded an £8 million presidential palace. Again, that is simply not true. The myths go on and on, and they are based on out-of-date information or inaccurate reporting. The Government have been very clear on that.”

The debate might as well have ended there and then. The whole point of the petition was that it did and does go to Palestinian terrorists and other corrupt items , so why not pack up and go home? But no, there’s copious virtue signalling to get through first, which I'll ignore for the purpose of this post.

Ian Austin (Labour Dudley North) piped up: 

“The hon. Gentleman is right about the good work that DFID does, but he is completely wrong to say it is a myth that the Palestinian Authority fund terrorists. The fact is that nearly all of DFID’s funding in the region goes directly to the Palestinian Authority. That is a matter of concern because of the allegation that the Palestinian Authority continue to fund payments to convicted terrorists and their families, which is in direct contradiction to the demands of the international community.”

Alan Duncan was soon off the mark, stating:

 “it would be a tragedy—indeed, it would be repulsive—if it was hijacked by those who want to use it to demonise Palestine and Palestinians? The debate should concentrate on the 0.7% and only that.”

Sir Alan’s dislike of Jews trumps the unpalatable thought that he wouldn’t last long (as a gay man) under the PA or Hamas. 

Over the page, more of the best bits.

Steady about Eddie!

The Daily Mail has an arresting story this afternoon:

Now, I like Eddie Mair, and always have done (even if you don't!). But £425,000 a year sounds excessively excessive to me - on the "Yes, he's good. But not that good" principle.

Now, Corey at the Mail took this story from Miles Goslett at Heat Street and is decent enough to credit Miles and to link to his original post, noting that the gossip about Eddie came from were "a Radio 4 source". The Mail has followed it up with an enquiry to the BBC, but "The BBC declined to comment on Mair's salary when contacted by MailOnline." 

If you follow Corey's link though it turns out that the story has a twist: 

As it happens, one very well-placed Radio 4 source has told me that Eddie Mair takes home £425,000 per year.

When I put this to the BBC, they refused to deny it.

Indeed, a spokesman would not comment at all, but he did say that this is a “wild exaggeration”.

Well, maybe it is, but under Whittingdale’s new rules, we will never know the truth either way unless Mr Mair chooses to disclose his publicly-funded salary himself.

Now, even though the Mail has updated its article since I first saw it and followed that link, it still failed to report that bit about the BBC spokesman saying that the £425,000 claim for Eddie Mair's salary is "a wild exaggeration" - a possibility Miles Goslett properly concedes could be true.

Not that an obscure little blog like this can stop a mighty, Daily Mail-boosted rumour in its tracks, but nonetheless: Please bear in mind that it seems at least possible that Eddie doesn't earn "three times more than the Prime Minister".

Saturday morning reading

Some Saturday morning reading (before we all head out into the sunshine):

From Rod Liddle at the Spectator:

And so it is with the BBC. At the recent puke-inducing Bafta awards ceremony, a lot of attention was paid to an impassioned and even tearful diatribe by one of the winners, the film director Peter Kosminsky. Peter won his award for the period bodice-ripping sludgefest that was Wolf Hall, which always induced in me a coma as soon as the title was sonorously announced by the continuity monkeys. So allow for a bit of private payback. An archetypal luvvie leftie, public school-educated, well-heeled and impeccably liberal, Kosminsky used his speech to lambast the government’s supposed proposals for ‘eviscerating’ the BBC — and, in particular, for announcing an intention to directly appoint the members of the corporation’s board. It will end up like the sort of media service you get in North Korea, Kosminsky wailed, while dressed in what appeared to be a quilted smoking jacket. 

Au contraire, Pete. It will be the opposite of that. Right now it’s a bit like that, isn’t it? Where the senior panjandrums of the quango-cracy cheerfully appoint people with views identical to their own to run every-thing in the country. Show me a social conservative on the BBC’s board right now, Pete. Show me someone who thinks Israel is perhaps a victim as well as an aggressor, or that gay people shouldn’t marry in church or that we have already let in too many migrants, or that a transgendered person’s gender at birth is more definitive than the one which he or she has subsequently assumed. What the Culture Media and Sport Secretary, John Whittingdale, proposes will increase diversity of opinion within the BBC. Hell, who knows, this openness may even be reflected, one day, in the Ten O’Clock News.

From Julian Lloyd Webber at the Times:

Tomorrow night the BBC will screen the final of its Young Musician 2016 competition. This will probably come as news to you as the BBC has been systematically downgrading its invaluable showcase for young classical musicians to the point where it now comes and goes almost unnoticed..... 

In its heyday the contest was truly The X Factor of its time. Shown live on BBC One on a Saturday evening, the final would attract more than 12 million viewers, ensuring that the winner became a household name overnight. In 1988 it was moved to BBC Two and by 2002 the heats were taken away to BBC Four, with only the final being shown on BBC Two. This year the entire competition has been farmed out to BBC Four and the final won’t even be shown live.... 

You don’t have to be a cynic to wonder if the corporation is paving the way to kill off its own creation. If that happens, declining viewer numbers will inevitably be cited, as the BBC continues to remain absurdly in thrall to ratings despite its hefty licence fee. Television ratings are no more a measure of success than police figures telling you how many criminals have been arrested while people feel unsafe to walk the streets.... 

With a charter that demands “promoting education and learning” and “stimulating creativity and cultural excellence” the BBC has an obligation to do far more than tick licence-fee boxes and should be far more proactive in reaching out to the majority. Diverting classical music to BBC Four, a channel that has less than 1 per cent of the viewing public, might be enough to satisfy the letter of the charter but it surely fails to embrace its spirit.

 And from the Daily Mail (OMG!):

BBC refuses to reveal how much was spent on Top Gear's infamous Cenotaph stunt as critics accuse broadcaster of holding back information 'out of embarrassment'

• BBC has said it was 'not obliged to provide information' on how much was spent on the Top Gear Cenotaph stunt 
• It comes after MailOnline sent a Freedom of Information Request asking the broadcaster for a breakdown of costs
• Critics accused BBC of holding back information 'out of embarrassment' saying the 'secrecy doesn't help anybody' 
• BBC provoked fury in March when presenter Matt LeBlanc performed wheelspins and doughnuts by war memorial

Sometimes it's not the BBC that's guilty

The Daily Mail has a classic BBC-bashing story today, Can't hear mumbling actors? You've tuned your set wrong, says TV chief: BBC producer claims viewers are partly to blame for not being able to hear. The offending 'BBC producer' told Radio 2 listeners:

I actually think a lot of it is people’s televisions, that they’re not tuned necessarily the right way. I don’t know whether it’s bass or tone, or whatever it is, but there is some of that going on.

The Mail names the guilty party as "BBC chief Nicola Schindler".

Check her out though and it turns out (a) that the Mail has misspelt her surname (it's actually 'Shindler') - and they keep on misspelling her name throughout the entire article! - and (b) that she's not a "BBC chief" (or a "BBC producer") but the head of an independent television drama production company whose programmes appear on the BBC, ITV and Channel 4.

In fairness though, at least the Mail got the 'Nicola' bit right.

Mahmoud’s £8 million Palace and other deserving causes

Did you know you were contributing to Mahmoud Abbas’s £8million palace? No, neither did I. Nor did I know that I was contributing to the wages of murderers, including Amjad and Hakim Awad, the Palestinian cousins who killed Ehud and Ruth Fogel and three of their children in an unimaginably bloodthirsty manner. 

I know OMG the Daily Mail is not the most reliable source, and I understand that it puts a sensationalist spin on any gossip, rumour or scandal it lays its hands on, but this isn’t the first time I’ve heard murmurings about this, and I’m glad at least someone has managed to set it out in no uncertain terms, so that it reaches a wider audience. Even if only to make people think, and ask a few questions.

On Broadcasting House yesterday morning, the papers were reviewed by Digby, Lord Jones, amongst others. He mentioned the MailonSunday’s article about foreign aid and he did say it features a petition one can sign, but he failed to tell us, specifically, that Palestinian criminals were amongst the beneficiaries of our cash. He said things like:

“We’re a generous country; I think every Brit would be proud of that.” [...]”The underlying message is that we’ve ring-fenced 0.7% of our GDP” [...]  “I’m sure lots of it is going to good things, but when we gave £5.9million to the Americans? We paid £13,00 for a rich Texan businessman to fly to London for a summit?” ...[...] “It doesn’t mean don’t give money to the developing world. What it does mean is just look  more carefully at where it’s going”  

Oh well, maybe he thinks the Palestinians are a more deserving cause than the recipients he cited, which do disturb him. Maybe he didn’t want to offend any pro-Palestinian listeners. Maybe he didn’t notice. Who knows.

Update: There are currently 136,887 signatures on this petition (11am; 29th March 2016)

Not bovvered

Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters were outraged at the audacity of Cathy Newman’s ambush  of their hero in some back alley t’other day.

It was filmed and widely disseminated on the internet. 

Newman questioned him on his association with Hamas and Hezbollah and friendships with antisemitic individuals like Raed Salah, to which he protested  “they never said anything antisemitic in front of me”, and of infamous holocaust denier Paul Eisen “I didn’t know he was a holocaust denier.” 

His main defence seemed to be that his mother stood alongside the Jewish people and the Irish people against the fascists in the notorious Cable Street demonstration.

As if those answers weren’t feeble enough, Cathy Newman’s questions were pretty feeble as well. 

Let’s not forget that Channel Four is as censorious and condemnatory of Israel’s defensive activities as anyone. Jon Snow is probably more guilty of promulgating pro-Palestinian propaganda  than Corbyn. 

However, apart from the actual holocaust deniers, most Israel-bashers will concede that the Jews suffered at the hands of Hitler; some of them even admit that Jews have suffered in a unique way. This does not translate into sympathy for Israel. Somehow, somewhere on the journey between universal sympathy for survivors of Belsen and Auschwitz and the establishment of the Jewish state in the historic homeland of the Jewish people, something went awry. Logic, history, facts, documentary evidence - all flew out the window.  Out with the philosemitism, in with the antisemitism.

Personally I feel that insincere challenges from the likes of Cathy Newman are futile because the bulk of Corbyn’s supporters couldn’t care less about his friendship with Salah, Sizer, Eisen, and now, another scandal, his association with a fellow named Dyab Abou Jahjaj.

The most damaging aspect of these revelations is that Corbyn seems to have forgotten his  friendship with this man altogether. Various investigators have come up with all sorts of evidence, which indicate that he’s a liar, or, if you prefer, economical with the actualité. In other words their hero is behaving in the manner of someone to whom the truth is irrelevant. 

The Telegraph has joined in the fun. 

And so has the Daily Mail:

“As to my position towards Palestine, it is guided by anti-racism and decolonisation logic. The racists are the Zionists themselves.”  

Opines Dyab Abou Jahjaj.

“Douglas Murray, of the human rights think tank the Henry Jackson Society tonight accused Mr Corbyn of being a ‘cheeerleader’ for Jahjah.He said: ‘Jahjah is a well-known thug on the Continent, particularly in Belgium and Holland’.‘Mr Corbyn hosted him in London in 2009 - long after his views because widely known. Indeed he was banned from entering the UK that year by the Home Secretary.‘But it’s not just the fact that he was receiving Jahjah – he was cheerleading for him. That is what makes this case so troubling.’”

The Jewish Chronicle posed some questions a few days ago, and it seems Corbyn has now attempted to answer them, through a spokesperson from his office.

All his answers are rather pathetic. He was unaware of the antisemitic beliefs of the individuals he befriended at the time he befriended or supported them He didn’t know. He didn’t recollect. He didn’t mean ‘friends’ literally when he said ‘friends’. He meant it as a term of diplomacy. He condemns antisemitic language, even when he’s spoken at rallies where antisemitic posters are being brandished in front of cameras; he was unaware of them. Raed Salah never said anything antisemitic in front of him. Dyou Abou Jahjah never expressed nasty views in front of him, and he claims he didn’t  even know him.

Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter. Water off a duck’s back. Corbynistas will say it’s a smear campaign. They don’t care. Are they bovvered? No. They.  Ain’t.

Actions speak louder than words

Ever since Plebgate, Golliwog-gate and Swarm-gate I’ve been ambivalent over exaggerated frenzies about the intent behind the meaning of a particular word. 

Even Jeremy Corbyn’s infamous use of the term ‘friends‘ for Hamas and Hezbollah seems far less important than his actions, namely befriending terrorist organisations with the explanation that you need to talk to the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah in order to secure ‘peace.‘ 

Stephen Sizer meets Nabil Kaouk, a top Hezbollah official and militant commander, in Lebanon

k

I wonder if this principle also applies to ISIS?  

Corbyn’s inability to acknowledge that as far as Islamic fundamentalism is concerned you can talk till you’re blue in the face, but the outcome is never going to be ‘peace’, at least not in the accepted definition of the term. 

I suppose we ought also to clarify what Corbyn actually means when he uses the term ‘peace’.  Submission, perhaps?

Talking of Jeremy Corbyn and  his friends, Stephen Sizer’s ban must be up by now. I wonder if he’ll make use of his newfound freedom to resume his anti-Israel campaigning, and if so, whether his friendship will help or hinder Corbyn’s leadership prospects. 

The BBC’s lack of interest in Corbyn’s habit of cosying up to undesirables is conspicuous by its absence. The nearest thing I’ve seen is Krishnan Gur-Murthy’s unsatisfactory ‘Friends’ themed Paxo-attack, and that wasn’t even on the BBC.

 

friends

The Daily Mail might be a bit too hyperbolic for most of us, but you have to admit that Stephen Sizer’s interview with Dr. Duncan McPherson, author and theologian, or as I like to think of him, ‘hissing Sid’, (viz: "SSimon of Cyrene carrying the cross of Jesusss") whose tremendous feat of turning-reality-on-its-head must be seen to be believed, is deeply creepy.  

The video was uploaded to YouTube in Jan 2015, just before Bishop Andrew Watson imposed his six-month banning order on Sizer’s anti-Zionist activities. Why it is entitled “Enlightenment - Escaping Auschwitz”  escapes me. 

Stephen Sizer’s gentle manner is like a really evil dentist - 'it won’t hurt'. But it bloody does.

 “Did you know that the Zionists are seeking to claim these historic sites - using the Arabic term “Haram al-Sharif” -  for themselves?” 

Stephen Sizer asks Duncan, smiling sweetly.

 “One of the reasons for having Yad Vashem on stolen Palestinian land rather than having it in Germany where it ought to be, or in Poland, is to bring before people’s minds a foundational myth for the State of Israel.” 

hisses Duncan unctuously as he delegitimises Israel with one fell swoop.

Oh you naughty Christians! Did you not know that Christians aren’t supposed to lie?   

The Anglican church should be ashamed of itself for allowing Sizer to represent them

 

"Enlightenment"

Talking of semantics, the BBC’s policy of translating ‘Yahud‘ into ‘Israeli’ reveals a kind of editorial meddling that we could do without. Their earnest explanation is that “When they say ‘Yahud’ they really mean ‘Israeli’ “. 

Actually, the BBC would like that to be the case, but of course it’s not strictly true. If they left it alone and translated it truthfully as ‘Jew’, which any fule kno is correct, people might think the Palestinians were racists, which, sadly they’re brought up to be, but that wouldn’t suit the BBC’s Bambification of the Palestinians.

Jeremy Corbyn might like to try talking the Palestinians out of their hatred of “Israelis”. That might work. Then he could go to Syria and have a go with the warring factions there, then, who knows, Iran and the Ayatollahs might be open to persuasion. Worth a try. He could go under the auspices of one of Sizer’s pilgrimages.

"Drunken night of temptation"

Not BBC-bias-related in any way - and at the risk of sounding like a BBC reporter on Twitter or a BBC comedian - but...

Oh...My....God...The.Daily.Mail!

I've been wanting to post something about their splash headline for most of the day but only just remembered now that our blog's official title ends with the words "...and any other matters that take our fancy", and this takes my fancy, so...

Oh...My....God...The.Daily.Mail!:

Caught on camera: Married Lib Dem 'feminist' who is running for Parliament is filmed with stripper in drunken night of temptation

You've got to admire the sheer lip-smacking hypocrisy, and archaic wording, of "Drunken night of temptation" - especially given the the paper's use of photos of said Lib Dem candidate and said stripper.

The comments at the Mail aren't going the Lib Dem candidate's way. He's being slagged off something rotten.

Still, I can't see any death threats among the Mail's comments. He's had plenty of them too over the past year or so from Muslim fanatics, plus hordes of vile abuse (something the Mail omits to mention). 

That Lib Dem candidate is Maajid Nawaz. You may have seen him on the BBC, being shouted at by Mohammed Shafiq or Mo Ansar.

Deja vu

So, after the terrorist attack on a seminar on free speech in Copenhagen came a terrorist attack on a Jewish target there - just like in Paris - probably by the same man (now shot dead after opening fire on police). 

According to the BBC News website though, "It was not immediately clear whether or how the shootings may have been connected.", Hmm.

The Daily Mail is less circumspect: Free speech and Jews under attack again: Major manhunt in Copenhagen after two men are killed and five wounded in 'jihadi' gun assaults on blasphemy discussion then synagogue in chilling echo of Paris terror.

The equivalent Sky News website article divides its coverage of the attacks between the attack on the synagogue and the seminar, including reaction from the Danish Jewish community. The BBC article, in contrast, gives over only a small proportion of its article to attack on the synagogue. 

The BBC article, however, tells us that the gunman shot overnight comes from the district of Norrebro, which is (in the BBC's words) "a predominantly immigrant district of Copenhagen". It doesn't go into details. The district has its own Wikipedia entry though, which tells us: 

The largest minority groups of people living in Nørrebro are Arabs, Turks, Pakistanis, Bosnians, Somalians and Albanians.

In other words, predominantly Muslim immigrants.