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.

A Twitter Tale, starring Evan Davis

Twitter feeds have become a hot topic today, what with tech giant Twitter's private owners "permanently suspending" the present US president, the famous Donald Trump. 

I don't think that my Twitter feed is anything like an echo chamber. I deliberately try to avoid making it so. I follow leftwingers and rightwingers, pro-Brexit and anti-Brexit people, pro-lockdowners and anti-lockdowners, people who liked Level 42 and people who didn't like Level 42 (like Rob Burley), cat people and dog people, anti-BBC people and pro-BBC people, etc.

Doing so can occasionally raise my blood pressure, but it also keeps me aware of other points of view. 

(I'll confess to breaking down just once. I unfollowed one person last year: Newsnight's hyperactive, intolerably hyper-biased Lewis Goodall. I did so purely for health reasons. He was making me sick. He was much, much too much.) 

Today, on my timeline, has been notable for three people I follow - LBC's Maajid Nawaz (who I mostly agree with), British Future's Sunder Katwala (who I sometimes agree with)  and the BBC's Evan Davis (who I never again with 😜) - getting involved in a discussion.

Actually, I say 'discussion', but it was mainly Sunder and Evan chatting about Maajid behind his back.

*******

Right, so for those new to the Twitter soap opera......

Maajid was the former Islamist radical who abandoned Islamism, became a Lib Dem and then embarked on a successful non-BBC radio career where he said all sorts of things that right-wingers like.

Sunder is a thoughtful, left-leaning blogger and activist of the pro-immigration variety. 

And Evan is a BBC presenter with an especial thing for the Paddington Bear movie.

Sunder has been going after Maajid, pretty much daily - relentlessly - sending out dozens of tweets most days for months, now totally many hundreds at least, slamming Maajid personally for his views on the US election, and, to a lesser extent, coronavirus - because (among other things) Maajid has backed those alleging voter fraud and election rigging in the US election.

Today Evan Davis stepped in, possibly to rescue Sunder from his near 24/7 obsession with the misguided LBC presenter.

(All this Twitter stuff might be boring you rigid, but please hang on for Evan's point of view...)

Sunder had, as is his way, been getting into his quotidian stride this morning (nightgown off, suit on) and posting tweet after tweet after tweet attacking (bullying?) Maajid again, once again, and again some more, over the LBC man's highly sceptical, non-Marianna-approved views on the validity of the US election result.

Then Evan, evidently trying to stage 'an intervention', said:

Evan Davis: Sunder, there is literally no-one on Twitter I respect more than you... 

I take daily guidance on what to think about things by observing what you say. But I wonder whether you (and many others) give too much attention to cranky views and conspiracies. Can't we just ignore them?

Sunder posted four replies, including a graph, justifying himself, but Evan replied again:

Evan Davis: As always, you are thoughtful and reasonable on this. But when it comes to crazy views, I worry most about the potential for discourse and argument to cement opinions rather than change them. 

So, stepping back and goggling afresh...

The BBC's Evan Davis (a) says he "respects...literally no-one...more than you" to very possibly the most ultra-mainstream, left-liberal, pro-immigration, 'very BBC' person I follow. (Truth or politeness?). 

He then (b) slurps that he takes "daily guidance on what to think about observing what you say" to the same 'very BBC' pundit. (Truth or politeness?).

It wouldn't surprise me. Sunder's way of thinking is, indeed, very BBC. That Evan hangs on his every word daily would be a very BBC thing to do.

Note, above all, that Evan is advising Sunder to "ignore" the likes of Maajid Nawaz. (That's Evan's main point here.) And he's doing so because he, Evan Davis, clearly also disapproves of Maajid's "cranky views and conspiracies".

Like Samira Ahmed, Evan Davis then evidently advances the line that airing and arguing and discussing such "crazy views" as those expressed by Maajid about the US election are something to "worry" about.

"Discourse" and "argument" thus become problematic -  things with "the potential...to cement opinions rather than change them". 

Evan seems to be calling for the censoring of certain kinds of "discourse" and "argument" here, doesn't he? Shush!!!

Such censorship of people with 'wrong' views has a long BBC pedigree.

As for Sunder Katwala, I suspect he'll ignore Evan. He's a man on a mission to 'Get Maajid'.

Evan Davis slips into archaic language

If you were listening to Radio 4's PM tonight, you'll probably have heard the following from its ultra-woke presenter Evan Davis:

5:39pm: So far so good on the prospects for the Oxford vaccine for the Covid...for coronavirus - one of the great white hopes for getting out of the crisis caused by the disease, but there is no timeline on its delivery.  

5:47pm: Charlie Whelan, who used to work for Gordon Brown, has tweeted I used the phrase "great white hope". Amazing, isn't it, how one slips into archaic language, however aware we might try to be. Good of him to point that out. Now let's move on...

Oh Evan!

The phrase itself was coined to describe certain white boxers who challenged a run of hard-to-beat black champions, such as the unfortunately-named Gerry Cooney. 

As a bonus fact, Mr Cooney was given that epithet by Don King.

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.

Evan ponders

Question time.

Citing a tweet and a piece (with the secondary title 'Neutrality gets us Nowhere') from one Jonathan Lis, a blogger on a pro-EU site called British Influence ["British Influence champions a strong UK closely and constructively engaging with EU and wider world. Hard Brexit threatens our health, wealth and reputation"] - a site co-founded by conspiracy theorist Peter Jukes - the BBC's Evan Davis is wondering aloud tonight (on Twitter) whether it's not time now to start calling President Trump "far right".

It's a question that clearly matters to him:

Interesting piece.. Key question: if we (in the media aspiring to be neutral) call Marine Le Pen "far right", should we not call President Trump the same? https://t.co/TFKf0axbnG

— Evan Davis (@EvanHD) August 7, 2019

Well, here's another interesting, key question - this time for Evan: 

Why doesn't the BBC label Jeremy Corbyn "far left" and "antisemitic"?

YCMIU

As you'll see in detail below, on the BBC's most-watched news bulletins (on BBC One), again and again and again, the BBC's Nick Bryant used the term "racist" (and "white nationalism") to brand the present US president as a racist. Openly, explicitly.

And yet. this evening, Evan Davis is busy on Twitter engaging with a Buzzfeed article originally headlined Why The BBC Doesn't Want To Call Trump A Racist .

You couldn't make it up.

"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?

A Christmas Carol

A short story for Boxing Day...

Just imagine that, having invited a friend of a friend to join you for Christmas Day and, having asked him how his 2018 has gone, your guest (downing his third glass of fizz) relaxes and becomes talkative - so talkative that he barely pauses for breath for about 45 minutes, and then (after a toilet trip) begins again for another breathless 45 minutes. 

He first tells you, in a downbeat way, that as far as Britain goes, it's been a year of "national traumas" and then he talks of things that make us "cry" and then mentions Brexit, before apologising for mentioning the word. (It wouldn't take a genius to work out his views on Brexit).

Next, for some reason, he begins saying that he'd heard that one "antidote" to "all the despondency going on at the moment" is to do something wild, like publicly take all your clothes of. It's good for your body image apparently. (Thankfully he keeps his on. I've heard he has strange things dangling from parts of his body)

He then began lecturing us, yes lecturing us - for, I'll now let on, that this actually happened to our family yesterday (a true story!) - yes, he lectured us on #MeToo. And, wagging his finger, said that "if you're one of those who think it's all gone too far" (and we all looked a little bit sheepish at this point), our "reeducation" (and, yes, he even used that word) should begin by visiting an old people's home and asking the old ladies there to recall incidents of sexual harassment in their younger years. We'd learn a lot from that, apparently.

And then he began telling us how great the NHS is now, and how much better health treatment is these days than it used to be, giving us some examples he'd heard about how bad things were in the past. We should feel "gratitude" for how things are now, he said. (I felt obliged to go and put on the NHS bit from the 2012 Olympic opening ceremony, which I got from YouTube and plugged into the TV, and he was quickly applauding like a Brezhnevite.)

I was diving for the wine by this stage and poured it into a pint glass by happy mistake. I was seriously wondering whether inviting him had been such a good idea. He was really lowering our Christmas spirits. 

He then banged on about World War One internment camps, some radio play he'd heard (which sounded very depressing to me)  concerning the Syrian civil in Aleppo, and then about the influence of the Diana Ross song 'I'm Coming Out' on the gay community, on which subject which he sounded particularly enthusiastic, what, perhaps, with being gay himself.

Most of the family had started to look severely depressed by this stage, just as our Christmas dinner was being served. We were wanting to tell Christmas cracker jokes like 'What kind of motorbike does Santa ride? A Holly Davidson!' or 'What do you call Santa's little helpers? Subordinate Clauses!', but we didn't want to stop our guest, who was obviously enjoying himself (even if no one else was), and we were already beginning to feel unworthy of ourselves in his saintly presence.

He then then began talking, not once but twice, about 'experiencing rooms' in hospitals where mothers of severely premature babies go to express milk for their babies, via tubes that squeeze their breasts. (I was just starting my prawn cocktail at the time). 

And then came another depressing radio play he'd heard called 'Freezing to Death'. (I was trying to enjoy my turkey at this point). 

Then he told us about an encounter he'd heard about between a man who'd accidentally run over and killed and that man's friends and family. (Just as I was feeling guilty about enjoying my roast potatoes so much). 

And he ended by talking about cancer. (Just as I was restraining myself against eating an after-eight mint. After all, how could I enjoy myself by eating after-eight mints when so many sad, moving things were going on in this world of ours that I needed to know about on Christmas Day?) 

So, yes, it was Christmas Day, and here he was, our guest, being all worthy and serious and, as Scrooge might put it, virtue-signalling like crazy. 

None of us felt like pulling a cracker now, or putting a paper hat on - not while someone was going on and on and on about severely premature babies, death, war, cancer, Diana Ross, Syrian jails, and #MeToo. 

One moment when my eyes brightly lit up was with hope when he began talking about hearing about someone's wonderful encounter with whales. 'This at least should be free of worthiness', I thought. But my eyes shot towards the ceiling when it turned out that the 'someone' in question was a blind man. It just had to be a blind man for this first-order virtue-signaller to have bothered telling the story. 

Of course, I felt absolutely awful about thinking such a wicked thing, and for not fully appreciating all the very moving, very serious, very worthy things he'd been telling us about.

He was only doing it for our own good after all, doubtless to make us better people. 

And then it clicked. From now on, I thought, I must try to be as earnest, as right-on, as much of a Social Justice Warrior, as BBC-like, as our talkative guest, even during Christmas Dinner on Christmas Day itself. And as I thought that I could swear I heard a bell ringing in Heaven as another angel got his wings.

And to be fair to him, our guest did make us almost smile (or at least stop frowning till our faces ached, at least for a minute or two) by very briefly taking about a couple of comedians he'd personally enjoyed this year: One was a comedian who calls his show 'Citizen of Nowhere' (To my shame, I tutted again, silently). He joked about xenophobia in South Africa and Boko Haram. And the other was a comedian who calls his show 'Chinese Comedian' and who jokes about being Chinese in Leeds. 

And, also to be fair to our guest (given his obvious views), he did largely keep off Brexit, restraining himself over Nigel Farage, though he enjoyed two BBC Radio 4 series on the subject - one by David Aaronovitch, and the other by Mark Mardell (something called Brexit: A Love Story?). The bit he remembered was a clip from the Mark Mardell thing where Lord Armstrong teared up on recalling Ted Heath celebrating the vote to take us in the EEC by playing a Bach prelude on the piano. 

By now I felt like a new man.

There is a twist to my festive tale though... 

My guest's name, by the way, was Evan. (Almost forgot to mention that.) Nice chap, a bit preachy, very right-on, obviously not a fan of Brexit. 

After he'd left, I put on my computer and clicked on the Radio 4 website to listen to Radio 4's Pick of the Year 2018. 

To my astonishment it was the very same Evan we'd had round for Christmas dinner yesterday. 

And to my even greater astonishment, the programme consisted of him repeating everything he'd said to us, in exactly the same words, to the nation as a whole.

It turned out everything he'd been talking about was based on BBC radio programmes, mostly from Radio 4, and that they were his pick of the year to highlight the riches of the station he works for as PM presenter.

I cracked open another bottle of wine to help myself recover from the shock.

Radio 4's Pick of the Year 2018 was broadcast soon after midday on Christmas Day, so he must have pre-recorded it, or else he couldn't have joined us for Christmas...

...unless, of course, it was a Christmas miracle. 

And the moral of our story?

All year, at this blog, I've kept on saying how Radio 4 is getting harder-and-harder to listen to for people outside the BBC's way of thinking, because its schedules are losing any variety they used to have and becoming increasingly much-of-a-muchness: a sludge of well-meaning, serious, worthy, politically-correct, socially-liberal, soggy-left, preachy programmes, many of which could have come straight out of the Guardian's features pages, leavened by identikit left-wing comedy shows and programmes about Brexit presented hosted by Remainers. 

And here was Evan Davis's Radio 4 Pick of the Year 2018 to proof my point in the strongest way possible by consisting of nothing but these kinds of programme. 

But, because it's Christmas, it's all therefore OK, and I must learn to virtue-signal like Evan and Radio 4 as a whole. And I hope this Boxing Day post shows that I'm well on the way to becoming properly "reeducated". 

May the BBC bless us, every one!

Sunday morning

T'was the Sunday before Christmas when all through the blog not a creature was stirring, not even a frog. But I'm up and about nonetheless and reading the Sunday papers online, primed to pull out all the best BBC-related bits and stuff them into your Christmas stocking, ready for when you wake up...

First, Julie Birchill, writing in The Sunday Telegraph, isn't full of Christmas cheer about the BBC, writing "This was the year that the right-on echo-chamber completed its grisly castration of Radio 4 comedy – now all virtue-signalling mutual gratification with fewer laughs than the Christmas Day episode of EastEnders". She adds:

The standard of Radio 4 drama is positively subterranean, more often than not tracing the journey of an autistic asylum seeker contemplating a mastectomy while coping with being a single parent to a dyslexic non-binary child in danger of being taken into care and being bullied online. A recent Archers storyline had resident Lovely Gay Couple hiring a Bulgarian fruit-picker to incubate a baby for them only to have Brexit (hiss, boo, behind you!) wreck their rainbow-hued happiness. There is a strong feminist case against surrogacy and an equally rigorous socialist argument against keeping down working-class wages by hiring cheap foreign labour – but Auntie knows best, and debate is hate speech, and he is she, and self-defence is aggression. Oh, to have Orwell alive and back working at a BBC that appears to have taken 1984 as a How to Doublespeak manual!

Meanwhile, Decca Aitkenhead's interview with Dominic West in The Sunday Times finds the actor casting doubt on the BBC's claims about the "unconventionally diverse" casting for its flagship BBC adaptation of Les Misérables: 

The good news is that the BBC has dispensed with the songs and opted for a straightforward drama, written by the wonderful Andrew Davies. The dialogue sounds contemporary, and the casting is unconventionally diverse, with Valjean’s nemesis played by David Oyelowo. “In Paris in those days there was a large number of people from foreign climes, so the BBC is claiming the casting is historically accurate,” West says. “To be honest, I’m not sure. My guess is it’s not strictly historically accurate, but it gives a flavour of what we understand now, in that everyone talks in a modern British way and it resonates with what an immigrant class looks like.”

Incidentally, the "wonderful Andrew Davies", as per The Mail on Sunday, talks of another aspect of BBC social engineering, saying that BBC bosses veto any "droopy, soppy" girls he wants to pen, and that he's not allowed to make his women anything but feisty: 

I started writing lead characters for women who disconcerted men quite early on in my career. Now it's compulsory because drama networks are run by strong women who like to see themselves reflected. I often find myself pleading, 'Can't I write a really droopy, soppy girl?' And they say, 'No, she's got to be strong and independent.' 

And the same paper features further criticism of the BBC's new Poirot adaptation under the headline 'BBC’s new Poirot story ‘is turned into anti-Brexit propaganda’ by writers who have built on racial tensions that ‘barely feature’ in the novel. The article features a quote from Agatha Christie biographer Laura Thompson:

‘The ABC Murders is a stunning book and is incredibly atmospheric. Why does anyone feel the need to do more to it? Some of the changes sound awful. It’s like everyone who is a Brexiteer has to be shown the error of their ways.’ 

Back to The Sunday Times though, where the doyenne of radio reviewers, Gillian Reynolds, thinking of a Christmas present for Evan Davis, hits the snail on the shell when describing Evan as sounding "possibly too relaxed" on PM these days. No "possibly" about it, I'd say. It's as if he's already in his dressing gown and wearing his favourite slippers:

You will recall that, after Mair quit PM, there was a decent interval while BBC contracts sorted out what it could afford to pay his replacement, Newsnight decided whether it wanted to keep him, and he carefully considered the bliss of never again having to express admiration for the dress sense of Emily Maitlis. Now he has had a couple of months in the new Radio 4 job, Davis sounds relaxed. Possibly too relaxed. So he’s going to get a giant pack of impatience tablets, as used by John Pienaar and Emma Barnett, guaranteed to get an answer even out of Theresa May. 

Ah, now for some bacon and eggs...

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.