From the Sunday papers

Here are a few BBC-related stories from the Sunday papers that you may have missed...

The Sunday Times alleges that the BBC is “glossing over” human rights abuses against migrants and detainees in Dubai and that an Emirati minder “oversaw filming” of the corporation's new “observational documentary” Dubai: Playground of the Rich. The paper gives examples, including:

In the third episode, a short segment shares the stories of tourists who have paid a “heavy price” in the past for not abiding by the “letter of the law”, including public displays of affection, sex outside marriage and homosexuality. But the section lasts only a minute and does not detail the long prison sentences, reported abuses of detainees or the UAE’s failure to allow access to UN experts and human rights organisations.

The Sunday Times accuses the BBC of “skirting controversy” - which sounds plausible. As we know all too well, they tiptoe very carefully around certain topics.

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Now, I must admit when I heard that Newsnight's 'everywhere correspondent' Gabriel Gatehouse had spent a year working on a podcast series about the events on Capitol Hill, Washington on 6 January 2021 I thought that Gabriel might have better spent that time preparing a 7-part podcast about the first year of the hapless Biden/Harris administration. Still, a review by Patricia Nicol in The Sunday Times has me intrigued:

Gatehouse tries harder here, reminding us that there have been information black ops, and blackouts, from both sides. He recounts the BBC’s own (fruitless) efforts, in early 2017, to stand up sensational claims that Trump was a Russian asset — smears that today look more like another disbelieving establishment trying to unseat a democratically elected president.

Interesting. Wonder why the BBC's QAnon-obsessed disinformation unit didn't tackle this?

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Meanwhile, for those with strong stomachs, the Mail on Sunday has a couple of paedophilia-related BBC pieces: How the BBC's lack of checks left children at risk of abuse for years after Jimmy Savile was exposed and Child sex offender was able to continue working as a BBC journalist despite his conviction.

Looking Ahead and Back

This year's Correspondents' Look Ahead will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 at 8pm on New Year's Eve. 

In anticipation of that, here's a review of last year's edition when BBC correspondents Lyse Doucet, Aleem Maqbool, Dharshini David, Gabriel Gatehouse, Justin Rowlatt and Katya Adler gathered on New Year's Day this very year to look ahead to 2021.

It's a remarkable listen, showing the BBC echo chamber in full cry  - or, perhaps more accurately, full echo. 

I've never attended an Observer-sponsored round table conference for journalists, left-wing activists and campaign groups, but I imagine this is what it might be like. 

For starters

Just consider this, for starters: from Lyse Doucet's introduction as she looked back to 2020 and said that, “as always”, there was “some good” amid “so much bad” in 2020. These are the two things she put on 2020's 'plus' side:

The Black Lives Matter movement put injustice and diversity on the agenda as never before and the pandemic focused minds on saving not just lives but our planet in our climate emergency.

Hm. I rolled my eyes at that! The BBC's Chief International Correspondent was signalling her very BBC views there.

Dharshini David opines and predicts

The programme's powers of prediction haven't greatly improved over the years. The first substantial contribution came from BBC economics reporter Dharshini David. Having nailed her colours to the usual BBC 'spend, spend, spend' mast by openly praising the Bank of England and Chancellor Rishi for “pumping money” into the furlough scheme - a “financial vaccination” she called it, describing it as both “good” and “good news” - she went on to make predictions for the UK economy in 2021. She said a double-dip recession “is pretty much a given, Lyse. I think that ship has really sailed”. Well, we're 12 months on and it's still not sailed quite yet. She also predicted unemployment “continuing to grow for some time”, which again didn't happen this year. Bias and inaccurate predictions - a cracking start!

My eyes kept on rolling, but they needed to calm down as we were only in the foothills and they needed to brace themselves to follow my eyebrows as they rose up ever higher... 

Familiar fare 

Katya Adler then, predictably, painted a rosy view of Mrs Merkel's Germany.

Left wing round table chat

Lyse then discussed protests and coronavirus in the US in terms of how the pandemic had “exposed inequality” in its disproportionate effect on African-Americans, Hispanics and Latinos and Aleem Maqbool drew the comparisons with how much better white Americans were doing in a context-free, BLM-style fashion.

Lyse then discussed with Justin Rowlatt the issue of “less privileged” countries not receiving their fair share of vaccines and Justin criticised the “unseemly behaviour” of the developed world. He held out hopes though for Bill Gates and the WHO riding to the rescue and getting a project going. 

Do you take my point about it being like eavesdropping on a left-leaning convention?

Box-tickers to watch

Moving on to a regular feature, the next section was the BBC correspondents' traditional 'persons to watch' bit. Those for this year were:

[1] Alexey Navalny, who Gabriel Gatehouse predicted would “make waves” if he went back to Russia - which he did in January before being imprisoned in February and dropping out of the headlines.

[2] Deb Haaland, a Biden appointee who Aleem Maqbool discussed in identity politics terms as being “the first native American to lead the Department of the Interior...with its history of oppression against native American people”. It was all about identity politics. 

[3] Janet Yellen, a Biden appointee who Dharshini David also discussed in identity politics terms as the the first woman Treasury Secretary. “The US have beaten us...we've had none...” here in the UK in the top financial jobs, she said. It was all about identity politics. 

[4] Alok Sharma, who Justin Rowlatt chose for his role in the “crucial”, “terribly important”, “very important” and “crucial” COP26.

[5] Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who Lyse Doucet predicted would become Saudi king in 2021, which didn't happen. She also predicted he'd become more powerful. Except for taking over Newcastle United FC, he didn't really feature on BBC News very much this year.

[6] “The ever growing shadow behind Angela Merkel”, which Katya Adler also discussed in terms of identity politics, talking of the “three slightly aging, middle-aged white men” of the CDU fighting to succeed Mutti and “probably” win the September election - which none of them actually did as the CDU failed to win. 

Besides the inaccurate predictions, it really is quite something how much identity politics informed this part of the conversation. It continued from the earlier discussion. And it continued. 

It was the 'post-BLM' edition of Correspondents' Look Ahead.

The man who tweeted too much

US politics - the change from Trump to Biden - was next for discussion.

I had to chuckle on hearing Lyse Doucet begin it by sticking to focusing on The Most Important Thing For The Likes of the BBC for the Entirety of the Trump Presidency  - Donald Trump's tweets - saying he's “still certain to unleash tweets from his own account”. Well, she got that wrong as the censors at Twitter swiftly banned him. 

Aleem Maqbool goes full CNN

Aleem Maqbool then talked about inequality, and the plight of women and minorities, and the polarisation that “won't go away” even after the “figurehead” [Donald Trump] has been removed - thus presenting the polarisation in a rather one-sided fashion himself. 

And - of course - Aleem talked about race, which he very much filtered through a BLM lens, saying:

The race issues. So much protest happened, so many people took to the streets. There's been very little in terms of structural change on race and policing over the last year.

Aleem predicted a lot of political violence in 2021. I suspect the events at the Capitol in January will be dwelt on and cited as a successful prediction in this Friday's programme. He also predicted the return of mass shootings. 

Aleem then talked of fixing immigration and asylum and “reuniting children who were separated from their parents under that system under Donald Trump” - which [a] was a very BBC focus on the needs of immigrants rather than numbers or the problems caused to the host community and [b] repeated the falsehood that the child separation issue arose under Donald Trump when it actually arose under Barack Obama and his VP Joe Biden. [As we now know, because of the Biden administration's policies, there's been chaos on the southern UK border this year]. 

As for Joe Biden, Aleem Maqbool said he's playing the card of “a uniter” - “and he's playing it relatively well so far”. [Well, that didn't last long]. 

More “good news”

Then “Good news” from Day 1 was predicted by Lyse and Justin for the Biden administration's climate change actions for what Lyse called the “climate emergency”. She also worried about people she called “climate deniers”. Quick as a flash, Aleem replied “But at least there won't be one in the White House”, said Aleem. 

Are you feeling the impartiality? 

Lyse pulls the rug from under Aleem

One amusing moment came when Aleem employed the 'some say' strategy beloved of BBC reporters trying to make a point through other people's mouths, talking of “a lot of.. as many people see it” regarding “the damage done” by Donald Trump's environmental policies. He later added an “as they see it”, referring to Trump critics' claims of damage, thus putting further 'fake impartiality' distance between him and them. And then Lyse Doucet went and ruined it all by giving her opinion and dropping him in it too, saying “As Aleem says, a lot of the damage has been done”. Haha!

Justin sings 'For Xi's a jolly good fellow'

On the same theme, Justin Rowlatt found President Xi's climate pledges “enormously optimistic”, which he seems to believe. Green energy is “the cheapest”. he said. [Fact check?]

Places to watch [or not]

For flashpoints/places to watch: 

Gabriel chose Taiwan [a very safe bet that it would remain a worrying issue in 2021].

Aleem chose Venezuela for a looming humanitarian crisis moving towards a flashpoint [well, it didn't really reach that point].

Dharshini chose Dover [for possible Brexit problems].

Justin chose Denmark [for a company that's transitioned from being an oil company to a renewables company and that might become a giant].

Katya chose Italy [to wonder how it would cope in 2021. I wonder how many reports she did about it in 2021 as I've heard very little about it?].

And Lyse, inevitably, chose Afghanistan, predicting that the Taliban might come close to power or achieve power either through negotiation or the battlefield. [She didn't predict the disastrous handling of it by the Biden administration which gifted the country and billions of dollars of US equipment to them].

OMG, Brexit!

The final segment seems 'very a year ago', as Lyse asked whether there would be a Brexit trade deal between the EU and the UK - then still in doubt in a 'final hours of diplomacy' kind of way. 

This was a classic BBC discussion:

Darshini said there should be if economic sense is followed but 2020 suggests that if we've learned anything it's that “Brexit isn't about the economics” and there'll be “a fudge”. 

Gloomy Katya said “the thing that's really going to hit us in 2021 is that even if there is a deal it's a very narrow deal because this is at best a hard Brexit and at worst a no-deal Brexit” and piled on the negatives about both, including worrying about whether you'd be able to take “Boris the dog” to Europe if you're blind and need your guide-dog - a stark reminder of the remarkable negativity and negative language about Brexit that assailed us on a daily basis back then. 

Justin said he “agreed” with both Darshini and Katya [of course he did because they were in an echo chamber] and thought “a very, very narrow deal” would be “sneaked over the line”, predicting “a very, very uncomfortable New Year for the UK”. 

And Gabriel, continuing to be cautious, sensibly said he'd “duck the question”. 

Are you still feeling the impartiality? 

Looking ahead

Friday's panellists looking ahead to 2022 will be Faisal Islam, Gabriel Gatehouse, Katya Adler, Laura Trevelyan and Nick Eardley. It looks as if there's a greater focus on UK politics from the presence of Laura and Nick, but we'll see. I expect it will be blander. I wanted Aleem Maqbool, Darshini David and Justin Rowlatt back. Still at least Lyse Doucet's still in the chair. 

Strategy for a deadly contagion

Alerted by a comment from MB including an H/T to Guest Who and two responses form Sisyphus.

(Yes, Farrow and Ball is posh paint with names like “Elephant’s breath’.  Posh in a Samantha Cameron kinda way, (ideal for one’s shepherd’s hut) but I think the brand might have already been superseded by other, even posher, more subtly-coloured versions, like the one you can get in Aga shops) 

I am grateful to the government for designating journalists as key workers, mainly so @MarinaHyde can continue to do what she does best: pouring industrial paint-stripper on the thin veneer of Farrow and Ballsh*t wherever she finds it https://t.co/Hggx0rBsWT

— Gabriel Gatehouse (@ggatehouse) March 20, 2020

See! I do read the open threads. Honest. I thought I’d like to expand on the topic of Marina Hyde, who seems to be one of Gabriel Gatehouse’s favourite paint-stripperers.

Venomous Guardian columnist Marina Hyde is no stranger to this blog, and before you say anything else, here is one I baked previously.

"I’m reminded of that phrase “It takes one to know one” because I recognise the habit of using excessively emotive and disparaging language to express 'passion' in the most effective way possible because I do the same thing myself in my own bloggeringly amateurish way.

(I might have said ‘startlingly offensive’ rather than ‘effective’.)

The piece in question today is Ms Hyde’s current torrent of Boris-bashing in the Guardian. Here we have a much better example of ‘it takes one to know one’ because it seems that Marina Hyde is accusing Boris of being a flippant, verbose, lying,…….. journalist. 

Why, she even plagiarises ‘spaffing’. All this without realising that she could easily have been outlining her own characteristics and then complaining about them, the difference being that Boris’s rhetoric is humorous, while, well …… you know.

The point I’m trying to make is that as she goes to town on Boris’s inept, incompetent, ineffectual mishandling of the current crisis, she has not offered a single constructive suggestion. So, does she think that Jeremy Corbyn would have handled the situation any better?

Come on! Negativity, negativity, negativity. How helpful is that, Gabriel Gatehouse?

I don't know if Boris is handling this situation well. After all, everyone seems to agree it's unprecedented. Constructive criticism is one thing, but unadulterated Boris-bashing is simply nasty

A 'Newsnight' narrative is build up and then knocked down

The moment where it all began to go wrong

Many of Jeremy Bowen's doom-mongering reports in the immediate wake of the killing of Qasem Suleimani ended with variations on a single theme: "President Trump might be gambling that he has so weakened Iran that it will rage but not hurt the US badly. That assumption could be dangerous and wrong". 

It looks though, doesn't it, as if President Trump's assumption was in fact correct? He's taken out the murderous mastermind behind Iran's tangled web of terror and sucked up a few non-lethal missiles in response. And Iran has backed off. So, an audacious win for the US?

Well, Newsnight was asking that very question last night:

TONIGHT: President Trump has said Iran appears to be standing down after last night’s missile strikes. So has his big gamble paid off? Is this a foreign policy success?

The programme also gave its own answer to that question: No.

Emily Maitlis said: 

The killing of Qasem Suleimani, one of Iran's de-facto leaders, appeared to come from nowhere. The Trump administration rationalised it as the way to avoid an imminent threat to American lives. They're now billing it as job done, a win for America. But what if the opposite is true? 

And then she and her Newsnight colleague Gabriel Gatehouse set out to burst Trump's balloon by presenting an audacious take on the events of recent weeks to show that the Trump administration has, in fact, fallen into Suleimani's trap.

Here's the Newsnight argument: Given recent large anti-Iranian demonstrations in Iraq, Qasem Suleimani needed a distraction and, so, deliberately provoked a military attack from the US in order to unite Iraqis against the US, and - except for getting himself blown up - the Americans fell for it hook, line and sinker. By killing Suleimani, the Americans have only made things worse for themselves and strengthened Iran.

Well, it's a point of view. (An anti-Trump point of view, naturally).

Amusingly, however, it all then unravelled as Emily interviewed Laith Kubba, an independent advisor to the prime minister of Iraq, who proceeded to politely burst most of her and Gabriel's balloons.

A transcript is needed. Just look at Emily's questions and how loaded they are, and see how Mr Kubba undermines Newsnight's case at almost every turn.

It is, as Emily says, fascinating.

Emily Maitlis: We are going to take that further. Now I'm joined by Laith Kubba, independent advisor to Adel Abdul-Mahdi, the Iraqi Prime Minister. Does what you've heard from Gabriel make sense, that this could all have been part of the plan for Suleimani, part of the plan for Iranian influence in the region, in Iraq?

Laith Kubba: I think there will be an increased Iranian influence, but I don't think it is part of the plan. I think Suleimani had a more sophisticated plan, real structural changes in Iraq that have been taking place, building an army more or less integrated with the state but parallel to the traditional army, like the Revolutionary Guard, and that has been a very difficult issue in the last year. And of course, the whole issue of throwing rockets at the American Embassy and throwing rockets at the green zone, who actually is responsible for it? It embarrassed the Iraqi government, because it could not have full control over these armed groups. 

Emily Maitlis: So do you think Iraq now is more volatile as a result of his death? 

Laith Kubba: I think there will be transformation. I think the natural default position is Iran would try to have more influence in Iraq and would put pressure to get American bases out of Iraq. I think this pressure is going to continue to increase. There is a natural imbalance between Iraq and Iran because the state institutions of Iraq are very weak, including the army, the government and the bureaucracy. Iran has been working grassroots and building its influence in Iraq, a lot of it under religious ties and cultural ties. 

Emily Maitlis: The kind of soft power that you don't see coming in from the top?

Laith Kubba: And that is the reason when the pressure came to push the American bases out of Iraq, it only manifested itself in Shia areas. It wasn't in the Kurdish areas or the Sunni areas. So really its influence is with the Shias, but within the Shias there are different currents. It is not one uniform position. 

Emily Maitlis: So when you see President Trump tonight congratulating himself and the administration for handling it, there's a sense that he thinks that's job done, case closed - is that how you see it, that this is a win for America? 

Laith Kubba: I think it is a partial win, because we were all driven to a cliff, and everybody was worried, but at the end of the day Iran restrained its response, stood back, stood down, and I think spreading that fire, at least for the time being, it has been contained, but the fire is still there...

Emily Maitlis: (interrupting) Do you want the American troops to leave, then? Are they more likely to be leaving Iraq as a result, which is clearly what Iran would love? 

Laith Kubba: No Iraqi would simply like American troops to leave Iraq, for Iraq to be more or less under Iran and then for Iraq to be unstable because Daesh is back. Nobody wants that. But again, nobody wants American troops in Iraq to bypass Iraqi sovereignty and carry out attacks on Iran or anybody else. So the core issue for Iraqis is that currently the government and the state is so weak that both America and Iran feel comfortable to violate that sovereignty...

Emily Maitlis: (interrupting) And who is Iraqi anger directed against more? Is it the Americans or  is it Iranians? 

Laith Kubba: If you look at the younger generation, who wants a better country, I think they resent Iran's influence. If you look at the older generation who fought for years against Saddam Hussein, they align themselves with Iran because Iran stood by them. On balance, I think it will be a while before Iraq materialises its national agenda - it is a challenge. 

Emily Maitlis: Would you say that Iran tonight is a more powerful, more emboldened country than it was a week ago? 

Laith Kubba: No.

Emily Maitlis: You wouldn't?

Laith Kubba: No. I think the loss of Suleimani is a serious setback that will not be compensated in years, and I think it might create a real shift in how Iran pursues its goals of expanding, let's say, its influence by different means. But I do not think we can go back to the old days. 

Emily Maitlis: Laith Kubba, fascinating to speak to you. Thank you very much for coming in.

Deeply Dipping

Sometimes I wish I didn't have a life because having a life makes blogging so bloody difficult (as John Simpson might put it).

I might, for example, want to watch a month's worth of Newsnights to track Emily Maitlis's interruption stats but, alas, I really don't have the time these days.

So what to do? 

Well, I randomly clicked on a Newsnight episode this evening and landed up on Tuesday's edition, starring Emily Maitlis. 

I knew that Newsnight had rebranded itself and had read complimentary things about it from BBC fans on Twitter, but those crossed Ns look startlingly like a 1940s/2010s Eastern European fascist logo to me.

I'm guessing that wasn't Newsnight's intention (unless they wanted to win over some BBC-hating, Jew-hating Corbynistas). 

Anyhow, I rather enjoyed the programme.

The Brexit discussion was varied in terms of voices. I remember MB's comments about ex-BBC political editor John Sergeant's anti-Boris mouth-frothing (truly something to behold!), but I didn't mind the overall mix of panellists. 

All I'd say on the bias front is that Emily let us, the BBC and, most of all, herself down (and let her bias slip) by asking arch-Boris-basher Lord Charlie Falconer a question about Boris couched in loaded anti-Boris language which, inevitably, resulted in His Lordship happily agreeing with her that Big Bad Boris is a wrong' un:

Emily Maitlis: This man from right inside the Establishment can make him seem like an outsider, when he takes on Parliament, he takes on the judiciary, he takes on anything that sounds lofty and abstract, as James said, [Craig - somewhat twisting the point of what James said] and he wins those fights. Or he loses those fights. He loses against Luxembourg and it's still written up as somehow, you know, two fingers up.

Lord Falconer: Em, I fear you're right about that. It doesn't matter whether he's right or whether he's wrong. It doesn't matter if he pushes it too far or breaks the law or breaks the Constitution or smashes up the institution. The only thing that matters is the point that James is making. [Craig - It wasn't actually the point James was making.] It's the people who have no interest in the detail of the Constitution who will see him taking on the Establishment. 

Ah yes, those stupid Leave-voting oiks, eh, Lord F?

And there was also a piece on Bibi Netanyahu, in the light of the latest Israeli election (cue Brenda from Beersheba saying, "You're joking? Not another one!"), by Newsnight's Everywhere correspondent Gabriel Gatehouse - a man whose carbon footprint must make poor Greta absolutely sob her heart out. 

Now Gabriel is an interesting reporter, but here there were three 'talking heads', all introduced with neutral-sounding taglines featuring posts and dates. 

Not one of them was sympathetic towards Bibi - or Donald (who got strongly tagged into the report). 

Obeying my blogging instincts, I googled and quickly found that Tal Schneider is from the centrist Globes newspaper, Anshel Pfeffer is from the left-leaning Haaretz (though I already knew that), and Hady Amr, the critical US envoy, served under Democrat President Obama.

Not a right-winger in sight.

No wonder, then, that they sang from pretty much the same hymn sheet.

Seriously, wouldn't it have been better for Newsnight to provide their audience with a broader range of voices? And is it simply because they don't like Mr Netanyahu (and everything he represents) that they failed to do so?

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Minutiae? Or evidence of BBC bias? You decide!

Intrusive thoughts

Another benefit of subscribing to the Times (in addition to privileged access to the btl comments) is watching those mini videos titled “Liddle’s Got Issues”. Not that Rod is particularly charismatic or easy on the eye, but the one I watched today about the reluctance of the Remain protesters to engage was well worth the sub. The idea was that he would accost some of the banner-wielding folk that were hanging about in the freezing cold and try to get one or two of them to explain why they were there. Well, we kind of knew why, but what was their message? "Why exactly are you against Brexit?" The best (and only forthcoming) response was “Because it’s a bad idea”, at which the speaker was hurriedly whisked away. 

On the surface, this was an amusing demonstration of the total absence of substance behind the demonstrators’ cause.

But on another level, it was reminiscent of those hearty brush-offs that baffled poor Gabriel Gatehouse when he tried to talk to some Dutch Tommy Robinson supporting activists (September 2018): 

 "The biased BBC? You must be joking!", one woman yelled at me down the phone. "You just want to stick me on TV and call me a racist”.

So maybe those annoying, banner-waving, in-yer-face protesters were struck dumb by a fear of being misrepresented by The Times. Or maybe they were just dumb.

While watching Rod, I had an intrusive thought. No, not about a load of filth, but, like the heroine in the new Channel 4 thing “Pure”, (I haven’t watched it yet) I do get intrusive thoughts. Not particularly of incest, bestiality or fantasies involving TV presenters, but in this case, of Rod’s scarf (which looked decidedly girly) and which was wrapped several times around his neck as if to keep out the cold. If so, why leave a triangle of exposed flesh above such a thin-looking shirt? What about the draught?  That was my intrusive thought and it wouldn’t go away.  

Other intrusive thoughts are possibly the result of being too immersed in this kind of blog. When I’m watching, say, Andrew Marr interviewing, say, Barry Gardiner - rather than listening to what they’re saying I  find myself automatically wondering why they’re saying it. Suspicious, I am.

Chorus of hooters required

Gabriel Gatehouse, which probably is his real name, would undoubtedly call himself a journalist. Tommy Robinson, who apparently also calls himself a journalist, is actually a scoundrel who goes by the name of Stephen Yaxley Lennon. The BBC constantly sees fit to remind us of this.  I seem to recall expanding on that not so long ago. 

I’d be the first to admit that I don’t want the kind of mindless impartiality from the media whereby the Devil incarnate gets equal billing to .. who shall we cite… I don’t know, the antithesis of all evil; the epitome of goodness and apple-pie.

No. I want my broadcast media to show a little distinction between the two. However, a problem arises with our old friend ‘value judgement’. However many times we’re told that the BBC advises employees to steer clear of making any, it’s abundantly clear that they can’t.  

Those stern, schoolmarmish tones and that irritable, rude, aggressive manner always gives the game away.

Gabriel Gatehouse has been concerning himself with even-handedness recently. He has written and spoken about bias and so on as if he alone is able to take a disinterested and distanced view. But he plainly can’t.

In the short film he produced for last night’s Newsnight he was clearly trying to be even-handed and non-judgemental. I think. But sadly the usual signs and signals crept in. He reiterated one of his recent observations, which is that the far-right doesn’t like the media. We saw a similar example in an earlier film of his, where a Dutch-speaking protester wasn’t keen to engage with “The BBC”, which seemed to baffle Gatehouse.

Former “grooming gang’ victim Sammy Woodhouse spoke eloquently about being raped and mentally and physically abused at the age of fourteen by a perpetrator who is now in prison. She was let down by the authorities and branded a ‘slag’ by some of the social services and the police, whose fear of being thought ‘racist’ prevented them from intervening. “Instead of protecting me, they helped the abuser,” she said.

Gatehouse let this criticism speak for itself, but we soon arrived at the real message he wanted to extract from the conversation. He tells us that Sammy Woodhouse considered Robinson ‘selective’ and that she condemns him for not protesting about white paedophiles. “They should be talking about it as a whole, and not just by Pakistani Muslims”. 

Of course, she can’t be expected to sympathise with the fact that Tommy Robinson isn’t solely concerned with the crime that she has endured and survived. It is completely understandable that her primary focus is the extreme sexual abuse of underage white girls. Certainly, Tommy Robinson has alighted on the issue, which serves as an unassailable example of Islam’s incompatibility with “British values’. Certainly, the phenomenon has provided him with more than a little ammunition, which he has exploited to bolster his wider fight against Islamisation.  

“The majority of paedophiles in this country are white men,” says Gatehouse, repeating a statement of Ms Woodhouse’s. Well, there is a majority of white men in this country, would be the obvious retort. 

“Go to any Tommy Robinson rally and you’ll get the impression that child abuse is somehow linked to Islam,” says Gatehouse, “and that narrative is being perpetuated by…”   and so to a clip of Gerard Batten MEP, the current leader of UKIP, speaking into a microphone at a rally.

Speaking on behalf of working-class critics and ex-admires of Tommy Robinson was the aptly named Ivan Humble. He blamed the media’s inappropriate over-exposure of Anjem Choudary for labelling (and thereby unfairly vilifying), Islam.  Our voices aren’t being heard, he explained, citing “Undercover Mosque”, and stating: “when we say it, it’s racist but when the media says it, it’s ok.

William Baldet, Prevent Strategy Coordinator, was consulted. I have to assume that there was a lot more footage of this interview than was included in the final film, because (for me) his message was incoherent.

Back to Sammy Woodhouse. The BBC has certainly used her observations as a springboard to promote their case against Tommy Robinson.  She thinks that Tommy Robinson is taking credit for exposing the grooming gang phenomenon, when in reality it was courageous people like herself, “survivors”,  who were the real heroes. She thinks Tommy Robinson is exploiting the situation to further his own career - “for his own ends” as she put it. But I suggest the BBC is exploiting her in a similar fashion, and, correct me if I’m wrong, I’m not sure that Tommy Robinson himself claims to have ‘exposed’ the scandal, merely raised awareness of it. If you take a look at today’s Politics Live, which I’m coming to in a minute, you might see what I mean.

The rest of the Newsnight item featured a discussion between a ‘fashion-victim-clad' Kirsty Wark, (what is that green thing?) Guardian columnist Nesrine Malik and Danny Lockwood, publisher of the Press, a newspaper from Yorkshire. Kirsty couldn’t pronounce Anjem Choudary’s name no matter how many times she attempted it. “An-jram Chowdy" was her best effort. 

Lockwood was rather good, despite giving Gatehouse’s film a little more praise than it was due. Malik was Malik. “Tommy Robinson is an opportunist” she asserted with not a jot of self-awareness. The gist of her argument was that Tommy Robinson shouldn’t have been given a platform. He does it merely to “further his career,” she opined disparagingly, unaware of the possibility that she was doing the very same thing.

Politics Live took up the same theme and ran with it.  They plucked relevant bits from Gatehouse’s interview with Sammy Woodhouse to emphasise similar points. Then they brought in Gerard Batten, and Jo Coburn was so rude to him that it positively cried out for a chorus of hooters blaring out “Value-Judgement!” “Value Judgement” raucously, like on Q.I. 

Jo Coburn kept on reminding us, with a mixture of indignation and outrage, that Islam is “A religion” rather than an ideology, sounding like Lady Bracknell enunciating “A handbag” but with overstated awe rather than exaggerated disdain. She got herself extremely rattled and accused Batten of the heinous crime of “condemning all Muslims.”  

None of the other guests had a good word to say about ‘convicted criminal’ Tommy Robinson. Not even Toby Young nor James Bloodworth. The word “Islamophobia” was bandied about as if sufferers from this destructive affliction were collectively abominable, contemptible and far and beyond the pale and when you come to think of it, not a million miles from (the heinous crime of) “condemning all Muslims”.

Them and us

Gabriel Gatehouse and a Dutch activist on 'Newsnight'

If you missed this - Gabriel Gatehouse on yesterday's From Our Home Correspondent - here's a transcript:

Being a foreign correspondent is easy glory. Trips to the frontline with friendly rebels. The crack of bullets behind walls for cover. "Come, come, this way is safe!" Scary? Absolutely. Dangerous? Sometimes. But there's camaraderie too, and hospitality. "Stay for lunch. Thank you BBC. Thank you for telling our story to the world."

Those three magic letters - BBC - they act as a badge of integrity. They open doors. Often the people we report on see our presence as part of their struggle against the Establishment. 

Reporting from home is different. At home we're often seen as the Establishment, and those same three letters can carry with them a lot of baggage. 

I learned this while reporting on a story about Tommy Robinson. 

He campaigns against what he calls "Muslim grooming gangs" - cases like those in Rotherham, where groups of men, many with Pakistani heritage, systematically sexually abused young girls and women, many white and from working class backgrounds. 

This is an explosive issue, Robinson and his followers believe there's an Establishment conspiracy to cover-up such cases. Many did go unreported for a long time. Many of the convicted perpetrators have indeed been of Pakistani origin. 

But Tommy Robinson founded the English Defence League. Even though he has since left the group, saying it had been taken over by racists, some accuse him of using cases like Rotherham for political gain, to label an entire community as child abusers. 

Tommy Robinson was recently jailed for contempt of court. He'd broken the law by communicating details of an ongoing trial, potentially threatening the collapse of the case, but his followers saw yet another Establishment cover-up. 

Over half a million people signed a petition calling for his release. That's more than a fringe movement. 

I wanted to talk to these people - the concerned citizens, not the far-right activists - and find out what was motivating them. The problem was none of them want to talk to me. 

Ahead of a rally in his support I contacted half a dozen people. Some at first agreed to meet, only to cancel at the last minute. Others told me to eff off straightaway. 

"The biased BBC? You must be joking!", one woman yelled at me down the phone. "You just want to stick me on TV and call me a racist". 

Even though that was precisely the opposite of what I was trying to do, I could see her point. To talk to a journalist is to cede control over what you say to those who will edit your words into a report. The polarised politics of recent years has been the enemy of nuance. 

I made my way to the rally. "The BBC are here," one speaker announced from the stage. The crowd booed and hissed. "When are you going to report the news?", one man shouted at me. "They are covering up the facts", another said. "The paedophile problem goes right to the top of our Establishment", said yet another, adding "and it started with Jimmy Savile". 

Their beliefs and their anger seemed genuine. These were people who don't see the stories they're concerned about on the TV news bulletins - the stories they do read about on social media. 

Sometimes those stories are false or only half-true but, in the age of Facebook, organisations like the BBC no longer control the national conversation in the way we once did. 

Also at the rally were people whose anger seemed less raw, more politically calculated. UKIP's leader was there. So were representatives from nationalist movements in Europe and the United States. I told a group of Dutch activists I was from the BBC and they said they'd be happy to be interviewed, but when we switch the camera on one suddenly asked, "What channel are you from?". I was taken aback. We'd just been through this. "The BBC?, he said in that flawless way most Dutch people have with the English language. "No way!" he told me, and shoved the camera away. It was pure performance. 

Like the friendly rebels in the foreign war zone the new populist nationalists understand the power of the camera but with social media they don't need the BBC. They have their own channels. And in their struggle they see us as the enemy.

From Their Own Correspondent

I first began listening to From Our Own Correspondent in my late teens, back in the '80s, and I rarely missed it for years.

I liked the stories, from places familiar and unfamiliar, and I liked the way the BBC's storytellers told their stories, and I also liked learning facts about places, and the history and politics of those places, and FOOC was useful for that. 

I wasn't much troubled by questions of bias back then. 

Nowadays, however, I'm a much less frequent listener and questions of bias are (as you probably know) somewhat less far from my mind, so I have to ask - if any of you have an opinion on the matter - if you think the programme has changed as much as I think it's changed in recent years? Or is it me that's changed? 

Take today's edition, for example. 

Standing back and looking at it as objectively as I can, I can see that it still features BBC journalists who can certainly tell a good story in a stylish fashion. Today's programme included three such people: Lyse Doucet, Nick Thorpe (a master of prose) and Gabriel Gatehouse. 

Lyse Doucet's piece concerned the silent Yazidi villages of Iraq. It was powerful stuff, full of compassion, and it made me feel for the Yazidis (though, that said, I've long been sympathetic to them ever since Islamic State being persecuting them and have believed from the very start that they are the sort of refugees we should be protecting and giving refuge to). Its authoritative staccato style of delivery felt very familiar too, following (as it does) in a long FOOC tradition of that kind of delivery. (Perhaps cynically, it brought to mind Chris Morris's On the Hour/The Day Today and its satire of the language and style of war reporting). Maybe, however it was more emotive than FOOC pieces of old and less fact-focused.

Then came the rest of the pieces - a piece about Catholic sexual abuse in Chile which pretty much gave, in passing, a free pass to (liberal favourite) Pope Francis (Linda Pressly); a feminist piece about India (Vivienne Nunis); a piece from Colombia which somehow turned into a piece about indigenous peoples being spot-on about climate change (Nick Thorpe); and a piece from Sweden which equated the trolls of Scandinavian legend with supporters of the Sweden Democrats and racism (Gabriel Gatehouse) - and I just groaned.

It's like being repeatedly hit over the head with a very biased wet haddock.

Has this kind of agenda-pushing always been a part of FOOC or is it a recent thing?

Good Sweden/Bad Sweden

Gabriel Gatehouse's thoughtful Newsnight report on Good Sweden/Bad Sweden was discussed on the previous Open Thread. 

"As usual with GG you get the impression he is thoughtful and not really a virtue signaller like most younger reporters", wrote MB, "he seems to be coming from a previous BBC generation, the post-modernist period, when talk was of "narratives" rather than quotas and virtue. He'll probably be marked down in his annual report".

If you've not seen it yet, here it is:

Gabriel's take on the Good Sweden?/Bad Sweden? question may be boiled down to 'It's complicated', and he ends the piece by saying, "Beware the simple narrative...Don't believe everything you see on TV." 

Though it features the expected digs at Nigel Farage and Donald Trump, it strikes me as a creditable, properly balanced attempt to figure out what's actually going on in Sweden. 

Comments are enable beneath the YouTube video. The top-ranked comment reads, "BBC are bipolar. Tomorrow they will be calling somebody racist for asking the same questions".

Knock knock

I might as well go proper far-right and link to this comment by ‘namenotnumber’ on the Biased-BBC blog. It’s a list of tweets by Ezra Levant which highlight some of the hypocrisy surrounding the Tommy Robinson fiasco.

The reason I’m doing so is that although there are undoubtedly legitimate technical reasons for the current Tommy Robinson situation, (his imprisonment and so on, which certain admirable people have defended and taken pains to justify) the individual who blogs as “The Secret Barrister” has let himself/herself/xeself down by using some emotive, nay, pejorative language when recounting the background to the affair. 

I can even detect a whiff of  disdain in the first sentence: 

Today the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) heard the appeal of Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (AKA Tommy Robinson).

The fact that TR uses a pseudonym (and we all know what his real name is) dwelling on it in that particular way seems gratuitous and a little bit rich coming from The Secret Barrister who wishes to remain pseudonymous.

Call me an ignorant fool who's indulging in a bit of whataboutery, but although I see (and sympathise with) Melanie's point, I have to say that if Tommy Robinson jeopardised the trial of the “men” accused of grooming and raping young girls by using pejorative language while live-blogging in the vicinity of the court, what does that say about the TSB and the reporter from the Independent he/she/xe praises :

“The excellent Lizzie Dearden of the Independent who provided a comprehensive live-blog of the hearing from the Royal Courts of Justice,”

...who seems to be doing something very similar (and, arguably, influencing TR's trial.)

Now that the police have been instructed to concentrate on hate-crimes far-right extremists like myself are apprehensively listening for the knock on the door. What hate-crime have I committed? I think being far-right is one.

Didn't Gabriel Gatehouse let his agenda hang out on Newsnight last night? If that’s impartiality, I’m a Dutchman.

The BBC's 'Everywhere Correspondent'

Still catching up...

I've previously (and repeatedly) quipped about the BBC's Gabriel Gatehouse, now one of Newsnight's main reporters, being the BBC's 'Everywhere correspondent'. 

That was because the BBC kept on - and keeps on - parachuting him into Everywhere to be their instant expert reporter on any major foreign affairs story. 

As I previously said:

....he pops up everywhere, always sounding authoritative, whichever country he's reporting from.

My sceptical note there possibly tells you what I think about Gabriel's reporting: It sounds good and he's a charismatic reporter and he may very well be an excellent reporter but I still have my doubts...

And this week provided another example of just why I have my doubts about Gabriel's on-the-hoof reporting:

Here he was on Monday's Newsnight talking about the German migration situation (which, by the by, he insisted - in true impartial BBC fashion! - isn't a crisis):

The irony of the situation is this: The number of migrants crossing into Germany are tiny compared to what they were. This country no long faces an actual migration crisis. This is political. The parliamentary elections in September, the anti-immigrant AfD party became the second largest in the Bundestag, putting nationalist politicians in Parliament for the first time in more than half a century. 

Now, I'm only a mere blogger and very far from being a high-profile, probably-award-winning BBC reporter with plenty of Newsnight off-camera support and bags of BBC editorial oversight, but even I knew, straightaway, on hearing that that the BBC's 'Everywhere correspondent' had got his facts wrong and that not one of the Newsnight team had spotted his mistake before broadcasting his report. In last September's parliamentary elections AfD became the third largest party in the Bundestag, behind the CDU/CSU and the second-placed SDP. 

Seriously, shouldn't the BBC's 'Everywhere correspondent' have known that? And shouldn't at least one of the many best broadcasters in the world in the Newsnight team that evening have spotted that before sending his loaded report out into the world? 

Tolerance

I had to smile at this blurb from the From Our Own Correspondent website:

Whoever wrote that doesn't appear to have noticed the irony or the fundamental contradiction contained therein.

That one-time "famous Dutch tolerance" on the issue of immigration (i.e. suppressing any questioning of immigration) sounds rather like the famous BBC "tolerance" on the same issue in years gone by.

If you recall, this kind of thing used to go on at the BBC (as reported by Stuart Pebble in his BBC Trust report on BBC impartiality): 

As for Gabriel Gatehouse's report, it was much like his reports elsewhere. He wasn't breathing a sigh of relief at Geert Wilders's "pretty distant second" in the Dutch elections because "if blunt words aimed at foreigners was what the electorate was after they need look no further than the Prime Minister himself." Mark Rutte had "told Dutch citizens of Turkish descent to behave themselves or eff off". 

"For me," Gabriel said, "hearing these words in the mouth of a Dutch prime minister was profoundly discombobulating. Was this still the country I'd grown up in? If tolerance was gone, what was left?" 

Oh well, at least the Dutch still ride bicycles and eat mayonnaise with their chips.

What's wrong with everyone?

I was watching Broadchurch last night on ITV. 

The actress with the free-roaming accent was discussing the intimate details of the rape with the actress playing the traumatised victim. They were in a quiet cafe,  seated in unnaturally close proximity to the only other occupied table. 

I was still worrying about the wisdom of that when the actress with the free-roaming accent said to the actress playing the traumatised rape victim (who happened to be wearing no makeup whatsoever and sporting a severe grade 2 haircut) “You’re doing really well - you managed to get dressed, do your hair and make-up…. and meet me here”.  

I don’t know how the actress with the roaming accent, at once deeply Yorkshire and generic Westcountry, could have kept a straight face when delivering those lines, but deliver them she did.  In fact I think I did detect a fleeting smirk.

Poor Olivia Colman looked rough, and David Tennant looked like David Tennant , and unless things look up, I’m out.

The Netherland is having an identity crisis

The Netherland is having an identity crisis.

Anyway, I turned on Newsnight halfway through, just in time to catch Gabriel Gatehouse’s report from Amsterdam, “where he grew up”.

Perhaps something imbibed in young Gabriel’s childhood accounts for his forthright disapproval of the racists and bigots who support Geert Wilders. 

Did you know that the Dutch used to be the most liberal people in the world? If not, you do now. 

However, Geert Wilders has put a stop to all that, Gabriel Gatehouse finds. Now they’re a bunch of racists. The good people who once railed against antisemitism, fascism and anti-drug laws  -  the most tolerant people in the world  - have suddenly, for no discernible reason other than the hypnotic charms of Machiavelli Geert Wilders, turned all racist and Islamophobic. Can you believe that? 

It’s inexplicable, and Gabriel Gatehouse is baffled and perplexed.   What has happened to the famous Dutch tolerance and liberalism? The famous Values, the freedom for all minority religions to practice as is their wont?

He consults the hippies of Amsterdam. We tolerated the Jews, so why can’t we tolerate the Muslims? asks Gabriel, in despair.

Does the Netherlands still want to be a place that’s open and inclusive? 

You might well be tolerant of both the chickens and the fox; until you put them in the same pen. Why, it’s as almost as though Gabriel Gatehouse thinks Islam is the religion of peace.

Evan… Even more inexplicable.

Evan Davis has obviously come straight to the studio from his cardboard mattress and hasn’t had time for a wash and a shave. He’s in a slightly hysterical mood.   He can’t contain his mirth when interviewing two Trump supporters, black siblings known as “Diamond and Silk.” 

The more the sisters contradicted him and accused him of disseminating fake news, the more Evan emoted abject disbelief. Haw can anyone, especially black people, take Donald Trump seriously let alone vote for him? wondered Evan. 

“You must know that he lied about how many people were at the inauguration, Everyone could see that it (the crowd) wasn’t as big as Obama’s …”  he sniggered.

“We were there. There were thousands upon thousands upon thousands….we saw it with our own eyes!” 

“That’s right!” said Perky or Pinky.

“I think it was easier to see from the camera positions at the top,” said Evan, gesticulating, “and you really could see that there were more people there under Obama than there were under Trump!”

“Why are you debating me with this question, because the inauguration is over?” asked the sister, at last changing tack.

“I’m just asking cos you obviously love the guy…..When he just says something that is just stupid, what do you think? I mean do you think that’s just Donald talking?” said Evan’, his voice rising with incredulity.

“Wait a minute. My president never says anything that’s stupid” said sister one, waving her pen. “You see, that’s what’s wrong with you left people. You all always want to be so politically correct. Well, he’s not politically correct, he’s honest and we love him for his honesty.”

That's what's wrong with you left people

“Everyone makes mistakes, and it would be very odd if Donald Trump didn’t make mistakes and I’m just wondering if you can think of anything —- can you think of anything he’s done, that was a mistake? Cos if you can’t it probably just tells us that you’re … you know… you’re just big fans and you’re just on his side come what may”

“We trust his judgement and that’s why we voted for him and not a politician”.

“Do you two ever disagree with each other on anything?”

“We agree to disagree, when we have a disagreement.” 

“That’s right.”

And Evan, amused in defeat, bruised but not broken, limped off to face another night staring at the stars with his dog, his sleeping bag and his cans of paint-stripper. 

Is that what’s wrong with left people? They’re just on the left, come what may?

A question of trust

In the light of Rod Liddle's latest Spectator piece - and the comments 'below the line' - I was particularly troubled by Friday night's Newsnight.

This made "the psychology of lone-wolf attackers" its main focus, and Kirsty Wark promised us "a real insight" into the mind of Mohammad Daleel, the Syrian "refugee" and Ansbach suicide bomber, from...

...the person who perhaps knew him best - the psychotherapist who had treated him over the period of a year.

That psychotherapist was Axel von Maltitz (and his wife Gisela), and Newsnight reporter Gabriel Gatehouse added to Kirsty's build-up by saying that Herr von Maltitz had a "deep insight" into the mind of the suicide bomber who blew himself up in the name of Islamic State. 

Herr von Maltitz said: (a) that "Mr Daleel" (as Gabriel also called him at one point) was "highly traumatised" by the Syrian conflict; (b) that he had Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder "very severely"; (c) that the idea that Daleel blew himself up in the name of Islamic State "doesn't fit" for him; (d) that he believed "Mr Daleel" when he said he'd been tortured by Assad regime; and (e) that he believed the would-be mass killer did what he did because he'd just received news that he was going to the deported to Bulgaria, having failed in his asylum bid.

Gabriel Gatehouse, Newsnight and the BBC website then presented the story as being about the failure of the German authorities...Germany 'was warned about Ansbach suicide bomber'...given psychotherapist Herr von Maltitz's assessment (sent to the authorities a year or so before the bombing) that "Mr Daleel" had an "extreme personality", was suicidal, and might commit suicide in a dramatic, public way. 

Now, Gabriel Gatehouse did suggest that it was all very complicated, and noted Islamic State's claims and the suicide bomber's last-minute pledge to IS, but it was pretty obvious that Newsnight was proud of its "exclusive" - this interview with Herr von Maltitz - and was favouring the psychotherapist's sympathetic/empathetic take on Mohammad Daleel....

....especially as this interview was followed by an interview with two guests who took a similar line (i.e. {to put it crudely} that it has nothing to do with Islam). 

This may all be right, but please watch that report...and then read these extracts from Wikipedia which cast Newsnight's report - and Herr von Maltitz'z credentials - in a very different light:

According to Bild, he was a member of the Islamic State of Iraq many years ago.

Bild further says he told German officials that he was a Sunni Muslim and had come from Aleppo. He said he had studied law for half a year and worked at a soap factory owned by his father.“A missile had damaged our house, I was heavily injured and brought to Turkey,” he claimed in his asylum application....

On April 20, he applied for asylum in Austria but then decided to go to Munich on July 5, 2014, where he also applied for asylum in Germany. He stated to German authorities that he had been a victim of torture, a claim of which there is no record of him having previously made, and which the New York Times characterised as appearing to be "embellishments" he made...

Daleel had been treated around 6 months in an institution called "Exilio e.V." in Lindau by heilpraktikers which claims to offer holistic health treatment "for immigrants" under the leadership of Gisela von Maltitz and Axel von Maltitz. Purportedly, the institution does not include any qualified Doctor of Medicine, psychologist or psychiatrist. The institution has been criticized for using "dubious" practices such as rebirthing....

According to a biography in IS's weekly magazine al-Nabaa, he fought against the government of Bashar al-Assad since the very start of the Syrian Civil War, in a number of different rebel groups. He is said to have formed a cell specialized in grenade and molotov cocktail attacks on the regime. Around the time of the split between Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State, he was wounded in or near Aleppo and was brought to Turkey for treatment. Afterwards he was located in Europe, where he tried to rejoin the Islamic State several times, but was unsuccessful. Due to his failure to travel back to Syria, he decided to carry out an attack in Germany. His original idea was to attack cars and he started to build his explosive device which took him three months. During his time building the bomb, the German police raided the building he was living in but failed to arrest him. He was in constant contact with "one of the soldiers" of IS.

Now, who to trust: Newsnight or Wikipedia? 

Seriously: Who to trust? One? The other? Neither?

If Wikipedia (and its links) are correct, then Newsnight is disturbingly guilty of failing to question Axel von Maltitz's credentials and of failing to investigate the claims of (a) faking mental illness and (b) heavy, ongoing jihadi involvement on the part of Ansbach suicide bomber Mohammad Daleel.

Who isn't telling us the truth?