"Should Jews count as an ethnic minority?"

 

To recap: 

This week BBC Two's Politics Live discussed Angela Rayner's remarks about the new Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar being the "first-ever ethnic minority leader of a political party anywhere in the UK", even though that honour belongs to Benjamin Disraeli, with three other Jewish UK party leaders to follow. 

The issue was discussed by Jewish host Jo Coburn, four new-Jewish studio guests and, via video link, an increasing appalled Benjamin Cohen of Pink News. 

The programme provoked outrage by running a banner across the screen asking "Should Jews count as an ethnic minority?", and Jo herself added to the outrage by suggesting "Many Jews have succeed in reaching high political office and therefore don't need to be seen as a group needing recognition". 

You would think the answer to the 'big question' is obvious: Jews account for a mere 0.3% of the UK population and around 0.2% of the world population and have suffered a surge in antisemitism in recent years, having previously faced an industrial-scale attempt to exterminate them in their entirety as a race within living memory. 

But voices on the left and many identity politics practitioners, as summed up by Jo's point, increasing see Jews as a group with power - an old and deadly antisemitic trope - and some even see them as white and, therefore, not an ethnic minority needing protection.

The imbalance of the panel was another thing that provoked outrage. People asked: Would LGBT issues or BLM issues be discussed with one LGB or T person or one black person on the panel against 4 non-LGBT and 4 non-black people? 

Matters got worse when Rob Burley, the BBC's editor of live political programmes, sent out a ham-fisted, insensitive, three-tweet defence of the programme in Twitter: “According to the Government — not Politics Live! — Jews aren’t an ethnic group in the UK,” he wrote, misunderstanding government statistics and failing to grasp that there are good, historical reasons why Jews haven't been included in that list or spotting on the very page he linked to that the Government is considering adding them to the census this year.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews put out a statement in response:

We were disappointed by the lack of sensitivity shown by the BBC as regards this discussion. Jews, regardless of whether they are at all religious or not, are subject to antisemitism every day - and have been subjected to mass murder, in living memory, on the basis of their ethnicity. Our community should expect solidarity and support, not questions about whether we deserve any.

There are a lot of good article about this, and I'd recommend the following to begin with:

New Statesman: Debating whether Jews are an ethnic minority is a familiar mistake by BBC Politics Live. The programme’s handling of issues of race and diversity, as well as matters of simple fact, is consistently poor, writes Stephen Bush.

Spiked: Anti-Semitism has been mainstreamed. That’s why the BBC ended up running a debate about whether Jews count as an ethnic minority. Apparently, the relative success of *some* Jews makes this a valid question. How depressing, writes Rakib Ehsan.

Jewish Chronicle: The BBC's defence of Politics Live is almost worse than the show. Rob Burley, editor of Politics Live, has effectively told Jews he knows better than us who we are, writes Stephen Pollard.

Melanie Phillips: Are Jews an ethnic minority? Is the BBC a broadcaster? Another antisemitism row illuminates once again public ignorance about the Jewish people, writes Melanie Phillips.

Rob praises Jo, and plays his joker

I see that Rob Burley's been busy today. Here he is, for example, - oh Rob! - taking out and waving the old, tattered 'complaints from both sides' card:

I reckon Jo Coburn has eaten her Weetabix this morning. Absolutely brilliant and super tough political interviewing. The usual complaints on here from both Labour and Conservatives that she is in some way biased. You guys need to get your story straight, you can't both be right!

That arose after today's Politics Live. 

Here's a complaint for 'our side' about that very edition of that very programme, posted btl (below the line) at Guido Fawkes today:

I honestly think that the Tories are so far ahead in the polls partly because the public have been exposed to the absolute rancid and breathtaking bias of the BBC during this election campaign. Everything from the tone of the interview, the type of questions and implications, to the selection of facts, is entirely dependent on which party the interviewee represents. Earlier today on Politics Live McDonnell was allowed to spout his nonsense about having a 4 day week effectively unchallenged. But in the space of a few minutes what that Tory went through was tantamount to a police investigation. He was hounded, sneered at, and it was implied several times that he was just an outright liar. Heck, he wasn't even treated like a normal human being, but more like a pathetic and inferior dog who should learn to behave himself. I think people have started to wake up to this disgusting organization. Privatize it now.

I've watched it myself now, and done a bit of counting and comparing. But the counting  and comparing is complicated by the fact that we're partly comparing chalk and cheese. 

John McDonnell took part in a one-on-one interview with Jo Coburn from outside the studio. It lasted over 9 minutes, and Jo interrupted him just 6 times. 

Paul Scully for the Conservatives, in contrast, was in the studio with Jo, and her three other guests, and their discussion was free-flowing and hard to time. Jo interrupted him 31 times (over 5 times more often than Mr McDonnell). Her other guests also repeatedly interrupted him. And Joe, the programme's fact-checker, appeared mid-interview, to add to Mr Scully's misery by telling viewers that he was factually wrong. 

More subjectively, I myself felt that Jo gave John McDonnell the gentlest of nippings while going after Mr Scully like a Hammer House of Horror hell-hound. She was, of course, pursuing the scent of the BBC's "Can we trust the Tories?" angle, and trying very hard to make Mr Scully look like a liar with all sorts of pre-primed statistical grenades and booby-traps. 

(The mild-mannered Mr Scully seemed to take it all in his stride. However sour Jo became towards him he just went on placidly, like a cow eating grass). 

As regards  'complaints from both sides', there's no equivalence here, so that argument collapses. Jo Coburn sent John McDonnell to heaven and Paul Scully to hell. Jo's Weetabix consumption revealed interviewing toughness towards Mr Scully alone.

But, being ITBB, here's a thought in counterpoint: Had the situations been reversed and Mr McDonnell been in the studio with three other guests and Mr Scully outside the studio in a one-on-one interview with Jo Coburn, would these stats have swung 180 degrees in the other direction?

Who can say? Counterfactuals can only ever be guesses. 

I very much doubt it though. The BBC - possibly out of fear, possibly not - seems incapable of properly taking John McDonnell to task. 

Let's talk about Islamophobia

I watched the bulk of Politics Live. Danny the Fink, Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle (aristocratic name, Labour ‘look’) Belinda de Lucy, (glamorous Brexit Party MEP)  and Pippa Crerar (seemed too sensible to be ‘ex-Guardian’ and Political Editor of the Daily Mirror) were with Jo Coburn today. 

In Fashion News: JoCo's hair always looks its best on Monday mornings. That must be the day she has it done.

I missed the very beginning, but the interesting part of the conversation about the 'generalection', and the bit where things got heated, occurred between Finkelstein and Belinda de Lucy - where the former said the likelihood that the Brexit Party would gain any seats at all was next to nil, therefore he wondered why Nigel would risk splitting the vote? The latter countered with “Boris only has to pick up the phone.” Then the argument segued into something that amounted to “well, they may as well stand against every Conservative seat because, in fact, their policies are entirely different”.  The customary party political points were bickered over, and the concept of selling off our NHS to Donald Trump was examined but the verdict was inconclusive.

You’ll not be surprised to hear that the subject ”antisemitism in the Labour Party” was the one that engaged my attention most fully. It came up two-thirds of the way through a 45-minute programme. 

Lloyd R-M, bless him, started off in full mode McDonnell. So sad, he was. (He sounded genuine before he veered off in the direction of denial)  Predictably, the issue of antisemitism was duly played down on Twitter. 

Fink gave a sympathetic account of the Jewish community’s fears and feelings, but it didn’t take long before Islamophobia came up. I think the culprit was Jo Coburn, but Danny Finkelstein picked up the ball and ran with it.

Tory peer Danny Finkelstein on manifesto policy to “grasp” with Islamophobia

“I think the party has got the chance to be a pioneer, because there a lot of Islamophobia in this country, possibly even more than there is anti-Semitism”#politicslive https://t.co/dLHtKBMf1p pic.twitter.com/6OVarxGucc

— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) November 4, 2019

In my opinion, Esther Duflo, the economist who has just won the Nobel prize for the accessible-sounding book on economics she co-authored, “Good Economics for Hard Times” came in far too late in the show. She had already been on the radio this morning, and we were treated to a longer and larger slice of her wisdom then. As a bit of an ignoramus on theoretical economics, I could have done with a bit more of that and less of the other. It somehow seemed fresher and more interesting.

Imagine that. A book on economics more interesting than Brexit.

Jess Phillips rivals Puck and puts a girdle round her consituency in 46 minutes

On today's Politics Live Labour MP Jess Phillips, talking about the 2017 general election, said:

It's funny you should say that because obviously we do a lot of polling during election time as politicians. We knock on lots of doors. I knocked on 25,000 doors in that six week period and 12 times somebody mentioned Brexit to me.

Jo Coburn didn't question her maths but, if you work out the averages, that means that Jess knocked on 4,167 doors each week of her campaign.

This also means that if she campaigned seven days a week throughout those six weeks without a single day off she knocked on 595 doors each day.

And if she didn't sleep and knocked on those doors 24/7 (as they say in America), that would result in 25 knocks an hour. 

But, of course, she must have slept - and so must her constituents. 

So let's assume that she only knocked on doors during daytime hours but still did very long days.

Let's say (being very generous) that she campaigned for 13 hours - say from 8am to 9pm.

Well, that would result in an average of 46 doors being knocked per hour...

...giving each voter just about a minute of Jess's time in which not to mention Brexit. 

It's theoretically possible, of course, but given the fact that...

(a) Jess must have had lunch and taken other breaks (such as toilet breaks and mobile phone calls and lots of BBC interviews), and...

(b) Jess surely can't simply have gone door-to-door among 595 very-closely-spaced houses without crossing roads and changing streets or moving areas, and...

(c) Jess surely can't have spent just a minute at each and every property, from leaving one house to reaching next door's door bell and introducing herself and making her pitch and listening to her constituents and saying goodbye,

...then, ergo, she's probably wildly overstating the number of doors she knocked at during the 2017 election.

Unless she's Superwoman or Wonder Woman or the Bionic Woman.

(And, even then, it's pushing it.)

On the other hand, if Jess isn't wildly overstating the number of doors she knocked at and really did speak to all of those 25,000 door-opening constituents (from leaving the previous house to leaving the next house, and not one of them being out or ignoring the door bell), then no wonder only 12 people mentioned Brexit to her. 

In fact, if she did speak to all of those 25,000 door-opening constituents then the true miracle (a miracle of miracles) is that even as many as 12 people managed to mention Brexit to her. 

Think about it:  Unless the voter opening to the door to her immediately yelled 'Brexit!' and then slammed the door in her face prompting her to make a very quick exit after her very quick arrival, not one of her 25,000 constituents would have had the time to talk about Brexit to her - or anything else for that matter. They would barely have had time to say 'hello' and 'goodbye'.

So maybe Jess should slow down and actually talk to her constituents rather than trying to cram in 46 separate chats with her voters, all in different houses, every hour during a 13-hour day, 7 days a week throughout a campaign lasting 6 long weeks.

Conclusion: Either Jess's self-promoting stat is massively wrong or she's a terrible constituency MP.

Update: Hmm. I see a sub-species of Twitter folk are also doing the sums too and finding the same results. It's hard to get a proper scoop these days. Woe is me!

"At one point I put my hand up, like I was back at school"

Now, there's a bit of 'history' (as they say) between Dan Hodges and the BBC's Rob Burley (responsible for Politics Live), so that might have been behind Dan's tweet here. But the Brexit Party's Martin Daubney joined in the subsequent exchange, and commented on his own experiences of appearing on the BBC - and such comments are always interesting:

Dan Hodges: Politics Live is basically turning into the political version of Jeremy Kyle.

Ed Mackrill: I stopped watching it after Jo Coburn and a panel of Remainers spent the entire show trying to get Martin Daubney to say something the Guardian could use for their next front cover the following day.

Martin Daubney: I've spent the past four years being the "token Leaver" on TV panels. You get used to that, but at least you get a say. But on Politics Live this week I could barely get a word in from 11.15-1pm... At one point I put my hand up, like I was back at school. 

I don't give a shit?

I haven’t been watching or listening to much Beeb lately, but sadly I did catch two of the most astonishing examples of BBCism over the last day or two. 

Number one was the Politics Live assault on Gerard Batten. The other was Nick Robinson’s bizarre interview with Ukip’s Stuart Agnew on the Today Programme. 

I’m not an avid Batten fan, but he has risen in my estimation due to his calm demeanour in the face of the outrageous treatment he’s been subjected to by people like Jo Coburn and various other media hacks - mostly women I think it’s safe to say.

No wonder he declined to appear on the Today Programme as Nick Robinson pointed out rather petulantly this a.m.

Jo Coburn wore a scowl of utter contempt as she interrogated him, not at all like her bemused and light-heartedly exasperated countenance when tussling with gorgeous George the other day, despite his downright rudeness.

The most remarkable feature of the press conference with Ukip, as well as interviews with Ukip people, is the total absence of any substantive argument forthcoming, from any interlocutor.  To a man (woman) it’s simply enough to bleat “the rape tweet” and “anti-Islam”.

What with Jo Coburn’s crass questioning and Lisa Nandy’s sanctimonious indignation about the ‘rape tweet’,  the interview was a total fiasco. What a waste of time. Lisa Nandy, whom I normally regard as one of the current Labour Party’s most reasonable (least unreasonable)  members, stubbornly refused to move past the “rape tweet” issue. Batten warned her that Benjamin was suing people for lying about the ‘rape tweet’,  which she took as a threat. 

Jo Coburn commanding Batten to provide an example of something Benjamin might say that would ‘cross the line’ was utterly ridiculous.

However, as far as I’m concerned Carl Benjamin has already crossed the line with his Holocaust remark. His PC-busting efforts are pretty indefensible as soon as one views them as anything other than the deliberate devices to get himself noticed he claims they are.

Personally, I do have a problem with the whole ‘rape’ fiasco because it’s almost as though he believed he was insulting Jess Phillips when he said he wouldn’t even rape her; as if she should be flattered by someone’s desire to rape her and insulted by his non-desire to do so. “Cos you’re (not) worth it,” so to speak. It’s as if he considers rape as, say, a possible last-resort resolution of unrequited sexual desire, rather than motivated by hate, anger, power and sadism, as it’s more commonly understood to be.  ("We had to resort to rape, as Dunkula quipped))

Of course the other offensive remark he made, which doesn’t seem to bother the media half as much as the rape thing, is the ‘I don’t give a shit” about the Holocaust. The fact that the media has shown no interest in that one is doubly disturbing.

.@UKIP candidate Carl Benjamin:

“Jewish people, unfortunately for them, have got to drop the identity politics. I’m sorry about the Holocaust but I don’t give a s***. I’m sorry.” https://t.co/GKxvtxNbhZ

— Jewish News (@JewishNewsUK) April 28, 2019

The context seems to have been that he was criticising identity politics, which he hates - and who doesn’t despise an exploitative “asaJew?” - but by saying “Jews this” and “Jews that” - even if he’s kind of damning “the Jews” with faint praise - (they work hard, they’re clever, and they obviously haven’t been ‘held back’ etc etc) well, that in itself is “identity” based stuff in a nutshell. So saying he’s sorry about the Holocaust (oh, and thanks for the benevolence) but then to follow it with ‘I don’t give a shit’ is something else; and he hasn't convinced me that he only said it to ‘get himself noticed’ in the ‘innocent face’ way of his. Especially if you consider the rabid antisemitism that this remark has drawn out, online. And that’s from his fans and defenders.

We have an epidemic of antisemitism, which is coming from all directions. People should be far more vigilant. Seriously.

Nick Robinson excelled himself on the Today programme. Making some sort of weird whataboutery point involving Christianity. That was one of the most inappropriate responses to Ukip’s politically incorrect anti-Islamness that I’ve ever heard. Nil points, Nick. The complaint about Gerard Batten having the temerity to decline an invitation to come along and be harangued about Carl Benjamin’s infamous rape tweet was the icing on a very stale and unappetising cake.

Questions

As it would take too long to transcribe in full, and as Sue has posted the full video of the interview above, here are just Jo Coburn's questions to Ukip leader Gerard Batten from Tuesday's Politics Live:

1. Welcome to Gerard Batten, leader of Ukip. We've been talking to all the parties about the local and European elections, people will probably know what your position is as far as Brexit is concerned but what is the point of anybody voting Ukip in the locals? 
2. Alright. Well, we've looked at some of the policies that you're putting forward in the local elections and perhaps one of the most eye-catching is "Ukip believes that access to local services should be prioritised for veterans and local people with a proven link to their local area". What's the problem you're trying to solve here? 
3. (interrupting) But they are prioritised, Gerard Batten. Councils already look at whether a homeless person has a local connection to the area when deciding whether or not they have to house them, so this links based on living or working in the area, close family in the area or other special reasons. They also require a proven link to the local area to be established before putting somebody on a list for social housing. So I ask you again, what problem are you trying to solve? 
4. But those are the people you think are being excluded from services at the moment and your policy is designed to help? There doesn't seem to be anything that you've said so far that differs from what is being done in practice by councils. There may be exceptions of course but policy-wise there's nothing different. 
5. (interrupting) They ARE given priority according to the LGA. 
6. So it's about people coming from abroad. It isn't borne out in fact. Gerard Batten. If you look at what the Local Government Association says when it comes to veterans for example, "all councils have signed the voluntary Armed Forces Covenant and are committed to honouring their obligations to those who have served their country." You are putting up a straw man here. 
7. But, as I say, they ARE prioritised. Councils state very clearly on all of their literature that they prioritise people with a local link, they prioritise people who have lived in the area for a certain amount of time, and they prioritise veterans. Armed Forces Covenant states it. So it IS for you just about excluding people who are immigrants? 
8. Right, so you are going to do something markedly different. How will you enforce it? 
9. Let's have a look at the European elections. It all looked very different in 2014. Your former leader Nigel Farage is now leading the Brexit Party and getting an awful lot of attention. Ten former Ukip MEPs now sit for that Brexit Party. Why? 
10. (interrupting) They didn't actually. I've looked at the dates. At least five or six of them have gone since you became leader. 
11. (interrupting) Still, but why have they left Ukip, the ones since you became leader? 
12. Well, just to cite at least three of them - and they've only left on the 15th of April, well into your leadership, and they've actually specifically said it's your leadership and the direction you've taken the party that is the reason they've left and joined the Brexit Party, Jill Seymour, Jane Collins and Margot Parker. 
13. That's not what Jane Collins said - well, let's take it in good faith for the moment. We've heard what YOU have to say is the reason - SHE has said it's down to one of the candidates on your list who's been pretty controversial, we've talked about Carl Benjamin, but her quote is "To have people like him on the list for the party is something I find disgusting and to hear Gerard Batten on national TV yesterday defending this man's use of rape as satire made me sick to my stomach". 
14. (interrupting) But what do you say to THAT? 
15. (interrupting) You don't know that, do you?. 
16. (interrupting) Well, alright, hang on, what about Mike Hookem? He's still there. He is a candidate, and he's made the following statement on Facebook: "I was greatly disturbed to hear members of my party trying to pass off offensive comments on rape as free speech and satire", which is what you have done. "In my opinion, these comments are neither and I condemn them without reserve". So, putting aside the argument that you are saying that they weren't at the top of the list, this is somebody still in the party who is a candidate and he thinks it's disgraceful. 
17. (interrupting) Is it responsible for a political candidate to talk in those terms? 
18. Let's talk about some of the other things he's said because in one video that I've seen he uses the "N-word". Is that funny? 
19. (interrupting) Yes, but is it funny? Because you've said...You've defended him on the basis of satire, he's a comedian, he's a funny guy. Is it funny to use the "N-word" in any circumstances? 
20. (interrupting) I'm asking you the question, is it funny? 
21. (interrupting) Right, you don't think it's funny? You don't think it's satirical?  
22. That's fine but is there anything he can say that is still acceptable to you? Is there any line he can't cross? 
23. (interrupting) What is it? 
24. (interrupting) Well, what is it? I mean, if he said something satirical, in YOUR view, offensive about veterans or the poppy, would that be defendable? 
25. I'm trying to ask you where your line is, because there's obviously got to be a line where you don't think there is a line to be drawn. You say it's free speech to talk about rape or use the "N-word" in whatever circumstances, so I'm trying to ascertain with you, is there a line beyond which a candidate for Ukip can't cross? 
26. What is it? 
27. (interrupting) You've talked about veterans and you feel strongly about veterans, and you feel very strongly about veterans. If someone said something, if Carl Benjamin said something equivalent to using the "N-word" about veterans and the poppy, would you defend him? 
28. (interrupting) Ah, that IS offensive? That you wouldn't defend?
29. I have to ask you, Gerard Batten, why are you defending him? What's the benefit to Ukip? I mean, is he worth it, this guy? You've lost good MEPs, as far as your party is concerned. 
30. Is it worth it? Is HE worth it? 
31. (interrupting) I'll come to that. You think that will translate into votes, do you?

Developments

Carole Cadwalldr, possibly wearing Paul Mason's spare leather jacket

Well, what to make of the Information Commissioner's report into the misuse of personal data during the EU referendum, and the BBC's coverage of it?

The BBC is currently leading its news website with Leave.EU and Banks firm face £135,000 fines, concerning Arron Banks and the leading unofficial Leave campaign (or at least it was when I began writing this post. It's now gone back to the US mid-terms!), while also I'm seeing tweets from Tim Shipman, political editor of The Sunday Times, placing a very different emphasis on the Information Commissioner's findings, concerning both the unofficial and the official Leave campaigns:

• Information Commissioner appears to find no evidence that Vote Leave used the Cambridge Analytica dataset or that there was any conspiracy involving them and AIQ.
• Information Commissioner has also concluded that, beyond some initial scoping conversations, Leave.EU  did not use Cambridge Analytica either. Which unravels another thread of the “conspiracy”.
• The claims are that: 1) Banks and Cambridge Analytica worked together on the referendum 2) Vote Leave was secretly coordinating with them via AIQ offshore. The ICO has found no evidence of 1 beyond the original discussions in public domain in 2015, and no evidence of 2.
• The Information Commissioner’s report goes a long way to debunking the data conspiracy claims. The focus will now, rightly, be on the source of Banks’ money.

The BBC's take sounds much less appetising for Leave supporters than Tim's.

And the likes of Guido Fawkes are saying that this "crushes" Carole Cadwalladr's "conspiracies".

I'm going to compliment Rob Burley & Co. today and say that, watching this lunchtime's Politics Live, I think the matter was handled to the BBC's credit. 

Carole Cadwalladr was invited on, given her say and challenged. 

There was a decent range of opinions on the panel, Brexit-wise.

And Liam Halligan was a fine counterweight to Carole in pointing out that Remain overspent Leave massively, thanks to that Government leaflet, and that the Remain campaign also had the whole weight of the state apparatus behind it. 

Jo Coburn also did her duty by reading out Leave.EU's response in full and by concentrating on the Lib Dems' donation to Stronger Together as well - criticised from the ICO. (I smiled when she put that to Carole C. and Liam H. began smiling broadly too as Carole said yes, it wasn't good, and then, within seconds, changed the subject.) 

Credit where credit is due then.

More on Jo Coburn v Gerard Batten

Here's that interview in full:

And some Twitter debate about it involving UKIP and the BBC's head of live political programmes:

Gerard Batten: Who came out on top in my ‘interview’ i.e ambush on Politics Live? [Poll result currently 84% for Gerard and 16% for Jo].
Rob Burley: It wasn't an ambush. We've checked the email correspondence. We said we'd ask about Robinson and Islam and didn't mention Brexit. Worth noting that UKIP tweeted yesterday promoting the appearance and saying Robinson would be on the agenda.

*****

Patrick O'Flynn: How can you not ask the leader of the party that won the European elections on a Brexit ticket about Brexit at a time like this? How can you justify excluding UKIP, of all parties, from the Brexit debate?
Rob Burley: I would say that the UKIP leader has made Islam and Tommy Robinson big issues for your party. We don't exclude UKIP from the Brexit debate but you are a small party so not on as much as the bigger ones. In any case, as you know I did invite YOU on and hope will happen before long,
Patrick O'Flynn: Er... Check back and you will see you did the same to Henry Bolton when you had him on. Never asked about Brexit. Profound bias Rob.
Rob Burley: Er, Henry had some other issues at the time.
Patrick O'Flynn: Not at that time he didn't. When you have UKIP on you don't ask about Brexit.  Why not?
Rob Burley: What was he asked about then?

UKIP is deeply unhappy with the BBC, calling the interview:

A textbook example of why the abolition of the BBC licence fee is in the new UKIP manifesto.
#BBCSwitchoff

And here's a striking response to a tweet from Jo Coburn from the MP for Telford: 

Jo Coburn: My full interview with UKIP leader Gerard Batten MEP from Friday's  Politics Live.
Lucy Allan MP: Disappointed to see BBC Politics attacking those who speak out about Councils and Police who let down CSE victims of grooming gangs - it’s hard enough speaking out about these horrific crimes without the BBC suggesting it is racist to do so.

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”.

I Think I Like Politics Live

People have been moaning about Jo Coburn’s new show, Politics Live. They think it’s become too much like “Loose Women” particularly because one episode had an all-female line-up. In fact, I think it’s ok. I quite like it.

When Al Jazeera English was accessible to us, it did occur to me that despite its obvious bias, they at least allowed debates to go into a certain amount of depth. Or if not depth, then length. 

The BBC Newsroom seems to be terrified of giving any single subject time to develop. It's as if they’re afraid that the attention-deficient listener (as they see us) will switch over and be lost forever. 

So at least Politics Live seems prepared to let the conversation take its course. I hope they don’t squash that. The worst thing that might happen, what with all these ‘women’ given such prominence, is that it will just morph into Victoria Derbyshire territory. Please, no.  Can you imagine Jo Coburn listening sympathetically, head slightly to one side, as someone sadly recounts their tragic tale of woe? Perish the thought. 

I don’t think Elizabeth Glinka is on top of the role yet but she’ll probably settle in. I don’t like the tone of her voice. Maybe that’s it. There’s something about (particularly women’s) voices that can grate. I have to say I don’t like the timbre of Martha Kearney’s voice, and Mishal Husain’s has a hard edge to it that can sound harsh and scrapey. Maybe it’s my tinny old radio. D’you know whose voice sounded rather good when he did a stint on Today? Kamal Ahmed. He slotted in as if he’s been doing it all his life. I’m only talking about the way he sounded so don’t get excited. Another thing that’s ridiculous is that (usually American) thing they call throat fry. 

On the whole, I don’t think having women on the radio just for the sake of it is a particularly desirable thing.

In the footsteps of John Simpson

Jo Coburn, provoking me into assonance

Oh woe! 

So, JoCo says 'no'...

...to claims of BBC bias (in the UK Press Gazette):

I have to say I’ve got annoyed about all the claims of Brexit bias on the BBC. 

You have to imagine the BBC as this massive information tool broadcasting on radio, on television, on websites. 

Now, do we balance every single interview, every single day, every single time we mention Brexit and who’s judging that? Well, no. But is there some ingrained bias? No – and there certainly isn’t here at political programmes. 

I think we’ve done a very good job of hearing the voices from Leave and Remain and then even within that the shades of complexity. I mean I can’t talk for the whole of the BBC and I don’t listen to all of the BBC output all of the time, but I just don’t think it’s justified.

Altogether now (channelling our collective inner Mandy Rice-Davieses)!: Well she would say that, wouldn't she?

Enough is enough

I’ve been back and forth and in and out  all day, so my TV/radio time was minimal, but here’s what I did catch.

Victoria Derbyshire managed to squeeze an interview with John Mann MP between various other topics. For balance, she read out emails and statements defending Jeremy Corbyn and quoted his now infamous remark: 

“Our Jewish friends are no more responsible for the actions of Israel or the Netanyahu government than our Muslim friends are for those of various self-styled Islamic states or organizations.”

Surely Victoria Derbyshire is not so stupid that she thinks that exonerates Jeremy from antisemitism? It has quite the opposite effect, silly. Don’t you see? He equates Israel with Islamic State. Get it?

Next I caught Martin Bashir discussing the matter with … I think it was Joanna Gosling. He had brought a lot of statistics with him about the stark rise in antisemitic incidents, not just in the UK but in the US and Europe. They spoke for some time, puzzling over the possible cause of this. Baffled and flummoxed, they decided it’s something to do with global economic instability and / or societal insecurity.

I waited for The Daily Politics. 

Simon Johnson, Chief executive of the Jewish Leadership Council spoke (on a screen) and one of the most unrepresentative specimens of Jewish opinion imaginable (bar Naomi Idrissi Wimborne) sat next to Jo Coburn in the studio. Yes, it was Jenny Manson, co-chair of Jewish Voice of Labour.

Her contribution diminished and derailed the whole debate - not that it was a debate in any real sense. In her mind, a way of establishing her credentials was to keep reminding us that she was speaking as a Jew. So out of touch with reality is this individual that she is unaware that the  term ‘asaJew’ will have the opposite effect to the one intended.

As I said in an earlier post - denying that there is antisemitism in: a.) the mural; b.) The Labour Party; c.) Jackie Walker; d.) Jeremy Corbyn’s bones …… is useless. The train has already left that station.

Even Jeremy Corbyn has admitted some of it and what’s more he has apologised, if not for the antisemitism itself, then at least for the hurt, which is weaselly, but it does rather negate Jewish Voice for labour’s point. If there is a point. Incidentally, she doesn’t wish to harm any Israeli Jews, just to end the occupation. 

" AsaJew I know Jeremy doesn't have a racist bone in his body"

Why couldn’t they have found someone from the actual Labour Party to defend Jeremy - if sanity is relative - someone sane. Then the item might have been worth watching.

Watertight oversight - 'Cob' and the BBC

Please bear with me on this one (as I weave my way through my thoughts on this), and please also try to remember that not all tl;dr posts are really 'tl', and that (maybe) they should be 'r' after all...

Stephen Glover of the Daily Mail has excoriated the BBC for "ignoring" the allegations about Jeremy Corbyn being "a Czech ‘asset’" - and agent codenamed 'Cob', approved by the Soviet Union in the dying years of the Cold War: 

Far more worrying is the way the all-powerful BBC has hitherto avoided Sarkocy’s allegations, which have been met with vehement denials by the Labour Party. If you relied on our public service broadcaster for your news, as about half the nation does, you wouldn’t know anything about ‘Cob’. 

I watch and listen to the news on BBC television and radio almost obsessively, and I have picked up only two fleeting references [on a Today newspaper review and The Andrew Marr show yesterday - the bit where Andrew called the story 'rather thin] to the extremely grave charges against Mr Corbyn. All I can find on Auntie’s voluminous website is a tiny mention of a newspaper report....

There may have been other passing references, but it can be fairly stated that the BBC has done its utmost not to give this story wider circulation even though it contains the mind-boggling suggestion, of course unproven, that as a young MP Jeremy Corbyn betrayed his country.

Oh Stephen! Much as I like and admire you and much as you may have a point here, the canny BBC's tradition of 'watertight oversight' means that it was never going to be that easy for a critic of the BBC like you here (though please bear with me!)...

...and, sure enough, Dino Sofos, Senior Social Media Producer at BBC News, found a 'gotcha' answer for you (and, specifically, for Guido Fawkes) :

And so did Rob Burley, the Ed-Sheeran-averse editor of The Andrew Marr Show:

So (apparently) John Pienaar's Radio Sunday show covered it "at length", and so did today's Daily Politics. 

QED for the BBC? (Not really. See below).

And, similarly, when Guido Fawkes asks, "Any chance the BBC will cover it properly now the PM has commented?", the BBC will point to a report on BBC News website this evening headlined Corbyn should be 'open' on spy's claims - May and say 'Yes, we did report it'.

Ah but....

...(long sigh)....

....in the venerable tradition of BBC 'watertight oversight', just check out where on the BBC website the BBC published this headline story (and where it's stayed ever since). [You'll have to click the image to enlarge it, and then you'll see that the BBC hasn't made it a prominent story.] Yes, it appeared near the exit door of the BBC's Home page, so to speak. But, yes, they have reported it on their Home page, so....'watertight oversight' kicks in and the BBC is off the hook.

Or is it?

Read that BBC report, however, and it's mostly 'the case for the defence' as far as Jeremy Corbyn is concerned.  The caption to the opening image puts Jeremy's case for him, rebuttals of the claims against Mr. Corbyn get the lion's share of the reported speech, and the BBC itself gives its own imprimatur to those rebuttals. Plus the whole report is full of 'health warnings' ("claims", "alleged", "reportedly", "possible") about the claims against Mr. Corbyn.

The BBC, rightly or wrongly, is essentially rubbishing the story here - 'belatedly reporting it and frantically trashing it', unkind folk might say!

As I'm wary of taking the BBC on trust these says (even those BBC people I like), I've also checked out Dino and Rob's claims. 

As for John Pienaar on Pienaar's Politics, yes, the story was discussed - for fully 5 minutes - but John Pienaar himself immediately rubbished those claims that Jeremy Corbyn might have been an agent for the Soviet Bloc by describing them as "pretty absurd" and ended the big discussion (twently minutes later) by saying, flippantly, "this story may be going absolutely nowhere but it doesn't stop us talking about anything!" - both of which statements clearly signalled to the Radio 5 Live listener that the BBC's Deputy Political Editor personally doesn't reckon much to the story. 

As for the discussion itself, two defenders of Jeremy Corbyn (Labour's Peter Dowd and pro-Labour journalist Jenni Russell) rubbished the story for nearly all of and then, just before the end, the Sun's David Wooding got a brief say and voiced some criticism of Mr. Corbyn's past. 

So, yes, Pienaar's Politics did devote a whole segment of the programme to the story yesterday, though John Pienaar began and ended his programme's coverage of it by strongly suggesting his own sense that the story doesn't amount to much and doesn't really merit reporting, and - separately - the 2:1 imbalance of the discussion (made worse by David from the Sun getting far less time than either of the two Labour-defending guests) didn't really cover this segment in impartial BBC glory either, did it? 

So, Pienaar's Politics is classic BBC watertight oversight in action. 'See, we discussed it after all!' , says the BBC. Yes BBC, you did. But HOW did you discuss it on this rare occasion when you seemingly reluctantly consented to finally discuss the story? That is the question.

As for The Daily Politics, well, yes, they too did discuss it today, as Rob said. ('What took them so long?' I imagine many people crying). Did they, as Rob contends, discuss it "at length"? Well, I think Rob is definitely stretching it there! So how long did they discuss it for? For 3 minutes and 2 seconds.

And Jo Coburn began the segment by stating, "Our man in Prague has spoken to the head of the Czech secret service archive who has reiterated that there's absolutely nothing in the archive to suggest that Jeremy Corbyn was an informer but he was a 'person', according to her, 'of interest' to the secret service."

Again, this is classic BBC watertight oversight in action. The story that many people claim the BBC is "ignoring" is then (after those complaints have been pouring in for days) finally discussed on the flagship Daily Politics...albeit for just three minutes and with the BBC presenter sounding a very strong 'health warning' about it from the word go.

So there we are. The BBC - like the Guardian but unlike several right-wing papers - isn't buying these claims about Jeremy Corbyn.

And it's not encouraging you to buy them either.

And what does that say about 'BBC impartiality'?

For a firmly non-BBC take on all of this you might want to read the latest article from Douglas Murray. It's quite a 'think' piece.

But Whatabout the BBC?

Payments to guests and alleged Kremlin influence on @RTUKnews in #bbcdp debate with @afshinrattansi @Andrew_Adonis https://t.co/xlVAD2fCyx

— Daily&SundayPolitics (@daily_politics) October 19, 2017

Afshin Rattansi was invited to defend “Putin’s mouthpiece” (RT) on Daily Politics with Jo Coburn and Andrew Adonis. Should politicians be allowed to appear on RT? Should they be paid for doing so? 

There used to be a playground saying: “It takes one to know one”.  

It was quite funny listening Jo Coburn complaining of RT’s bias, “ a propaganda arm of Putin’s government”,  and the oleaginous Afshin Rattansi firing back a few lethal barbs at the Beeb during his “whataboutery” defence. 

What fun.

“Just as people are sent to jail if they don’t pay Jo Coburn’s salary” 

A Gov’ment in waiting

“Let us do more to end the oppression of the Palestinian people. The 60 year occupation - gabble gabble gabble -  two state solution. ...the values we share are not served by building walls.”

Says Jeremessiah  Corbyn.

Or to be more precise, here’s a more accurate transcription from the Spectator:

“And let’s give real support to end the oppression of the Palestinian people, the 50-year occupation and illegal settlement expansion and move to a genuine two-state solution of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Britain’s voice needs to be heard independently in the world. We must be a candid friend to the United States, now more than ever.
The values we share are not served by building walls, banning immigrants on the basis of religion, polluting the planet, or pandering to racism.” 

I knew the way the BBC has been behaving was reminding me of something. Yes, of course! It’s like the Arab Spring all over again. 

“The Labour Party is the gov’ment in waiting!" "Feel the euphoria!" "Jeremy Corbyn is the next PM.”

Recently I’ve held back a bit on the anti-Jew stuff that emanates from the BBC. I’m not sure that everyone is as interested in the topic as I am. The BBC certainly hasn’t featured antisemitism in the Labour Party (there isn’t any, you know) as much as, say, Sky. Sky featured it prominently all day yesterday. 

On the occasions the BBC has mentioned it, presenters like Jo Coburn and Emily Maitlis have been ever so gentle on their interviewees.

I’m not keen on rabidly adversarial interviewing. Repeated interruptions can all too easily make one sympathise with the victim. The aggressive, intrusive interviewing style has become so commonplace that pleas from interviewees are becoming almost routine: ‘Let me make my point’ or ‘if you could just let me finish one sentence’ they say, sometimes preemptively. I mean before an interruption has even occurred.

There much to be said for allowing a speaker enough rope to hang him/herself, which is fine if the interviewer or presenter is capable of making the occasional informed and intelligent interjection. That’s a long way from constantly interrupting and challenging every word.    Meritless (that’s my autocorrect but I’ll leave it in) let Shami Chakrabarti get away with a complete load of bollocks yesterday. As if it isn’t bad enough watching the baroness’s smug little countenance and listening to her pedestrian insights, we were invited to ’read my report’ as if her wretched report into antisemitism in the Labour party (there isn’t any) was some kind of definitive  decree and not a superficial, narcissistic whitewash.

“You have to prepare for the worst” Shami Chakrabarti says senior civil servants stress-test threats to the economy all the time #newsnight pic.twitter.com/B26sZsVsed

— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) September 26, 2017

 Take Len McCluskey. He was allowed to state that he hadn’t seen any antisemitism (ever) in the Labour Party. 

Len McCluskey tells @maitlis that Labour’s anti-Semitism row was “mood music” created by people trying to undermine Jeremy Corbyn #newsnight pic.twitter.com/38Ri6Nc41v

— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) September 26, 2017

(Yet it transpires (allegedly) that he actually attended the controversial ‘fringe’ event that everyone but him acknowledges was unspeakably offensive.) 

More of the BBC’s favourite socialist filmmaker here:

Possibly fearing a reputation of last year’s embarrassment, Corbyn didn’t attend Labour Friends of Israel’s ‘final night’ event. He sent Emily Thornberry along instead.  She apologised, and lied, stating that Jeremessiah was too busy preparing for the Big Speech next day. Only he wasn’t.

Here is Karen Pollock in the Times (£) 

“We have elected Labour politicians suggesting that antisemitism has been “weaponised” – a suggestion that it is being used to promote some other agenda. 

And we even have activists handing out material at the Labour party conference quoting Reinhard Heydrich, one of the leading architects of the Final Solution. 

How many times do we need to explain the hurt and offence that it causes when people question the truth of the Holocaust? How many times do we need to explain that there are survivors – who lost their homes, communities and entire families - still among us, who register these comments with disbelief? 

How many times do we have to defend basic truths that should be considered sacrosanct?”

Some people do recognise what is going on. 

Labour council leader Warren Morgan for one. He wrote to the Labour Party general secretary:

Dear Iain,
I hope that you and the entire Labour team here in Brighton and Hove are enjoying your stay and that the facilities offered by the Brighton Centre are everything that you would expect from us. As a city we very much appreciate the business that Conference brings to our hotels, restaurants and shops. 

I am however very concerned at the anti-semitism being aired publicly in fringe meetings and on the floor of Conference. We have a significant Jewish community in Brighton and Hove, and I met with them only last week to discuss the anti-semitism already on our streets, causing them fear and alarm. We have the prominent activist and suspended Labour Party member Tony Greenstein here, who indeed was present at the fringe meeting where it was suggested that Holocaust denial should be allowed. His expulsion, in my view, is long overdue. 

As the Labour leader of Brighton and Hove City Council I will undoubtedly face questions as to why we allow any event where anti-semitic views are freely expressed to happen in the city, particularly on council premises. As a Labour Party member I expect the enquiry announced today to take firm action; as Leader I will need reassurances that there will be no repeat of the behaviour and actions we have seen this week before any further bookings from the Party are taken. 

I must apply the same standards to Labour as I would to any other Party Conference or political event; whilst none of us can control what is said at meetings we do not run, I have to make the strongest possible representation on behalf of the residents of the city who are Jewish. We are a City of Sanctuary and I have to speak up against any form of racism as and when it is given a platform in the city.
Best wishes,

Finally, here is (Jewish vice president of the NUS) Izzy Lenga’s Tweet:

I didnt think it was possible, but I feel a whole lot more unsafe, uncomfortable & upset as a Jew on #lab17 floor right now than I do at NUS

— Izzy Lenga (@izzyjengalenga) September 26, 2017

Douglas Murray and Sara Khan on 'The Sunday Politics'

Today's The Sunday Politics included a discussion between Douglas Murray and Sara Khan. It was so interesting and important that a full transcript seemed appropriate.

For the 'BBC bias' angle, please look at Jo Coburn's rather heavy-handed and one-sided contributions and then weigh them against the programme editor's decision to stage this vital discussion with these particular guests in the first place. 

Jo Coburn: The revelation that the Manchester suicide bomber, 22-year-old Salman Abedi, was born in this country has raised fresh concerns about the effectiveness of the UK's counter-extremism policy. In a moment we'll be talking to two people who've spent their careers investigating radicalisation in the UK: Douglas Murray, of the Henry Jackson Society, and Sara Khan, author of The Battle for British Islam and CEO of the counter-extremism organisation Inspire. We asked both for a personal take on how to confront the problem of Islamist extremism. First up, here's Douglas Murray:

Douglas Murray: Even after all these dead, all this mourning and defiance, still we learn no lessons. We remain stuck in the John Lennon response to terrorism - they blow us up, we sing Imagine. Our politicians still refuse to accurately identify the sources of the problem, and polite society remains silent or dumb. This country gave asylum to the Libyan parents of Salman Abedi. Their son repaid that generosity by killing 22 British people, one for each year of life this country had given him. We need to think far more deeply about all this. Eastern Europe doesn't have an Islamic terrorism problem because it doesn't have much Islam. France has the worst problem because it has the most Islam. Are we ever going to draw any lessons from this? Apparently not. For the time being, the game is to be as inoffensive as possible. The rot isn't just within the Muslim communities. Consider all those retired British officials and others who shill, and are in the pay of the Saudis and other foreign states, even while they pump the extreme versions of Islam into our country. Our enemies are serious. It is high time we became serious too. 

Jo Coburn: Douglas Murray there. And now for Sara Khan's view: 

Sara Khan: Islamist extremism is flourishing in our country. We're failing to defeat it, so what can we do about it? Whenever I say we must counter those Muslim organisations who are promoting hatred, discrimination, and sometimes even violence, I'm often either ignored by some politicians out of a misplaced fear of cultural sensitivity, or I find myself experiencing abuse by some of my fellow Muslims. We need to wake up. These groups and their sympathisers tour Muslim communities, hold events, and have hundreds of thousands of followers on their social media. Yet there is little counter challenge to their toxic anti-Western narrative, which includes opposition to democracy and human rights. I've seen politicians and charities partner with and support some of these voices and groups. This is nothing short of scandalous. Many anti-racist groups will challenge those on the far right but not Muslim hate preachers, in the erroneous belief that to do so would be Islamophobic. But it's Islamophobic not to challenge them as it implies that all Muslims hold these views. Following the attack on Monday, it cannot be business as usual. We must counter those who seek to divide us. 

Jo Coburn: Sara Khan's view there, and Douglas Murray and Sara Khan join me now. Douglas Murray, you wrote a book, Strange Death of Europe. What did you mean in your film when you say, "Let's get serious?"

Douglas Murray: Several things. Just one example I can give you. The young man who carried out this atrocious attack last Monday night was two years a student at Salford University. He was on a campus which is, from its leadership to its student leadership, opposes all aspects of the government's only counter-extremism programme. They not only oppose it they boast they're boycotting it. They always did this. The university that he was at was against the only counter-extremism policy this state has. 

Jo Coburn (interrupting): Talking about one event, were you? Yes? 

Douglas Murray: This is just one example of a much bigger problem. 

Jo Coburn: What are you suggesting though? Shut down the University? Force them to change their policies? 

Douglas Murray: Well, I think that a university, which in the case of Salford, for instance, encourages students to report racist attacks - which is quite right - but discourages them from reporting any Islamic extremism is a serious problem because...after all, if you've  spent years telling people not to report Islamic extremism and then discover that you've produced a suicide bomber in Manchester, I think you should be held accountable. 

Jo Coburn: Sara Khan, what do you say to that? 

Sara Khan: I think it's quite clear from my own experience that there have been politicians who have undermined Prevent, there have been community organisations, indeed there have been Islamist groups in this country that have been at the forefront of undermining and countering Prevent, but also wider counter extremism measures. And I think we haven't really started getting real in recognising the fact that Islamist extremism has flourished in this country. If somebody had given us a crystal ball ten years ago when the 7/7 bombings had happened and said, 'Look forward and you're going to see the fact that hundreds of people leave this country to join Isis', and we've had hundreds of people being convicted of Islamist offences, I think we'd have been quite shocked about the fact that things have got worse as opposed to getting better. 

Jo Coburn: Right, but, Douglas Murray, the essence of your argument when you made those comparisons between the numbers of Muslims in different countries is that we've got too much Islam in Britain? 

Douglas Murray: Well, look. The answer that the Muslim Brotherhood and other extremist groups give is that the answer to absolutely everything is Islam. It think less Islam, in general, is obviously a good thing...

Jo Coburn (interrupting): Really? 

Douglas Murray: The Islamic world...let me finish...The Islamic world is in the middle of a very serious problem and it has been going on since the beginning. And I think it is not worth continuing to risk our own security simply in order to try to be politically correct. 

Jo Coburn: Would you support that kind of policy?

Sara Khan: No, I would disagree with Douglas on that and say, look, nobody is going to deny that since the end of the 20th century there has been a rise in Islamist extreme terror organisations. But the fact of the matter is, what's really happening now, yes, there is a crisis within contemporary Islam, but there is a clash at the moment. There are competing claims about what the faith stands for. So, yes, while we're seeing Islamist terror organisations, at the same time there leading religious theologians who are saying to Muslims that, for example, the concept of a caliphate is absolutely outdated and that Muslims should be embracing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and adopting a human rights culture. 

Douglas Murray: If I may just pick up on that very quickly? I entirely agree with Sara Khan that there are obviously people trying to counter this; however. I would urge us to take the long view. In the history of Islam there have been many reformers and most of the time they have ended up being on the brunt of the violence and the ones being killed. I deeply admire what Sara and other people do in this country. I want them to win. But the evidence out there is that they are not only a minority but the most beleaguered minority. Take a poll that was taken last year in this country. It found that two thirds of British Muslims said they would not report a family member they found to be involved in extremism to the police. I mean, this is a very serious problem...

Jo Coburn (interrupting): But the policies you are proposing are far more Draconian because, as you say, you don't think they can win and the majority...

Douglas Murray (interrupting): No, no. I wish that they could. I hope that they could. We should do everything we can to support people like Sara but we should also recognise that the scale of the problem out there is beyond our current understanding. 

Jo Coburn: How do you counter, Sara, radicalisation that can happen on a university campus or it can happen online? The discussion we had with Ben Wallace this morning, the security minister, about the amount of material that is out there. But if we really pursue in a hard-line way perhaps the sort of thing Douglas Murray is suggesting, then gone is freedom of speech, gone is free debate and discussion, as they will see it? 

Sara Khan: I've always said that the best way and the most effective way of countering extremism is through the prism of human rights. We cannot abandon our human rights to fight extremism. And I have to say where I think we are going wrong, where there's the hole, the gap, is that the lack of counter work is actually in challenging the Islamist ideals....that when you put up your larky image there...How many people are actually going to say 'We need to now counter that very strict anti-Western narrative, the Islamist ideals?' That's where we really aren't doing enough work. 

Douglas Murray: Yes, and....

Jo Coburn (interrupting): What about the human rights point though, that you cannot take away people's human rights in order to protect ours? 

Douglas Murray: I'm not suggesting that and I'm not suggesting that anyone has their human rights taken away. I'm suggesting that we do things that make sure  that 22 people don't get blown up on an average Monday again, OK? The idea that it is against human rights to ask people, for instance, to simply be opposed to people who want to blow up our daughters in a pop venue on a Monday night, that isn't restricting human rights. It isn't restricting human rights if you're taking government money and you are an institution like Salford University you should be held responsible for not cooperating with the standard security measures. 

Sara Khan: I don't disagree with that but I'm saying you can challenge extremism without having to abandon human rights, and in my organisation there's a lot of work going on, going into Muslim communities, working with teachers. But we're saying: We've got to actually counter the Islamist narrative. We are not doing enough. This is not about actually closing down free speech. This is encouraging more of us to say...and this is the most effective way of countering the Islamist narrative. 

Jo Coburn: So why isn't it doing better?Why isn't it reaching and spreading in the communities themselves?

Sara Khan: There are a  number of reasons. One of them is there is a denial taking place. There are a lot of apologetics taking place. Part of it is also the way we talk about Muslims in this country. We use this term 'Muslim communities' as if they are a homogeneous monolith when the fact is there is a very positive trend but also there is a negative trend among British Muslims, and we need to counter those who are promoting the idea that Muslims need to be part of a global, collective (?) identity. 

Douglas Murray: I agree. I absolutely agrees. It's also the case there is massive push back because a lot of Islamists in this country they are defending the faith as they see it. We think we can advise them down a better path but they think they are defending absolutely everything and e need to get real about that. 

Jo Coburn: Douglas Murray and Sara Khan, thank you very much.