Very weird and foreign

This week's Unspun World with John Simpson saw John Simpson discussing the state of the United States with BBC North America editor Sarah Smith.

Note that the "very weird and foreign" things are ones associated with conservative viewpoints in the US, and how when Sarah Smith criticises "politicians, on both sides of the political divide, who play to that...fracture" she actually only cites an example used by US conservatives. 

And also note the bit where she criticises social media for making "everybody's voice more extreme and louder" (hyperbole!) and where she says social media "allows people with extreme views to find each other, communicate and reinforce them." 

Well, Unspun World with John Simpson allows people with BBC views to find each other, communicate and reinforce them.

Here's a transcript. 

Please enjoy all the bits where the conservatives on the Supreme Court are to blame, along - of course - with Donald Trump. And Sarah and John's refusal to blame, name and shame 'the other [Democrat] side'.

And note how 'the man kept in a basement' during the 2020 election, the present President Joe Biden - presently unpopular and widely perceived as not competent - doesn't even get a mention in Sarah's 'roll of shame'. 

The BBC - like their US counterparts - have been covering for him better than those censorious types who endlessly knit socks for all the centipedes who dance each night at the Moulin Rouge, as painted by M. Toulouse-Lautrec:

John Simpson: In the eyes of the outside world the United States can seem very weird and foreign. The whole business of the right to bear arms, for instance, or the hostility towards abortion. And yet it's always hugely influential. Think of the spread of the Me Too movement and Black Lives Matter. Other Western countries are fiercely divided at present, Britain and France among them, but not as damagingly as America, where some people are talking openly of a second civil war. Is that just excitable, exaggerated stuff, or is there something to it? I asked Sarah Smith, the BBC North America editor, what she thought.

Sarah Smith: Social media does play a part because it makes everybody's voice more extreme and louder, and also allows people with extreme views to find each other, communicate and reinforce them. One of the other things that's happening in American society is that these two tribes of left and right, conservative and liberal, are living in different places as well. They are geographically sorting. So that you have liberal with a small l people in the cities, in urban areas, and living along the east and the west coasts, whereas in rural areas, in the countryside and in the states in the middle, you have far more Republicans. You can see it also between the North and the South as well, to a certain extent, with the northern states generally being far more liberal than southern ones. So these days, it is entirely possible for people to not interact with anyone who has a very different world view from theirs, and there's no attempt to meet in the middle. So it just...it creates this fracture that just gets worse and worse and is, frankly, self reinforcing. And there are politicians, on both sides of the political divide, who play to that.

John Simpson: I mean, is it right across society, or is it really just all springing out of politics and is Washington-focused?

Sarah Smith: What some Washington politicians have done very cleverly is take some of the social issues that people are genuinely concerned about - what their kids are being taught in schools for instance, which is something that would deeply affect every family - and have turned and weaponised them into issues that show people that right in the heart of your community there are things which the other political side are doing which could damage your life in ways you hadn't realised.

John Simpson: This politicising of justice and the law, that must be also playing a major part in these divisions, isn't it?

Sarah Smith: Well, certainly since the really controversial and momentous decisions that the Supreme Court has taken in the last couple of weeks, touching on some of the most incendiary issues in American politics - abortion rights, gun rights and climate change. They've issued quite conservative rulings in all of those cases, as well as some other ones too. But the Court itself is supposed to be above politics. It's supposed to look at the law, look at the constitution and come to a judicial decision about what politicians and lawmakers can and cannot do. But because they are appointed in a partisan way - partly because Donald Trump, unusually, in one four-year term got to appoint three justices - the Court looks more and more political. It's got a 6-3 Conservative majority at the moment - and a really pretty conservative majority that is prepared to do quite radical things like overturn nearly 50 years of abortion rights. And you can see that opinion polling is already suggesting that people are starting to view the Court as just another branch of politics, see it as political and partisan, and are losing faith and trust in it. You get to a point where society feels really quite removed from the people who are making the rules and the laws that govern their lives, and that is a potentially dangerous situation. We live in a time when serious political commentators, not people given to hyperbole, are talking about the possibility of a second American civil war. I mean, not one that would look like the first, where you had two armies confronting each other, but one where there is the potential for political violence. And, you know, it is possibly true to say you could describe the state of affairs we're in at the moment as already being an American cold civil war.

John Simpson: Is there a way forward out of this, do you think?

Sarah Smith: For the first time ever since I've been coming here, over 25 years, Americans themselves aren't hopeful for the future. They are the ones who are starting to say 'America's time is finished. This, the American Age is over. I don't know what direction our country is going in, but it's certainly not forwards'. And although there have been commentators around the world saying that again and again, this is the first time out of the mouths of patriotic Americans, even as they are watching the 4th of July fireworks, have I heard them talking like that. And, of course, one of the things that's depressing them so much are these mass shootings. And on the 4th of July itself, at an Independence Day parade, six people are shot dead. That's the kind of shocking incident that just makes people really worry about what the future of this society could look like. Are these mass shootings. And on the 4th of July itself at an independence day parade. 6 people are shot dead. That's the kind of shocking incident that just makes people really worry about what the future of this society could look like.

John Simpson on Shireen Abu Akleh

Given that the United Nations has a considerable bias against Israel, the organisation may not be the best-placed source to independently resolve a highly controversial case between Israel and the Palestinians over where questions of guilt and responsibility lie. John Simpson appears to have no such doubts though, as this Twitter exchange from yesterday afternoon shows:

John Simpson [2:03 PM]: The UN says the information it has gathered shows that Israeli soldiers fired the shots that killed the distinguished Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh on 11 May. She was covering an Israeli army raid in the West Bank town of Jenin.

John Simpson [2:13 PM]: The UN says Shireen Abu Akleh & her colleagues made a concerted effort to show the Israeli soldiers at the scene that they were from the Press. The Israelis issued no warnings. There was no shooting going on at the time. The bullets which killed her were ‘seemingly well-aimed’.

Alan Lyons [2:17 PM]: John, "seemingly well-aimed" is an unpleasant insinuation. If you or the UN wish to allege that the IDF is deliberately targeting or assassinating journalists Vs being unfortunately hit in the middle of a firefight, then you should state that clearly.

John Simpson [3:00 PM]: I don’t think the UN is insinuating anything, unpleasantly or otherwise. It’s openly saying that Shireen & her colleagues were clearly marked as journalists, there was no other shooting going on at the time, and that Israeli soldiers fired the aimed shots that killed her.

Alan Lyons [3:05 PM]: Could you post a link? I have some problems with this: 1. It would be an epic PR own goal for the IDF to be targeting journalists 2. I read that there was a firefight. Is that not true? Are they describing a "lull"? 3. Is it true Hamas has not allowed ballistics on the bullet?

John Simpson [3:19 PM]: I read this on the UN High Commission for Human Rights website. I’m not sure about its being an epic own-goal for the IDF, Alan — 30 journalists have been shot & killed by the IDF since 2000 in the West Bank. Video just before Shireen was shot seems to show no firefight.

“This week...Has Brexit done long-term damage to Britain?”

Six years ago today 17,410,742 million people [52%] voted to leave the European Union, 1.27 million more than the 16,141,241 [48%] who voted Remain. To mark that anniversary, here's John Simpson interviewing Mark Easton this week on his BBC Two series Unspun World:

John Simpson: Welcome to Broadcasting House, part of the BBC's iconic headquarters here in central London for Unspun World, the programme where the BBC's experts around the globe give in-depth answers to the big questions of the day. This week...Has Brexit done long-term damage to Britain?

Mark Easton: There's a sense in which we've not really been able to have sort of normal times to get stuff done. It's warped our politics and made it very difficult for our political leaders.

John Simpson: It's six years since, in a result that surprised most people, the United Kingdom voted by a very narrow margin to leave the European Union. The campaign was marked by some hugely controversial claims, which have resonated ever since - the hundreds of millions we'd be able to pump into the NHS among them. It's still too early to work out the exact pluses and minuses of Brexit, but the lines are becoming clearer. I asked Mark Easton, the BBC's home editor, for his views. Has Brexit been a boon or a disaster? 

Mark Easton: It is a sort of fundamental difference of view which actually goes to people's heart, actually. Almost a sort of visceral feeling, I think. People feel very, very strongly about it - on both sides of the argument. And that, I think, has been quite troubling. There's a sense in which we've not really been able to have sort of normal times to get stuff done. So I think that's been another problem with the whole Brexit debate. It's warped our politics and made it very difficult for our political leaders to really sort of plough a furrow as they want to do. For many communities where we saw very significant Brexit votes, it was about connection to power. It was a sense that they'd been ignored. Many communities that I went to, they felt that change was happening to their communities - demographic change, free movement within the EU. Immigration generally meant that the communities they lived in were changing, the shops were changing. 

John Simpson: Also hearing people talking Polish or Romanian and so on in the streets. 

Mark Easton: Exactly. In particular, people, people would say that the thought of hearing a foreign language on the bus was disconcerting to them. It was different. It wasn't what they expected, and no-one had asked them about it. I think it would be fair to say that very few of those communities feel that they are any closer to power today than they were six years ago. 

John Simpson: So it hasn't achieved that? 

Mark Easton: Not yet, no. I mean, I guess the Government would argue that, you know, their whole levelling up agenda is partly about that - it's trying to reconnect communities that felt separate. I think that is definitely, you know, job not yet done, but really, really important, whether you whether you voted Leave or Remain, actually, that Britain does better in making sure that, you know, thousands of communities up and down this land don't feel - as they currently do - that they are exempted from the decisions that actually affect their daily lives. 

John Simpson: Have there been any successes for Brexit? 

Mark Easton: Undoubtedly free movement and the end of that. I think you can say, well, yeah, that's something - those people who wanted that to stop, it's happened. That was a promise made and a promise kept. They were also told that we would move to a points-based immigration system, to ensure that we only get the migrants that we want and we need. And, yes, we do have...

John Simpson: Is that happening? 

Mark Easton: That has happened. 

John Simpson: And is it working? 

Mark Easton: Well, I think it's difficult because we do have shortages of labour in quite a number of areas, as we transition from what people would have said was our sort of - we'd become rather reliant on European workers and being able to turn on the immigration tap. 

John Simpson: Will Brexit destroy the United Kingdom? 

Mark Easton: Well, it certainly put the Union under very considerable strain. But what's interesting is that I think there is a pressure for more devolution, because I think there is a sense in which part of what Brexit was about was reconnecting people and they need power for that to happen. But what we've seen so far is not that - what we've seen, and perhaps a result of Covid - we've seen actually more power heading towards Number 10 and to Whitehall. 

John Simpson: Do you think at some stage there'll be another vote and we'll go back in? 

Mark Easton: I don't think that's going to happen for a very significant time. But it's interesting, I think, some of the economic realities which are coming into play and are going to become even more so if the forecasts for the UK economy prove to be correct, where people are going to say, well, hold on, are we really cutting off our nose to spite our face? And we need to have some kind of sensible arrangement with our nearest trading partners to make sure that we don't miss out on all those trading opportunities. Making it more difficult for people to trade with countries just over the Channel is not very sensible when your economy is facing so many other huge challenges. 

The BBC and Julian Assange

In the decade or so since this blog began many people's take on Julian Assange has changed. A decade or so ago he was reviled on blogs like this and treated favourably by the BBC. Now he's grudgingly admired on blogs like this and treated not so favourably by the BBC. And, for the record, I've undergone quite a change of view about him too. 

The news today that Priti Patel has given the go-ahead for Mr Assange to be extradited is receiving muted coverage from the BBC. The BBC News website briefly featured it on their home page, but it's slipped off into the remoter parts of the site already. A few years back they'd have kept it as a main story.

Here is BBC home and legal correspondent Dominic Casciani's 'analysis' for the BBC News website today. Please see how you read it, because I read it as [most unusually] sort-of backing Ms Patel, painting her as legally having no other alternative:

This decision is the most important stage so far in Mr Assange's long legal battle.

Judges in London have already ruled that the US's request was lawful and that the American authorities would care for him properly in prison.

Now, the home secretary has carried out her role in the complicated legal process by signing off the US request.

Her officials said she was legally bound to do so because Mr Assange does not face the death penalty - nor does his case fall into the other narrow range of categories for her to refuse to approve the transfer.

In practice, this means there is nothing to stop Washington sending a jet to pick up Mr Assange - unless he can win on appeal.

If his lawyers cannot get a hearing back before judges in London, he could petition the European Court of Human Rights.

Ten years ago it ruled extradition to the US would not breach human rights - but expect the Wikileaks founder to try fresh arguments not heard back then.

If, as I see it, the BBC has largely gone cold on Julian Assange, there are exceptions. The BBC's World Affairs Editor, a certain John Simpson, remains loyal and has come out for his publicly-declared friend once more today, ignoring the BBC's guidelines on commenting on matters of public controversy and tweeting:

Journalists in Britain and elsewhere will be very worried by the decision to extradite Julian Assange to the US — both for his own well-being & for the precedent it creates for journalism worldwide.

A tweet from ex-BBC/Newsnight whistleblower Meirion Jones tonight, meanwhile, casts a clarifying light on how things were a decade or so ago, when views of Julian Assange were rather different:

All media that were in on Wikileaks should be calling for Assange extradition to be stopped. That includes BBC - I know because I was courier between David Leigh's Kings Place bunker & Beeb World Affairs Unit for diplo leaks ahead of release 29/10/10.

John Simpson, Lord Grade and Ofcom

As discussed on the open thread, the news that Michael Grade - previously controller of BBC1, chief executive of Channel 4, chairman of the BBC and executive chairman of ITV, now a Conservative peer - is to become the new Ofcom chairman prompted a snarky response from senior BBC journalist John Simpson. 

To expand on this, here are all his tweets on the matter, some in response to various left-wing, pro-EU followers [his Twitter fan base by the looks of it]:

John Simpson: Congratulations to Michael Grade on becoming the head of the media regulator, Ofcom. I’m sure his recent criticisms of the BBC licence fee & BBC political coverage had nothing to do with the decision.

Ant: Naughty, Mr. Simpson.

John Simpson: I’m a stirrer by nature…
Parmenion62: No freedom of speech at the BBC now then. All will have to follow the Tory party line. Real shame that we are about to lose something so precious as the BBC.
John Simpson: I can promise you that nothing you’ve said here is true.

John Simpson: Actually I think a lot of people will be greatly relieved that Michael Grade has got the job. He was a good and supportive BBC chairman. And remember the government originally seemed to want Paul Dacre as the head of Ofcom.

Nick Morrell: Not the old trick of making an extreme candidate look less so by first suggesting an ultra-extreme candidate?

John Simpson: No, he’s not in any sense an extreme candidate. And real life isn’t about conspiracies like that.

Nick Morrell: Fairly unserious comment - seems to me the push for Dacre was serious - but still makes it easier to accept a highly-partisan anti-BBC candidate if you've had to face the prospect of a frothing at the mouth alternative.

John Simpson: I understand completely, but Grade isn’t a frother. He just couldn’t resist making the kind of criticisms of the BBC which he knew would help him get the job.

Is John Simpson correct that Lord Grade has been making BBC-critical noises just to get the government's backing for his appointment and that the BBC doesn't really have anything to fear from him?

Friends Reunited

I continue to have lots of conflicting opinions about Julian Assange. 

I, therefore, still don't quite know what to make of him, or how much to admire him or dislike him. 

I veer all over the place over him, like John Sweeney on a Ukrainian ice rink after too many Kir Royales.

But I think I do know what to make of the BBC's world affairs editor, John Simpson: 

John Simpson is a BBC man who lets his biases show, with his BBC bosses' indulgence, whilst vigorously claiming to be impartial and aggressively claiming that those who criticise him are rude and unreasonable.

Back in January 2021 Charlie - here at ITBB - mentioned a John Simpson report on BBC One's News at Ten, saying that JS is "obviously a fan of Julian Assange", adding:

His long ‘love letter’ report on tonight’s main news was a one sided affair carefully crafted in its use of words and images to leave the viewer in no doubt that he is more a hero than a villain.

I then raked up a 2019 tweet from John Simpson that was typically partial:

Alan Rusbridger, writing in defence of Julian Assange: 'Whenever you read about journalists harming national security, massive alarm bells should start ringing.' Absolutely right. Assange revealed uncomfortable truths about US policy & tactics, & the US wants to punish him for it.

Today, however, comes the absolute clincher.

 John Simpson has just tweeted:

Many congratulations to my friends Stella Moris and Julian Assange on their marriage today. Great pity it had to be in Belmarsh.

So what does this mean? 

Surely it means that one of the most senior/high profile BBC journalists has been using BBC One's News at Ten and Twitter to campaign on behalf of his friend?

Admirers and non-admirers and undecideds as far as Julian Assange goes alike...what does it say about the BBC if this is allowed under BBC guidelines?

John Simpson takes issue with Ofcom over Russia Today

Russia Today's UK licence has been revoked by Ofcom. Ofcom says RT isn't "fit and proper to hold a UK broadcast licence".

Intriguingly, the BBC's opinionated world affairs editor John Simpson disagrees with the decision:

John Simpson: I’ve got contempt for Russia Today — the ultimate fake news station. But is it right for a democracy to try to silence it? This makes me feel really uneasy.

The responses are intriguing too:

Joe and the Scot: Yes it is. The disinformation is killing people.

John Simpson: If you start blocking disinformation, you wouldn’t have many newspapers left. And precious few politicians.

Roast Dinners In London: Should have been done 10 years ago. Democracy and freedom is too important. RT is actively against both.

John Simpson: So democracy and freedom are too important to allow freedom of speech?

Such replies provoked a further tweet on the subject:

John Simpson: Orwell wrote ‘If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.’ The irreflective answers here to my question are troubling. Essentially people are saying ‘If I don’t like something, it should be blocked.’

The discussion continues: 

The Bullingdon Club (twits): That rather depends upon whether what you have to say is the truth or lies.

John Simpson: And who makes the judgement?

Kamran: This is exactly what every government that practises censorship says.

John Simpson: Exactly my feelings, Kamran.

And mine too, Kamran. 

The BBC and the Russian invasion of Ukraine [and an EXCLUSIVE behind-the-scenes glimpse of an ITBB discussion]

Craig: The BBC is being praised to the skies for its war coverage, and not only by itself and the usual suspects. Not that I've seen any BBC coverage, so I can't say if it's deserved or not, but lots of surprising people are singing its praises. It seems to be having a good war.

Sue: Well, I was half thinking that the BBC is ‘having a good war’, too. But with all its resources and long-standing infrastructure it would be surprising if it wasn’t. 

I haven’t watched it very much though, but sometimes the ad breaks on other channels drive one BBC-wards. I haven’t seen any of the Beeb’s opinion stuff, only the Myrie/Doucet reporting. I must say Lyse is getting more emotional than usual (and Clive is okay. A bit drained obvs.) 

I saw Konstantin Kisin's performance on Question Time (excerpts on YouTube.) It’s weird to see him on the dreaded BBC, especially when he’d only just said he’d stopped appearing on GB News because he felt he was being expected/required to opine on things he didn’t particularly know enough about. 

This unexpected invitation from the QT team must be partly to do with the new ‘impartiality’ pledges. 

Speaking of which I dread to think why they’ve let Jeremy Bowen loose on Ukraine. He will inevitably make comparisons with the M.E., (how he sees it - The bully against the oppressed, the brave Ukrainian-Pally resistance, the almighty Russian-Israeli aggressive warmongering.) 

I think I actually heard him make a reference to the M.E. in an aside on the Today prog, though I couldn’t find it when I searched. Can you imagine how the BBC’s new impartiality regulators let someone like Jez go to Ukraine with all that baggage? 

Craig: I've tracked down that Jeremy Bowen bit:

The Chinese strategist Sun Tzu talked about building your opponent a golden bridge to retreat across. In the Cuban Missile Crisis - the closest the world has come to nuclear disaster in 1961 - the deal there after the Soviets put missiles into Cuba was that the US move missiles out of Turkey. Now, of course, the things are not...you know, you can't directly transfer the idea, but the point is, there needs to be in all these crises, to finish them, a face saving deal. Otherwise, the two sides tend to fight until one side wins or both are exhausted, which is a catastrophe for the countries affected by that, as we've seen in the Middle East extensively.

BBC reporters like Lyse being more emotional than usual was one of the topic on Samira Ahmed's Newswatch this week, asking: How new is it? Does it help or hinder the viewer's understanding? 

The fact that it featured a particularly toe-curling example of heart-tugging purple prose from Fergal Keane [‘On platform 6, a father's farewell to his infant son. What cannot be held must be let go. Until another day’] shows where that kind of thing probably began at the BBC, with the likes of him and Orla Guerin - and Jezza Bowen, with his endlessly-repeated, embittered, personalised memories of a particular moment involving Israel and his unfortunate friend. 

Even John Simpson cried recently - though he told Samira Ahmed that he's not proud of doing so and it won't happen again. 

So, as you can see, I've actually watched a BBC programme now. 

The BBC shall speak peace unto the BBC

11.15pm is past my bedtime, so I'll doubtless miss the debut on BBC Two next week of John Simpson's new show Unspun World with John Simpson. 

Here's a delightful exchange about it on Twitter today between IainW5 - 'a London-dwelling European with left-leaning values' - and the BBC's world affairs editor:

IainW5: I hope you will be able to talk to experts in the issues and not to politicians. In general (certainly UK Govt ones) they are (i) not well qualified, (ii) not objective, and (iii) pushing an agenda which is not about truth and justice.

John Simpson: This is the rationale for the programme. The only people on it will be BBC correspondents and experts. The range is hugely impressive. No politicians, no spin. Hence the title - ‘Unspun World with John Simpson’.

This is exactly what's needed: yet another BBC programme where the BBC talks to itself and regards itself as the be-all-and-end-all of impartial truth-telling. 

I'm so hoping this new hermetically-sealed BBC echo chamber gets the audience it so richly deserves.

A Saturday Selection

I've been a bit out-of-action recently, but here are a few things I noted down this week:

I

Never mind Partygate. Sue Gray and Dame Dick need to investigate the Foreign Office for blowing lots of licence fee payers' money on a sparkling farewell party for departing BBC North America editor Jon Sopel. 

That's reported by Steerpike at the Spectator. 

You'll find beneath his piece this comment from former Harry's Place regular Lamia which will doubtless strike a chord with many of us:

Sopel spent the four years of Donald Trump's presidency Tweeting his disapproval of Trump and his Tweets, helping keep the humble folk of Broadcasting House and North London in a permanent state of gratified superior outrage. Once Joe Biden got into power, Sopel and the BBC simply lost interest in reporting about the US President, except what flavour of ice cream he likes. Sopel is a worthless journalist, let alone a journalist for a supposedly impartial broadcaster, because his personal and political biases have infected and dictated everything he reports (and everything he doesn't report about). Not only should he not be the BBC's political editor - if the BBC had any standards (yes, we know it doesn't...) then he would have been sacked years ago. So obviously he's a shoe-in as BBC political editor.

II

Rod Liddle probably ought to hang up his satirical spurs because BBC reality is outpacing him faster than the winner of the Kentucky Derby. A Guardian exclusive reports that the BBC is preparing to broadcast a new take on Dickens's Oliver Twist that will “make a conscious effort” to put food poverty “to the fore” and echo footballer Marcus Rashford’s campaign to reduce child hunger. Very BBC.

III

The BBC is celebrating what they call “a hundred years of our BBC” and they've released a two-minute campaign video - in response to Nadine Dorries - about how the “BBC belongs to all of us”. As you'd expect,  the last word - “every one of us” - goes to Sir David Attenborough and the whole party political broadcast on behalf of the BBC ends with the caption, “This is our BBC.”

The estimable Lance Forman responded:

If the BBC belongs to me - Please can they release the Balen Report which examined anti-Israel bias at the BBC. The BBC have spent circa £500,000 to keep this covered up. With antisemitism rampant there is a public interest in releasing this. Transparency belongs to us all!

IV

The BBC's world affairs editor John Simpson pompously gives us “a reminder”:

Just a quick constitutional reminder for the BBC’s 100th anniversary: it belongs to the people of the UK. It doesn’t belong to the government. And, contrary to what the current Culture Secretary seems to think, it isn’t state-funded.

It may not be, but it still drags thousands of reluctant viewers through the courts.

V

As Paul Homewood notes, BBC Future has a piece by some white woke guy called Jeremy Williams headlined Climate change divides along racial lines. Could tackling it help address longstanding injustices? The pasty-faced gentleman in question has a book out too, Climate Change is Racist: Race, Privilege and the Struggle for Climate Justice, thereby evidently making him absolutely irresistible to the BBC. I'm not sure I was even aware of BBC Future. The BBC has no many tentacles it's hard to keep track.

VI(a)

I see some people on Twitter have been complaining that BBC One's main new bulletins gave mere seconds to the jailing of former Labour peer Lord Ahmed of Rotherham for paedophilia last night. Indeed, News at Six gave the story 17 seconds and News at Ten gave the story 13 seconds. It beggars belief.

VI(b)

It remains a telling fact that Newsnight has still never covered the Barry Gardiner/Chinese Communist Party influence story or that their policy editor Lewis Goodall, despite being a hyperactive Twitterer, has never tweeted about it either - despite the CCP's influence on the UK being one of the biggest new stories out there. I put it down to bias. 

VII

Wagner's Ring cycle lasts 17 hours and runs for over four days. In it the bronzed Valkyrie Brünnhilde disobeys the Director-General of the gods Wotan, ensconced in Valhalla House. The weak Wotan, despite Brünnhilde's flagrant disregard of Valhalla editorial guidelines, merely slaps her wrist by giving her a talking-to and then sentences her to a good night's sleep on a luxury bed surrounded by fire. The dragon-slaying idiot Siegfried awakens her with a kiss and an embittered, self-righteous Brünnhilde then - after various twists and turns - mounts her mighty steed Grane and, immolating herself in the process too, brings about the fiery destruction of Valhalla House and the godly board. Similarly long-lasting is the BBC's Monologue cycle. In this saga the bronzed Emily Maitlis disobeys pasty-faced chief god of the BBC Tim Davie. Tim Davie weakly slaps her wrist by mildly saying she might, possibly, not have been quite entirely right - and then does nothing more. She disobeys him again. And again. And again. Always playing throughout to her main audience, her fellow Valkyries on Twitter. The Trump-slaying Jon Sopel awakens her with a kiss and she mounts her mighty stallion Twitter and disobeys Tim Davie yet again. So what happens next? Well, if my tortuous Wagner analogy runs on, Emily's biased behaviour will help precipitate BBCdämmerung, The Twilight of the BBC, as Tim Davie sits forlorn in Broadcasting House as everything around him goes up in flames and, amid floodwaters, the Thamesmaidens swim in to take back the BBC licence fee. So is Tim Davie ever going to do something about her? She's making a mockery of 'BBC impartiality' and sneering at her BBC bosses, but I doubt he'll do anything. He doesn't seem the type to tackle BBC bias full on. As BBC TV sitcom Valkyrie Mrs Slocombe was wont to say, he's ''weak as water''. 

VIII

BBC disinformation reporter Marianna Spring has been busy promoting a new 10-part podcast series “investigating the human cost of pandemic conspiracies online in one town, who believes them - and why” for Radio 4 and BBC Sounds. She “will share more details soon!” This drew a sarcastic reply from Peter Hitchens: “Looking forward to this, Marianna Spring. Obviously this is the most urgent lack in BBC coverage of the last two years. But will a mere ten episodes be enough?”

IX

The BBC's diplomatic correspondent James Landale followed UK PM Boris Johnson to a press conference in Ukraine with the Ukrainian president and provoked criticism in some quarters for “making the UK look like a joke” by asking Boris about Partygate rather than Russia-Ukraine. I suspect that as extraterrestrials first emerge from their twenty-mile-long mothership to make contact with humanity for the first time BBC types will be there at the front of the press pack asking about the Sue Gray report. 

A united front

Sticking with Radio 4's Correspondents Look Ahead and the BBC World Service's BBC Correspondents Look Ahead, I noted Lyse Doucet talking on the former about the "fear" that the Iran nuclear deal would collapse and talking on the latter about how "while it wasn't perfect...it was certainly better than it is now". 

That takes me back to February last year when the BBC's Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen took to From Our Own Correspondent and sang the praises of the Iran nuclear deal and sounded off on how wrong it was that Donald Trump took the US out of it, telling Joe Biden what he needed to do: 

President Biden's big Middle Eastern challenge is to amend some of the damage done when Donald Trump pulled America out of the agreement to restrict Iran's nuclear activities. Iran has always denied that it wants a bomb but since President Trump made his move the Iranians have intensified their enrichment of uranium and are now closer to being able to create a weapon. He needs to avoid repeating the terrible mistakes of the last 30 years and that starts with restoring the agreement with Iran. It was far from perfect but it stopped a slide towards another Middle East war. Nobody wants one, but it's a possibility if the problem is left to fester. 

 I said at the time, "This is advocacy journalism, isn't it?"

John Simpson also took to Today in 2018 to outline his opposition to Donald Trump taking the US out of the deal.

All three of them think the same way about it, and have the opportunity to give their shared point of view from the BBC's bully pulpit , unchallenged.

This blog has several fine pieces from Sue putting the other side of the argument - that the Iran nuclear deal was worse that just 'not perfect' and that it was a bad and dangerous deal that Donald Trump was right to take the US out of:

Is the BBC biased?: Search results for iran nuclear

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

If you're not already in the Christmas spirit, here's a 'very BBC' tweet [and re-tweet]:

So this year's Reith lecturer says something that chimes with the BBC's departing environment activist that in turn chimes with the BBC's highly opinionated world affairs editor, naturally copying in George Moonbat.

Now which of Private Frazer from Dad's Army's catchphrases to use: "We're doomed!" or "Rubbish!"? 

Twas the Saturday before Christmas

Thank you, even more than normal, for your comments this week. 

You really have captured all the main goings-on involving the BBC, particularly on the open thread - with a special doff of the cap to Charlie. 

It's been invaluable, so thanks again.

-----------

Today, as JunkkMale notes, has been dominated by a mass 'flounce' by BBC types after Camilla Tominey, the delightful associate editor of the Daily Telegraph, published a BBC-bashing piece headlined The BBC is wilfully ignorant about Tory Britain. She began:

It may be apocryphal but it is a story worth telling anyway. A young producer turned up at the BBC to do a shift on election night in December 2019. Huw Edwards had just revealed the results of the exit poll, predicting a landslide Conservative majority and the complete evisceration of Jeremy Corbyn. According to the tale, the rookie journalist arrived at the newsroom in Portland Place to find half of Auntie’s staff in tears.

It might not be true but it certainly is believable.

Now, I dislike that kind of thing as much as anyone, possibly more so - the 'it's probably not true, but it reflects a real truth' nonsense. It drives me up the wall, round the ceiling and down the chimney, even while Santa might be busily climbing back up. Now, what I want is, Facts - to quote Mr Gradgrind. Camilla was probably just being rhetorical, but shouldn't have said it. 

But it's been huge fun watching The BBC Collective, and their allies, take to Twitter to spit out feathers and dummies at Camilla en masse. 

Nick Robinson, Marianna Spring, John Simpson and countless others have all piled in with furious 'tally-hos'. 

To sum up their grievance: It's not true and it's soooooo unfair.

You'd have to have a heart of stone not to burst a blood vessel laughing your head off at it all.

But, of course, such laughter might be misplaced. 

They're all piling in because they've spotted an obvious, easy chink in a BBC critic's armour. 

Camilla's opening paragraph is indefensible, so it was evidently all hands on deck and all grist to the Twitter mill from the BBC - and their fans - to exploit the situation to their advantage. 

Unfortunately for them, they're probably peeing into the Twitter wind - a tiny minority echo chamber. The folk 'below the line' at the Telegraph and their readers are somewhere else and on Camilla's side rather than the BBC's side - in another echo chamber possibly.

But maybe they're not peeing into the Twitter wind after all because although Twitter may be something some 5/6 of the UK population don't ever engage with they are still reaching the people who matter to them - their many fellow Twitter users in the high ranks of the media and the political class. In other words, their guardians.

Meanwhile, if this wasn't complicated enough already, Dame Nick Robinson also went on a massive [self-] righteous rant on Twitter about how Camilla had reported - or misreported -  a part of the story involving John Redwood MP, with Camilla swatting him off with a kiss and various counter-points. 

This was six of one and half a dozen of the other, though pompous Nick - being in his echo chamber - had the bulk of the support on Twitter.....which he really shouldn't take as reflecting anything much.

If you can't be bothered with any of the above I don't blame you. It's enough to make your head whirl like Recep Tayyip Erdoğan after hours of dervishing at an Ottoman revivalist rally. 

Julian and John

I have mixed feelings, none of them particularly strong in any direction, about Julian Assange. He arouses very strong, partisan passions in others though.

We recorded back in January what Charlie called ''a love letter'' to Mr Assange from the BBC's world affairs editor John Simpson on BBC One's News at Ten. 

And, in another case of a BBC reporter 'not' hanging up his opinions at the door, John's tweets have been similarly lacking in impartiality. This, for example, is what he tweeted on May 26, 2019:

Alan Rusbridger, writing in defence of Julian Assange: 'Whenever you read about journalists harming national security, massive alarm bells should start ringing.' Absolutely right. Assange revealed uncomfortable truths about US policy & tactics, & the US wants to punish him for it.

And with today's developments, the BBC's world affairs editor John Simpson is back in action again, campaigning about it once more on Twitter:

After today’s judgement in the Julian Assange extradition case, journalists in many countries will be worried about the precedent it sets. No one who reveals secrets which the US wants to keep hidden can be certain of staying safe.

Will this erupt in another BBC report/'love letter' on News at Ten, if his bosses let him?

''This tweet has been deleted''

[h/t JunkkMale] 

Like stealth edits caught by Newssniffer, deleted tweets can offer a glimpse into the thought processes of BBC journalists. So when John Simpson deleted this tweet yesterday we can assume he realised he'd gone too far:

Either that, or BBC bosses told him to delete it.

Will the BBC's John Simpson be watching Nigel and Donald on GB News tonight?

I've a free evening tonight, so I might watch GB News at 7pm when Nigel Farage interviews Donald Trump for a whole two hours. 

As you'd expect, certain BBC types aren't feeling particularly unemotional or impartial about it.

 

Within the last hour, the BBC's impartial World Affairs Editor John Simpson - someone who will never in a millennium of Mondays wish GB News well, or ever think a single pleasant thought about either Nigel Farage or Donald Trump - has taken to Twitter to sneer:

Before the hype that will no doubt follow Nigel Farage's interview with Donald Trump on GB News in some sections of the press, a quick reminder of the latest BARB viewing figures: BBC News 149,200. Sky 72,500. GBN 17,500.

Will he be watching though? 

Random Thoughts for a Sunday Evening

 

I

Lib Dems, lib Dems and Facebook

It's been a while since I've made myself listen to The World This Weekend but I learned something quite interesting from it today - albeit only after a bit of Googling as they didn't disclose it themselves.

The programme's main focus was on demands to regulate Facebook, particularly in light of the murder of Sir David Amess. 

I avoid Facebook like the plague.

Being politically-minded I now associate Facebook with Sir Nick Clegg, as he's become their Vice President for Global Affairs and Communications at Facebook since 2018.

The World This Weekend's sole defender of Facebook today was one Lord Allan, Facebook's Director of Policy in Europe until 2019. 

Like former Lib Dem leader/Deputy PM Sir Nick, Lord Allan is a former Lib Dem MP. So Facebook seems to like UK Liberal Democrats. 

And it gets spookier.

Lord Allan, it turns out from searching for him on the internet, was the MP for Sheffield Hallam from 1997-2005 before giving way to the one Nick Clegg, who remained MP for Sheffield Hallam from 2005-2017. 

What are the chances of that happening?

My random thought here is that maybe the American liberal Democrats at Facebook chose the UK's Liberal Democrats because of their party name, assuming because they call themselves 'Liberal Democrats' they must think like liberal Democrats in the US...and, if so, they should be careful when hiring from Russia and Japan or they might end up with Vladimir Zhirinovsky and Shinzo Abe, and they might un-ban former US president/possible future US president Donald Trump while Mark Zuckerberg isn't looking. 

II

The BBC and the word 'terrorist'

The estimable Scottish blogger Effie Deans has a thoughtful piece on her Lily of St. Leonard's blog about the murder of Sir David. It made me re-think a few things. and is well worth a read. 

If Sue's not seen it yet, it begins: 

Whenever there is a terrorist attack in somewhere like Israel, we are told by the BBC that it carried out by militants. It gives the impression that the far left from the 1980s stopped handing out newspapers to blow himself up. Only when a terrorist attack happens here in Britain will the BBC allow itself to describe it as such. IRA militants after all did not try to blow up Margaret Thatcher. If a word is useful then we must use it consistently. If something is terrorism call it terrorism, otherwise you are lying in which case how can you be trusted on anything.

It then moves on.

It's certainly true that the BBC will use the word 'terrorist' more about terrorist attacks in the UK than anywhere else and that it goes out of its way to avoid applying it to the like of Hamas or Islamic Jihad or Hezbollah.

But the BBC has used it in connection to radical Islamic terrorism in the UK through the most gritted of gritted teeth over the last couple of decades. 

They were very reluctant to begin with post 9/11, and particularly post 7/7 in London. 

All of us hereabouts observed that at the time. 

It made the BBC look terrible and absurd. 

I'm guessing they finally realised that they were dangerously adrift from the public mood, so they eventually eased the prohibition. 

And that's where we are now - with a word that should never had been banned being grudgingly allowed in the UK context - albeit still through gritted teeth on certain BBC reporters' parts - but still being banned [except in heavy inverted commas] when it comes to terrorism against, say, Israel.

III

Sunday, Flipping Sunday

The one Radio 4 programme I've tried to keep up with during my blogging slumbers is Radio 4's Sunday, what with it being the starting point of this very blog. 

It never really changes. 

Todays programme featured:  

[a] Takes on the murder of Sir David Amess which avoided the thorny issue of Islamic terrorism.

[b] An entirely one-sided 'woke' segment on Ethiopian demands for the return of some sacred plaques held by the British Museum where neither context nor the other other side of the argument was given. Presenter Emily Buchanan simply announced that the Ethiopians were demanding them back, said that we [the UK] ''looted'' it, and stated that ''lawyers'' said it was legally right to return them, and then interviewed an Ethiopian Orthodox priest who told listeners how precious these plaques were to the Ethiopians. When it's that one-sided it reeks of abetting a campaign.

[c] A strange piece about how cuddly toy deities might be ''the best way to help children understand faith and culture'', reporting on how a range of cuddly toys of deities like the Hindu god Ganesha is ''expanding to include all major faiths'', including Jesus and Buddha. I googled the company and checked their range of cuddly toys and found that the phrase Sunday kept using - ''all major faiths'' - wasn't quite true. You won't be surprised to hear that Islam was the exception and that the BBC skirted around the point like a cat trying to avoid its fated date with a cage during a trip to the vets. 

[d] A piece on a Jewish comedy Fringe event featuring...and here's the BBC angle...''the only Orthodox Jewish woman on the British comedy circuit''. There's always got to be a bit of identity politics and marking of identity politics milestones. 

[e] The inevitable book-plug for a friend of the programme, here Catholic author Peter Stanford. 

[f] A somewhat campaigning closing segment about aggrieved Muslim women being refused entry to pray within some mosques and how ''conservative'' attitudes in mosques need changing, followed by an interview with Sunday's favourite Muslim, the silky Sheikh Ibrahim Mogra, who positioned himself somewhat vaguely on the matter, as is his way. At least Sunday raised the question of Deobandi influence.

I've been going on about the programme for over a  decade now, but there's now a small legion of people criticising Sunday every single week on Twitter and on blogs hereabouts. It's a growth industry that growing fast. The programme remains the ripest of ripe targets as far as BBC bias is concerned.

IV

Nancy wonders if it's just her

Following today's Sunday was - as ever - Sunday Worship. I was in the mood for hymns and heard it live. 

It provoked a murmur on Twitter when Annunziata Rees-Mogg [sister of Jacob] complained about it being about gender equality today when it should have been a Catholic service in honour of Sir David Amess.

Wouldn’t it have been nice if Sunday Worship on BBC Radio4 had been from a Catholic Church in memory of Sir David Amess? And perhaps a sermon about the value of public service rather than gender equality? Or maybe that’s just me.

Now, I have to say that - much as I can see where she's coming from -  I agreed with those of her critics who pointed out that these things are prepared weeks and months in advance. The BBC publishes the text and running order of the service in full before it's even broadcast. And this was coming live from Ely Cathedral. So this was a juggernaut that's being rolling for weeks ready for this morning, and the BBC couldn't just drop it and swap it with a different service. And, in the event, a pray for Sir David was said at the start before the feminist-influenced, all-women service about women in the Bible began.....though, amusingly, the male dean popped up at the end to read the blessing.

So Annunziata might have been better saying that, yes, the BBC couldn't reasonably have replaced this service at the last minute, but that it's still 'very BBC' that the identity-politics-obsessed BBC Radio 4 prepared yet another service with an 'identity politics' focus today, because Sunday Worship is doing that ever more often as the channel increasingly sinks into a smelly slough of 'woke'.

V

John Simpson says 'this can't go on'

Fantasies, born of childhood/adulthood reading of brave British men rescuing women in peril, have occasionally led me to dream that we British would somehow spring Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe from jail in Iran, literally leaving behind a Carry-On-style black fingernail card of 'two digits rampant' for old 'Smiler' Khamenei to splutter at as his beard caught on fire humorously.

Five years younger than the Supreme Leader of Iran, the BBC's World Affairs Editor John Simpson is unimpressed: 

The rejection of @FreeNazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's appeal in Tehran is predictable but disgraceful. She is being held hostage for the repayment of a £400m debt the UK owes to Iran. Handing money to Iran is a big problem, given its support for terrorism; but this can't go on.

I do believe that the BBC's Mr Impartiality is demanding, ever so impartially, that the British Government cough up to the terroristic, hostage-holding Ayatollah. 

Hm. 

KaBULL

Jim Al-Khalili: I know that of all the things wrong in the world, such trivialities shouldn't bug me, but who's told all TV journalists to start mispronouncing Kābul (long a) as KaBULL? Gah!

John Simpson: What about Northern Island (a favourite of weather forecasters)? Or RE-search? Just about everyone pronounces the ‘j’ in ‘Beijing’ like the ‘s’ in ‘pleasure’. It ought to be like the ‘j’ in ‘just’. Good luck persuading anyone of that, though.

Jim's not wrong, and if you tune into Today or watch BBC reporters you'll hear many manglings of words like 'Taliban', and even 'Pakistan'.

John's View

John Simpson, the BBC's impartial yet highly opinionated World Affairs Editor, having previously spoken his brains and splurged his spleen on Twitter against the Biden administration's withdrawal from nation-building in Afghanistan, has today posted a piece on the BBC News website saying the same at greater length.

The piece's headline doesn't bother to disguise its author's opinion - or his name. 

John Simpson on Afghanistan: A country abandoned 

And in it the famous John Simpson of the BBC gives a full-bodied defence of The West's 'liberal interventionalist' intervention in Afghanistan. 

To summarise: Our intervention was a good thing and it achieved even more than we think it did, and we could have kept on keeping on there. 

And he then gives a cry from the heart about the horrible consequences of our withdrawal.

I don't think Tony Blair himself would demur from a single word of it.

John Simpson may or may not be right, but it still fascinates me how he's allowed to be so bold with his opinions on a highly controversial matter at the impartial BBC whilst holding the surely impartiality-bound role of BBC World Affairs Editor. 

Swift Update. 

And the big guy's back on Twitter now with news of his Radio 4 report tonight featuring ''a leading UK diplomat'' who, you won't be surprised to hear, agrees with him 100%:

John Simpson: Just reported for the 6pm BBC Radio News on Britain's and America's serious defeat in Afghanistan - including the judgement of a leading UK diplomat: the withdrawal from Afghanistan is ‘a thoroughgoing abdication of everything we stand for.’

What are the chances of that happening? John Simpson finding ''a leading UK diplomat'' who says exactly what John believes and John then popping him into his impartial Radio 4 report? 

There can only be one explanation. It's a miracle of BBC impartiality.

Guess who John Simpson blames?