Don't worry, be happy!

BBC Breakfast had Frederika Roberts, a smiling "happiness and resilience expert", on this morning's show to help counter what it clearly thinks in a depressed national mood. 

Naga Munchetty wondered, "With all this uncertainty, how do we put a smile back on our faces?"

Presenter Jon Kay welcomed Frederika by saying, "I think the Wales result last night has put a smile back on people's faces, hasn't it? It's been a heck of a ten days or so, hasn't it, whatever your politics? How do we gee ourselves up?" 

Frederika admitted to "ranting" on social media in recent days, but thinks "in the long run it's probably not a helpful thing to do". 

Frederika Roberts: One of the things - no matter which side of the divide you were on in the past week or so - what has been lovely to see is that amongst all the negativity there's also been amazing reports of people doing random acts of kindness. 

Jon Kay: Yeah. We asked viewers actually to send us in pictures this morning, show us the kind of...the little things that have been a difference, made them smile. 

Naga thanked her for "helping us figure out how to cheer ourselves up".

Whether Naga, Jon and Frederika were worrying about the national mood or just 48% of the national mood is a moot question.

"Just when you think he can't get any weirder!"

That thread on Digital Spy asking whether the BBC is biased against Donald Trump might be growing in length if anyone has been watching BBC Breakfast this morning. 

After Richard Gere had earlier described Mr Trump as "a bully" (having been asked for his views on the subject by Louise Minchin) the two in-studio Breakfast presenters then poured all their talent for scorn into their presentation of a short clip from the latest Republic Party presidential debate. Both put on incredulous voices, Jon grinned and Naga shook her head disapprovingly. It was all very theatrical. (The transcript below doesn't really do that side of it justice).

Naga Munchetty: Donald Trump has come under attack from his main rivals for the Republican presidential nomination in the latest televised debate. The frontrunner in the Republican race was on the defensive in Detroit as Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz tried to make an impact. In one of the more bizarre moments, Mr Trump responds to one comment which had been made about the size of his hands:  

Donald Trump: He hit my hands. Nobody has ever hit my hands. I've never heard of this word. Look at those hands. Are they small hands? And he referred to my hands: If they're small something else must be small. I guarantee you there's no problem. I guarantee. 

Jon Kay: Just when you think he can't get any weirder! 

Rectifying a surprising omission

The paper reviewer on this morning's BBC Breakfast was writer and barrister Zia Chaudhry, founder of the Just Your Average Muslim project (and author of the book of the same name). 

One of the things about keeping records about the BBC - even incomplete ones - is that they allow to to keep track of changes to BBC editorial policy over time. 

A couple of years ago, I listed all the guests from a couple of separate runs of BBC Breakfast weekend paper reviews - one from 2011, the other from 2013/14 - and noted that, between 2011 and 2014, there had clearly been a determined effort (a) to feature more female paper reviewers, (b) to move away from using print journalists , and (c) to invite more religious guests - especially vicars.

A curious thing looking back over those two lists (which you can read here) is that they only included one Muslim guest, Mehdi Hasan - and even he'd (seemingly) been dropped over the intervening period, leaving no Muslims guests throughout the 2013-14 period. That was a very surprising omission for the BBC, wasn't it?

That has clearly changed now. Within the past month alone, Shaykh Ibrahim Mogra (on Boxing Day), Nazir Afzal and now Zia Chaudhry have all been on the weekend BBC Breakfast sofa reviewing the papers. A editorial decision has, therefore, obviously been taken - and put into practice - to include more Muslim paper reviewers on BBC Breakfast.

I will return to closely monitoring this for a while. Will any other editorial decisions be discernible?

******

Anyhow, here's part of how the start of this morning's paper review went:

Jon Kay: Zia, thanks for coming in. What's attracted your attention in the papers? 

Zia Chaudhry: Well, the Prime Minister, not surprisingly, in his opening to the new year had something to say to those who don't seem to subscribe to British values. And, of course, he's addressing the terrorist threat and how it's not just those who pull the trigger and who set off the explosives who need to be tackled but those who...in the past he's used the phrase "quietly condone". But it's along the same lines that we need to subscribe to British values. But he's used a phrase, "loyalty to Britain" which is going to be interesting to define because a lot of people say one of the best things about being British is that you can dissent, you can take part in an anti-war demonstration without committing a crime. And it might be that some people interpret "loyalty to Britain" as meaning that we can no longer do that. I don't think that is the position but its perhaps a timely reminder that we need to be clear in the way we define these things and avoid a 'them versus us' sort of narrative that seems to be developing. 

Steph McGovern: Hmm, and interesting as well because, of course, it will be this year when we have the EU referendum. So that kind of plays into that as well, doesn't it?

Maybe it's the after-effects of all that New Year cheer, but I really didn't quite follow Steph's logic there. Did you?

From today's BBC Breakfast paper reviews...

For those who missed this morning's BBC Breakfast paper reviews with Nazir Afzal, former chief prosecutor here in the North West, here are some extracts from his two discussion with Jon Kay and Naga Munchetty.

The contributions of the BBC presenters here are well worth noting for the way they steered the conversation in particular directions.

Note the general disdain for Donald Trump, the admiration for Justin Trudeau, Naga's promotion of a pro-migrant story and the careful handling of the latest findings from Ofsted:

From the first paper review:

Jon Kay: Let's move on to the Daily Telegraph. It's just one of many papers, of course, referring to Donald Trump, who's been in the papers and news every day this week. What's he said now? 

Nazir Afzal: Well, he's never short of a comment or two. Today...or yesterday, he talked about his view...and he seem to keep focusing on British Muslims a lot given that he's running for the American presidency...he's talked about British Muslims apparently, according to him, more likely to be fighting for the Islamic State, so-called Islamic State, rather than the British Army, basing it on some figures he's seen somewhere. And most of the newspapers have taken him to task over that, the reality being that's not true, and he doesn't take account of the thousands of Muslims that are fighting against the Islamic State and also the fact that 99% of the victims of so-called Islamic State are Muslims themselves. And I think there's a wider point...and I've been trying to make this all week...is that he doesn't take account of the Muslims in the police service, the Muslims in the prosecution service, the Muslims in public service. You know, we make a...Muslims make a tremendous contribution to British society and that's something he seems to neglect and ignore. And, you know, I might have been a chief crime prosecutor, I might be...I'm a pro-chancellor of a university, you know, I chair various charities, but there are too many people, unfortunately, who just simply want to identify me by my faith. And not only is that sad, it's very dangerous. 

Jon Kay: And you think it's more likely that would be the case if these kind of comments from Donald Trump continue to get this kind of coverage? 

Nazir Afzal: It feeds this feeling that Muslims are different and Muslims are not contributing, when I know for a fact that's not true. 

Naga Munchetty: And actually, in stark contrast, Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister, he's been greeting the first plane carrying refugees from Syria. 

Nazir Afzal: It's a...it really puts us to shame, doesn't it? The Canadian prime minister is meeting, himself, the new Syrian refugees that have come. And people tend to forget that Syrian refugees are leaving everything behind. They are running away from these murderers of the so-called Islamic State and we have an absolute responsibility to look after refugees, as we did in the '30s when members of the Jewish faith were leaving...and, you know, running away from the Nazis. So the fact that Trudeau himself is meeting them as they arrive is a statement and one we should be...well, one we should be shamed by. 

Naga Munchetty: Another statement that is quite interesting...I don't know if you saw the Banksy photo of Steve Jobs, former Apple CEO and son of a Syrian migrant? 

Nazir Afzal: Yes. 

Naga Munchetty: And you spoke about, you know, the words from the likes of Donald Trump and what it does for Muslims. There are other voices though that are coming out and that must be quite heartening as well? You know, actually not everyone has a negative point of view and people are willing to put forward a positive point of view. 

Nazir Afzal: Absolutely. It has to be said that this country's the best country for Muslims in the world in my view, and the view of many, many Muslims. And the fact that Steve Jobs was, you know, the son of a Syrian migrant and made an enormous contribution - and he did build the biggest corporation in the world - says a good deal about what we should be focusing on which is 'contribution' not 'cost'.

Googling around this morning reveals that the BBC played no small part in first promoting the positive pro-(Muslim)-immigration Steve Jobs angle to the Syrian refugees/immigration story. 

According to Apple's UK brand MacWorld magazine: 

Less well known is the fact that while Steve Jobs was born in California he was actually adopted, and his biological father was a political migrant from the Syrian city of Homs, now devastated by the civil war in Syria.

On Twitter this fact has now gone viral, starting via a tweet by David Galbraith, and further exposed by the BBC World Service's Outside Source programme. It remains a powerful statement, especially following the ISIS atrocities in Syria, Iraq, Egypt and now mainland Europe.

Back to BBC Breakfast though, and from the second paper review:

Naga Munchetty: OK. Erm, "Islamic schools face prosecution after the discovery of anti-gay books and rats". You're going to have to explain what's happening. 

Nazir Afzal: OK, yes. Ofsted has, quite rightly, they inspect these independent schools and supplementary schools as well as the schools that we would normally associate with them. And they've identified a number of schools - one in particular that's referred to which has anti-gay propaganda and materials available to children. 

Naga Munchetty: Well, it's quoting "misogynistic, homophobic and anti-Semitic material". 

Nazir Afzal: Absolutely, and as I understand it that school has now actually been closed down and Ofsted have used their powers. And again my point here here is it's also...some of...one of the other newspapers talks about Sunday schools may be inspected as well under the new regime, and I'm very much in favour of anywhere that's responsible for safeguarding our children being subject to inspection. That's how we raised standards. Anywhere that's looking after our children should ensure they don't have access to materials like this, that they're given a proper curriculum and they're taught the kind of things we would want them to be taught.