Nick Robinson and the dogs on the street

That drew this response from someone who's normally pretty pro-BBC:

Mike Love: Did he? Why is he expressing an opinion like that as a BBC employee? Fine quoting someone else, but not saying it himself.

There's a lot of that going on.  

Two out, one back in

Another of our old BBC favourites, retired BBC veteran Hugh Sykes, took to Twitter the other day in light of the BBC's Ukraine coverage to take a potshot at Jon Sopel and Emily Maitlis:

Hugh Sykes: I bet the recent Big Name defections from the BBC are regretting their decision to go dosh-and-podcast - they are nowhere near the front line now: out of sight, out of mind.

David M. Beneš: Oh they’ll soon be back, like KK.

Hugh Sykes: No one is indispensable.

I was also thinking about Maits and Soapless today in light of all the chat hereabouts about how The New York Times has just conceded that The New York Post got it right in 2020 when reporting the Hunter 'Son of Joe' Biden laptop story - a possible major scandal with strong implications for the ethical standing of the present US president, especially in light of the Ukraine crisis. 

This was, notoriously, something that landed The New York Post - a famous US newspaper - with a two-week Twitter ban for its now-shown-to-be-accurate journalism in the run-up to the 2020 US election. 

It's the sort of thing the BBC's disinformation unit and Ros's Radio 4 Media Show should look into and John Simpson should object to. 

Where Jon and Emily come into this is that they did an Americast podcast for the BBC at the time [which Arthur T got me to listen to] where they 'covered' the story. 

'Covered', in inverted commas, is the word. They 'covered' it, but Emily Maitlis in particular - then in her pomp at the BBC - was openly derisive about the story, sarcastically mocking the fact that they were covering it at all. Her and Sopes and The Zurch used every trick of language in the book to show how little they thought of the story. It was all a distraction by The Donald apparently.

On listening back today the word 'covered' took on other connotations: Unconsciously or consciously, they were 'covering' for Joe Biden as he fought for office with President Trump, blowing the same bubbles that their US counterparts were blowing from their echo chamber to help make this story blow away.

Anyhow, they're now LBC's business. Rob Burley, bless him, will probably end up having to defend them on Twitter. For his sake only, I hope they're not a walking disaster for LBC's ratings.

Meanwhile, as David M. Beneš tweeted above, KK - Katty Kay - is back at the BBC. 

She was formerly the face of the BBC in America but left last year to join a left-wing US media outlet that closed shortly afterwards following fraud allegations. 

The BBC has kindly taken her back on as a 'US special correspondent'. 

Kindly for her, though not necessarily for BBC licence fee payers.  

She's now back on the Beeb defending the Biden administration as if she'd never left and back doing the BBC's claim of impartiality harm again.

Despite Hugh, Emily Maitlis and Jon Sopel's departure was a blessing for the BBC in impartiality terms. Rescuing Katty Kay - the kind of partisan BBC journalist who also moans about the influence of 'the Jewish lobby' - isn't a good idea for the publicly-paid corporation in that respect.

Coda to Sue's post...

So Mates and Soapless are off to join James O'Brien, presumably leaving The Zurch in the lurch. 

It's worked out nicely for the Beeb because the Defund the BBC campaign has lost its poster girl, but - looking on the bright side - it's worked out nicely for us too because we'll hopefully never have to think of either of them ever again. 🙏

Oh!

 

 

The Telegraph. Hope you can all access the comments!  Quick summary for those who can’t :

“Good riddance / we are all watching GB News now anyway."

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. 

Like shooting fish in a barrel

A piece in The Mail on Sunday today is going to make me use a contemporary phrase I've never used before: The absolute state of...Jon Sopel! 

How the BBC has fallen since the days of sober reporters like Charles Wheeler. Here instead is the BBC's outgoing North America editor openly admitting to have been ''almost hyperventilating'' every day in the early days of the Trump presidency. [Yes, Jon, we noticed].

And, to be fair, from this piece he's still ''almost hyperventilating'' about it:

It was 1930s Berlin rolled up with the decadent end of the Roman Empire. Every day was a Bacchanalian orgy of stories, backbiting, sackings, leaks, fury and indignation. And chaos.

To save you having to read it all, his whole MoS piece can be boiled down to this: Trump was so exciting! Biden's boring! 

The opening sentence of the top-rated comment below the article sums up my reaction to a tee:

You only find Biden dull because you're a lazy journalist.

Indeed, the Biden-Harris administration should be an absolute gift for inquiring journalists. I'm finding it fascinating, like watching a building collapse.

Sopes's Farewell

As well as marking the start of both Hanukkah and Advent this year, yesterday marked the momentous moment when the BBC's North America Editor Jon Sopel finished his job in the United States and flew off to BBC pastures newish...

He tweeted, ''And that’s a wrap. Farewell USA. Have had a ball''.

It's a good-natured thing to wish people well, but I really don't think he covered himself in any glory whatsoever. 

He played to a very particular gallery throughout. 

And he returned the role to its ultra-sneering, unthinkingly partisan past under Matt Frei. 

[In between came Justin Webb and Mark Mardell, who at least tried to be serious reporters].

I'm afraid my heart is with this comment in reaction to JS's tweet: 

News Addict: Thank God this guy has gone. He was one of the main reasons I stopped watching the BBC during the US election. One of the most biased, unprofessional, emotionally unstable political correspondents they have ever had. Good riddance.

So where is he off to next? To present Today? To replace Laura K as BBC political editor? To take over Andy Marr's sofa? To host a new BBC News Channel programme in the evening called Talking Pints...with [hic] Jon Sopel?

Groupthink

Sopes, Maitlis and The Zurch gathered again for Americast this week to review the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict, absolute oozing disapproval of Kyle Rittenhouse and his defence team and his supporters. The Zurch complained about two-tier justice for the rich because of all the funding for Kyle R; while Maitlis asserted that his gun was illegal despite the judge saying it wasn't; and Sopes sneered at him for meeting Tucker Carson and for becoming ''a celebrity'' after killing two ''protestors''; and both Sopes and Maitlis were aghast at him being offered internships, and played clips of some of his ''far-out'' high-profile Republican supporters, mocking and sneering at them; then The Zurch talked of the ''tragedy'' of the men's killing and how the Right was turning Kyle R into Captain America. And then came their guest, and she ruled Kyle R ''morally culpable'' and thinks the case should have been made against him over his handling of the gun. The bias was in plain slight, and this might have been MSNBC.

Anyhow, have you read Stephen Daisley's latest Spectator piece, Kyle Rittenhouse and the collapse of media neutrality? Oddly, he doesn't mention the BBC. 

Update: Meanwhile, here's a little Twitter exchange that also, oddly, doesn't mention the BBC:

Spiked: The silence on the Waukesha massacre is shameful. Six people were slaughtered by a man in an SUV and there’s just silence from Hollywood, from influencers, from the woke set. Identity politics has corroded these people’s humanity, says Brendan O’Neill. 

Max Klinger: Brendan O'Neill on the horrendous attack in Waukesha and the predictable response to it in @spikedonline. He's correct. It's possible to predict when we will and won't witness massive displays of selective outrage with almost perfect accuracy.

So...Americast moved on from one episode to another in this past couple of weeks, covering Kyle Rittehouse and the killing of a black jogger, Ahmaud Arbery, in Georgia by three white men. 

Have a guess which murderous US event they didn't cover, as if to prove Brendan right?

Lets go Brendon!

Newsbeat disrespects Birmingham, Sopes exits the US, the BBC calls someone 'far-right', actual antisemitism rages, Big Ted and Little Ted criticise the Government and 'Genetically Impartial' former BBC bigwig Helen Boaden resurfaces - Various subjects

I

Oddly, except for passing through Birmingham New Street, I've never been to Birmingham, England's second city [after Lancaster]. 

Having read the Guardian today with their headline 'Three-quarters of BBC Newsbeat staff decline to relocate to Birmingham. Vast majority of youth news service’s 40 employees indicate they will not move to new base in Midlands' [the poor lambs want to stay in London] I'm now tempted to go there sporting a 'The BBC Doesn't Want to Live in Birmingham' t-shirt.

II

Meanwhile, and moving on...

Dame Jon Sopel, the BBC's North America Editor, has some breaking news, tweeting today, ''Some personal news: I’m off.. After 7+ fab years in DC, 3 books, 3 presidents (one kept me busier than others) it’s time to return to the UK and BBC mothership.'' 

This present US president should have been keeping him busy too, but I'm sensing that the loss of the thrill of the hunt and the fun of the easy applause for his endless sarcasm about Donald Trump has sapped the energy of his reporting recently and that the many, manifest failings of the increasingly unpopular and calamitous Biden-Harris administration aren't something he wants to chronicle, especially given Joe Biden's increasingly apparent personal difficulties. 

III

Staying in foreign parts...

Sometimes BBC bias makes life a lot simpler. The Wikipedia article on French presidential hopeful Eric Zemmour goes into agonies over how to label him. Is he 'on the right' or 'conservative right' or 'right-wing' or 'far-right' or 'radical right' or 'Gaullist' or 'Bonapartist'? Academics and media outlets disagree about how to describe him but the BBC has no doubts whatsoever. A single BBC News (UK) tweet last night contained the phrase 'far-right' three times. Anyone like him is always 'far-right' as far as the BBC goes. It's so simple.

IV

M. Zemmour has an Algerian Jewish background, so I'm not sure if the BBC would cast him in the next series of Ridley Road. The non-Jewish main actor who did appear in Ridley Road as a Jew, Eddie Marsan, has been targeted by antisemites thinking that he is Jewish. To quote The Kinks, it's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world.

V

Meanwhile, The Times reports that Baroness Benjamin [Floella from Playschool] isn't happy about some publicly-funded schemes being at risk and wants the Government/tax payers to step in and cough up. She wants to protect BBC funding too. 

What caught my eye is that one of the schemes, the Audio Content Fund, is run by our old friend Helen Boaden, a former director of BBC News. 

Ah yes, 'genetically impartial' Helen! 

Reading the Wikipedia article about her brought back so many memories. including:

Boaden received criticism following the July 7 terror attacks in London when she issued a memo instructing BBC staff not to refer to the perpetrators as terrorists, arguing that the term "can be a barrier rather than aid to understanding". Former BBC reporter Martin Bell was one of those who condemned the memo, accusing the BBC of being "overcautious" and noting that the attackers seemed to meet the definition of terrorists. Writing in The Spectator, Michael Vestey suggested "it's almost as if the BBC is afraid of offending suicide bombers in the Muslim world".

Despite being explicitly criticised in the Pollard Report for handling the Jimmy Savile affair so casually, she continued to thrive at the BBC before leaving and moving on to the likes of the aforementioned scheme and - for some reason - the board of the UK Statistics Authority. You obviously can't keep an ex-BBC high-up down. There are clearly no barriers to her advancement.

Echoes

As mentioned a couple of posts ago, I'm so grateful to you all for pointing out the BBC lowlights this week on the open thread. It's keeping the ITBB archive going. 

And the BBC have had quite a week of lowlights.

I

The Great Gambo being interviewed by Victoria Derbyshire was certainly quite something. 

In my teenage years back in the 1980s, Paul Gambaccini was one of my heroes. His Radio One Saturday afternoon US chart show was something I never missed. 

Or hardly ever. And as I was in my early teens at the time and charts-obsessed, and would always be listening to it with my cassette recorder at the ready to catch every new entry on the UK and US charts, I could get quite ratty if Mum and Dad ever made me miss it. I remember going into a particularly huge 14-year old sulk on being taken off to see my gran in Kendal [Cumbrian home of the famous mint cake] one Saturday afternoon and missing the latest US Top 30 countdown from Mr G.

So I've always had a big soft spot for him. And he's always been the broadcasting pro's broadcasting pro. And I'm so glad he's come through all the horrors of hideous false allegations, and that he's now come out fighting, and is seeking redress. I wish him well.

It is intriguing though that he says he'll be coming for the BBC too one day for aiding and abetting such injustices because he does still work for the BBC. I only hope the BBC remember they still have a 'duty of care' towards him, consider their role in reporting [or mis-reporting] these stories, stick by him and avoid the pettiness that the BBC can often sink to when they feel threatened.

II

I'm not one for late nights, but even I stayed up to watch wonderful Emma Raducanu triumph in the tennis. 

She's so much more likeable a UK champion than Andy Murray, and everyone seems to be celebrating her today.

It's probably just a Twitter thing that the usual suspects have been scoring political points though. It's like an obsessive compulsion. 

I've at least left it a few hours before doing something similar and pointing out that Gary Lineker has been busy on Twitter scoring political points over Emma's victory, racialising her achievements and pushing pro-immigration, anti-government comments, and reinforcing crude ad hom attacks on Nigel Farage [with apologies for quoting the attack on Nigel that Gary joined in with, ''the nasty little turd'']. 

I've lost track of Gary's tweeting over recent months [not that I've ever paid much attention to him on Twitter], but to see him in full flow today has reminded me why he's so controversial as far as BBC impartiality goes. He remains very opinionated and politically-focused, and shouldn't have joined in that nasty attack on Nigel Farage. 

Anyhow, it was a triumph for Channel 4 too, ''humiliating'' the BBC by getting the rights to broadcast Emma's match. I hope everyone was watching that rather than Match of the Day. It's something sporting that will be remembered for a very long time. 

Update. And, being the BBC, here we go with the signalling retweets:

Why doesn't Sopes get back to reporting the lying, incompetent Biden administration? He should be rushed off his feet at the moment.

III

As Charlie noted, the BBC's first LBGT Correspondent Ben Hunte's short career at the BBC is ending. 

John Humphrys, on leaving the BBC, specifically named and shamed him for being a new breed of activist compromising BBC journalism. 

And Ben soon landed the BBC in trouble, with an impartiality-busting piece on transgender matters that saw complaints galore, and correction after correction, and BBC clarifications, and ECU rulings against it over endless months. 

He then seemed to have been sent off to Africa for months to do special reports. 

And now he's off to Vice. 

IV

I'd urge any passers-by to click on the following link to another comment on the Open Thread. LINK. 

I've read the thread and it looks like a particularly bad case of the BBC spreading disinformation by failing to check the facts. Please see what you think. 

V

The whole BBC 'allyship' thing may make your jaw drop for not being satire. But it's another bizarre sign of where we are. I'll quote Charlie's accurate summary:

Reported in The Telegraph tonight. You couldn’t make it up! BBC staff have been offered an “allyship” test which identifies whether they are more privileged than their colleagues, as part of diversity training. The manual also sets out seven types of allies that staff can become in the workplace. One of them, the “upstander”, is someone who “shuts down, reports and pushes back on offensive jokes and inappropriate comments, even if no one’s hurt by them”. This type of ally should “check in privately with anyone who’s been offended” by the joke and “don’t just be a bystander”. Another ally type is a “champion”, who “voluntarily defers to colleagues from underrepresented groups in meetings, events and conferences”. Voluntarily deferring to underrepresented groups - the BBC do this already anyway.

In tackling this kind of nonsense, the BBC is a big part of the problem. They aren't just buying the Emperor's new clothes, they're selling them on too.

On Jon Sopel [the Full Sopes treatment]

I

A few days ago, one Tony Spencer tweeted a link to a BBC News website piece, Three ways this Afghanistan crisis really hurts Biden The US president promised more competence and empathy - his reputation and America's have taken a hit. 

Tony wrote,

Hope @BBCJonSopel is not reading this. Biden's number one fan will be so disappointed.

Jon Sopel, adding a 'rolling eyes' emoji, replied,

Tony - I wrote it.

“Burn!” cried Jon's delighted Twitter fans.

Tony then replied,

Wow. I'm impressed and should have read the credits!! Fair play to you Jon on this article, which is well balanced. Changed your tune a bit, though.

To which Jon - channeling his famous “impartial, free and fair” response to President Trump's 'Another beauty!' crack - replied,

Nope. Have not changed a bit. Hold people in power to account - fairly and firmly whatever their political stripes.

II 

Jon Sopel's belief in his own impartiality is undoubtedly sincere. He evidently thinks he's getting it right.

He's proclaimed it many times, from his appearances on Feedback and Newswatch, to his newspaper/gazette interviews. 

He's even favourably contrasted his own 'fair' reporting of Donald Trump to that of 'unfair' partisan, liberal US outlets, despite himself reporting on the previous US president in pretty much the same hostile, sneering spirit as they do - albeit with added British dryness.

There's none so blind, perhaps...

Or to quote the ripe-for-cancelling Rabbie Burns on behalf of Jon: O wad some Power the giftie gie us, to see oursels as ithers see us!

I, personally, don't think that Jon Sopel has been even remotely impartial as the BBC's North America editor - whatever he thinks. He objected to Donald Trump and fixated on Donald Trump's tweets [despite criticising others for fixating on them], and sneered and sneered and sneered about Mr Trump, whilst evidently getting a real kick out of playing to the gallery, reinforced by the enthusiastic responses he got from the usual, unrepresentative suspects on Twitter. 

III

Yes, many more people than just Tony - including me - found themselves taken aback by the sheer unexpectedness of Jon Sopel's strong criticisms of President Biden over the incompetent-at-best Afghan pullout. 

From Twitter to the BBC's News at Ten he's actually been pretty brutal.

Here's a small sample of his reporting, broadcast over the month on BBC One's main news bulletins:

• Those optics are terrible. This looks like being the most consequential decision that Joe Biden is going to take. It could also be the most calamitous.
• Over many years and at a cost of tens of billions of dollars, the US trained and equipped Afghan forces to be ready to take back control of their country. But they collapsed like a house of cards - one of many miscalculations made by the Biden administration over these dizzying few weeks.
• This may have been Donald Trump's policy, but it is Joe Biden's implementation, and I think he will play quite a price for the shambles that has unfolded over the past few days. 
• America is the world's pre-eminent superpower, but after the past few days, it doesn't look very super and it actually doesn't look that powerful.

So is this a sign of impartiality? He spent four years 'holding Donald Trump to account' and then some, after all,

Or does it show the opposite? 

Because this could very well be Jon marching in lockstep with like-minded US journalists, let down by and angrily disagreeing with 'their' President.

Many of them - just like the BBC's John Simpson - seem to be deeply wedded to the liberal interventionalist model, and aghast at the pullout.

[They also like war reporting.]

And, indeed, it does strike me as being highly suggestive that huge swathes of the US liberal media - even some of the most partisan outlets - have just-as-suddenly turned on Joe Biden over Afghanistan too, at exactly the same time, over exactly the same issues, and just as fiercely, and that they are all making much the same criticisms of the incumbent President as Jon Sopel's been making. 

Liberal interventionist birds of a feather flock together, even on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean?

IV

And it also strikes me that Jon Sopel, like his BBC colleagues, has been just as guilty as those partisan, liberal US outlets of not holding President Biden to account...up till the point when the Afghan debacle began unfolding.

The other day on GB News Simon McCoy [ex-BBC] commented, just as the crisis began:

If you watch some channels you would be forgiven for thinking everything's fine because President Trump's gone. And yet America, Joe Biden, with the decision to remove troops from Afghanistan, there are issues, there's sleaze bubbling under around President Biden.

I think he had the BBC in mind, doubtless among others. 

The Real Simon was, I think, rather understating it though. From the border crisis and growing economic woes to VP Kamala Harris's unpopularity and the divisiveness of Democrat identity politics radicalism, there's so much to say about the present US government.

Indeed, the 'Nothing to see here' attitude to the Biden administration's many failings even saw the BBC park their Americast podcast - the one with Sopes, Maitlis, and Zurch. 

No Trump to sneer at, no fun perhaps.

And then came Afghanistan.  

Americast was brought back this week, and Jon Sopel rose from his post-Trump slumbers, describing Joe's handling of the Afghanistan fiasco as ''totally incompetent''. 

V

Despite all this, I'm sensing - especially from his latest BBC One reports - that Jon's now starting to restrain himself, slipping back into more circumlocutory turns of phrase in describing the latest Biden misspeaks than he was last week. 

I think that might be because of that very Americast. 

He started expanding on his earlier criticisms of Mr Biden's ''totally incompetent'' handling of the Afghan crisis [as he put it], but found himself alongside a far-more-charitable-to-Biden Emily Maitlis and - their special guest - a kind-to-Biden ambassador. 

BBC and US media liberal groupthinks colliding and scattering, maybe.

VI

It's a tricky thing, thinking you're impartial when you're not. 

VII

CODA

And to end, a little light relief, plus an opportunity to post a map...

The good old 'crossing the DMZ from Tajikistan' defence for getting your facts wrong is one we've surely all used, especially in pub quizzes. 

I once got a Lady Gaga question wrong in a pub quiz, saying that Her Ladyship really was the sister of Queen's Radio Gaga, but excused myself by saying ''Sorry, but Jon Sopel crossed the DMZ from Tajikistan once'', and was awarded the point. 

Rightly so. Maybe Joe Biden should try it?

Indeed, as geography fans will know, Russia now has a minimum of two countries between it and Afghanistan [almost always three countries], depending on your land journey - unless you take the narrow but long land route via China. 

Clicking the link in the tweet Jon replied to, you find that Jon has [without admitting so on Twitter] edited the piece. 

Instead of ''three countries that neighbour Afghanistan - Russian, Iran and China'', the piece now says ''Why, three countries near Afghanistan - Russia, Iran and China''. 

Hm, Russia's still not that near. Kazakhstan, especially, is huge. Gawd know what they eat in Kazakhstan to make their country so big. Yaks? Lost yetis? Or former Kazakh regime advisor Tony Blair's legendary all-you-can-eat Brown burger specials?

Jon Sopel and the Case of the 'WTF' Eyebrow

 

In The Times this week Patrick Kidd risked making readers' eyebrows "do ‘WTF’" by writing:

In four years of covering Donald Trump, Jon Sopel had to try to maintain impartiality in the face of absurdity. “My eyebrow has learnt to do ‘WTF’, ” the BBC’s man in Washington told an Intelligence Squared event.

Well, he didn't try very hard, did he?

Patrick continued: 

Now, he is almost missing the orange peril. “I feel like I’ve had four years of a daily fix of crack cocaine and I’m now moving over to a half of shandy,” he said. “There’s a degree of cold turkey in the transition.”

We predicted that 'yes man' journalism under the Biden administration wouldn't be as much fun for Sopes. What a shame! Still, he's always got his books to flog. 

Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye

 

The BBC's main defender in print, The Guardian/Observer, has a piece today that comes out very strongly against Andrew Neil & Co. and their new television service(s). 

The first witness it calls in opposition to Andrew Neil's GB News (and another new service) is none other than the BBC's Jon Sopel. 

The Observer introduces his contribution by saying that he "sees the promised channels as a greater potential threat to democracy than Britain’s already openly biased newspapers."

And what is Jon Sopel then quoted as saying by The Guardian/Observer? 

Well, he's quoted at some length but I can sum it all up in a few words: He thinks that he's getting it about right, and that the BBC and the other existing main UK news channels are also getting it about right. Why? Because, he says, he and they seek to be 'fair' and 'balanced' and don't propagandise. 

Paging Mandy Rice-Davies!

And pull the other one!

I'm surprised Andrew Neil hasn't commented on this on Twitter yet, as far as I can see (and I've checked). Wonder what he thinks of Jon Sopel's appearance in this anti-GB News piece?

*******

UPDATE: On a related theme, and fresh in...SHOCK NEWS!!! The Guardian (which 'some say' is the inky wing of the BBC) comes out in favour of the BBC: 

*******

FURTHER UPDATE: And here's a little Twitter feedback for Jon Sopel:

Martin Daubney: Absolute cobblers here from BBC’s North America Editor who sees new British TV channels as a “threat to democracy”. If the BBC & the rest had been impartial over Brexit/Trump/COVID we might not need alternatives. Bring it on - and let the market decide!

Ella T: The BBC's Jon Sopel said what? Can there be a more biased, warped individual reporting from USA than him? The gravy train for him and his ilk is coming to an end.

Richard Hammonds: Sopel has been a Trump hater from day one. Every single report he makes is negative biased and twisted. Just watch him about turn into the 'love-in' mode for Biden. Utter garbage is the BBC. It is now a propaganda unit not a news outlet.

Hugs

 

 

As StewGreen notes, at her first press conference Fox News's Peter Doocy asked Jen Psaki tougher questions than Jon Sopel:

Peter Doocy: Why wasn’t President Biden and all members of the Biden family masked at all times last night if he signed an executive order that mandates masks on federal lands at all times?

Jen Psaki: I think, Steve, he was celebrating an evening — a historic day in our country. And certainly he signed the mask mandate because it’s a way to send a message to the American public about the importance of wearing masks, how it can save tens of thousands of lives. We take a number of Covid precautions, as you know here, in terms of testing, social distancing, mask-wearing ourselves as we do every single day, but I don't know I have more for you on it other than that. 

Peter Doocy: As Joe Biden often talks about, it is not just important the example of power but the power of our example, was that a good example for people watching who might not pay attention normally?

Jen Psaki: Well, Steve, I think the power of his example is also the message he sends by signing 25 executive orders — including almost half of them related to Covid. The requirements that we’re all under every day here to ensure that we’re sending that message to the public. Yesterday was a historic moment in our history. He was inaugurated as President of the United States. He was surrounded by his family. We take a number of precautions, but I think we have bigger issues to worry about at this moment in time. 

(In your were wondering, Peter Doocy's dad, a Fox anchor, is called Steve. Jen Psaki was mixing them up).  

On that theme, Jon Sopel kept calling Wednesday's inauguration "a socially distanced inauguration for a nation tearing itself apart", but I was puzzled by all the hugging going on at the inauguration and the fact that no one on the BBC was commenting on it. 

Before going back inside the Capitol building, for example, I saw Kamala Harris hug both Barack and Michelle Obama. She then leaned in to talk to someone in the military while keeping her face very close to his. And then - ironically at exactly the moment Jon Sopel started talking again once more about how "socially distanced" it all was - she hugged another couple (at some length). She then gave a man a hug, and then hugged two more women as she walked up the stairs. And that was only the bits when she was being viewed by the cameras. She probably hugged more. 

Was the new VP acting as a super-spreader then? No one seems unduly bothered. Indeed, as Jen Psaki, might say, Kamala Harris was celebrating a historic day and they have bigger issues to worry about. Maybe.

"So embarrassing"

 

Did you see Jon Sopel's first question to Joe Biden's new press secretary Jen Psaki? 

Did it make you cringe?

Neither of them took it very seriously, as you can tell from his laughing eyes...

...and her [p]sarky reply:

Jon Sopel: What happened to the Churchill bust and what should be read about its removal from the Oval Office?
Jen Psaki: Oooh, such an important question! It's the plane of today. 

Stephen Bush, the political editor of The New Statesman, wasn't impressed. And nor was another New Statesman author:

Stephen Bush, New Statesman: I know I'm a joyless bore, but isn't, say, that Blinken has said a genocide has taken place in Xinjang and there's another vote on this exact topic coming in Parliament a more important question for our public service broadcaster? Isn't the point of the levy we literally take the country's poorest *to court* to enforce that it frees them up to be joyless bores? 

Ian Leslie, New Statesman: This is pathetic. It makes Jon Sopel look silly but more importantly, as Stephen Bush suggests, it's exactly what the BBC shouldn't be doing. The BBC should always be trying to be more serious than its competitors. That's the licence that the licence fee gives it. And when you aim over the heads of the audience, more often than not you meet them head on. People are not stupid. 

Darren Sugg: "Such an important question". The Press Sec beginning the answer by taking the p*ss is not a good sign. 

Ian Leslie: So embarrassing.

*******

UPDATE: A rather different way of putting it, but a similar sentiment:

The Leave Alliance: See, this is why the BBC is shit. Here you have a "journalist" with privileged access to the *White House*, who could have asked any question under the sun be it pertaining to trade, security, Covid (take your pick) and this is what the useless BBC obsesses about. Total wastrels.

I mean, you can argue the toss whether it's got a left wing bias but if you wanted definitive proof that it's a useless heap shit that adds no value to public discourse, then this is it. But this is essentially a manifestation of that metropolitan bias.

And the worst part about this? You could raise this issue with BBC news producers and they wouldn't even see what the problem was. They think this guy is elite journalism - and the worse they get, the better they think they are.

This is the same media that gives us all the other sub-mediocre deadbeats who routinely waste airspace on trivia, not having the first idea how to interrogate an issue - and then they tell us we should be glad to pay for it.

The toxic legacy of Jon Sopel

 

Historian and novelist Allan Mallinson was listening to Radio 4's Today this morning and heard Jon Sopel talking of "the toxic legacy that Donald Trump leaves behind". 

Brig. Mallinson tweeted:

Might it help convince people that the BBC is impartial if such as the BBC's Jon Sopel abjured use of adjectives, especially ones like “toxic”? 

Well, it would be a start! 

What next for Jon Sopel?

 

As discussed on the open thread, Jon Sopel has a piece in the Daily Telegraph today which ends:

But the real fragility of American democracy was properly on show in the weeks leading up to that day ["the storming of Congress by Trump supporters"]. There was a coup attempt which was thwarted, thanks to a few heroes acting on principle. But it was a close run thing.

Charlie has saved me the bother of critiquing this, writing:

Is Sopel being impartial there? Was there a coup attempt? Was it thwarted by a few heroes acting on principle? 

That’s the way the liberals view it, that’s clear but Sopel is getting into partisan politics by saying so.

******* 

The piece begins:

It’s been strange this past week. I have woken up alone. Sure, there has been birdsong outside my bedroom window, but no Donald Trump tweets to wake up to next to me. The alert I receive on my phone every time his thumbs get busy is redundant; the messages I receive at random times at all hours of the night, gone. It’s been the permanent accompaniment to my life – and virtually every other Washington journalist I know – these past four years. But no longer. Life seems a bit monochrome, to be honest. My bedroom feels empty.

I guessed he'd get withdrawals symptoms - though they've begun even earlier than I thought they would.

He's became absolutely addicted to the praise he gets from partisans on Twitter - and from many of his media colleagues - for his 'O.M.G.'-reactions to Donald Trump's tweets and his riffing off and being endlessly sarcastic, critical or appalled about them, and Donald Trump himself, in his TV and radio reports.

Four years of being endlessly nice and polite about the Biden administration won't be anywhere near so much fun for him. I suspect he'll be asking for a change of job before too long.

The Beauties - BBC Bias à propos US Politics

 

A Guest Post by Arthur T 

I have made the point recently that the BBC’s news gathering and broadcast is more biased in the US than in the UK. From top to bottom, the BBC have allowed their dislike of President Trump to pervade every pore of news reporting as they seek to ridicule him. Jon Sopel just couldn’t wait to label his nemesis ‘loser’ as the BBC declared Biden victorious in the November 3rd Presidential Election. 

The above screenshot from the other day has replaced the US Election feature on the BBC News website US and Canada pages. What caught my eye was the Sopel and Maitlis Americast: Review of 2020. I thought ITBBCB? might review Sopel and Maitlis’s podcasts, one in particular: 'Hunter Biden’s Laptop, Why the media isn’t covering a story Trump wants them to’, a podcast from 21st October - just two weeks before polling day. Craig has very kindly made a transcript:

Jon Sopel: Let's go onto the topic of conversation that Donald Trump would love to be talking about. It's a complicated story, but it seems that someone got hold of a laptop allegedly containing emails written by Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden's laptop, which apparently he had taken in for service. He had forgotten about it. Owner of the shop looks at it, thinks 'Oh, those are interesting emails', sees if the FBI are interested, they're not, and it ends up in the hands of Donald Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and in the hands of Steve Bannon, former campaign director at the last election. And they have touted it around. They have tried to give it to Fox News. Fox weren't interested. Then it ends up being published by The New York Post, a Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper. And the suggestion, I think, at the most is there may have been a meeting organised between Hunter Biden, who was then a director of this Ukrainian energy company Burisma and his father Joe Biden, then the vice-president, to meet a couple of the executives. But it is a screenshot that has been taken. And the reason a lot of people are very suspicious about this is that no one's actually examined the hard drive to see whether the screenshot has been doctored in any way. And so that it why a lot of news organisations have been treating this story with suspicion. It ain't Hillary Clinton's email investigation of four years ago when the FBI announced two weeks before polling that they are investigating her. This is a laptop that has kind of washed up and, you know, it looks like...it may all be genuine but it looks like it's dirty tricks as well. 

Emily Maitlis: But the interesting thing is, you said that Fox News wouldn't cover the story but Fox & Friends, the chat show, did talk to the President about this because this is fertile ground, as Sopes said, for him and they said, "What are you going to do?", and he said, "I think we ought to get the Attorney-General William Barr and ask him to investigate". Now that is an extraordinary step, you know. Just think about that in sort of political overreach terms. You're actually going to get the Attorney-General to investigate Hunter Biden,...

Jon Sopel: For corruption.

Emily Maitlis: ...your opponent's son, for corruption. Let's not forget, the last time Donald Trump asked somebody to investigate Hunter Biden for corruption it was the Ukrainian government, and it got him into the impeachment scenario. So this is something that you kind of, you know...it does sort of make you think it's a whole different league of playing politics. And really the cards are on Bill Barr, who has not shown himself to have an enormous spine in standing up to this president, and to see how far he will go in playing this game.

Jon Sopel: Well, I thought there was a fascinating moment where Donald Trump is on the tarmac, he's about to go off to one of his rallies, he's about to board the plane, and Jeff Mason, who's a very well respected agency reporter who covers the White House beat, asks the President about the allegations and calling for a corruption investigation and this is what Donald Trump said: 

Jeff Mason: Your campaign strategy seems to be to call Biden a criminal. Why is that?

Donald Trump: He is a criminal. He's a criminal. He got caught. Read his laptop. And you know who is a criminal here? You're a criminal for not reporting it. You are a criminal for not reporting it. Let me tell you something, Joe Biden is a criminal and he's been a criminal for a long time, and you're a criminal and the media for not reporting it.

So, you guess, a real sense of the President's mood that he thought that they had gold dust. Interestingly, this occurred last week. That's when the story broke in The New York Post. And it was the night of the duelling townhalls, where we did the podcast afterwards, and Donald Trump didn't mention it once, as if to suggest that Donald Trump didn't really believe quite what was being reported. But here you have the White House correspondent for Reuters being accused of being a criminal because he obviously has doubts about the veracity of the story of this laptop and how it came to be in the hands of Rudy Giuliani and Steve Bannon.

Emily Maitlis: The Zurch, do you think that if it was flipped more papers would be picking this up? If it was a story about Trump would more papers be more inclined to be latching onto this? I mean, that's obviously his allegation in that clip, so maybe we should, you know, air it and we should analyse it?

Anthony Zurcher: Giuliani definitely shopped it around before he ended up with  The New York Post. And I think there were some legitimate concerns, as you mentioned, from even outlets like Fox News about where this laptop came from and the story behind it. Obviously, back in 2016 The New York Times had no problems and media outlets had no problems poring over the hacked emails of Hillary Clinton's campaign team and reporting on them. So in that case it was flipped and we saw what happened. I think maybe this time around there's a little more reluctance on the part of mainstream outlets to run with things that are of questionable sourcing. And there are a couple of things, as you pointed out, in these emails - if they are legitimate - that raise some questions. The one about the Ukrainian businessman thanking Hunter Biden for the opportunity to meet Hunter Biden's father. Of course, that could just have been a handshake at a public event. The Biden campaign has denied that there is anything on the official schedule for it. And then there was another one, a 2017 email where a Chinese associate was paying money to Hunter Biden's company and a business associate of Hunter Biden's said that $10m was going to be set aside, given to Hunter Biden for The Big Guy. And Fox News said that The Big Guy was Joe Biden. So the question is: Did Joe Biden get any money from that business deal? But then again, you know, Donald Trump has clear business dealings with China, we've learned from the The New York Times a bank account in China, so I don't know if the attacks that we see from the Trump side are going to be able to strike home here. It will come up in the debate though, I'm sure of it. 

Jon Sopel: Oh, I'm sure. The debate is going to dominated. I would think that Donald Trump is going to go on and on about this, because that way it will have to be picked up by network news bulletins in a way that the allegations haven't been hitherto. Donald Trump's calculation will be, look, if I talk about the border wall or I talk about whatever it happens to be it's not going to get much purchase. If I want the subject to be Hunter Biden, Burisma, corruption, his father, the best way to do that is, you know, saturate bombing the debate with these allegations. And I think the Biden campaign will be thinking long and hard about what the response should be in the debate to all of that. Does he get drawn into this debate or does he try and make a brief statement and move on? It's tricky. Tricky for Biden.

Anthony Zurcher; And I want to drive home the point, right now there's no evidence that Joe Biden did anything untoward, either in his dealings with Ukraine or in his dealings with China. Although I think it's clear that - it's something we knew before but we know again if we take this laptop at face value - it's clear that Hunter Biden was capitalising on his connections to power and his last name in order to sign business deals, which, unfortunately, in Washington is kind of an age-old tradition, and it is certainly not limited just to Hunter Biden.   

Emily Maitlis: I think you could probably say it's really inclusive of the Administration itself, could you?

Anthony Zurcher: Yeah. I think that's safe to say. Yes. 

The tone throughout is to make light of the laptop story - passing it off as unimportant. Zurcher in particular asserts that ‘there's no evidence that Joe Biden did anything untoward, either in his dealings with Ukraine or in his dealings with China.’ He offers no supporting evidence for this point of view, and neither does he offer any evidence for his claim ‘in Washington is kind of an age-old tradition, and it is certainly not limited just to Hunter Biden.’

Emily Maitlis: I think you could probably say it's really inclusive of the Administration itself, could you?

Anthony Zurcher: Yeah. I think that's safe to say. Yes.

In two short sentences he absolves Biden of blame and accuses POTUS of corruption. That’s BBC bias pure and simple, coupled with a loathing for President Trump. As we know, Zurcher, Sopel and Bryant get nowhere near the White House. Most broadcasts are from the pavements of DC far enough away to know only what they are fed through US MSM channels. 

James Delingpole in TCW and now Josh Glancy The Times’ Washington Reporter have finally broken ranks and admit to believing that the laptop story was by no means trivial, but in fact crucially important.

Jon Sopel takes umbrage after somebody is "sarcastic" at his expense

After listening to Jon Sopel on this morning's Today, Tim Montgomerie put finger to mobile phone and tweeted:

Tim Montgomerie: Could the BBC's Jon Sopel have been more gushing about Biden’s team?

That didn't go down well with Jon Sopel: 

Jon Sopel: Just woken up to this Tim. What utter crap. Have just listened back. I say they are small c conservative, technocratic, unflashy and more diverse. I use no adjective - approving or disapproving. I’m asked what stands out. I answer. Without any gush.

Tim Montgomerie: You’ve endlessly critiqued Trump (often fairly) but critical faculties have been suspended over Biden. You would have found many negative things to say if you’d been asked what stood out about Trump nominees. It’s always Democrats good-Republicans bad on the BBC.

Jon Sopel: Just not good enough Tim. I was neither complimenting nor disparaging. You asked sarcastically if I could have been more gushing. Just give me one example where I ‘gushed’. If you can’t maybe  you’d reconsider the tweet. 

Tim Montgomerie: Any half-decent report would have referred too how this was a throwback to the Obama years when Russia, China, Syria and Iran were all emboldened. Instead you gushed about how diverse it was. No apology from me.

*********

I think we can adjudicate as to who's right here: I've transcribed the section in question and I think it shows that Tim Montgomerie is absolutely spot-on in his criticisms of Jon Sopel. 

For starters, let's take Jon's claim "I use no adjective - approving or disapproving". Really? What about "very reassuring" and "incredibly smart"? 

And, yes, Jon did "gush about how diverse it was", while using contrasting adjectives about the first Trump cabinet: "white, old and wealthy". 

It's a sign of where we are that Jon Sopel could say what he said today and think it's outrageous that anyone would find it biased. What he said is biased!

Mishal Husain: What about the future Biden team, Jon? More names emerging. Who are the most striking to you, and what do they suggest about the new administration?

Jon Sopel: I suppose you'd say Tony Blinken becoming the Secretary of State. I think a lot of Europeans will find him a very reassuring figure. He's an internationalist. He's outward-looking. He supports the rights of refugees. It is a return to a normalcy of US foreign policy that has been a consistent line, if you like, since the Second World War that was broken with the Trump administration. So I think Tony Blinken is one. Jake Sullivan? I think incredibly smart, young National Security Adviser, who was a very close advisor to Hillary Clinton. And Janet Yellen, who was Chairman of the Federal Reserve, becomes the first woman to be Treasury Secretary. And I think what you're seeing in these appointments is a sort of small c conservatism. They are technocrats mainly. They are not flashy big name egos who will cause Biden trouble. It is all part of his bid that "I am here to unify the country, to get on with the job, and I want people who are capable to deliver it". In that sense you would say 'small c conservative'. But in another way you would say 'quite radical', because there is much, much more diversity. There will be the first woman who's going to be Director of National Intelligence. As I said, first woman who is going to be in charge of the Treasury department. There is going to be someone who is from a Cuban exile background to be Head of Homeland Security. And so you see a very different picture than the one that was gathered round Donald Trump's first cabinet table. which was white, old and wealthy. And I think Joe Biden is bringing in a much more diverse group. 

How the Rot Set In

     

Robin Aitken gives a fine 10-minute talk on this New Culture Forum video (posted below). 

A former BBC man himself, he describes how the BBC used to have two distinct divisions: BBC News and BBC Current Affairs. 

BBC News reporters of his vintage, he says, had "something of a cult of impartiality". For them, "news was something strictly defined".

When colleagues wrote a news bulletin piece it was all fact, no comment. Even adjectives were suspect. It was very much a matter of reporting who, what, where, when. We left the task of explaining the why to the current affairs people. This probably made for rather dull news bulletins", he concedes, because "none of the sexy speculative stuff was included in our pieces. However they were factual and reliable.

So what went wrong? Well, enter The Lord Birt (then plain John Birt). He combined BBC News and BBC Current Affairs into BBC News and Current Affairs and the distinction between, say, News at Six and Newsnight got blurred. That's when "the rot set in", according to Robin:

Before we knew it the age of the inhouse pundit had arrived. BBC news bulletins today have become part news and part comment, and impartial commentary is almost a contradiction in terms. A comment always expresses an opinion. This wouldn't matter much in their was an equal balance of opinions within the corporation, if there was one Eurosceptic reporter for every pro-European, but alas it is not so.

An excellent example of what Robin Aitken is talking about there is afforded by last night's BBC One News at Ten. This was certainly part news, part comment. And, yes, it wasn't impartiality commentary. It merits a transcription.

(Look out along the way for Jon Sopel playing it for laughs ("Rudy Giuliani was clearly having a bad hair dye") and then saying "It would be easy to play this news conference for laughs, but..." before delivering his sombre verdict about the damage Donald Trump and his lawyers are doing to American democracy:

Newsreader: Donald Trump's legal team have been explaining why they think this month's presidential election was a fraud, setting out a range of theories, some of them far-fetched, without producing any hard evidence. Our North America Editor Jon Sopel reports. 

Jon Sopel: This news conference was billed as the moment the Trump legal team would present its evidence of electoral fraud, fraud so great that the result of the 2020 election should be overturned. Instead, it was a repetition of some outlandish allegations from a number of court cases that have already been dropped.

Rudy Giuliani: I know crimes, I can smell them. You don't have to smell this one, I can prove it to 18 different ways. I can prove to you that he won Pennsylvania by 300,000 votes. Michigan by probably 50,000 votes. 

Jon Sopel: Part of the focus was on a vote counting machine used in some states that it was alleged had been fixed to damage the President. The web of the conspiracy stretched wide. 

Sidney Powell: What we are really dealing with here and uncovering more by the day is the massive influence of communist money through Venezuela, Cuba and likely China in the interference with our elections here in the United States. 

Jon Sopel: As questions became heated, Rudy Giuliani was clearly having a bad hair dye. A reporter demanded to know what evidence there was. "You don't understand the legal process if you are "asking for evidence," one lawyer fired back. But even some fierce Republican combatants are saying enough is enough. 

Karl Rove: These accusations have been made and Mr Giuliani and Miss Powell, either  on behalf of themselves or on behalf of the President's campaign, have an obligation to the American people now to either prove these allegations or withdraw them. You cannot leave this kind of stuff out there at the aftermath of an election. 

Jon Sopel: And the President-elect isn't very impressed either. 

Joe Biden: He will go down in history as being one of the most irresponsible presidents in American history. It's... It's just not even within the norm at all. 

Jon Sopel: At the White House, they are getting ready for the inauguration in January and Donald Trump is fighting by any means possible to ensure it's his. He's invited Michigan Republican legislators here tomorrow to try to persuade them not to certify that state's results. American democracy is being tested. It would be easy to play this news conference for laughs. Certainly at times, it was bizarre. But this is a serious and ongoing attempt to overcome overturn the result of the election. And the man who was in charge of keeping that election safe at the Department of Homeland Security, who has now left, has said it was the most dangerous one hour, 45 minutes of television in history. It may not change the result but it is sowing doubt in the worthwhileness of going to vote.