More last words on John Humphrys

The case for the prosecution continues:  

Humphrys – the BBC’s bias-monger in chief, by David Keighley 

Shameful silence of Humphrys over the Iraq dodgy dossier, by Kathy Gyngell

My Last Words on John Humphrys (well, for today at least)

You may already have read this, but if you haven't...

Kathy at The Conservative Woman has written forcefully about John Humphrys's post-Today criticisms of the BBC. 

Don’t just blame the BBC, Mr Humphrys, blame yourself is the piece's punchy headline. 

She makes the same case some of you, our dear readers, have also made. 

Kathy's case runs as follows:

John Humphrys criticisms ring true but also hollow. He should have spoken out much earlier and not waited till two days after reaching retirement and gaining the gigantic safety net of his MASSIVE BBC pension to speak out about BBC's bias - especially its anti-Brexit bias. 

So much for his integrity!

He saw it. He must have known the utterly damning News-watch stats (especially those about Today). But he stayed in place and didn't speak out. 

So why didn't he use his bully-pulpit on Today to shame the BBC or, if that didn't work, resign in protest over it if he felt it was so wrong? 

Was it because of the tremendously large salary he got? 

And why did he front so many of Today's "daily doses of Project Fear" without openly objecting? 

And won't he now continue to front BBC TV shows (like Mastermind) and still take the biased BBC's shilling, despite everything?

"He was never brave enough to make a stand", Kathy says. "And where in this window into the world of BBC bias was his own mea culpa – his own confession of his failure to take the behemoth on?"

All of this may be harsh, but there's a good deal of truth in it and a lot for John's conscience to chew over.

Yes, as I noted yesterday, it's not entirely true that JH has been silent about such things in the past.

He's burst out twice before (both times in The Radio Times) to the displeasure of his BBC colleagues, publicly saying some of the same things about the BBC's left-liberal, pro-EU mindset.

But, backing up Kathy's case, as MB has remarked, his earlier comments were far more muted than those expressed in his post-Today (would-be-best-selling) book, as laid out by the Daily Mail.

So, a case study then of John Simpson's "institutional BBC timidity", with his friend John as its flesh-and-blood embodiment?

A thought did strike me though, having read recent pieces about him: Did he eff and blind at the BBC behind the scenes on the question of bias and try to get them to mend their ways? I'm guessing that he grumbled loudly, but little more. Whatever, there was no discernible effect as far I can see. 

Still, we are where we are, and he is where he is. 

And his remarks about the BBC contain so many damning quotes that blogs like this - and like-minded newspapers - will be using them for years against the BBC.

So many of his comments vindicate us, and are absolutely damning. 

Also, being an eternal pragmatist, as one commenter at TCW said, I wonder if by relentlessly ratcheting up the unforgiving denunciations of outlying BBC types (like him) for being timid and self-serving if they only start spilling the beans on the BBC after they leave the BBC (which, in fairness to JH, he isn't actually doing - neither leaving the BBC entirely nor denouncing the BBC for the first time), future such would-be BBC whistleblowers, now lying low and fearful inside the BBC and biding their time, might feel it's not remotely worth it after all - and, in fact, positively harmful to their wellbeing - to spill their bean-stuffed guts about the BBC after they fly Auntie's nest.

The BBC's mighty monolith might, as a result, become even less leaky than it already is.

I, personally, want more leaks. Many more leaks and revelations. The more the merrier. Even if they come after the  cowardly BBC person in question has left the BBC with rare flowers, tears made from diamonds, 24-carat-gold EU clocks and Guy Verhofstadt chocolates, a mock Eric Gill statue, and a huge sackful of gripes.

Gimme, gimme, gimme!

And, of course, however unfamiliar it may be to you, there's the other side of this story - 'complaints from both sides' - and that's that John Humphrys has become one of the top two BBC hate figures in recent years in the more fetid echo chambers of pro-EU hardliners, the 'woke' brigades, the nastier climate apocalypse outriders, and the gathering hordes of the far-Left. 

They loathe him, and can't stop foaming at the mouth about him.

And their frothing has surfaced, again and again, on Radio 4's Feedback - which (as regulars will know) I've long felt has been suspiciously helpful to the huge campaign against him. 

For such haters (despite him voting Remain, as he's now admitted), he's long been a sexist, reactionary, right-wing, 'climate-denying', pro-Brexit dinosaur. 

The one thing they've wanted more than anything else has been to get him out, preferably sacked.

The amount of bile that's poured out on Twitter on against him on his every appearance in recent years has been beyond staggering. I know that because, in the interests of this blog, I've frequently watched hashtags connected to Today (may God protect me!) and I've witnessed the scale of the abuse pouring in against him. It's been beyond tidal or torrential, more a daily tsunami of hate, every day he's appeared.

He could have called the police on thousands of people for 'hate crimes' against him, so vituperative have been far too many of the comments against him.

(Naturally, being John Humphrys, he hasn't).

And, yes, it was mainly because they thought he was anti-EU and pro-Brexit (to repeat, despite him voting Remain, as he's now admitted). 

That nice Lord Adonis, you probably won't be surprised to learn, openly rejoiced that he's gone:

I am delighted that John Humphrys is leaving the Today programme. He dragged it down to a radio version of the Daily Mail - it needs big change.

Ah but, aren't such people a small, unrepresentative minority, despite their very loud Twitter mouths?

It's complicated, isn't it? 

Of course, many people don't think it's complicated at all, which complicates things even more. 

Yes, John Humphrys was never prepared to martyr himself over his reservations about BBC bias. His protests were muted, at best. But now he's vindicated us and given us quote after quote that we can use to show, from the bolted horse's mouth, that many of the things we've been saying for years are true. 

The End.

‘cos I is classist?

Recently I mentioned Brendan O’Neill’s confusing and (to me) inexplicable denunciation of Tommy Robinson’s “views”. 

“It doesn’t matter what you think of Robinson’s views — like the vast majority of people, I oppose them.”

That’s what he wrote in the Spectator. Yet he’s recently penned this piece in Spiked, titled: We must have the right to blaspheme against Islam.  (note: I don’t know why our sidebar link to Spiked isn’t updating properly) The article has also been endorsed by Kathy Gyngell over at Conservative Woman.

“We must have the right to blaspheme against Islam Student unions agitate for the banning of speakers who criticise Islam too harshly (whom they of course brand ‘Islamophobic’). Charlie Hebdo continues to be shamed by British leftists as a publication that ‘punches down’ because it dares to publish cartoons that mock Muhammad or take the piss out of Islamic beliefs. Even the Metropolitan Police recently decreed that it is ‘Islamophobic’ to describe Islam in any of the following ways: as a ‘static’ belief system, as ‘other’, as ‘irrational’, ‘sexist’ or ‘aggressive’, or as a ‘political ideology’. Apparently anyone who holds these entirely legitimate views of Islam is guilty of an act of ‘phobia’ – which in essence means blasphemy.”

So what’s going on?

It’s just that when critics of Islam take pains to distance themselves from Tommy Robinson’s views it smacks of a class thing. It’s understandable if they don’t agree with his  - shall we call it ‘ham-fisted’ M.O., but to say they disagree with "his views" needs a bit more fleshing out. 

Thread: Questions about the BBC's coverage of the Sri Lanka attacks

Kathy at The Conservative Woman has penned a fine piece describing her experience of listening to the BBC's coverage of the terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka: Terror attack on Christians – BBC looks the other way. "Why such flaky and incomplete reporting of this devastating attack aimed at Christian places of worship and designed to kill Christians? What exactly does the BBC have to be so coy about?"

A thoughful reply to her on Twitter made the case for the BBC's defence, "The BBC has extensively reported the events. It has not ignored Christians. But they have not attributed responsibility to Muslims, not least because there is as yet no proof. Perhaps in such a charged atmosphere that might be responsible?

But is there "as yet no proof"? And does 'acting responsibly' by censoring parts of a story actually risk doing more harm than good?

Thread in the comments below....

Image choice

A BBC tweet:

And a response from TCW's Kathy:

"Entirely reasonable analysis"

Following on from an earlier post today quoting the BBC's top editor in the Americas Paul Danahar tweeting:

President Trump,the politician, will brush off his ostracism from the US political establishment, symbolised by his absence from McCain’s funeral. But I suspect for Trump the man, who has always wanted the respect of his peers, his absence & isolation will sting him greatly.

Kathy at The Conservative Woman tweeted:

Is this the very dispassionate BBC America’s bureau chief? Delighted to see no hint of partiality here.  

Opinionated Big Chief Paul of the BBC duly replied:

it’s entirely reasonable analysis from someone who’s been covering the man & his rise in politics for over four years.

 ...ah yes, "entirely reasonable analysis". If he says so himself!

Very BBC.

We can't all be perfect

One way of putting the BBC’s political bias into perspective is to compare the BBC’s overt Obama worship with the BBC’s wall-to-wall anti-Trump narrative, which replaced it even before The Donald had won the presidency. I accept that a modicum of cynicism crept in towards the end of Obama’s second term, so it’s possible that the more knee-jerk excesses of the BBC’s Trump-bashing will abate one day.

Such hidebound attitudes obscure sensible reporting. It was bizarre to watch an Iranian delivering some home-truths on the state of his country, while the panel of western left-liberal commentators allowed their Trump-bashing to lead them up the cul de sac to a dead end which entails defending the Ayatollahs (Dateline) The ordinary Iranian-on-the-Tehran-omnibus, said he, has no beef with America or Israel. In other words, topple the theocracy and make Iran great again. Anyway, I’m no expert on Iran’s internal dynamics so I’ll leave it at that.

Over at The Conservative Woman (or ‘Con Wom’) Kathy Gyngell has written a fine piece about one of Trump’s recent effronteries; cancelling his trip to London. 

Who can blame someone for not going where they’re not wanted? The BBC had been wasting its time trying to tease out the ‘real reason’ behind Trump’s decision when another bombshell hit the fan in the name of shit-hole. The new outrage subsumed the old outrage. Snub v shit-hole. Which is more Trumpish?

 Although it has been mildly amusing waiting to hear which BBC anchor would repeat the offending word - bonkers when you consider the language that’s now virtually common currency on TV - this shit-storm, and the Toby Young one, forces one to ask oneself whether we really do need our leaders to occupy a particular sort of holy pedestal. It’s bit like the Queen going to the toilet lavatory. She must, but we’d rather she didn’t. 

We want our leaders to be better than us, but at the same time we want them to be the same. There’s a worthwhile debate between Brendan O’Neil and the Guardian’s Dawn Foster about this topic, and this time I have to say that both of them made a good case. I’m with Brendan, but Dawn was good too.

Best part of this podcast is Brendan O'Neill complaining that the term "atonement" is too Catholic, and me responding "Repentance! Redemption! Atonement! I'm going to keep using Catholic terms to wind you up." https://t.co/eFcn74jZH6

— Dawn Foster (@DawnHFoster) January 12, 2018

If you haven't come across Dawn Foster (despite the fact that she’s on TV a lot) let me tell you that she has transformed herself from - let’s be brutal - an overweight, bespectacled, far-left, fast-talking plain-Jane with a lisp,  to a far-left, fast-talking slimmed down, lilac haired, pouting seductress whose lisp no longer matters. I don’t share her views, but I respect her quick witted intelligence. She does spend a helluva lot of time on Twitter in a slightly more narcissistic manner than average. I don’t tweet so I claim the moral high ground.

Back to Kathy Gyngell, who calls Theresa May ‘priggish’. That sums it up. Even the P.M.'s rebukes are priggish. In a nutshell, Donald Trump is so obnoxious, his appearance is so weird, his personal fragility is so visible and his conduct is so unconventional that in some ways he’s got nothing to lose. He may as well say what he thinks and offend whom he pleases. 

Theresa May, on the other hand, is all tied up. Hidebound by political correctness and priggishness, she tries to please everyone and ends up pleasing no-one. She’ll never woo the Corbynistas, and she’s all but lost the “true Conservatives”. 

Prepare for a Labour government. Steel yourselves. 

**********

There’s something truly bonkers going on at the BBC. Here we have Carrie Gracie, having secured both a pay rise and a ‘desk job’ working beside the beleaguered John Humphrys, who is proud to admit that he earns shedloads. Many times more than the women on the staff. You may well disagree, but I don’t think Carrie Gracie is very suited to the radio. Her voice is more querulous (or do I mean quavery) than mellifluous, and when she’s on with Nick Robinson -  that makes a pair. 

The latest hullabaloo about Humphrys and Sopel is, if you like that sort of thing, 'popcorn time'. Consider Kathy Gyngell’s colourful description of mummy’s boy Private Pike, aka:

 “the incontinent North America correspondent himself, Jon Sopel. Yes, the man at the heart of the bias and venom, the reporter who’d displayed his prejudice against ‘the populist’ Trump at every opportunity, even at the White House and to Mr Trump’s face, in swaggering displays of hubris. 

I stumbled across an earlier (pre Graciegate) example of unintended self denunciation by Humph, through Sarah Montague’s Twitter. For a reputed salary of around £600,000 “I wouldn’t want to be a politician because I wouldn’t want to work that hard.”

Doesn’t look good, John. We don’t want our presenters to be greedy or self-important. We want them to be humble and modest and they must never be caught with their trousers down.

*******

The BBC is reporting the protest against a 'puffed up pompous popinjay' whose speech at the Fabian Society revealed an astounding lack of self-awareness.

The Finger of History points you elsewhere

[Trembling lip. Sincere voice.] Readers of ITBB, Kathy Gyngell is the people's conservative woman. The sick, the dying, children, the needy - and you - must read this fine piece of hers about the BBC's latest Brexit coverage - or, to be more precise, non-coverage. And, as Alastair told me, Gordon  really wouldn't want you to read it, so that's even more reason why you should read it. Yours Tony.

The good news about Brexit – not brought to you by the BBC

Sunday Morning Live

In other Sunday morning-related news, Sunday Morning Live had a very odd discussion on the question, 'Is religion dying out in Britain?' It was odd because there were 5 religious people on the panel (or on the video screen) who think it isn't and just one humanist who thinks it is. 

You can usually tell who's putting the 'unpopular' view on a BBC programme like this though, even when the panels are balanced. They tend to get challenged more by the presenter. Here the chap who thinks drinking alcohol is far less harmful than some people claim found himself on the receiving end of Sean Fletcher's sharpest challenges and, later, Kathy Gyngell of The Conservative Woman got the full interruption treatment from young Sean for espousing socially conservative views on the family. She also endured Sean telling her that people on Twitter will be thinking, "You are from another era", as they heard her views. (Charming!)

Recommended reading

There's another fine piece from Kathy Gyngell at TCW, drawing together several recent examples of BBC bias.

She highlights a particularly striking example of 'Project Fear' in action - claims that Brexit threatens our fundamental safety from accidental radiation and access to cancer treatment, plus that "Brexit will put at risk a trillion pound nuclear research market" - and shows how the BBC rolled with the story over a few days, bending it into an anti-Brexit narrative.

Mark Mardell was in the thick of it, naturally.

Recommended reading

There's an excellent gathering-together of some of the latest BBC bias-related matters from Kathy Gyngell over at The Conservative Woman: Scenting Tory blood, the BBC crank up the anti-Brexit propaganda. It is well worth a close read. 

On Woman's Hour

I haven't listened to it myself but Kathy at The Conservative Woman has a fine piece about last week's Woman's Hour power list and the awarding of the top honour to Mrs. Thatcher. Well worth a read.

“Trump, Bannon and the alt-right manosphere”

There's a fine piece by Kathy Gyngell at The Conservative Woman under the headline, The BBC seems to think it is running for election against Trump, gathering together some of the 'highlights' of the BBC's reporting week and putting it into the context of what she describes as a "campaign, to incite ‘fear' and 'hate' of the 'alt-right' (with lots of people being dragged into that 'alt-right' label).

Woman’s Hour has already adopted the meme. Yesterday they invited me to take part in a discussion about “Trump, Bannon and the alt-right manosphere”. [Craig - Very Woman's Hour that!!]. I feared a set up and offered up my feistier co-editor Laura, instead. Surprise, surprise, after talking to her on the phone they decided not to go with it after all....

....These, I suspect, are but temporary setbacks in the BBC’s mission. Hate is actually what the BBC is now carefully cultivating. Against whites, against men, against Christians. Their device, however, is to turn the man himself and anyone who supports him into the hater (that was my role on Woman’s Hour, I presume).

Mark Steyn’s insight is pertinent here. Once cast as haters, he says, “you de-legitimise their votes. And, if you de-legitimise their votes, you de-legitimise the very idea of representative government”.

This is what they tried this week with Steve Bannon. They failed. But I fear it is just a setback in what will go down as one of the most shameful periods in the BBC’s once proud history.

A possible foretaste of what Kathy or Laura might have faced had Woman’s Hour pursued their invitation came on Wednesday's Woman's Hour where Jenni Murray discussed the legacy of Michelle Obama with Margo Miller, ex-Chair of Democrats Abroad and Malise Sundstrom, Chair of Republicans Overseas UK.

At one point Dame Jenni asked the Trump-supporting Mrs Sundstrom what she "made" of a woman on Facebook calling Mrs Obama "an ape in heels" and that being "endorsed by a female mayor in West Virginia". Mrs Sundstrom could not have been clearer in denouncing such behaviour as "horrifying" and "absolutely unacceptable behaviour". Dame Jenni wasn't letting it go though, interrupting and, in a particularly dramatic tone of a voice, saying "But a mayor endorsed it!" Malise Sundstrom repeated that she doesn't support that kind of language. The Woman's Hour presenter then gave up as Mrs Sundstrom still couldn't have been clearer.

Relishing the moment

There's an excellent post by Kathy Gyngell at The Conservative Woman on the US election, with several fine bits about the BBC too - including about Kathy's appearance on last week's Sunday Morning Live. 

Here's why the Trump victory - and the BBC's reaction to the Trump victory - matters to Kathy. I suspect it might ring true with some of you as well:

But why more than anything I am relishing this moment is because I am so sick of being shamed into silence about my views by the MSM and polite society; of being told to go to re-education camp or that I ‘misspoke’ as BBC presenter Naga Munchetty told me when I was on Sunday Morning Live last week. I am sick of being told Trump is just too vulgar to be discussed and it’s an aspersion on my character to want him to win. What about his all important challenge to a morally defunct and self righteous elite?

Why no outcry?

Before The Conservative Woman site (TCW) published several articles by Karen Harradine I was never quite sure what TCW’s official policy was on - err, you know, Israel and the Jews, or, if you prefer, Zionism and antisemitism. As we all know, it is a commonly held belief that antisemitism emanates from the right - the Foreign Office; Rowan Laxton and so on.

A recent TCW piece by Kathy Gyngell dispels all doubts and confirms my suspicion that they do indeed get it. 

"Why no outcry over the insidious and disgraceful rise of antisemitism" touches on Corbyn’s trip to Syria in the company of Baroness Tonge and others, where they were cordially received by President Assad. The jaunt was funded by another of those organisations dedicated to the elimination of the Jewish State, The Palestinian Return Centre. (PRC)

Also featured is the Rev Stephen Sizer, the Guildford vicar who’s so obsessed with Israel  that his bishop had to warn him to cool it. 

Another example of the insidious and disgraceful rise in antisemitism cited by Gyngell is the extraordinary behaviour of an orchestrated chorus of screaming pro-Palestinian students at University College London who violently disrupted a talk by an invited Israeli speaker. The mob intimidated the small number of attendees, who, along with the speaker, were stranded in a room till they could be escorted past the mob by police. Neither the BBC nor the Guardian reported this incident. 

And as Kathy Gyngell says “Our silence is beginning to bear an uncanny resemblance to Germany of the early 1930s.”

Before I get to the subject of the comments beneath that article, I’d like to draw your attention to a podcast of a conversation between Damian Thompson and the Rev Ravi Holy. Yep. Comes out “ravioli”. In the podcast they’re chatting about antisemitism amongst the middle-class. I know about this as I could honestly say that some of my best friends are middle class antisemites, the sort who have little or no idea that that is what they are.

Every time someone posts an article about antisemitism on a not-especially-pro-Zionist platform - like, say the Spectator, a considerable number of antisemitic comments appear below the line, most of which unintentionally illustrate the actual point the author has clearly made.  

One thing that unites these commenters, despite their diversity and varying degrees of vitriol, is a staggering ignorance of the history and the politics of the Middle East. The comments below Damian Thompson’s podcast provide a rich display of inanity, triviality, trolls and responses to trolls. No wonder he wrote a piece about comments. 

TCW has an equally revealing below the line display. Amongst the majority of supportive comments appear familiar monikers of some of those internet regulars, purveyors of the usual antisemitic ‘tropes’ - much as I dislike using that word, (but that’s what they are) - such as the Jews control everything, a conspiracy theory out of  The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. 

Of the 168 comments to date, they are a minority but still alarming because of the wilful and determined ignorance they revel in.

The BBC’s failings in respect of providing thorough and accurate reporting have a lot to answer for in this regard, particularly inaccurate online historical information concerning the creation of Israel as well as the absence of material covering the current and historical religious fanaticism of Hamas and the PA. 

The practice of selective impartiality is frequently taken to the brink of absurdity, where fear of making value judgments completely obscures reality. The opposite of reporting.  

I believe John Reith was an antisemite, so one could say the BBC was keeping up a tradition. 

(But this is not the 1930s, and ve have vays of making our voices heard.)