Sorry/not sorry

I stumbled upon the Media Show last night. 

A conversation between presenter Katie Razzall and Michelle Donelan turned to issues around the BBC’s impartiality.

Katie Razzall:

“…….Tim Davie the Director General has made it one of his main focuses…

Michelle Donelan

“…….however - I would also say that there is a difference between having a plan and delivering that change, and it is certainly not ‘job done’ by any stretch of the imagination, and we only have to look at a plethora of different examples that have come up to highlight that. But there is still a problem.

Katy Razzall

“What examples?

Michelle Donelan

“Well if we look at the incident of the bus with the alleged antisemitism, if we look at…….

Well, we didn’t ‘look at the alleged antisemitism’ because there were more pressing matters to discuss such as Prince Harry,  Jeremy Clarkson, and Gary Lineker. 

At the end of the interview, when Ms. Donelan had left the room, and who knows, the premises, Ms. Razzall read out a rebuttal writted on a piece of paper (© Spike Milligan)

“Well that was Michelle Donelan, Secretary of state for digital media culture and sport and she made reference to how the BBC had reported an antisemitic attack on a group of Jewish students in 2021. Let me just add to that what the BBC have said about reporting that incident which was in part based on a video of the incident filmed from inside the bus. The BBC has said that while Ofcom has found that our reporting was not in breach of the broadcasting code 

the BBC executive complaints unit ruled in January 2022 that more could have been done sooner to acknowledge the differing views about what could be heard on the recording of the attack. The BBC apologised at the time for not acting sooner to highlight the contents of the recording were contested.”

• Recollections may vary. 
• The scale of the problem was exaggerated

This wasn’t on the BBC but it’s another example of Sorry/not sorry.

The Media Show should have invited Shami Chakrabarti to investigate. 

Boxing Day Smorgasbord

Here are a few random thoughts for Boxing Day...

I

Catching up with a discussion on the open thread...

The BBC News website article Climate change: Small army of volunteers keeping deniers off Wikipedia by Marco Silva, BBC climate change disinformation specialist, featured discussion of Femke Nijsse from The Netherlands - “one of the most influential editors in the Wikipedia climate change community”. This “Dutch volunteer” is described as:

...a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Exeter, studying the transition to green energy - so global warming is something she's been thinking about for a while.

What Marco doesn't mention about this “clinical” academic crusader for truth is that Femke used to be deputy leader of DWARS, GroenLinkse Jongeren, the youth wing of the Dutch political party GreenLeft. 

I guessed she'd has a political activist side to her, but I'd rather have been openly told that by the BBC rather than have to Google around to find it.

II

🎄I really must clear up all the potato snacks I trod into my carpet yesterday... 

It's beginning to look a lot like crisp mush.🎄

III

As Charlie noted, also on the open thread, the cancel culture comments made by Maureen Lipman induced the BBC's new culture editor Katie Razzell to do a News at Ten report that featured the mighty Maureen before balancing her concerns with comedian Russell Kane's outright dismissal of them. [In passing, let's note that Russell has done very well out of the BBC over the years]. What wasn't so balanced was Katie's use of two vox pops - the first of which said, “I'm not worried about being judged. I would just far rather not say something because I don't think it's right”, and the second of which said, “At the end of the day, making offensive remarks is bullying.” 

She rounded off her report by saying:

What's happening on the comedy stage and in real life is a sign outdated views are being weeded out. Or a worrying assault on free speech, depending on your perspective. Culture often leads the way on the big issues of our time as we all navigate what we can say, and what it's best not to. 

 IV

🎄Just got kicked out of my ornithology group...
...for using fowl language.🎄

V

A few months back I wrote, “It's surely time now for David Walker, the go-ahead Bishop of Manchester, to be officially installed as Bishop of Radio 4's Sunday.” When I heard this morning that Archbishop Desmond Tutu has died, aged 90, I wondered who Radio 4's Sunday would invite onto this morning's edition to talk about him. Inevitably it was the go-ahead Bishop of Manchester. That programme's contacts list is even more limited than mine these days.

VI

🎄I was going to have Bucks Fizz for an aperitif this afternoon...

...but I'm having trouble making my mind up.🎄

VII

Quiz time: Which departing BBC broadcaster painted this work of art entitled Cleaning Windows?

Clue: The answer is an anagram of Man, draw, err.

VIII

To develop a point Winter George made earlier today,...

When box-ticking and talent collide everyone sort of wins, possibly. I was thinking after having switched on my TV during Countryfile and watched Anita and Matt swoon over some lovely Elgar from cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason. Sheku, if you recall, became famous after performing at Harry and Meghan's wedding. I also watched the last moments of the Andrew Marr show and Andrew departed the BBC to music from Konya and Jeneba Kanneh-Mason performing an arrangement of Tchaikovsky's Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. And it that wasn't enough Christmas Day on BBC Two saw an hour-long programme called A Musical Family Christmas with the Kanneh-Masons. It raises the inevitable question that always arises when 'positive discrimination' is a strong possibility: Is their success with the BBC partly, even mainly, cos they is black? 

IX

🎄I was struggling to think of what to get someone for a Christmas gift. So I got them a fridge and watched their face light up when they opened it.🎄

[P.S. All the jokes in this post come courtesy of The Dad Joke Man].

X

Is their a more put-on, disliked family in the world than Mrs Brown's? It's become a new Christmas tradition for the snootily 'progressive' to join hands with the tasteful to traduce the BBC for putting her and her boys on TV, every single year without fail, on Christmas Day. Did you have turkey, those pigs-in-blankets that we weren't supposed to be able to buy, and sing Christmas songs, and criticise Mrs Brown's Boy while poor Tiny Tim Davie sat in the naughty corner sarcastically muttering, 'God bless us, every one!'? If so, God bless you, every one!

Belief

“Dancers who accused a leading choreographer of transphobia have claimed she has jeopardised their safety by publicising her resignation”, begins a BBC News website report today by the BBC's new culture editor Katie Razzall. 

[Some might call that 'victim-shaming'].

It's another 'trans war' story where a woman, Rosie Kay, felt she had to leave the dance company she founded because of hostility from trans activists. 

Katie Razzall writes, “However, in an open letter seen by the BBC, the dancers claim that, by going public, Kay has caused "potential detriment to our careers".” 

Does “seen by the BBC” mean 'handed to the BBC by an interested party with an obvious motive'?

Anyhow, Nick Timothy, former Joint Downing Street Chief of Staff to Theresa May, isn't too impressed with Ms Razzall about this, tweeting:

Given that this BBC piece will have been vetted by lawyers and various others, the intellectual dishonesty of sentences like, “Kay doesn't believe a person can change their biological sex” is depressing if not surprising.

Indeed. And you can bet your bottom euro that Katie R, culture editor of the BBC, would never dare write “Kay's critics believe a person can change their biological sex” - despite that being a lot more accurate. 

Tellingly, Ms Razzall's language echoes that used by Ms Kay's critics, quoted just a few sentences later:

The dancers behind the letter wrote that they "respect Rosie's right to hold the belief that biological sex is immutable".

It isn't a belief, it's a fact.

Update: One reply to Nick Timothy quotes from the article - the bit where one of Ms Kay's critics said "she is now using her power as someone that has a louder voice than we can hope for" - and responds: “...say the cretins who can command a fawning article by the BBC while Kay seems to be in the process of having her career destroyed”. 

As the great Ray Davis once wrote, it's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world. And the BBC's not helping.

Emily for leader

Here we have Newsnight’s presentation of the individuals trying to get themselves elected as leader of the Labour Party. First I have to address Emily Thornberry’s defence against the charge of antisemitism.

Newsnight’s presenter Katie Razzall set the tone in a schoolmarmish manner but failed to challenge Thornberry’s preposterous demonstration of abject ignorance. (I suspect Razzall is equally ignorant ) 

Thornberry’s ugly little diatribe did the opposite of what was intended if indeed exonerating herself from the charge of antisemitism was her intention.

I admit it’s tricky, trying to suck up to four million potential voters who very likely conform to their religion’s default hostility to Jews, while at the same time trying not to fall foul of the Labour party’s so-called anti-racist raison d’etre. But she got it so very wrong.

 “I think it was really important as I often said, that it is our duty to speak out against the far-right government of Netanyahu, and what it is that that government is doing to the two-state solution.

And what is it that the Palestinian Authority is doing, prey, never mind the “far-right Netanyahu government”, to the two-state solution?  Oh yes, rioting and calling for endless days of rage.

“Which is different from being antisemitic” interrupts Razzall, eager to remind us that “criticising Israel” is not antisemitic.

“Hang on”  interjects Thornberry  “exactly!”

“And then to explain to people, you do that, and that is not antisemitic, but you do not blame the Jews for that.” 

No, not all of them. Not the Jews who belong to certain left-wing, anti-Zionist groups; save the blame for the right-wing, Netanyahu-supporting Jews who live in or support Israel. 

“And to explain to people, there is a clear disconnect. It is not the fault of some guy who lives in a flat in north London - he is not responsible for the death of Palestinian children. And people really need to understand the difference.”

The difference between the innocent ‘guy’ in London who happens to be a Jew through no fault of his own and the right-wing Israeli Jew who callously murders Palestinian children for sport.

“And time and time again, in my role as shadow foreign secretary, I made that absolutely clear. And i think that it would be right to say, that the record shows, that I have regularly called out antisemitism in my party in a very public way.

Yep. Thornberry stops short of chanting ‘Jews to the gas’ so how could she be antisemitic? She hasn’t got a racist bone in her body. (Nor any bones at all as far as one can tell.)

Because of her ‘pseudo-Sloaney with a hint of mid-Atlantic’ accent and her tic (i.e., keeps saying ‘frankly’) it’s impossible to take her seriously. She is like Corbyn and others in the Party in that they make stuff up as they go along as if trapped within some sort of ‘just-a-minute’ format and will be penalised for hesitation. And suffering from “likes the sound of their own voice' syndrome. And starting sentences with “And’ so they can continue talking nonsense on topics about which they know next to nothing without being interrupted or letting anyone else get a word in. And waving their hands (or trotters) around expressively to show off their red nail-varnish. I hope any of that doesn't put anyone off voting for her.


Update:

If anyone here is interested, here’s a video of the Labour Leader hustings that took place yesterday in front of the Jewish Labour Movement. If you’ve got the will and the stamina to watch it, you’ll see that Lisa Nandy is head and shoulders above the other candidates. (Candidates? Have I turned into Alan Lord Sugar?) (no)

Emily Thornberry seems to believe that her day - or was it days  - of glory as a stand-in for Corbs at PMQs were enough of a triumph to leapfrog her to the front of the process. No, Emily, you are vacuous, cliche-ridden, insincere and hypocritical. And spiteful. You’re fired!

The question remains. Is Nandy’s chairpersonship of Labour Friends of Palestine compatible with her support of Israel and/or the Jewish peoples’ right to self-determination? In fact, one could almost defend this by saying at least she couldn’t be accused of pro-Zionist partisanship. Which is a plus.

However, one niggle still won’t go away. I still worry that Nandy has been seduced by the Palestinian propaganda machine.

“I met a three-year-old child whose house was surrounded by the Separation Wall and was growing up without daylight. I saw a 15-year-old shackled by the ankles, who had been held in administrative detention for months without any contact with his family, access to school or a lawyer. I saw families humiliated at checkpoints on a daily basis and the denial of basic medical care as a result.

This is a movement which continually entices British MPs to visit ‘Palestine’ to view the obligatory theatrical production, a series of orchestrated anti-Israel set-ups wrought from self-pity, pathos and victimhood, specifically designed to hoodwink foreign governments into joining their quest to obliterate Israel.

If Nandy showed a glimmer of cynicism, awareness of - or insight into that specific aspect of her own pro-Palestinian advocacy, I could be won over. She’s the only credible leader.
If you watch the linked video I think you’ll agree with me. Hope so.

Transcript: 'Newsnight', 9 April 2019, Katie Razzall report

Katie Razzall

Emily Maitlis: For months, we have heard little from Ukip, the party who were victorious last time European Elections were fought. Like the other major parties, it too has seen splits and divisions. It has lost support and, perhaps most crucially, it lost Nigel Farage, the man who made it what it was. He's started his own Brexit Party called - you guessed it - the Brexit Party. So how will it fare against Ukip, and how much of the Leave vote could either - or both - of these parties hoover up if we do contest those European elections? Here's Katie Razzall. And a warning, her piece does contain some flashing images from the start. 

Katie Razzall: For many it was Ukip under Nigel Farage that brought us the referendum and Brexit itself. Now his old party has a different leader and some new friends:

Tommy Robinson: If you are looking for an answer, it certainly is not the establishment. In my own personal opinion, it's Gerard Batten. 

Farage has left. He's set up a new party, the Brexit Party. With many Leave voters now feeling betrayed by the main parties, who might they trust to represent their views? Ukip, or the man who encapsulated it? The recent Welsh by-election may offer an insight. The Ukip candidate was determined to make Newport West all about Brexit. His party didn't make the double-figure gains it used to at its height. But its vote did go up more than 6%. 

Neil Hamilton AM: After the referendum I think a lot of people thought Ukip's job was done. It's now perfectly evident that Ukip's job was not completed by getting the referendum result. So it tells us that Ukip's show is back on the rails and we will make progress from there. 

This is why many people including Nigel Farage, think Ukip has changed. Tommy Robinson, real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, sponsored Ukip's Make Brexit Happen rally in London on the day Britain was due to leave the EU. Ukip's leader Gerard Batten has appointed the controversial former founder of the English Defence League as an adviser. Mr Batten appears focused on an anti-Islam agenda. MEPs have left the party as a result. So too have two Ukip representatives in the Welsh Assembly.   

Caroline Jones AM: The party changed beyond all recognition. I saw marches in London with Gerard Batten and so on which I was quite uncomfortable with. I have some Muslim friends and so on and I felt that it was becoming more like the BNP under his leadership. So I really wanted to distance myself.  

Neil Hamilton AM: Well, there has been no lurch anywhere, left or right, and Ukip is in the same position that it has always been. Our policy has not changed...
Katie Razzall: (interrupting Neil Hamilton) You associate with the likes of Tommy Robinson.
Neil Hamilton AM: Well, Tommy Robinson is not a member of Ukip and can't be a member of Ukip because our party rules proscribe him on account of the organisation...
Katie Razzall: (interrupting Neil Hamilton): He sponsors rallies on behalf of Ukip.
Neil Hamilton AM: If I can just finish the answer. Our party rules proscribe him from membership by virtue of his past associations. 

But back to the European elections. In Wales, if Newport West is anything to go by, Labour is for now holding on to enough of its Brexiter votes. But what of Conservative areas where Leave won out in 2016? Ukip's fortunes in Wiltshire mirror what's gone on across much of the country. Party support peaked here as pressure mounted ahead of the referendum. But once the country had voted to leave, it fell off dramatically and in 2017 at the last general election, voters returned to the two main parties. It's fertile ground for a resurgent Ukip, you might think. Patrick Duffy was chairman of South West Wiltshire Conservatives until very recently. He is disgusted by what he sees as his party's betrayal over Brexit and is thinking of leaving: 

Patrick Duffy: I'd very seriously consider my position in the party, if this goes the wrong way. I will feel not only very let down by what the party has done but by I'm afraid what I see is our failure to have negotiated it properly from the outset. If none of them are able to deliver the results of the referendum, I will be looking for a party who can deliver the result of the referendum. And if that means going down the route of supporting a party who have a single aim, then that is something I would certainly consider doing.
Katie Razzall: (to Patrick Duffy) So would that be the Brexit Party or would that be Ukip?
Patrick Duffy: Given the choice of the two, it would probably be the Brexit Party.
Katie Razzall: (to Patrick Duffy) Why is that?
Patrick Duffy: I think for me there is now too much association with Ukip that for me, I feel uncomfortable with. 

This is how Leave voters told YouGov they would vote in one recent poll if there were a general election. It suggests about half would vote Conservative and 14% Labour. But this single poll indicates a quarter of Brexiters claim they would now opt for either Ukip or Farage's Brexit Party. 

Chris Curtis, YouGov: Who is going to become the dominant force? At the moment in voting intention polls they are fairly level. Is one of them going to take the lead? Are they going to become the dominant voice of those who want a harder Brexit? And if so, are they going to able to avoid the other party from splitting their vote share? And I think if they can do that, if they can pull that off successfully, if there is a dominant force that comes out of that, I think they are highly likely to end up winning the European Parliament elections. 

So which hard Brexit faction, if any, will win out? Nigel Farage has made a career out of being an insurgent. And his old party has alienated some of its former supporters. But unlike the Brexit Party, Ukip has name recognition and membership that is used to fighting elections, and that can count for a lot.

Down with the kids

I wasn't greatly surprised to find the BBC and The Guardian being of one mind on those climate-protesting, Mrs-May-effing truants during the Andrew Marr paper review this morning, or that Camilla from the Telegraph was the only one expressing any reservations. Very BBC/Guardian. 

Anushka Asthana, The Guardian: But can I just say, right, all those politicians who are getting so angry about these kids, anyone with kids - and anyone else - probably knows that the Friday before half term is not an educationally enriching day at school. And one of the most educationally-enriching things kids can do is get involved in political action on the biggest issue and the biggest crisis facing our planet. 

Andrew Marr, BBC: They are right about this.

Anushka Asthana, The Guardian: They're really right. An the idea that politicians - and a lot of them were Conservatives - coming out and saying, well, they're acting truant,  on the Friday before half term, I think totally misses the point. And for a party that needs to attract young people I feel like they should have taken a different attitude. 

Vicky Young, BBC: I was surprised they came out so forcefully. Actually, Cabinet ministers doing that. I was surprised at them doing it. 

Camilla Tominey, Daily Telegraph: Although you have to make sure the kids are safe. There was an argument to say some of them had been running off to protest and no one knew where they were, which is slightly concerning from a safeguarding... 

Vicky Young, BBC: (interrupting) At least they're engaged!

Andrew Marr, BBC: We are down with the kids - which you can't always say for The Andrew Marr Show. 

*******

Meanwhile, our old friend DB posted a string of tweets from an effusive BBC politics journalist called Joey D'Urso a couple of days ago. I was about to screengrab them and post them here but Joey has now deleted them. In them he gushed that the protests were "really quite something", that the children skipping school were "righteously angry" and he "doubts they're going away" and, all in all, he said he finds it all "genuinely quite humbling". But, perhaps as a result of DB pointing them out, Joey D'Urso has now sent his opinions down the memory hole. 

*******

And....Friday night's Newsnight saw Katie Razzall (prior to reading out that half-apology to Richard Tice) called the protests "sobering":

Taking to the streets - the young pit themselves against the old, in the interests of the planet. Is climate change becoming the inter-generational battle of our times? It's sobering to see our children walking out of their classes in protest at how they think the grown ups have failed to protect their futures. Is what they're asking of us hopelessly naive, or just brutally true? 

******* 

It seems to have dawned on Mr D'Urso at least that it might be questionable in terms of BBC impartiality, but Vicky Young, Andrew Marr and Katie Razzall still seem to think that it's absolutely fine for them to express their support for these protests. 

Is it?

Torn between Question Time and Newsnight

Imagine being torn between watching Question Time BBC 1 and Newsnight BBC 2! 

Oh the anguish.

As if the morbid fascination of Katie Razzall’s ‘half-the-story’ film about a Syrian refugee family’s suffering in Newcastle wasn’t compelling enough, the equally morbid, almost rubber-necked compulsion to watch Emily Thornberry crash and burn on Q.T. proved irresistible. 

I tore myself away from the tearful Syrians whose son Omar had just been found not guilty of sexually assaulting a teenage girl in a park, and turned instead to the excitement of Damian Green, Isabel Oakshott, Amol Rajan, Alex Salmond and Emily Thornberry performing before the audience in the RAF Museum in London.

Most of the programme was devoted to Brexit and whether Theresa May should be compelled to publicly reveal her negotiating hand so that various ‘remoaniacs’ could have their say, and possibly their vote,  and Jeremy Corbyn could reflect on it, have a conversation about it, possibly demand another referendum and generally hold the Tories to account. 

Emily Thornberry addressed the Leave voters in the audience:  “How many of you voted for your neighbours to lose their jobs?”  That didn’t go down too well. The assumption was that Leave voters ‘didn’t know what they were voting for’ (redundancy for the neighbours course) because that was what will happen when we leave the EU. 

This struck me as an example of what Emily Thornberry might call ‘people saying different contradictory things’  since Leave voters (supposedly) objected to unrestricted immigration which drives down wages and steals (our) jobs. 

All along, Emily Thornberry emitted a stream of words in her specially adapted version of ‘Just a Minute’, the sole objective being to speak “without hesitation”. (Repetition and deviation were abundant.) Maybe  Q.T. should introduce buzzers.

Isabel Oakshott was good, her hair resting upon her heaving bosom. This infantilising fashion for long hair on adult women is getting irritating. 

Emily Thornberry’s media appearances have been so awful since she was anointed Shadow Home Secretary that having her on this particular panel must have been an act of pure mischief on the part of the producers. I expect they were hoping for another Dermot Murnaghan moment.  In the event it was just one long, drawn out exhibition of unintentional self parody.

The audience has become more unpredictable of late. There were a few surprising contributions, not least of which came from a young man with a giant afro, which doubled the impact of his pro Trump sentiment.

When the programme ended I had the urge to finish watching Katie Razzall’s rose-tinted film. “Did you ever think that this was worse than what you’d left behind?” suggested Katie, in the most one-sided anti-British bit of film I’ve seen for …at least half an hour.

Syria is currently hell on earth and I have sympathy for families like this, but Katie Razzall has managed to portray these particular reality TV stars as such paragons of virtue that this film will have raised the hackles of many more viewers than the filmmakers set out to seduce.. 

It appears this family had been tortured by the Assad regime before they fled to Jordan, where they’d been living for two years before arriving in the UK. 

The suggestion that Omar’s experiences in the UK were far worse than anything they’d experienced in Syria (being tortured) was pushing it. For ‘conservative’ Muslims, whose reputation was one of “high moral standing”, this unfortunate prosecution must indeed have been galling, but let’s not forget - he was acquitted. Found not guilty. British justice and that. 

We heard that Omar couldn’t have committed a sexual assault on a schoolgirl because “our religion” doesn’t permit things like that, and although the local council had laid on classes to educate immigrants on how we treat sluts women in the UK,  the classes were for adults only and the father, amusingly named Marwan Badreddin,  (!) said they couldn’t talk about it to youths such as Omar because “We don’t talk about such things in Syria”.

18 year old Omar says he’s never had a sexual relationship. “Here, we see boys and girls kissing all the time and we just have to try and get used to it; in Syria we wait to get married.” 

The film included a clip of rampaging skinheads wearing ‘rapefugees’ T-shirts.  Throughout the film certain “complexities” within the tale were alluded to, and introduced, bit by bit. 

The family had another son, Abdel Malek, whom they’d left behind in Syria and hadn’t seen for three years. Now it seems they’d just heard he’d been killed while fighting Assad, with “an Islamist group,”  though his father denied that that made him an extremist.

Understandably the family yearned for Syria, but they appeared to have little intention of acquiring any real affinity with the country that had shown them a considerable amount of generosity. 

This wilful blindness to the problems created by the cultural and religious differences between Muslim refugees and ordinary British citizens does more harm than good. Katie Razzall’s conspicuously rose-tinted bias added greatly to the confusion.

Typical Syrian refugees

Later, against my better judgment I saw Katie Hopkins chatting about Donald Trump with a rather irritable Andrew Neil.  Andrew Neil took a disappointingly BBC approach to the subject, while Michael Portillo almost took Katie Hopkins by surprise by unexpectedly siding with her. 

'Brexit Britain: One Month In'

Tonight's Newsnight Special - Brexit Britain: One Month In came after a day-long Newsnight event. 

We got an initial glimpse of that debate courtesy of a brief introductory selection of views from the famous, semi-famous and the I-don't-know-if-they-are-famous-or-nots, beginning with Owen Jones and Billy Bragg.

It had a bit of a pro-Remain bias in that two were pro-Leave (including Suzanne Evans), four pro-Remain and one was hard to judge (though I suspect from what she said pro-Remain). 

Then, however, came a well-balanced and interesting report on the Leave and Remain campaigns from Nick Watt. I've no complaints about that. 

The serious bias kicked in, however, with the frankly bizarre decision to have the first main discussion between two Remainers (Nick Clegg and Stella Creasy) and just one Brexiter (Kwasi Kwarteng). 

What on earth possessed Newsnight to imbalance it like that? 

Though not quite as bad as I expected, Evan did give Kwasi Kwarteng a harder time than either Nick Clegg and Stella Creasey (despite them being in the majority)...

...and he also did that thing (to Kwasi) which, alas, he often does these days [see 24:30] of restating a talking point in contradiction to his guest and then moving straight on without giving that guest a chance to reply.

And then came the audience! I'll let Evan spell that issue out in his own words:

I do just want to go to the audience here. We've got a lovely audience in the room. They've been at events through the day. Now I have to tell you, it was a first-some-first-served buy-a-ticket event so this is not like your usual BBC audience which was been constructed to be in some way balanced - and it is, we know from the rest of the day, overwhelmingly Remain. This is a West London venue. So it's a Remain...[laughter]"

Well, fancy that! A heavily pro-Remain audience for this day-long Newsnight event. Who'd have thought it? (sarcasm alert!). 

Evan went on to say that the audience had been displaying a lot of "Remainer grief" throughout the day and when he asked them if they wanted a second referendum about 40% of them (by his estimation) said 'Yes'. 

Couldn't Newsnight have staged its 'big Brexit event' somewhere more representative? (I'd have recommended Morecambe, which followed the actual result of the referendum very closely).

Oddly, two audience members were chosen to speak and one was pro-Remain (and had signed that dodgy '4 million' petition demanding another refendum) while the other was pro-Leave.

That's good, but (and here's the odd bit) the pro-Leave guy was, as Evan admitted, "slightly untypical" in being (a) open to a second referendum and (b) positively in favour of another referendum to endorse whatever Brexit deal is sorted out. 

Katie Razzall's "divided nation" report at least got us away from the views of West London. She was up my way (though she didn't drop by to see me). 

Her piece was fairly balanced in terms of featuring Leave and Remain voters across a swathe of the North West from Manchester to Blackpool (via the gorgeous Ribble Valley and lovely Lytham St Annes. 

It was curious though how often the Leave supporters were cast as being and asked about being "embarrassed" about how they'd voted.

And it was even more curious how favourably Theresa May was viewed, even among the Leave voters (including the chap in the soup kitchen in Blackpool).  

The second main discussion was hosted by Kirsty Wark.

Unlike the first discussion, it was balanced, guest-wise, between a Leave supporter (Dan Hannan) and a Remain supporter (Kirsty's former Newsnight colleague Paul Mason). 

Kirsty, however, can't be said to have been unbiased. She was even worse than Evan in 'taking the fight' mainly to the Leave supporter - i.e. Dan Hannan. 

That wasn't quite 'fair', especially as the audience was on Paul Mason's side. (The biggest clap of all came when Paul condemned "racist populism" after mentioning UKIP). 

And Kirsty did that thing she does and asked Paul Mason a helpful question of the kind she didn't put to Dan Hannan [see at 45:36]:

But Paul, when I talked about 'nature abhors a vacuum', you know, our revised growth figures - for this year 1.7, for next year 1.3 - you know, there may be an economic downturn which actually harms the very people who voted to leave.

She also asked about a second referendum.

With Evan promising to keep on scrutinising Brexit issue and a montage of clips of careers ended by the vote, that was that.

Conclusion? It could have been worse, but it was still strongly Remain-biased.


Update: I see that Dan Hannan didn't find his encounter with that Newsnight audience very fruitful:

More 'Newsnight'

That same (Wednesday) edition of Newsnight also had several discussions with non-BBC guests on Brexit-related matters. 

The first discussion was balanced 1:1 between a Leave supporter (Peter Lilley) and a Remain supporter (Heidi Allen).

The second discussion had a 2:1 imbalance in favour of Remain (with Rupert Harrison and  Mariana Mazzucato on the Remain side and Gerard Lyons on the Leave side).

The final discussion has a 3:1 imbalance in favour of Remain (with Polly Toynbee, Matthew Parris and Anne McElvoy on the Remain side and Charles Moore on the Leave side).

That, of course, is the programme's pre-Referendum imbalance on steroids.

******

This edition of Newsnight also backed up my feeling (as mentioned in an earlier post) that the BBC took to Theresa May's coronation in an 'intensely relaxed' way.

Take this from Evan Davis:

One thing's that painfully obvious is how divided the country's been over the last few months - not to mention the Conservative Party itself. Suddenly Theresa May has risen to the top, powered by a remarkable sense of unity. It's not just the goodwill that offered to a new inhabitant of Downing Street. She's not stabbed anyone, stamped on anyone's head or questioned their ability to govern on account of their family circumstances. By universal acclaim she was the grown-up in the kindergarten.

And he said that last sentence in an entirely serious way, wearing this face as he did so:

Nick Watt's report featured only admiring 'talking heads' and ended by saying "friends say the country will soon warm to their new prime minister."

******

The only real criticism of Mrs May came in Katie Razzall's report on immigration (in light of Brexit and Mrs May's entry into Downing Street).

It came from the public.

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Katie's report, however, was striking in a different kind of imbalance.

It featured contrasting voices on the issue of mass immigration. Counting the time given to each side, it worked out thus:

For mass immigration: 1m 38s

Against mass immigration: 21s

All four pro-mass immigration voices were successful ethnic minority people involved in business or the charity sector (shown at art galleries or at their business), while both anti-mass immigration voices were white UKIP activists (down the pub). 

And at the heart of Katie's report was this:

There's no doubt immigration played a key role in the Referendum. Almost all the West Midlands region voted Leave, including multicultural Birmingham...Across the Midlands and both hate crimes rose after Brexit, like at this halal shop fire-bombed in Walsall.  

******

This edition of Newsnight, like every other recent edition of Newsnight (post-Referendum) wasn't exactly lacking in bias (to put it mildly).

Get Gove!

Last night's Newsnight was an absolute shocker, and I'm frankly amazed that there's been so little fuss about it. 

It was a 'Get Gove!' edition, pretty much from start to finish. 

******

It began with a video montage of yesterday's 'Tory Party drama' set to the accompaniment of Bob Dylan's Positively 4th Street - a song about a treacherous friend. 

Can you guess who the 'treacherous friend' was referring to? 

Well, Newsnight left absolutely no doubt about that: A clip of Michael Gove smiling behind a speech-making Boris was accompanied by Bob Dylan singing "You've got a lotta nerve to say you are my friend". 

The next clip saw Michael Gove grinning alongside Boris and Bob Dylan singing, "When I was down you just stood there grinnin'".

Then came a dizzying barrage of short clips of Mr. Gove saying he didn't want to be and wasn't up to being PM, followed by him saying yesterday that he intended to stand to become PM, immediately 'commented upon' by Bob Dylan - to more past images of happy Michael & Boris - with the lyrics, "You just want to be on the side that's winnin'"... 

I think that might be described as preparatory 'mood music' for what followed.. 

******

Evan Davis continued to fixate on the 'treachery' issue throughout, raising it with pretty much everyone he interviewed. He pressed it on them, again and again. 

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That might be understandable, but much more questionable was the stark contrast between the programme's treatment of Mr. Gove compared to that given to Theresa May. 

Newsnight gave overwhelmingly negative coverage for the former and overwhelmingly positive coverage for the latter. 

The two reports profiling them are worth watching to see that contrast at its sharpest. 

******

Katie Razzall's take on Mrs. May was overwhelmingly favourable. It included lots of positive language about her from the BBC reporter, and only included admiring 'talking heads' (two Tory fans, one Labour admirer). 

Katie painted a portrait of Mrs. May as a pragmatic, hard-working woman with a great grasp of detail who has risen through the Conservative ranks, telling her "toxic" party some home truths along the.way. And she's done so, said Katie, by not playing by the normal rules of politics. After linking her to Winston Churchill, Katie them said her tough negotiating abilities are "skills" that "will appear useful as Brexit looms". 

If Mrs. May had stayed up to watch that report she would surely have been tickled pink by it.

******

Interesting use of the word "looms" there, by the way, in connection with Brexit. (It was the final word of Katie Razzall's report.)

"Loom" is not a positive word". "Looming" things are, by definition, "threatening" things. And "threatening" things are negative things.

******

Chris Cook's take on Mr. Gove, in contrast, was overwhelmingly hostile, with lots of negative language almost from the word go (including "total weirdness"). 

It was, in fact, nothing more and nothing less than a hatchet job. 

It began rather mockingly, and included a few cringe-worthy clips of Mr. Gove (at various stages of his life). Michael Gove's time as education secretary was then covered mostly through the hostility of teachers, including a clip of an (unpleasant) insult from one teacher going down an absolute storm at a union conference. His time as justice secretary was passed over in favour of Chris focusing, at length, on Mr. Gove's "hardline" views on the peace process in Northern Ireland. Labour advisor Jonathan Powell denounced Mr' Gove's past views as "pretty far-out" before both he and Chris Cook worried about what those "hardline" views would mean, post-Brexit, for a "tense" Northern Ireland now. Mr. Gove's past support for the Iraq War was also held against him. That support was "so" extreme Mr. Gove even denounced the Daily Mail back in 2004 for being too soft. That leaked email from Mrs. Gove followed - "wrongly" thinking the Mail might back him over the leadership. (Chris struck me as gloating there). And as for that great bogeyman, Rupert Murdoch, Chris Cook then splashed dozens and dozens of dizzying images showing how often Michael Gove has met Murdoch and various Murdoch associates "time and time again". 

Mud was being slung - every piece of mud Chris could find - at Michael Gove here.

And then it got personal. Chris Cook said there's a "wrinkle" in Mr. Gove's reputation for courteousness; Those who cross him often face "quite bizarrely vitriolic press coverage". 

And he included himself among Mr. Gove's victims.

In a remarkable passage of BBC broadcasting, Chris Cook told his personal story (without counterbalance). 

He himself came very well out of his own telling of it. Michael Gove came very badly out of it. The BBC man said that, as a result of crossing Mr. Gove , 'friends of Michael Gove' had tried to get him fired from the FT.

Chris then went after Dominic Cummings of Vote Leave - Mr. Gove's one-time close advisor - using language like "less polite", "aggressive" and "bigwig" about him. 

A final semi-mocking comment then brought this remarkable piece to a close.

Note that the 'talking heads' here were comprised of one supportive Conservative (very briefly), one hostile Labour type (at length) and an ambiguous Lib Dem. 

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In years of watching the BBC I don't think I've ever seen two more sharply contrasted reports than these, placed side by side. The bias was palpable.

Tin foil hats are not needed here. The Theresa May report was kind to Mrs. May (who took the Remain side in the EU referendum). The Michael Gove report was unkind to Mr. Gove (who took the Leave side in the EU referendum). I can't see any room for doubt about that. And there must be a reason for that contrast. What could that reason be? 

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As for the rest of last night's Newsnight, we had a selection of Conservative activists - two of whom supported Mrs. May, one of whom backed Mr. Gove, another of.whom backed Andrea Leadsom (who hardly got a mention until the non-BBC guest started talking about her), and the final one of whom was undecided. 

Evan also interviewed a pro-Theresa May Conservative MP (Matthew Hancock).

He later jointly interviewed a second pro-Theresa May Conservative MP (Nadhim Zahawi) alongside a pro-Michael Gove MP (Jacob Rees Mogg), and - following a now-familiar pattern with Evan Davis - the BBC man challenged Mr. Rees Mogg noticeably more strongly than he challenged Mr. Zahawi.

Later came a discussion with three journalists (Matthew Parris, Isabel Hardman and Stephen Glover) - one of whom (Isabel H) didn't express an opinion on who she wanted as PM, but two of whom (Matthew P and Stephen G) did: They both want Mrs. May. 

So that's 4/5 of the main (UK) interviewees who want Theresa May to be our next PM (something Newsnight evidently knew in advance, given the conversations during the programme).

An EU Commissioner also appeared, talking questionable, scary stuff about pro-Brexit EU-UK trade.

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Now, I'm aware that this might appear to be as much of a hatchet job on Newsnight as Chris Cook's piece was a hatchet job on Michael Gove, but you are all free here (as ever) to watch it for yourselves and point out where I've gone wrong.

Plus - and I don't know why I even hesitate to say this - I'm not saying this because of my own bias. My own bias here is for Mrs. May. I'm actually 'on Newsnight's side' here. (Unlike most people who write for/comment on 'blogs like this' I don't think 'Teresa the Appeaser' is the scum of the earth.)

You could say I'm arguing against my own position here - except that I'm doing no such thing.

This post isn't about my view of the the respective virtues and vices of Michael Gove and Theresa May. It's simply about BBC bias.

It's (almost) always about BBC bias here.

[Update: There are other views about Mrs. May though (obviously), including a piece Guido Fawkes reports got pulled by the Telegraph after pressure from Mrs. May's team - a dramatic story in itself. Reading it has given me pause for thought re the Home Secretary's suitability to be PM. Wonder if the BBC will follow this story through?]

An alternative take on 'Newsnight' in the Shetlands

Here's a different take to mine on Katie Razzall's second Referendum Road report on Newsnight, from David Keighley at News-watch: 

MORE NEWSNIGHT BIAS: Newsnight continued their series EU Referendum Road on Friday night with a visit by reporter to the Shetland Isles, the UK’s most northerly outpost.  The full transcript is below.  As with her previous report, it heavily favoured the ‘remain’ side – although not so obviously. The ‘in’ case was articulated by two figures: the managing director of a local green energy company, and a woman, who it was said had been passionately ‘out’ at the 1975 EU referendum – to the extent that she had been involved in noisy protests and arrested – but was now firmly ‘in’. Razzall buttressed their pro-EU remarks with an observation at the end that all 15 of the regulars of a local pub were in favour of staying in.  Ranged against that were two ‘out’ figures – one a former ‘Viking chief’ who now ran a local real ale brewery, and who looked to Norway as a model that the Shetlands might follow because the place was ‘absolutely pristine’; and a farmer who said the local economy needed to adopt a more global outlook. He claimed that ‘little Europe’ was ‘not for us’. On the face of it, therefore, there was a form of balance, two ‘ins’ against two definitely ‘outs’.

The bias stemmed from other factors., One was that Razzall said that in the 1975 EU referendum, the islands had been one of only two electoral areas of the UK that had voted ‘out’. She then set out to show that this had been based on that the economy back then had been primarily linked to fishing – and spoke immediately to the green energy manufacturer who said strongly that he supported ‘in’.  She asserted:

‘But how changeable are Shetlanders’ attitudes to the EU four decades on? New industries have grown up since the fishermen swung the vote, Shetland is pioneering tidal power, and Fred Gibson’s firm, which has received some EU funding, is making the fibreglass blades.

FRED GIBSON Shetland Composites The first one is up and running at the moment. As we speak it is actually producing electricity which is going on to the local grid.

KR:        So you will be voting to stay in?

FG:        Oh, absolutely. I think it is going to be very interesting, what’s going to happen here, this time. I can see exactly why they voted no last time. And that was purely down to the fishing industry.

KR:        That’s still important in Shetland, but it employs far fewer people these days.

FG:        When I was at school, there would be at least three or four other pupils in my class whose fathers were going out probably every day to go fishing. It’s funny because I asked that same question to my children quite recently, and they said that they didn’t actually know anyone, and then one of them said, oh, he thought that somebody’s father was a fisherman in his year group. So that has completely changed.’

Thus Razzall’s editing and selection of comment suggested that although the fishing industry remained ‘important’ it was at a far lesser level to the point that fishermen were rare. Checks on Google, however, soon reveal that, in fact, fishing, remains the islands’ main source of income, accounting for 28% of all economic activity. This is what the Shetland Economy website says:

‘The fishing industry – which includes the catching, farming and processing of fish and shellfish – is Shetland’s biggest sector by some way. It has always been at the absolute heart of Shetland’s economy and community. The seafood industry is worth £300m a year to the local economy.’

She deliberately projected a misleading impression to viewers. The reality is that more fish is landed annually in Lerwick than the whole of Wales, England and Northern Ireland combined; the only fishing port bigger than Lerwick in the entire UK is Peterhead; the value of the catch is £76m annually (plus there is a very substantial salmon farming industry); and very substantial numbers of local people are employed in fish processing and related activities.

In ignoring the fishermen, Razzall glossed over a vital strand of local opinion. The local fishermen’s association, as is revealed by their website, is clearly unhappy with the Common Fisheries Policy.

And show'd thee all the qualities o' the isle/The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place and fertile (plus the breweries)

The UK's most northerly fish & chip shop

Having given Katie Razzall's first Referendum Road report, from Cornwall, such a heavy 'thumbs down' for pro-EU bias last week, I'm glad to say that her second report in the series, from the Shetland Islands, was much better.

The Shetlands were chosen by the programme because they were one of only two places in the UK to vote against staying in the Common Market in 1975. The report sought to find out if opinions have changed there over the past 40 years - especially given that the Shetlands are no longer anywhere near so reliant on the (largely anti-EU) fishing industry and much more reliant on tourism, oil, renewable energy companies (and the like) instead. 

We heard from: The editor of the Shetland Times, who reviewed the archived and talked about the changes; the owner of a tidal energy blade-making company which has "received some EU funding" who replied "Absolutely!" to the question "Will you be voting to stay in?"; the postmistress in the UK's most northerly post office who said she thinks people will vote to stay this because of "the unknown...if you're not in it...of what happens"; the owner of Britain's most northerly brewery - Valhalla Brewery, who "wants out" and thinks Norway would be a good model of how to deal with the EU [Katie challenged him, asking, "But they don't have a place at the table to argue their point when it comes to the EU]; a woman who works in the most northerly fish-and-chip shop in the UK, who doesn't like talking about the EU because it starts arguments (tell me about it, Ashley!); a pro-Brexit farmer who said that the islands have a global reach and should be looking beyond Europe; the local vet, who says she's "neutral", seeing both sides; and a former anti-EU protester who has changed her mind and is now a fan of the EU [the latter being interviewed in a pub - and not one of the 15 people who Katie spoke to in is even considering voting Out].

That's a better spread of opinion than last week. 

And, also unlike last week's report, there was little point-pushing from Katie [except for that challenge to the brewery owner over Norway], and the closing lines of the piece were studiously neutral in content and tone.

It might be too sour (on my part) to suggest that Katie Razzell could have been trying to be on her best behaviour here after last week's sharply skewed report - and all the social media criticism it generated (though it hasn't stopped me saying it).

Whatever, this was a decent, interesting (and beautifully-filmed) report. 

And, as so ever, anything like this from the Shetlands just makes me want to go there.

Something for the Cornish to mull over

If (like me) you thought Katie Razzall's Newsnight report from Cornwall was biased towards Remain, then you might be in for a shock when you read her newly-published BBC News website article on the subject, Cornwall: In or Out?, because it's  actually much worse.

It begins:

Over the last 15 years, Cornwall has received more than £1bn of EU structural investment. Don't worry if that fact has passed you by. Plenty of the people I met in Cornwall appear to be unaware of it too.

She was about to try and change that.

She then rehearsed the reasons, "from the Europhiles' perspective" (as she put it, guardedly), why "Cornwall has lots to thank Europe for" - though in all the figures about £888m from the EU here and £486m there, not once did she mention (either here or on her TV report) that a lot of that money would have been money that we in the UK paid into the EU in the first place! 

"But when it comes to the referendum, it appears hard cash doesn't automatically buy loyalty", she continued.

Then, using a comment from a Penzance resident, she started discussing the "unknowns":

The unknowns of a Brexit (there is no word for that in Cornish) were one explanation given by folk who told me they'll vote to stay in.

Then she started talking about the other side and her language changed: "But I also found plenty threatening to vote to leave." "Threatening?" Why did she use that word there? Why not "intending" or "wanting"?

And as for the keen "outers" who "talk of the good old days", isn't that a rather mocking way of describing their way of thinking, as if they're old fuddy-duddies?

And then Katie went back to her starting point. Part of the reason why the EU's generosity (with our money!) could be that the EU simply isn't good enough at promoting its own generosity!:

A YouGov survey suggested Cornwall is veering Eurosceptic as we head towards 23 June. Part of the issue may be that the EU doesn't obviously appear to trumpet its investment. Unlike in some other parts of Europe, I barely saw that blue EU sign with its familiar yellow stars.

Well, Katie Razzall was more than making up for the EU's 'unwillingness' to blow its own trumpet here (and on Newsnight)! 

Under the next sub-headline, EU 'benefits Cornwall', she trumpets yet more of the EU's generosity on their behalf, this time the 'EU money' that pours into Cornwall's business:

It's a substantial sum and some here are worried that the county - and the nation - could be heading for Brexit without properly considering the consequences.

As well as the (anti-Brexit) businessman who appeared on her Newsnight report (anti-Brexit), whose concerns she quotes again, here she also gives us a second business owner - and she makes this lady her coup de grace:

Susan Stuart spent the best part of two years renovating Penzance's Chapel House, which she's turned into a hotel. She's backing local regeneration plans, which include hopes for new flood defences, cycle paths and a digital hub. 

She told me they couldn't fund this without going to Europe and an out vote means "we wouldn't get the funding". 

Something for the Cornish to mull over as they get closer to referendum day.

This seems to me to be a clear example of a pro-Remain-biased BBC article. Please read it for yourselves though and see if you agree.