The BBC's worldview

UnHerd's Peter Frankin has a piece today about how Radio 4's Correspondents Look Ahead reflects the BBC's worldview to perfection. 

The BBC may say it hasn't got a worldview but it certainly has, on subject after subject. 

He gives some examples, including:

There was also a preachy little section on “global vaccine inequality”. Noting the low levels of vaccination in many developing countries, the question asked for 2022 was “will the West do better?” No consideration was given to the performance of developing world governments or to local levels of vaccine hesitancy. That’s not to absolve the West of its responsibilities in this matter, just to point out that yet again the discussion was one-sided.

When I listened to it on New Year's Eve I made the following note for this section: 

St. Gordon of Brown - vaccine inequality - “a moral issue” [Lyse Doucet] - GB's “stain on our global soul” mentioned twice - “No one is safe until everyone is safe”.

Over on the BBC World Service's equivalent programme the BBC's Africa correspondent Andrew Harding went even further. This is how he rather hotly characterised it: 

Andrew Harding, BBC - The last two years, it's clear, have been about apartheid, if you like. It's been a systemic failure of the international community. Those with their stockpiles, those democracies looking after their own people first. And you mentioned earlier that idea of no one's being safe until everyone's safe, completely ignoring that basic fact and, despite plenty of promises, denying Africa its fair share of vaccines. 

Going back to the Radio 4 one, Peter also notes how they didn't ask why “the biggest economic story of 2021 — the global supply chain crisis” happened:

Perhaps that’s because one of main causes of the crisis — the surge in demand created by the American government’s excessive stimulus program — doesn’t fit the “Trump bad, Biden good” narrative. Similarly when contemplating America’s continuing political polarisation, the Republican delusion about a stolen election was highlighted, but not the doctrinaire woke politics of the other side. For instance, the campaign to “defund the police” at a time of surging crime rates might have been worth a mention.

One thing they did discuss, of course, was the Capitol riot on 6 January. Indeed, from Sunday to Pick of the Year, that's been the US event every BBC journalist seems to want to talk about above all else. 

Peter gives another example:

The partiality of BBC’s analysis doesn’t just apply to American politics. Inevitably it also applies to Brexit. Attempting to explain continuing UK-EU tensions, the BBC’s Europe editor Katya Adler repeated the EU line that the British government is playing to a domestic audience. The idea that the gratuitous Brit-bashing of the French government might be similarly motivated went entirely unspoken.

It did indeed. My note on the night for that bit ran as follows: 

Katya on EU/UK. Brussels perspective given. UK side presented cynically. Usual language about Tory Brexiteers - ''hard wing'', ''hard''. Brussels perspective. Brussels perspective.

Indeed, no one countered Katya's Brussels perspective with an attempt at presenting the UK perspective in similar terms. 

Katya also talked of the rise of “illiberal democracies” like Poland and Hungary, characterising that rise as “extremely dangerous”. 

Peter Frankin concludes by noting that, whatever the BBC says, BBC correspondents “do have opinions”, as shown by this programme, and though “in itself that’s not a problem,...the issue is viewpoint diversity and the lack of it.” He ends: 

Instead of maintaining a semblance of neutrality, I’d much rather the BBC allowed and encouraged its journalists to examine the great issues of our time from a variety of different ideological perspectives. We might just get a clearer view of the future if they did.

He can hope. 

“We're not supposed to have opinions, but...”

 

I listened to Correspondents Look Ahead - Looking Ahead to 2022 on Radio 4 last night. What I didn't know is that the BBC World Service has an equivalent called BBC Correspondents Look Ahead. A parallel section from each programme got be thinking again about BBC groupthink. 

Here's the passage from the Radio 4 programme:

KATYA ADLER - I'm going to try and be positive and say that there is more environmental awareness. I like the fact that...we're not supposed to have opinions, but I do like the fact that it was young people that put the environment on the political agenda. Kicking and screaming might I add from the political class. They don't want to know. It costs money. It's difficult. It means making difficult political decisions they don't want to take. And I don't have great faith in any big decisions being taken by those who should really not waste any more time in the coming year. But I think this idea of people power. younger people pushing forward, that has to give us some hope. So it's a struggle, really, to be watched. And I think we should all have our fingers and toes crossed that, you know. We're in a pandemic but this is a literally burning problem that is creeping up on us. It's causing mental health problems amongst those who are worried about it and the planet is being destroyed. So let's hope 2022 is moving towards more action.

And here's its equivalent on the World Service:

RAZIA IQBAL - I just gonna throw one positive thought out. A final one. Young people are my positive thought. In 2021 we saw the likes of Greta Thunberg really galvanise people on the issue of climate change. She may be disappointed by COP26 and the outcome of that, but I still believe that there are hundreds if not thousands of Greta Thunbergs, Malala Yousafzais, all over the world - young women in particular - who really feel...To me they bring me encouragement. They are so heartening, that they are committed and dedicated to being agents of change. So I feel very, very encouraged by that.

LYSE DOUCET - Hear, hear. Hear, hear. 

Now, if you watch GB News or listen to talkRADIO or read websites like this you'll tend not hear such enthusiasm for the Greta Thunbergs and Malala Yousafzais of this world. [I refer you to Sue's posts about Malala for starters]. 'We' tend to think differently to 'them' at the BBC. But it's their views that are publicly-funded. 

Looking Ahead and Back

This year's Correspondents' Look Ahead will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 at 8pm on New Year's Eve. 

In anticipation of that, here's a review of last year's edition when BBC correspondents Lyse Doucet, Aleem Maqbool, Dharshini David, Gabriel Gatehouse, Justin Rowlatt and Katya Adler gathered on New Year's Day this very year to look ahead to 2021.

It's a remarkable listen, showing the BBC echo chamber in full cry  - or, perhaps more accurately, full echo. 

I've never attended an Observer-sponsored round table conference for journalists, left-wing activists and campaign groups, but I imagine this is what it might be like. 

For starters

Just consider this, for starters: from Lyse Doucet's introduction as she looked back to 2020 and said that, “as always”, there was “some good” amid “so much bad” in 2020. These are the two things she put on 2020's 'plus' side:

The Black Lives Matter movement put injustice and diversity on the agenda as never before and the pandemic focused minds on saving not just lives but our planet in our climate emergency.

Hm. I rolled my eyes at that! The BBC's Chief International Correspondent was signalling her very BBC views there.

Dharshini David opines and predicts

The programme's powers of prediction haven't greatly improved over the years. The first substantial contribution came from BBC economics reporter Dharshini David. Having nailed her colours to the usual BBC 'spend, spend, spend' mast by openly praising the Bank of England and Chancellor Rishi for “pumping money” into the furlough scheme - a “financial vaccination” she called it, describing it as both “good” and “good news” - she went on to make predictions for the UK economy in 2021. She said a double-dip recession “is pretty much a given, Lyse. I think that ship has really sailed”. Well, we're 12 months on and it's still not sailed quite yet. She also predicted unemployment “continuing to grow for some time”, which again didn't happen this year. Bias and inaccurate predictions - a cracking start!

My eyes kept on rolling, but they needed to calm down as we were only in the foothills and they needed to brace themselves to follow my eyebrows as they rose up ever higher... 

Familiar fare 

Katya Adler then, predictably, painted a rosy view of Mrs Merkel's Germany.

Left wing round table chat

Lyse then discussed protests and coronavirus in the US in terms of how the pandemic had “exposed inequality” in its disproportionate effect on African-Americans, Hispanics and Latinos and Aleem Maqbool drew the comparisons with how much better white Americans were doing in a context-free, BLM-style fashion.

Lyse then discussed with Justin Rowlatt the issue of “less privileged” countries not receiving their fair share of vaccines and Justin criticised the “unseemly behaviour” of the developed world. He held out hopes though for Bill Gates and the WHO riding to the rescue and getting a project going. 

Do you take my point about it being like eavesdropping on a left-leaning convention?

Box-tickers to watch

Moving on to a regular feature, the next section was the BBC correspondents' traditional 'persons to watch' bit. Those for this year were:

[1] Alexey Navalny, who Gabriel Gatehouse predicted would “make waves” if he went back to Russia - which he did in January before being imprisoned in February and dropping out of the headlines.

[2] Deb Haaland, a Biden appointee who Aleem Maqbool discussed in identity politics terms as being “the first native American to lead the Department of the Interior...with its history of oppression against native American people”. It was all about identity politics. 

[3] Janet Yellen, a Biden appointee who Dharshini David also discussed in identity politics terms as the the first woman Treasury Secretary. “The US have beaten us...we've had none...” here in the UK in the top financial jobs, she said. It was all about identity politics. 

[4] Alok Sharma, who Justin Rowlatt chose for his role in the “crucial”, “terribly important”, “very important” and “crucial” COP26.

[5] Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who Lyse Doucet predicted would become Saudi king in 2021, which didn't happen. She also predicted he'd become more powerful. Except for taking over Newcastle United FC, he didn't really feature on BBC News very much this year.

[6] “The ever growing shadow behind Angela Merkel”, which Katya Adler also discussed in terms of identity politics, talking of the “three slightly aging, middle-aged white men” of the CDU fighting to succeed Mutti and “probably” win the September election - which none of them actually did as the CDU failed to win. 

Besides the inaccurate predictions, it really is quite something how much identity politics informed this part of the conversation. It continued from the earlier discussion. And it continued. 

It was the 'post-BLM' edition of Correspondents' Look Ahead.

The man who tweeted too much

US politics - the change from Trump to Biden - was next for discussion.

I had to chuckle on hearing Lyse Doucet begin it by sticking to focusing on The Most Important Thing For The Likes of the BBC for the Entirety of the Trump Presidency  - Donald Trump's tweets - saying he's “still certain to unleash tweets from his own account”. Well, she got that wrong as the censors at Twitter swiftly banned him. 

Aleem Maqbool goes full CNN

Aleem Maqbool then talked about inequality, and the plight of women and minorities, and the polarisation that “won't go away” even after the “figurehead” [Donald Trump] has been removed - thus presenting the polarisation in a rather one-sided fashion himself. 

And - of course - Aleem talked about race, which he very much filtered through a BLM lens, saying:

The race issues. So much protest happened, so many people took to the streets. There's been very little in terms of structural change on race and policing over the last year.

Aleem predicted a lot of political violence in 2021. I suspect the events at the Capitol in January will be dwelt on and cited as a successful prediction in this Friday's programme. He also predicted the return of mass shootings. 

Aleem then talked of fixing immigration and asylum and “reuniting children who were separated from their parents under that system under Donald Trump” - which [a] was a very BBC focus on the needs of immigrants rather than numbers or the problems caused to the host community and [b] repeated the falsehood that the child separation issue arose under Donald Trump when it actually arose under Barack Obama and his VP Joe Biden. [As we now know, because of the Biden administration's policies, there's been chaos on the southern UK border this year]. 

As for Joe Biden, Aleem Maqbool said he's playing the card of “a uniter” - “and he's playing it relatively well so far”. [Well, that didn't last long]. 

More “good news”

Then “Good news” from Day 1 was predicted by Lyse and Justin for the Biden administration's climate change actions for what Lyse called the “climate emergency”. She also worried about people she called “climate deniers”. Quick as a flash, Aleem replied “But at least there won't be one in the White House”, said Aleem. 

Are you feeling the impartiality? 

Lyse pulls the rug from under Aleem

One amusing moment came when Aleem employed the 'some say' strategy beloved of BBC reporters trying to make a point through other people's mouths, talking of “a lot of.. as many people see it” regarding “the damage done” by Donald Trump's environmental policies. He later added an “as they see it”, referring to Trump critics' claims of damage, thus putting further 'fake impartiality' distance between him and them. And then Lyse Doucet went and ruined it all by giving her opinion and dropping him in it too, saying “As Aleem says, a lot of the damage has been done”. Haha!

Justin sings 'For Xi's a jolly good fellow'

On the same theme, Justin Rowlatt found President Xi's climate pledges “enormously optimistic”, which he seems to believe. Green energy is “the cheapest”. he said. [Fact check?]

Places to watch [or not]

For flashpoints/places to watch: 

Gabriel chose Taiwan [a very safe bet that it would remain a worrying issue in 2021].

Aleem chose Venezuela for a looming humanitarian crisis moving towards a flashpoint [well, it didn't really reach that point].

Dharshini chose Dover [for possible Brexit problems].

Justin chose Denmark [for a company that's transitioned from being an oil company to a renewables company and that might become a giant].

Katya chose Italy [to wonder how it would cope in 2021. I wonder how many reports she did about it in 2021 as I've heard very little about it?].

And Lyse, inevitably, chose Afghanistan, predicting that the Taliban might come close to power or achieve power either through negotiation or the battlefield. [She didn't predict the disastrous handling of it by the Biden administration which gifted the country and billions of dollars of US equipment to them].

OMG, Brexit!

The final segment seems 'very a year ago', as Lyse asked whether there would be a Brexit trade deal between the EU and the UK - then still in doubt in a 'final hours of diplomacy' kind of way. 

This was a classic BBC discussion:

Darshini said there should be if economic sense is followed but 2020 suggests that if we've learned anything it's that “Brexit isn't about the economics” and there'll be “a fudge”. 

Gloomy Katya said “the thing that's really going to hit us in 2021 is that even if there is a deal it's a very narrow deal because this is at best a hard Brexit and at worst a no-deal Brexit” and piled on the negatives about both, including worrying about whether you'd be able to take “Boris the dog” to Europe if you're blind and need your guide-dog - a stark reminder of the remarkable negativity and negative language about Brexit that assailed us on a daily basis back then. 

Justin said he “agreed” with both Darshini and Katya [of course he did because they were in an echo chamber] and thought “a very, very narrow deal” would be “sneaked over the line”, predicting “a very, very uncomfortable New Year for the UK”. 

And Gabriel, continuing to be cautious, sensibly said he'd “duck the question”. 

Are you still feeling the impartiality? 

Looking ahead

Friday's panellists looking ahead to 2022 will be Faisal Islam, Gabriel Gatehouse, Katya Adler, Laura Trevelyan and Nick Eardley. It looks as if there's a greater focus on UK politics from the presence of Laura and Nick, but we'll see. I expect it will be blander. I wanted Aleem Maqbool, Darshini David and Justin Rowlatt back. Still at least Lyse Doucet's still in the chair. 

'Berates'-gate

 

As you've been noting in the comments, the BBC's Europe editor Katya Adler hasn't been having a good week. 

This tweet caused considerable controversy the other day, as it simply wasn't true that the Johnson government had "berated" the EU:

Rather like the EU itself last night, Katya backtracked yesterday in what is probably the nearest we're going to get to an apology from her:

(She could have claimed it was an "oversight"!)

And now she's put her foot in it again - h/t richard d. 

She was on this morning's Today programme talking about how the fears of dwindling supplies of jabs in the EU are being realised, with several countries running low, and said:

Partly this is to do with pharmaceutical companies not honouring contracts, particularly AstraZeneca, with which the EU has a big row at the moment...

There was no "allegedly" or "they claim" in there, or anything like it. It was stated as if it were a fact.

As richard d says:

That is an unsubstantiated claim by the EU, apparently completely refuted by the copy of the contracts (which have now even been obtained in an unredacted version).

I've seen a lot of comments overnight saying that unredacted version especially (released through another blunder by the EU commission) shows that the contract surprisingly vague. Some have suggested that the contract was poorly-worded. (Another EU blunder?)  The EU's claims about what it says about AstraZeneca's commitments to the EU remain open to question and hotly disputed.

Was this just badly-worded from Katya Adler then, or has she bought into the EU version of events and was parroting it again? 

It's the way the BBC spokesman tells 'em!

 

The Mail on Sunday also adds to the examples we mentioned over New Year of BBC News being chock-a-block with empty glass negativity about Brexit. 

It adds Simon Jack going on about the "mountain of new paperwork" faced by firms, and a bulletin on the News Channel going on about "bureaucracy" being a consequence of the Brexit deal, and Laura Kuenssberg referring to "extra paperwork" and saying "There is a very, very, very long list of new kinds of paperwork that is coming into force for all different kinds of business, whether that is filling in customs forms or doing different kinds of extra paperwork if you want take your pet on holiday", and Katya Adler saying, "It's not true that there are no bumps in trade."

It's been pretty much that all the way, from what I've seen.

Never mind Nish and Frankie, here's something much funnier. It's a BBC spokesman: 

The BBC is impartial on all topics and always features a variety of different perspectives – our Brexit coverage has been no different.

It's a cracker!

One year ago today...

It's a year ago to this very day that Charles Moore, under the headline It’s the BBC that is in need of a Reality Check, took a scalpel to the pronouncements of the BBC's Reality Check correspondent Chris Morris. 

Lord Moore wrote this last Boxing Day:

One of the minor agonies of the Brexit process since 2016 has been the existence of the BBC’s Reality Check, usually presented by Chris Morris. Rather than arguing the issue with political leaders, Morris gives ex-cathedra pronouncements on where the truth lies, which are then unquestioningly accepted by his flock of fellow-BBC staff. Funnily enough, his version of reality seems always to coincide with the view from Brussels.

He then related a specific example from Christmas Day 2019's Today programme:

On the Today programme yesterday, Morris was asked by a deferential Mishal Husain to pronounce on whether “Get Brexit done” was misleading. He said, in essence, that it was. He complained that the slogan gave the “impression” that everything would be settled by 31 January 2020, whereas in fact the Tory “rush” for a trade agreement by December 2020 was itself unrealistic.

As so often, Charles Moore (who would have made a great BBC chairman) summed it up beautifully:

When (and before) Boris Johnson became Prime Minister, BBC experts kept telling us that the EU would never reopen negotiations or offer Britain better terms than those they had given Mrs May. Yet they did, very quickly.

Yes, BBC journalists have been at least as bad as any other 'experts' in predicting the future. 

My favourite example was Katya Adler in October 2019 saying that there was "a vanishingly small likelihood of a [withdrawal] deal" just days before that very deal was agreed. And she made her reality-defying prediction with such a swagger of confidence that it made me wonder if she could ever be taken seriously again. 

She said:

Nobody wants to be the one that says it's not going to happen. But it's not going to happen. Maybe, maybe, there is a 0.0000-0.3% chance that it will happen.

The current proposals on the table are not acceptable to the EU, full stop. Let's be honest about that. The chances of getting a deal now, between now and the EU leader's summit is zero, let's be honest.

Of course, she was taken seriously again because no BBC people ever pointed this out to her and she never publicly acknowledged how wrong she'd got it. Her own ex-cathedra pronouncements on where the truth lies continued to be unquestioningly accepted by her flock of fellow-BBC staff. And, just as funnily enough, her version of reality also always seemed to coincide with the view from Brussels.

Both Chris Morris and Katya Adler were in action last week, carrying on regardless.

The BBC rules against Katya Adler

 

Talking about the activities of 'BBC types' on Twitter...

The BBC's Executive Complaints Unit has partially upheld a complaint against Katya Adler concerning a tweet where she described Michael Gove as "delusional". 

The ECU ruled (a) that Ms Adler "did not quote [Mr Gove] entirely accurately" and (b) that her use of the word “delusional” "was more a term of evaluation than of objective description (outside a psychiatric context) and, when applied to a statement, was necessarily to some extent an adverse reflection on the person making it" and "to that extent this particular tweet in our view went beyond the Guidelines’ licence for “professional judgements, rooted in evidence”, and we upheld this aspect of the complaint". 

And what has resulted from this ruling? "The finding was reported to the Board of BBC News and discussed with the relevant editorial management." 🙄

BBC's worst nightmare

Wonder if Andrew Neil had anyone in particular in mind when he tweeted this last night? 

I do wish British journalists — esp Brussels-based — would stop repeating the false mantra that the EU holds all the cards in upcoming negotiations. It holds many, perhaps more than UK. But if UK left on WTO rules it would have total regulatory freedom. EU’s worst nightmare. 

Oh dear, how sad, never mind

If there's one word that best sums up the mood of last night's BBC News Special: The UK leaves the EU I think it's 'funereal'. Katya looked as if she needed a hug, poor thing. 

Andrew Neil reality checks the BBC

Andrew Neil is really going for it tonight. 

On reading the latest Times headline PM wants Canada-style trade really with Brussels, he immediately replied: "Understood. But the problem is that Canada is not embedded in EU supply chains. The UK is". 

He then added, "To continue impartial reality, mantra, oft repeated by the BBC, that the EU holds all the cards, is not true either. The Eurozone is teetering on recession, it depends hugely on massive balance of payments surplus with UK. No deal would tip it into recession. Cards. But not all."

He's reality-checking his own BBC colleagues there. 

Is he thinking of Katya?

History in the making, despite the BBC

History in the making, despite the BBC.

The European Withdrawal Bill passed its final Parliamentary stages this week and received Royal Assent yesterday. 

As noted earlier today, BBC One's main news bulletins yesterday evening chose not to report this - extraordinarily, almost as if it were a case of sour grapes on the BBC's part.

*******

History rolls on...

Today, the European Union formally signed the Withdrawal Agreement. Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel, the leaders of the European Commission and Council respectively, with the EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier poised behind them, put pen to paper this lunchtime. 

John and Arthur T on an earlier thread noted that the BBC's News at One gave made it a blink-and-you'll-miss-it minor story towards the end of the bulletin.

John timed it and found that the BBC gave it 19 seconds. I've checked it out myself and re-timed it (as I like to be thorough) and, yes, John was spot on: it was exactly 19 seconds. And it came 21 minutes into the bulletin, very thinly sandwiched between Babs Plett-Usher in Bethlehem and Martin Patience in Baghdad. 

Shouldn't it have been a lead story, maybe even the lead story, what with it marking a major moment in UK and EU history?

History in the making, despite the BBC, then. And yet more sour grapes?

*******

And late this afternoon, in the hour before BBC One's News at Six, the United Kingdom's Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, added his signature to the Withdrawal Agreement too.

Another landmark moment in history.

Was it the top story on tonight's BBC One's News at Six, as you'd expect?

Oddly not.

Nor was it among the other top stories on tonight's BBC One's News at Six. Or even among the minor stories. Or even mentioned in passing.

To cut a long story short, BBC One's main early evening news bulletin - BBC News at Six - didn't report today's historic events at all.

Not even for 19 seconds.

Extraordinary. And the sourest grapes yet?

*******

History in the making, despite the BBC.

*******

Seriously, dear reader, am I missing something (and need putting down)?

Why, other than for reasons of extreme bias, would the BBC's main evening news bulletin not be reporting this tonight?

*******

Update: And what's the BBC's  busy, Twitter-friendly 'Europe Editor' Katya Adler tweeting today?

Nothing at all relevant to this. Where is she on this?

*******

Further update: I see someone on Twitter is seeing things my way:

David Gregory: What’s happened to the BBC's Katya Adler? No news at all from Brussels? 

David Gregory: Very strange news values on BBC 6 PM TV. Long horrific rape story, infant death. Kids watching. No mention of Brexit Bill signing. No news from Brussels or France. Understand the BBC's Katya Adler has been sacked.

On Katya Adler

Katya Adler's latest BBC News website piece 'Why Brexit Stage Two may turn into a rocky ride' is typical of her output.

Yes, she's the BBC's Europe Editor, but her focus is far more narrowly focused on the EU (and a certain country that's about to leave the EU), so she might better be described as the BBC's European Union Editor.

That being so, she's bound to report very heavily the views of those in charge of the EU, even at the risk of sometimes sounding like a parrot - which would be fine if she also maintained a healthy scepticism about their pronouncements and treated UK government statements in the same fashion.

But she hasn't done that. She reports the words of EU leaders and UK leaders but treats the former as if they're written on tablets of stone while casting a sharply sceptical eye on the latter. Taking the pronouncements of EU leaders at face value while treating statements from UK leaders with caution has become her trademark.

This latest piece - reporting on the Ursula von der Leyen/Boris Johnson meeting - is very much a case in point. It asks sceptical questions of only one them: Boris Johnson.

So is he right? one subheadline reads. What will be the price of a Johnson 'victory'? another asks.

Indeed, the main point of the piece is to prove Boris wrong when he talks optimistically about a trade deal within a year. No, it's going to be "a rocky ride", insists Katya.

Why not 'fact-check' Ursula von der Leyen too? Well, that's not Katya's way, is it?

And that's why she's been caught out several times after predicting the resolute EU' implacability against the useless Brits before the EU has then changed its mind and re-opened discussions it said it wouldn't re-open and renegotiated deals it said it wouldn't renegotiate. She doesn't seem to take on board that the EU might be weaker that she thinks, and could just sometimes be blagging it.

And that bias is betrayed by her language. Just look at it in this very piece. Look at her talk of Ursula's "clear words of warning" and how the EU Commission "pointed out" something and how Ursula "went on to warn" something. It's the language of the prophet and the teacher. Boris and the UK side don't get this kind of language. The EU is "warning" the UK and "pointing out" to the UK. We're merely "saying" things.

Katya Adler ought to be as sceptical about the EU side as she is about the UK side. She isn't.

"Not a biased picture. Not at all"

A new Katya Adler piece for the BBC News website is being trailed on Twitter. Both the tweet and the piece use the same main photo:

Now that Boris Johnson has requested a new #Brexit extension(ish) - will EU say yes or no? Might they offer a long or a short extension? My latest thoughts from Brussels /1 https://t.co/Dte6Row0mG

— katya adler (@BBCkatyaadler) October 20, 2019

As Roland Deschain at B-BBC adds, "Not a biased picture. Not at all."

Has Katya been "colluding with foreign powers"?

Still can’t get my head around the whole “colluding with foreign powers” accusation from No10 at MPs accused of being anti-Brexit..When Boris Johnson asks EU leaders to hold back on granting/talking up idea of new extension, is that colluding with foreign powers too?

— katya adler (@BBCkatyaadler) October 20, 2019

Several people are pointing out that Boris Johns is the leader of the UK government:

He is the official government and allowed to work with foreign powers. It’s literally in the government’s mandate to do so, not back bench MPs. Your comparison is poorly thought through.

Err... He's the Prime Minister. It is his job. Sounds like this BBC correspondent needs to go on a basic constitutional primer. 

No mea culpa from Katya

• 3/10 Katya Adler: "The chances of getting a deal now, between now and the EU leader's summit is zero, let's be honest."
• 10/10 Chris Mason: "Katya, you were saying, last week I think it was, I may not be quoting you entirely verbatim, but the essence of it was you thought that there was a vanishingly small likelihood of a deal...It's still vanishingly small."
• 10/10 Katy Adler: "It's not going to happen." 

So, on last night's Brexitcast, did Katya & Co. do the decent thing and admit that they got it wrong? 

Of course not. 

Mystic Katya

Fans of useless BBC punditry may especially relish this exchange from last week's Brexitcast on BBC One:

Chris Mason: Katya, you were saying, last week I think it was, I may not be quoting you entirely verbatim, but the essence of it was you thought that there was a vanishingly small likelihood of a deal. And for all of the noise and the talk of, you know, the clouds and now, maybe, a little ray of sunshine, it is still vanishingly unlikely in the current timeframe, isn't it? I mean, I know it's important to keep the diplomatic channels open and keep talking and regardless of what happens there are going to have to be conversations between Dublin and London and all that, but getting a deal so the UK can leave by the end of October, which is three weeks today, and the ratification that's necessary for that and all the rest of it, still seems vanishingly small. 

Katya Adler: I think if Harrison the Brexit baby forgives me, we are really in a situation where nobody wants to be left holding the baby. Nobody wants to be the one that says it's not going to happen. But it's not going to happen. Maybe, maybe, there is a 0.0000-0.3% chance that it will happen.  

Chris Mason: It was 0.2 this morning!  

Katya Adler: But nobody, nobody, nobody wants to be the one to say it. 

So two of the BBC's very own top Brexit brains were repeatedly telling each other - and us - only last Thursday that "there was a vanishingly small likelihood of a deal", with Katya Adler going so far as to put a figure of 0.0-0.3% per cent on its likelihood.

Just one week later....

Indeed, on the previous week's episode Katya had said (to murmurs of agreement from the fellow BBC Brexitcasters):

The current proposals on the table are not acceptable to the EU, full stop. Let's be honest about that. The chances of getting a deal now, between now and the EU leader's summit is zero, let's be honest. 

Can Chris and Katya ever be taken seriously again?

P.S. Here's Laura Kuenssberg on 8 October's BBC One News at Six being slightly more cautious:

Politics has been strange in the last two years. Never say never. A deal is not completely and entirely off the table in time. But it seems vanishingly unlikely that we are actually going to get into that position with the time left. It is only a matter of days since the Prime Minister put his new proposals on the table in Brussels and quite clearly they are simply not changing hearts and minds and they are simply not on course to be able to get to a conclusion. 

...somehow...somehow...

Katya Adler, making a point

Talking of Brexitcast...

You may recall, earlier in the week, that The Spectator's James Forsyth received a long message from 'a contact' in Downing Street and that he general assumption is that the 'contact' is Dominic Cummings. 

One part of it read:

• We will make clear privately and publicly that countries which oppose delay will go the front of the queue for future cooperation — cooperation on things both within and outside EU competences. Those who support  delay will go to the bottom of the queue. Supporting delay will be seen by this government as hostile interference in domestic politics, and over half of the public will agree with us. 

This was the subject of one of last night's contributions from BBC Europe editor Katya Adler, who charactised the above as 'a rant' - though it doesn't read like one to me - before proceding to report what an EU diplomat had told her in response. Here, to my mind, she went beyond merely reporting what that diplomat said, instead, backed up his points with her own choice of language. See if you agree:

• But I'll tell you what doesn't go down very well in the EU is also feeling that they're being threatened. So the other anonymous briefing that came out, apart from the phone call between Boris Johnson and Angela Merkel, was basically what appeared to be a rant and the suspicion is that it was from Dominic Cummings, the special adviser to the Prime Minister, but it sounded very angry and it sounded very threatening like, you know, if it comes tasking the EU for an extension then somehow those EU countries that voted in favour of the extension, this anonymous briefing said, would somehow be punished by the UK. The EU reacts so badly to something like that because also what are you going to do to those individual countries? Rather than make them think "Oh, we must sign up to this deal". I mean, one diplomat put it to me, this deal as it stands, Boris Johnson's proposals, particularly this customs area that we're talking about, just does not work for the EU. So the threat that they should go for it, and also this implication after a general election it could be an even harder line Conservative Government that wouldn't even offer this proposal, so, you know, this diplomat was saying, "This doesn't work for us so why would we say yes to this in case there is something that works for us even less?"

Which senior BBC journalist lied to the BBC that she spoke Spanish?

Answer: Katya Adler

Here are three extracts from today's Sunday Times interview with the BBC's Europe Editor Katya Adler:

I

II

III

The Collected Works of Katya Adler

On the sofa

Back in the mid '70s Richard Dawkins came up with the term 'the Concorde fallacy' to describe the logically erroneous way of thinking that leads you to continue to invest in a project merely to justify past investment in it, rather than assessing the current rationality of investing, irrespective of what has gone before. 

I may have fallen for the Concorde fallacy myself by beginning to transcribe the BBC Europe Editor Katya Adler's contributions to Andrew Marr's paper review this morning and, having gone so far with it, then felling, well, I suppose I'd better spend a few more minutes finishing it all off and then post it. 

Whether you think I should have bothered, well obviously that's for you to decide...

*******

Andrew Marr: Katya, we talk about these things week after week after week almost as if the rest of the European continent doesn't exist at all.

Katya Adler: That's how they feel. 

Andrew Marr: That's how they feel?

Katya Adler: Yes. 

Andrew Marr: There's an interesting story in the Observer suggesting that as Theresa May goes tries to get her extension agreed, she's got an ally in Angela Merkel, presumably against President Macron of France. Would do you make of this?

Katya Adler: I would warn against that because we've heard that before, haven't we? 

Andrew Marr: Right.

Katya Adler: I think...yes, the Observer says that "May thrown a lifeline by Merkel as France and Germany clash over the UK's leaving date". So at the emergency Brexit summit on Wednesday in Brussels all the 27 EU leaders will first listen to Theresa May, she will then as always be asked to leave the room while they discuss what to do about her extension request. Very importantly, they have to have a unanimous decision under EU law. And fireworks are predicted although whether it's a massive display or a regular one, we don't quite know at the moment. So basically, the Prime Minister has asked for another extension ending at the end of June. There are EU leaders at the moment who say, well, you know what, the advantage to that would be it would keep MPs under pressure because if it's a short extension they have to come to a decision and, based on past performance, EU leaders worry this could just go on forever. You have a longer extension and everyone will still go round and round. Donald Tusk...

Andrew Marr: (interrupting) To put it bluntly, they are really fed up with us? 

Katya Adler: They are really fed up with this process. They are not really fed up with the United Kingdom. And I think that's really important to distinguish. And, of course, now people, some leaders are saying might the UK change their mind? But whatever happens, if we leave it is in the EU's interest socially, politically and economically to keep us as close as possible and to keep relations as close as possible. Those who say a longer extension would be a good idea - so you've got Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council. He's calling for this so-called flextension. So it's a longer extension...

Andrew Marr: (interrupting) So we could get out at any point? 

Katya Adler: At any point, once a Brexit deal has been ratified. But then come to Emmanuel Macron who has been saying loud and clear 'do not take any extension for granted because you Theresa May have to come to us with a very clear plan'. Again, I would put a slight health warning on this. 

Jason Groves: That's what he said last time. 

Katya Adler: He said it last time. And I think, just like when the Prime Minister speaks, or Jeremy Corbyn, they are speaking also to their own audiences. So is Emmanuel Macron. 

Andrew Marr: A certain amount of role-playing. 

Katya Adler: There's a certain amount of role-playing, and they have to knock it out once they are in the room together. 

Katya Adler

Katya Adler: I think what's sometimes forgotten in the political debate here is that it's also heard over there. And the papers are read over there, as well. So, for example, Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Conservative MP, tweeted last week that if there is a longer extension, if the UK were to stay in the EU for longer, that we should be very difficult members of the EU. And this does also plays to EU fears. 

Andrew Marr: It's an extraordinary tweet. I think we can possibly see it. I don't know if we can. Can we the Jacob Rees-Mogg tweet? We can't see the Jacob Rees-Mogg tweet. Sorry. 

Katya Adler: That is part of Emmanuel Macron's argument because he says 'we have enough of this drama and we need to be able topass the EU budget, we need to elect a new European Commission chief, a new European Parliamentary chief, and we don't want the UK at the table playing difficult. 

Andrew Marr: And to be absolutely clear about it, what Jacob Rees-Mogg was saying, if there's a long extension we stay and we're really, really difficult and stroppy. And it seemed to a lot of people that he was saying that in order to put Europeans off agreeing to a long extension in the first place. In other words it was an Exocet-timed tweet for a specific effect.

Katya Adler: Yes, and his tweet was discussed at a meeting of the 27 EU ambassadors on Friday and they have EU lawyers thinking about how to get around it if the UK tried to block the budget for example. 

*******

Andrew Marr: Katya, a quick story about...not the lighter side of Brexit but the effect of Brexit already on all our summer holidays. That's in The People I think.

Katya Adler: It's in The People, yes. 'Summer Brex Get Cheaper'. It's about tour operators who are worrying with all this uncertainty, people understandably are concerned about booking their holidays, what happens if there is suddenly a hard Brexit people won't be able to get any compensation, or could get stuck abroad, what happens if we need visas? There's all sorts of concerns. And also the concern is spread across the rest of the European Union as well, particularly those countries that are popular destinations. Spain, first and foremost. They're not getting the bookings that they're used to. And in general. And this is why the EU wants to come to a conclusion here as well, because all this uncertainty is costly for European businesses, it's worrying for European citizens, and it affects international investment in the whole of the EU as well. 

Jon Sopel and Katya Adler on Brexit

Correspondents Look Ahead 2018 turned briefly to Brexit. This is what was said:

Lyse Doucet: Let's stay on Europe. We've managed to talk for quite some time without mentioning that B word, Brexit, and who can possibly predict a Brexit? Does anyone want to give a punt on this and be prepared to face up to the consequences next year? What about you, Jon Sopel? 

Jon Sopel: I think that as someone who spent ten years covering politics at Westminster during the dog years of John Major, all the struggle that he was having with the Maastricht Treaty, that was as nothing. There is total collective nervous political breakdown in the UK. Nothing has a majority. The only thing that commands a majority is to say no to something. We don't want that. We don't want this. We don't want something else. And I don't see if you can't get a majority how you either avoid one of two conclusions: One is you park Article 50 and say, OK, we're not ready for that to implement and, therefore, we won't go on March 29, or we have to put the question back to the people with seismic consequences, I think, for faith in British politics, for all sorts of other things as well. 

Lyse Doucet: Katya, how does it look from Brussels? What do you think? 

Katya Adler: The huge outpouring of European emotion the day after the UK voted to leave has given way to dispassion. You know, there's a dispassionate viewpoint now. Brexit either happens or it doesn't happen. They hope we'll change our mind. They hope that they've made this process hideous enough that the UK will change their mind. And if they don't the UK will leave and can forget any special deals as a former member. The UK becomes officially what's known as a 'third country'. which in EUspeak means 'an outsider'. And that means it will be treated as such. It's not about punishment, as it's so often viewed from the United Kingdom. It is about the EU, which on the world trading stage is a feared player that sets the rules. It is a rule setter. And the UK is going to end up being a rule taker. Whether it stays very close to the EU or has a more distant relationship with the EU, the EU will set those regulations. And the public in the United Kingdom was never given to understand that when it was time to vote.