Unloading

I just thought I’d get these off my chest.

Lily Allen is a bit miffed that people thought her ‘crying’ video was genuine when it was actually enhanced, using an Augmented Reality Filter. What was even funnier was that, given her notorious emotional incontinence, it seemed entirely credible.

pic.twitter.com/IktS6MHrFb

— LILYALLEN2.0 (@lilyallen) November 21, 2019

And, for afters, Jo Coburn questions Ken Loach.

a solid two minutes here of Ken Loach erasing the experiences of Jewish people in the Labour Party & arguing that the Holocaust should be up for discussion pic.twitter.com/mT3HR852xb

— Hannah Jane Parkinson (@ladyhaja) November 24, 2019

Ambushing the Tory

Why has the BBC reignited Ken Loach? He peaked in 1966 with Cathy Come Home. Please just let the hard-left misery-monger lie. Following his appearance on Question Time where Fiona Bruce interrupted the Conservative remorselessly while allowing the Labour chap to drone on and on in the dullest imaginable manner, Ken Loach recounted a rambling anecdote to show how nasty the nasty party is. Enough, one might have thought. But no.  

Monday’s (or maybe Tuesday's) Victoria Derbyshire show featured a sorry tale about “unsecured” tenants in Barnet living in damp, cockroach-infested flats. The information that this particular block is soon to be demolished to make way for a new, mixed-tenancy (private and social housing) development was alluded to, but only in the derogatory and dismissive context that the new housing will be (probably) ‘unaffordable”.

I’m not 100% au fait with tenancy rules and regs, and I certainly wouldn’t like to live amongst vermin and mould; but for the sake of both the tenants and the taxpayers the issue deserved to be treated in an unbiased manner and not as part of the BBC’s covert and overt campaigning for Labour. 

An ex-councillor, apparently the only Conservative spokesperson willing to come on the programme, was duly ambushed by the startled-looking tenant whose cockroaches had featured in the film, a shrill, aggressive Ms Derbyshire and Ken Loach. 

It seems that no other Conservative accepted the BBC’s the invitation to appear on the programme, for obvious reasons, which were sadly noted by the hapless Tory. No wonder people are declining these invitations. They have to weigh up the negative implications of refusal. Which looks worse. a) appearing evasive, or b) being stymied by a scripted assault framed as ‘when did you stop beating your wife?’ 

Watch this exchange:

Victoria: Mr Coleman, why are you so unsympathetic? Aren’t you a human being?

Former councillor Brian Coleman claims our filming of poor living conditions in north London flats is a ‘stitch up’https://t.co/UoDAu8mHy8 pic.twitter.com/n0gxQA7SVa

— Victoria Derbyshire (@VictoriaLIVE) October 29, 2019

Praise from one side

Here's Jeremy Corbyn, earlier today:

I, Daniel Blake will be shown on TV for the first time, tonight at 9.45pm on BBC 2. It shows the human cost of this Tory Government's cruel welfare policies. It is one of the most moving films I have ever seen and should be watched by everyone. 

And here's his handmaiden, Rebecca Long-Bailey:

If anyone is in any doubt of the human cost of Tory austerity on our communities please watch I, Daniel Blake tonight at 9.45pm on BBC 2.

And here, in response to Rebecca, is the Conservative MP James Cleverly 

You do realise that it’s not a documentary, don’t you. Don’t you?

Hmm. Wonder what the anti-BBC Corbynistas make of this? Even their Great Leader is recommending the BBC for being the first broadcaster to schedule the left-wing Ken Loach's  film. 

Indeed, it's a BBC Films co-production.

The BBC has always been kind to Ken Loach. (Their 'radical chic' side?).

"Never heard a single antisemitic word"

To reiterate a point I made in my earlier post, the following is from a piece in Tablet magazine by Yair Rosenberg, who probably doesn’t study the BBC as intently as some of us do….

(H/T Fernanda @ Harry’s Place) 

“What he doesn't say - perhaps because he is genuinely unaware - is that the lack of acceptance that antisemitism is real and rife in the Labour Party is frequently shared by the BBC itself. “

…..he watched the interview between Jo Coburn and Ken Loach on the Daily Politics. 

I do hope it’s okay to reproduce a few large chunks of his article.

“Today, BBC anchor Jo Coburn interviewed noted filmmaker and Corbyn backer Ken Loach about this state of affairs, and he proceeded to unintentionally demonstrate just how dire matters have become. 

Loach began by forcefully denying the presence of anti-Semitism not just in the Labour party, but on the left in general. “I’ve been going to Labour party meeting for over 50 years,” Loach said. “I’ve gone to trade union meetings. I’ve gone to meetings of left groups and campaigns. I have never, in that whole time, heard a single anti-Semitic word or racist word. Now, I’m not saying it doesn’t exist in society.” 

Awkwardly, Loach then followed up this assertion of anti-Semitic innocence by rattling off a series of extremely anti-Semitic claims. First, he declared that progressive Jews, including Labour members of parliament, were inventing anti-Semitic incidents for political purposes, to tarnish Jeremy Corbyn. “It’s funny these stories suddenly appeared when Jeremy Corbyn became leader, isn’t it?” he mused. His BBC interviewer Coburn countered, “Well, they would explain that perhaps Jeremy Corbyn has allowed the oxygen for those sort of views.”

I don’t know how Andrew Neil would have conducted this interview.  If he was on form he might have made his interrogee squirm. To be generous, Jo Coburn rattled him a little; but not a lot.  We’ve heard it all before. This is the theme-tune that Len McCluskey and Diane Abbott are fond of.  It’s a catchy liddle tune that goes something like this: “Accusations of antisemitism in the Labour Party are mere smears, designed to delegitimise Jeremy Corbyn.”

If you didn’t follow the link in my earlier post, do it now. (Apologies if you haven’t got access to the Spectator) William Cook says of the socialist filmmaker and his political opinions :

“I guess the point I’m trying to make is that great artworks are diminished when you know the artist’s politics. Sure, we can draw our own conclusions from a work of art, but that’s quite another thing. The best way for an artist to preserve the quality of their creation is to keep shtum.”

Rosenberg continues:

“But Loach’s ugly insinuation that Jews fabricate their own oppression for personal gain—a staple of anti-Semitic invective for centuries—was just the beginning. When asked by Coburn about a fringe session at the Labour conference where a panelist called for open “yes or no” discussion of the Holocaust, the filmmaker point-blank refused to condemn Holocaust denial, demurring that “history is for all of us to discuss” before going off on an unrelated rant about Israeli evil. Here’s the exchange: 

COBURN: There was a fringe meeting yesterday that we talked about at the beginning of the show where there was a discussion about the Holocaust, did it happen or didn’t it… would you say that was unacceptable?

LOACH: I think history is for us all to discuss, wouldn’t you?

COBURN: Say that again, sorry, I missed that.

LOACH: History is for all of us to discuss. All history is our common heritage to discuss and analyze. The founding of the state of Israel, for example, based on ethnic cleansing is there for us all to discuss. The role of Israel now is there for us to discuss. So don’t try to subvert that by false stories of anti-Semitism.”

“Yet in the span of two minutes on public television, this leading leftist light managed to (a) deny clear and documented instances of anti-Jewish bigotry, (b) claim that Jews fabricate anti-Semitism to manipulate others, (c) refuse to condemn Holocaust denial, and (d) justify such bigotry against British Jews with wild hand-waving at completely different Jews in the Middle East. 

Such extraordinary prejudice coupled to extraordinary lack of self-awareness perfectly encapsulates Britain’s left-wing anti-Semitism problem. After all, the first step to dealing with a problem is admitting it exists. But like Loach, too many on the U.K. far-left are not only unable to acknowledge anti-Semitism in their midst, but are actively complicit in it. Change will only come when such individuals accept Jews as authorities on their own experiences of prejudice, and start listening to Jewish accounts of anti-Semitism rather than dismissing them as bad faith fables.

Funny old world! (updated)

Here's something we posted earlier today...with a substantial update:

The BBC is very aware of its role in shaping people’s consciousness: this is the story you should hear about, these are the people worth listening to. It’s manipulative and deeply political.

Many of us might say 'Well said!' to that. 

Who said it though? Well, it was a director who the Guardian says "has had a long and fruitful relationship with the BBC" and whose latest film (which he's presently promoting) was "made in partnership with BBC Films". 

Yes, it's Ken Loach. He wants the BBC to do more "socially conscious" TV drama - meaning, of course, more of his kind of "socially conscious" TV drama. 

(The BBC surely already does more than enough "socially conscious" TV drama of their kind?).

Well, that's how the Guardian tells it, making it mainly about him criticising the BBC.

The BBC News website also has a report on Mr Loach' comments in the Radio Times and it has a different take to the Guardian's (to put it mildly!). The BBC News account makes it sound as if Mr Loach is mainly criticising ITV (over Downton Abbey) and broadcasters in general rather than launching an onslaught against the BBC in particular.

If you have a spare few minutes, please just read the Guardian report and the BBC report side by side. They are shockingly different in where they suggest Ken Loach is laying the blame...

...and the BBC article fails to quote what I quoted at the top of this post (taken from the Guardian report) about the BBC's manipulative, political agenda.

So who's right?

Well, I've got a copy of The Radio Times and its headline is "At 80, Ken Loach is still the angry young man of cinema...and he's gunning for the BBC".

And when you read the Radio Times interview it becomes clear that the Guardian version is the correct one and that the BBC website article's version is simply a ludicrous whitewash (one so extreme it might almost make Shami blush). Red Ken really is mainly gunning for the BBC in that interview.

Here's just one example. The Guardian writes:

[He] said there was a need to “democratise” the corporation. “Diversify it so that different regions can make their own dramas. And its notion of news has got to be challenged,” he told the Radio Times.

The BBC writes:

The filmmaker also said broadcasters should "diversify" so regions could create their own drama...

The Radio Times says:

So what should be done with the BBC? "Democratise it. Diversify it so that different regions can make their own dramas."

The BBC News website certainly hasn't reported this in an impartial or accurate manner. It's remarkably, blatantly biased reporting.

Complaints from another side

Katy Searle

Something highly unusual and rather disconcerting happened on Radio 4's Feedback this week. Questions about BBC bias were put and a senior BBC editor repeated admitted that the BBC had got things wrong. 

I can't recall ever hearing such an interview before on Feedback - except over climate change, where various BBC editors have publicly confessed to the sin of not being hard enough on unbelievers like Nigel Lawson and Quentin Letts. 

Still, this interview was even more striking than those because the BBC editor in question - BBC Political News Editor Katy Searle - admitted error on the BBC's part not once, not twice but three times in the course of a single interview. 

That must be unprecedented.

The issue at hand was: Is the BBC biased against Jeremy Corbyn? 

Roger Bolton took the question very seriously indeed. 

The first Corbynista complaint was that TrainGate was a "non story" and that the BBC shouldn't have spent much time on it. Katy Searle rejected that particular complaint saying that TrainGate certainly was a significant story. (That's the one bit where she behaved like a typical BBC editor on Feedback).

The second Corbynista complaint was that an edition of The Week in Westminster had featured two Labour figures - Chris Mullen and Caroline Flint - discussing Jeremy Corbyn, both of whom said that Jeremy couldn't win an election. 'Why wasn't there a Corbyn supporter present?' was the question asked. Katy accepted that complaint and said, yes, on that occasion, more could have been done to find a Corbyn supporter. 

The third  Corbynista complaint was that the BBC has run "factually incorrect" stories about thuggish behaviour by Corbyn supporters, citing the BBC's reports about protests surrounding Stella Creasey that got where the protests happened wrong. Katy accepted that one too, saying, yes, a mistake was made there. "We" got it wrong, she said, adding. "In live broadcasting mistakes are made and I only think it's right we put our hands up to that".

A genuine new book

The fourth Corbynista complaint was that the BBC hasn't been reporting what Jeremy Corbyn has been saying at packed meeting up and down the country. Katy  rejected the idea that the BBC hasn't reported those meetings. However, she agreed that the BBC should talk more about the issues and said, "I would accept actually that we have done perhaps a little bit too much on the party leadership." 

Katy Searle was remarkably contrite and appealed, more than once, to Radio 4 listeners to believe that the BBC takes complaints about bias "very, very seriously": 

Any accusation or perception of bias is taken very seriously and I, on a day to day basis, look at what we're doing on output and make sure we correct that".

Isn't that something? 

Given all the years people like us have complained about BBC bias on issues of concern to us and got pretty much nowhere in terms of official concessions about, say, BBC pro-EU bias, or BBC pro-immigration bias, or BBC anti-Israel bias, etc, etc,...

...and given how often we've been told that single editions of ongoing programmes can't be taken as proof of bias but must be judged, bias-wise, over time and many episodes, and how often our side is excluded from discussion after discussion (or utterly overwhelmed numerically on programme after programme) without the slightest chance of an admission of bias from the BBC...

...and given how long and arduous the process of complaining about BBC bias usually is....

...isn't it then utterly remarkable how easily Katy Searle conceded those points to Roger Bolton and his Corbynista listeners, and just how apologetic she sounded?

We've had pretty much all such complaints dismissively waived away on programmes like Feedback and Newswatch for donkeys' years only now to find that the merest whiff of grapeshot from a few Momentum types has the BBC bowing and scraping.

As I say, a truly remarkable interview. 

Red Ken

Curiously, as Politics Home reports, the day before this edition of Feedback saw an intervention from far-left film director Ken Loach urging Jeremy Corbyn supporters to flood the BBC with complaints about bias. 

Speaking to a Corbynista gathering, Mr Loach twice read out the number of the BBC Complaints line and coached his audience on the dos and don'ts of complaining to the BBC. (He didn't mention Feedback though.)

“The BBC is an arm of the state. The BBC is not some objective chronicler of our time – it is an arm of the state,” he told them. “They have this pretence of objectivity where in fact it is propaganda on behalf of the broad interests of the state.".

Given the referential treatment he's usually accorded by the BBC (see Today here and The World Tonight here) "the state" seems happy about the BBC giving Ken Loach a platform. And yet he's not remotely grateful, is he?

The good, the bad and the ugly

I think BBC Four is definitely the best TV channel around, but having steered clear of the bulk of BBC1’s dramas, soaps and other flim-flam, I surprised myself by accidentally enjoying Happy Valley. It was so realistically acted that one could almost suspend disbelief at the plot(s) with multiple misery and mayhem, blood and guts and alcoholism.

 I understand that I’m not the only one who couldn’t grasp every single syllable. It’s that ubiquitous breathy, sigh-speak that’s so incomprehensible, specially when delivered at  breakneck speed in an accent to which one’s ears are not attuned.

*****

No problem with dialogue in Trapped, BBC Four’s 12-part drama, in which the weather plays the starring role.  It’s the subtitles, stupid.

Great fun discussing the story with one’s nearest and dearest, apres ski, so to speak. “What do you think he meant? Who could have known that? Why didn’t she go home”?

The biggest challenge is the characters’ names as the spelling and pronunciation bear no apparent relation to each other and the letters look like random Scrabble tiles.

With all these dark Scandi thrillers one thing you do know. The villain is never the black or immigrant guy. You can rule them out. They always include one or two as a suspect, so you can beat yourself up later for having had those racist suspicions. Nevertheless, it’s quality escapism.

******

I enjoyed the programme about the CPS, also on BBC Four. Having been peripherally involved in a comparatively trivial but complex court case (fraud) which involved an interminable amount of preparatory research, I thought this film was informative and well constructed. It tackled each case fairly, and managed to convey sincere sympathy with the bereaved mother, while avoiding the mawkish “how does that make you feel” line of questioning.

*******

It was interesting to hear William Shawcross of the charities commission talking to Humph this morning. For a second there I almost thought they were going to discuss this:

A British charity that raises money for a Dubai-based Muslim missionary TV channel faces a fine as high as £250,000 ($347,000) over broadcasts According to The Times of London, the Islamic Research Foundation International, based in Birmingham and indirectly funded by UK tax breaks, has given most of its charitable income in the past two years to Peace TV.

But no. It wasn’t even about charities pestering vulnerable previous benefactors with phone calls. It was only about ageUK, which has been in trouble for misleading oldies with some dodgy dealings with energy suppliers. Not very ethical, I know, but doesn’t ‘buyer beware’ apply to people over a certain age or what? It’s just that if you’re going to flag up one charity-related transgression, why not go the whole hog and bring in the rest of them?

********

At the moment the complaints about the BBC’s pro-EU tendency seem to have touched a raw nerve. I don’t know if the fact that Julia Hartley-Brewer, (the author of a pithy piece in the Telegraph about BBC bias) was on the QT panel, but David Dimbleby made a point of mentioning being seen to be even-handed and unbiased in his introduction to that strange edition of the programme last week. 

The precocious 16 year old seems to have made such an internet hit - (went viral, she did) that everyone overlooked Julia H-B’s robust defence of Brexit, Diane Abbott’s ridiculous eye-rolling and absurd hairstyle, not to mention Giles Fraser. 

*********

A more long-term issue surrounds the BBC’s anti-Israel stance. I say stance, but it increasingly verges on outright activism. The repercussions are everywhere, not least within the actual PM. 

So David Cameron was lured into making a throwaway, almost casually pejorative remark about Israel, by one of the Muslim MPs whose antisemitic tendencies are being constantly reinforced by the BBC’s increasingly overt anti-Israel activism.  “Does the Prime Minister agree with me..” goes the question.... 

I daresay David Cameron hasn’t read any of it, (smiley face) but I’ve written quite a lot about CAABU’s Zionist-bashing propagandistic intent, but I do wish he would apply some essential ‘buyer beware’ to the unreliably sourced issues the new  batch of Muslim MPs invite him to agree with them about. Or is David Cameron getting too confused to make up his own mind?

**********

A whole cluster of really ill-informed Israel-bashing stuff has been getting through recently. Ken Loach managed to slip a barrage of unverified anti-Israel slander past Ritula Shah the other evening on The World Tonight. Ritula Shah was ill-equipped to challenge any of it, and what’s more, she probably had neither the will nor the way.

***********

If the BBC is really so sensitive about those accusations of bias, why is it so thick-skinned and insensitive about accusations of bias concerning the one area in which its bias is the most blatant, egregious and cruel  - even dare I say racist - of all? Yes, they probably do get complaints from both sides. But it’s quality, not quantity that counts 

After all anyone can submit a complaint. “Does the BBC agree with me” for example,  “that filthy, brutal, Islamophobic, apartheid entities should never be given the oxygen of publicity” and, if one were minded to, one could count that as a valid antidote to the actual truth.