This individual no longer works for the BBC.

Early reports of Tala Hawala’s departure from the BBC didn’t say she was sacked (this headline seems to have been added as an afterthought) but we can assume that she has been. Or perhaps she fell on her sword; who knows.

Don’t let’s compare historic Tweets.  I didn’t bother to find out what Ollie Robinson’s offensive Tweets actually were. For all I know, he too Tweeted “Hitler was right”, perish the thought,  and even if he did, it probably wouldn't have affected his cricketing expertise, whereas Ms. Hawala’s Hitler Tweets directly compromised her ability to report on Palestine/Israel affairs with due impartiality in accord with her employers' charter obligations. 

 I don’t think Naz Shah needs to be impartial - in fact, the opposite - her role is to represent her constituency. The media has shown little interest in the disingenuousness that has dogged her political career, but I guess that’s up to them. I watched her speaking in an HoC select committee debate. It seems it was one of those online ‘e-petitions’ that MPs are obliged to debate when a certain number of signatures have been reached. Is it 1,000? 10,000? 100,000? 

Shah’s speech was so selective with the actualité that she became a one-man select committee all on her ownsome. This link takes you to Hansard but watching it might help you understand why l found it utterly repugnant. 

 

As Melanie Phillips noted, 

During a debate on “Israel-Palestine” on Monday, Labour MPs called for a boycott of Israel.[…] Bradford MP Naz Shah, who has a history of anti-Jewish remarks, described Israel’s understanding of the right to self-defence as “perverted” and said if any more “Palestinian blood” was “unjustly spilled” she would push for Israel to be tried for war crimes in the International Criminal Court.

I think as many as two whole MPs stood up for Israel. One was Cornish MP Steve Double. Good for him! This disproportionality (to coin a phrase) largely stems from the media’s (Not only the BBC - Sky is as bad if not worse) one-sided reporting, which often amounts to rabble-rousing. I truly believe that this accounts for and has emboldened an increasingly overt resurgence of antisemitism.

Steve Baker was disappointing; Afzal Khan was predictable and Rushanara Ali was lazy enough to do little more than articulate how sorry she was that not enough Jews were killed by Hamas but one must assume that’s exactly what their constituents ask of them.

While I should be pleased that the BBC’s Tala has been cancelled I find her martyrdom curiously uncomfortable. Maybe she should have been given a chance to repent, just like Naz Shah pretended to do after being called out for her own embarrassing Tweet. Perhaps Shah’s short-lived repentance was short-lived and disingenuous enough to discredit the entire concept of repentance. 

As for the heavily anti-Israeli weighting and the dearth of opposing viewpoints throughout that grim HoC debate, I blame the BBC.  Several generations of viewers have been swayed by over 60 years of biased, borderline antisemitic news coverage. 

The new leaf is just like the old one

Luckily for Sir Keir Starmer, Boris’s activities misfortunes and a happy event have overshadowed the tribulations of the Labour Party. At the moment, the main criticisms of Sir Keir are directed at his wooden, charisma-free personality. However, it’s Sir Keir’s deeds (or lack of) rather than his words that people are beginning to notice.

Starmer under pressure from Jewish Groups! The BBC reports his failure to act after Diane Abbott and another weirdly-named Labour woman, Bell Ribeiro-Addy, were caught hosting a Zoom meeting in which two activists who had been expelled for antisemitism were allowed to participate. 

As if to distance itself from accidentally making a ‘value-judgement’ the BBC was careful to point out that ‘Jewish Groups’ are the ones who happen to be concerned.  The bold is actually the BBC’s 'allegedly.'

“The Jewish Chronicle reported that Tony Greenstein, who was thrown out of Labour in 2018 for offensive comments, and Jackie Walker, who was expelled over allegedly anti-Semitic comments, had attended the meeting.”

Gideon Falter, the Chief Executive of Campaign Against Antisemitism, said: 

“The participation of Diane Abbott and Bell Ribeiro-Addy in an online conference with Jackie Walker and Tony Greenstein, is a brazen challenge to Sir Keir Starmer. During his leadership campaign, Sir Keir pledged that any MP who provides a platform for Labour members expelled in connection with antisemitism will themselves be suspended from Labour. Instead of keeping his promise and immediately suspending both Diane Abbott and Bell Ribeiro-Addy from the Party, Labour has merely ‘reminded them of their responsibilities’. 

“After half a decade of the Labour antisemitism crisis, no MP should need ‘reminding’ not to engage with those expelled from the Party over antisemitism. Instead of ‘tearing antisemitism out by its roots’, Sir Keir has welched. Through his inaction he is telling Britain’s Jews loud and clear that his apologies are meaningless, his promises will be broken, and MPs who consort with even the most notorious expelled activists still have a place on the Labour benches.” 

On 27th November 2019 while Corbyn was still Labour leader Allister Heath wrote in the Telegraph:

“If one studies the litany of disgusting anti-Semitic incidents involving Labour members and far-Left activists these past few years, they span almost every possible strand of Jew-hate, virtually every demented conspiracy theory. It would take an immense effort for any party to cure itself of an infection of such virulence, even were it truly committed to doing so (and Labour isn’t): no wonder the Chief Rabbi felt compelled to speak out, warning of Corbyn’s unfitness for high office and that the “very soul of our country is at stake”[…]

"All of which takes us to Israel, a country with which Britain’s Jews are more culturally and personally connected than ever before. Many Corbynites see it as a “white” colonial state, an oppressor nation: in their deranged loathing, they don’t criticise or seek to boycott any other country. They refuse to accept that most Israeli Jews are descended from refugees from the Middle East, Asia and Africa, and the rest escaped the Holocaust.

The only baddies are Israel and the US, the two nations with the biggest Jewish populations. Israel is the only country they want to abolish; the Jews the only people they don’t believe deserve a national homeland." 

Also in the Telegraph, but just the other day, Tom Harwood wrote about the recent Panorama Programme that was stuffed with aggrieved persons who turned out to be Labour party activists in the guise of NHS workers. No label. No mention of any affiliation. Even worse -

‘Nor were BBC viewers informed about the political background of the ‘A&E Nurse’ who turned out to be a Unite activist who “fights the Tories hard”, or Professor John Ashton (also featured in the Panorama disaster), who proudly described himself as a Labour Party member “for 53 years” 

- and Guido has unearthed more on John Ashton, a regular BBC ‘go-to’ expert who happens to be a pretty rabid antisemite. We used to say these people were ‘on the BBC's speed dial’.

The Jewish Chronicle says:

“But aside from offering his advice over health issues, Professor Ashton, who has been a long-time member of the Labour Party, regularly posts on social media on issues involving Israel and Zionism. In one tweet he suggested it was, "Time to isolate Zionists and all religious fundamentalists whatever colour of black." 

An analysis of social media posts made by the former President of the Faculty of Public Health from 2012 until 2018 shows that he has frequently equated Zionism with Nazism.
Writing in November 2012 in response to Israeli military actions in Gaza, he stated: "Sickening to see Zionists behave like Nazis.”

Melanie Phillips highlights the spat between Robert Halfon MP, whom I rather like, and the Jewish community’s left-wing officials and spokespersons who don’t appear able to see past some of Sir Keir’s new appointments, at least not enough to realise that they belie his vow to turn over a new leaf and eradicate antisemitism in the Labour Party.

There’s Naz Shah. When outed for antisemitism Shah made a suitably grovelling apology and promised to learn from the incontinent and ‘inadvertently’ racist Tweets and remarks she’d accidentally made; then promptly forgot the apology and made a few more.  

More troubling is Sir Keir's choice for Labour’s foreign-affairs spokesman, Lisa Nandy. Why on earth did he give Nandy ‘foreign affairs', when the one foreign affair she’s been deeply involved in is Labour Friends of Palestine? While 'chair' (is she still or not?) she actually pledged to campaign for the Palestinians' Right of Return.

“This places her among the opponents of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. For the “Palestinians” have no such legal, moral or historical right; the so-called “right of return,” which would flood Israel with Arab immigrants, is merely a device to destroy the State of Israel.”

How she reconciles that with her support of ‘Zionism’ is a mystery, but perhaps the good residents of “my constituency" Wigan, are as obsessed with Palestine as she is. For some reason.

The Board of Deputies are a shocking lot. Like Andrew Doyle said (of lefty Remainers) "they’re not just like turkeys who voted for Christmas, they’re like turkeys who’ve plucked themselves and climbed into the oven as well."  Not to mention the stuffing.

Not a belated April Fools joke

So guess who has been made Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion by Sir Keir Starmer? Yes, Naz Shah, the Labour MP who:

• Was suspended by the Labour Party following tweets she herself conceded were anti-Semitic, including one suggesting Israel should be relocated to the USA with the words "problem solved".
• Marked the death of Winnie Mandela with a quote celebrating necklacing. 
• Denounced the MP for Rotherham, Sarah Champion, for writing an article about how "Britain had a problem with Pakistani men targeting vulnerable white girls".
• Retweeted and 'liked' a post of Twitter that said "Those abused girls in Rotherham and elsewhere just need to shut their mouths. For the good of diversity".

It's a good thing Dr Harold Shipman isn't still alive or Sir Keir might have made him Minister for Palliative Care.

Wonder if the BBC will take Labour to task over this?

For the sake of diversity

Sayeeda Warsi, Twitter:

"Monday morning class for racists - it’s 2020 people
- If you take a negative characteristic of an individual and impose on a whole community that’s racism
- personal anecdotes are not justifications for racism - it’s still racism"

There is quite enough already online about the Trevor Phillips fiasco - not so much the above quote from Sayeeda Warsi’s Twitter thread  - I was thinking more about the negative observations about the Labour Party's suspension of Trevor Phillips below articles about the topic in The Times.

Islamophobia? Looks bad for the Labour Party? With my reputation (!) 

"It would be a bit odd if I suddenly decided that because I had been kicked out of the club I couldn't express my beliefs."

Trevor Phillips, ex-chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, denies that his comments about Muslims are racist. #r4Todayhttps://t.co/kQwpWG6kBk pic.twitter.com/HOkC4E7A2g

— BBC Radio 4 Today (@BBCr4today) March 9, 2020

Instead of going over all that again, I want to pick up Nick Robinson mentioning “A letter from Tommy Robinson that was found in Darren Osborne’s van, referring to Muslims as ‘a nation within a nation.”

Oddly, the above clip from the BBC Politics Twitter timeline excludes that particular reference. That set me thinking. Was there really such a letter? Or was it another of those disingenuous memes? You know, like letterboxes and watermelon smiles.

I found two or three reports in the Independent referring to: “letters beginning with the phrase “dear Darren” ... “signed off” by Tommy Robinson." This, and this written by Lizzie Dearden, a reporter who has ‘history’ with T. Robinson.

This report, illustrated with a suitably aggressive-looking shot of her ‘subject’, refers to ‘emails’ that Osborne had downloaded, and later to an “email from Mr Robinson to Mr Osborne”. So, had Tommy Robinson been personally corresponding with Osborne and specifically inciting him to ‘act’? 

We all know that ‘clicking’ on something can trigger a flurry of unsolicited ‘personal’ messages, or let’s call them personalised messages, and we should also understand that receiving an automatically generated round-robin is not quite the same thing as being actual pen-pals with an individual at the head of the organisation that generated it.

So why did Lizzie Dearden and co make it seem otherwise? ‘Signed off’ is slightly different from just ‘signed by.” The Independent's journalists must have been aware that they were giving the impression that Tommy Robinson was specifically inciting Osborne to kill Muslims.

Nick Robinson said (to Trevor Phillips) that inflammatory messages from Tommy Robinson were ‘in a letter found in his (Darren Osborne’s) van’, and I put it to you that there was indeed a letter, but it was written by Osborne himself. There is even a photo of him sitting in a pub, pen and paper in hand - allegedly setting out his ‘manifesto’. It’s in the actual BBC report. Finsbury Park: what led Darren Osborne to kill? (Dominic Casciani)

Personal correspondence, generic emails, incitements to kill, self-penned manifestos - easily conflated, if you've a mind to, and you know it will pass unchallenged.

There is a considerable dollop of irony in the fact that in all the reports, even the ones that have massaged the facts to suit their agendas, a large portion of the blame for triggering the unhinged Mr Osborne to carry out his nasty deed has been laid at the door of the BBC’s own dramatisation “Three Girls.” 

But Nick forgot to mention that. It might have been awkward because it would have drawn attention to an uncomfortable truth about the "negative characteristics" of certain individuals. Or, to echo a certain Naz Shah (did she really say that?) you need to shut your mouth for the sake of diversity.

Update:
In this post (about the Robinson bros.) I was more concerned with the way Nick Robinson managed to shoehorn Tommy Robinson into his attack on Trevor Phillips than on the substance of the Labour Party’s ridiculous attempt to save its reputation. (As if!!) and I wanted to highlight the annoying phenomena of memes that have gone viral despite being disingenuous and context-lite.

The topic of Trevor Phillips and Islamophobia has been examined from every angle, inside, outside and upside down by The Times, the Spectator, Spiked and I daresay the Guardian and the Independent too. All the arguments have been made so eloquently and articulately by others that it seemed presumptuous for me to try to go over it all again, again.

I would have posted this update below the line (in a comment,) but it's easier to embed the links to some of these excellent pieces here. There are some good responses. (Unfortunately, the Spectator pieces are behind a paywall.)

 In defence of Trevor Phillips

Trevor Phillips’s fate should terrify us all

Why Labour wants to smear Trevor Phillips

Labour will regret its shameful treatment of Trevor Phillips


Here is a rudimentary list of some of the arguments one hears and reads, which one must put to oneself to test their strength and /or validity. 

1.) A phobia is an irrational fear.
2.) The ‘good Muslim’  is an ex-Muslim.
3) A ‘good’ Jew is an anti-Zionist Marxist
4.) Your ‘race’ is your race is your race. (Said Goebbels)
5.) Islam is a political ideology masquerading as a religion.
6.) Lumping disparate things together is racist.
7.) Arabs are 'Semitic' too.  (Gnomes are humans too) (Don’t be silly)

One can get lost in contradictory arguments about Islamophobia and antisemitism plus the concomitant false equivalences. The themes go round and round and trip over themselves on the way back. These days, in the end, it all boils down to ‘feelings’. Points mean prizes; facts mean feelings.

Being honest

You know what? I do hate people who keep punctuating their spiel with “You know what?”

To be honest I have far more pressing things to worry about right now than BBC bias.

I rarely use ‘to be honest’ as it implies one’s honesty is confined to the one exceptional statement (rather than one's norm.) 

One might be cynical and assume the callers who rang in to the extended Any Answers were all activists. I believe someone said or Tweeted as much. 

I really hope they were all activists, because if they are indeed representative of the public, you know what? We’re in for that unthinkable chaotic coalition.

Theresa May blew it good and proper. Why on earth she decided to present us with a manifesto that seemed meaner than ever, when it’s obvious that everyone is weary of unadulterated austerity. She gave us nothing to look forward to, which was big mistake. Did she think her predicted landslide would provide cover for those harsh policies? A good time to bury bad news? A mother of miscalculations.

Who on earth thought it was preferable to provide primary pupils with free breakfasts instead of lunches? Why resurrect the minority interest issue of fox hunting completely out of the blue, when the issue seemed to have settled down? 

Why threaten to stop winter fuel payments without giving details of who will lose? 

However, what worries me a lot more than Theresa May’s determination to self-destruct is the widely held perception that Jeremy Corbyn, who also peppers his speeches with ‘You know what?” is a nice person. That in their blinkered search for a spiritual leader all those youthful, middle-aged and elderly adolescents are ready, willing and able to deny or ignore Corbyn’s long-standing political record, i.e., his association with violent terrorists.
People mistake his refusal to indulge in retaliatory personal attacks as a characteristic of someone ‘nice’. ‘I don’t do personal’ he says. Doing personal is human. It might be admirable and self-disciplined to rise above such a thing, but not ‘doing personal’ doesn’t necessarily indicate ‘nice’. It equally suggests coldness and lack of empathy. Any empathy he does have is reserved for the most un-empathetic, intolerant and violent groups on the planet. 

  

@NazShahBfd reiterating her belief in Israel's right to exist followed by audience member shouting 'Jew Jew Jew' at her #BFDWestHustings pic.twitter.com/iDDM8tt75H

— aisha ali-khan (@aak1880) June 1, 2017

The other odd thing that I’ve noticed is that the police are investigating a new hate crime, namely the outburst: “Jew, Jew, Jew,” aimed at Naz Shah who happened to be defending Israel’s right to exist at hustings organised by Bradford community group JUST Yorkshire.

What amuses me - if one can derive amusement from such a horrible thing - is the fact that the rabid antisemitism which seems to be the norm within Naz Shah’s Bradford constituency goes un-investigated. It takes some antisemitic person ‘being honest’ to arouse interest from the people who investigate hate incidents.

You know what? If Jeremy Corbyn achieves the unthinkable, we’re in for a bumpy ride.

Emergency! Debate

Remember those ‘survival’ dramas that were popular on TV? You know, at the start the protagonists don’t realise that a deadly virus is sweeping the globe. Only the audience knows. As people die off, struggles ensue between desperate mobs. Emergency! Will humanity be saved?

This is happening in real-time. The BBC has gone rogue and joined the mob. It’s not the only news organ to do so, of course, but this is the one that claims to be the trustworthy one. The one that checks stuff out.

As readers of this and like-minded blogs and websites already know, anti-Trump mania is now a pandemic. 

As if it’s not enough that the Executive Order immigration fiasco has been deliberately misinterpreted by those that should know better and is now known as Trump’s Ban on Muslims, our MPs have surpassed even the media in their slipshod abuse of language.  

If you’ve seen Parliament TV you’ll know what I mean. 

Using Holocaust Memorial Day to perpetuate sly comparisons between Muslim refugees and Kindertransport  as Yvette Cooper and others habitually do is offensive enough, the underhand way they always get away with this insulting and totally inaccurate conflation is a reflection of the media’s appalling lack of scrutiny. Worse still is the total absence of any acknowledgement of the reason behind President Trump’s clumsy move. 

The media and the speakers in yesterday’s debate have completely airbrushed Islamic terrorism out of the equation. It has been forgotten. Not only that, but in an astonishingly cloth-eared fashion they have ignored the fact that Muslims (predominantly) have, let’s euphemistically call it ‘negative views of Jews’.

Everyone is using the Holocaust to preach the wrong lesson.

“Look what happened to the Jews at the hands of the Nazis” they say. “We must learn from the Holocaust. Muslims are the new Jews and we must take them in, or we are no better than the Nazis.” 

No. If you must generalise like that you also need to admit that the Muslims have more in common with the Nazis than we do. By all means take some of them in. But vet them, Bigly.

Ed Miliband made an impassioned speech. “Does President Trump think this will make the world a safer place?” he asked, rhetorically. “No it will not” nodded the MPs in agreement. “In fact the opposite!” they sighed. 

Maybe so; because it will anger the Muslims and they will attack us. Better not provoke such a thing. Make no mistake. Ed Miliband is arguing for appeasement.

I was a Jew

To Naz Shah, (Bradford West, Lab)Trump’s Ban on Muslims is something to do with their skin being “a few shades darker.”

AsaMuslim, Naz has put all that nasty antisemitism behind her. Her rehabilitation appears to have given her delusions of grandeur, as her performance went on and on. At the end it lapsed into pure comedy, when she recited  the famous Niemöller quotation: 

“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— 
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— 
Because I was not a Jew.

Only, in a hilariously Freudian slip, she missed out the last “Not”. 

 “I did not speak out because I was a Jew” she intoned. That was almost as funny as one of Sarah Millican’s monologues about her nonnie.

Hansard has corrected it, but it’s still there in the video  (Scroll down /r.h. sidebar  and click on 18:55:09) 

Check it out.

Update.

This article is a must-read. Here are the last two paragraphs:

It might be compassion that leads the West to take in millions of Muslim refugees, but it is reckless compassion. Why isn't Saudi Arabia taking refugees temporarily until things settle down in Syria and Iraq? Do Westerners question the motivation of Islamic theocracies, as to why ultra-rich Arab nations are sending us their refugees but taking in none?
Who is really benefiting from the policy of appeasement, the acceptance of Sharia-stricken theocracies and their jihadist, hate-filled education? Some "tough love" is urgently needed if Muslims are to be motivated to change and reform.

In case you don't know about the author Nonie Darwish, she’s one of a handful of courageous former Muslim female activists like Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Wafa Sultan.

Is ‘Is the BBC Biased?’ superfluous yet?

I’ve mentally flagged up a few topics to blog, mainly gleaned from other blogs rather than from the BBC for the simple reason that the BBC has barely reported them.

The first is Naz Shah, who has been on our screens news recently, in particular starring in Channel 5’s little tribute to Jo Cox - a day in the life of three MPs. “Behind Closed Doors”. 

Incidentally I was describing this programme to someone who hadn’t seen it, and I clearly remembered Jacob Rees Mogg dealing with a hostile Bremoaner who sat herself down in his surgery to stare daggers at him because, post Brexit, she and her daughters would no longer enjoy the right to freely travel to and fro, and to work in Europe should they so wish. 

I also remembered Naz Shah dealing with various difficulties experienced by some of her constituents - but for the life of me the third participant eluded me. I had to consult the notes. It was, of course, Nick Clegg. I can’t quite remember what problems he tackled - must look it up sometime.

In view of Naz Shah's alleged enlightenment about (her own) antisemintism, the BBC’s lack of interest and complete lack of curiosity about Naz Shah’s questionable decision to attend an event with known antisemites was disappointing. After all, it was featured online, quite prominently. 

The BBC reported Jeremy Corbyn’s speech being disrupted by Peter Tatchell but they didn’t report Jeremy Corbyn attending a ‘book-reading’ event with a renowned anti-Zionist activist and author, Hatem Bazian. The pair look remarkably friendly here. 

If Naz Shah and Jeremy Corbyn continually claim that they are not antisemitic, what is their explanation for hanging out with and obviously enjoying the company of those that are?

You’d think it might occur to someone at the BBC to at least ask the question. After all the BBC spends so much air time speculating on the motives and misdemeanours of other politicians, it seems odd of the BBC not to at least seek Laura Kuenssberg’s opinion on the matter.

On the next topic the BBC fared better. Geert Wilders’s conviction (without punishment) by Dutch courts, for incitement. His crime was to ask the Dutch whether they want “fewer Moroccans” and then promise to ‘deal’ with it. 

The BBC did publish this news, and, what’s more,  included the video of part of Wilders’s response, and I must say I hadn’t really expected them to bother.

I was just saying to Craig that there’s so much anti-BBC feeling everywhere you look, particularly online, that this blog will soon be as otiose as UKip.

I no longer understand the rules

Having missed PMQs yesterday I only heard about the extraordinary exchange between Charles Walker MP and the Prime Minister on Susan Hulme’s BBC radio 4 late night parliamentary round-up.

Many others have commented on this surreal episode, but I’m still trying to digest Theresa May’s ambiguous and, if I may say so, obscurantist response. 

Here’s the dialogue, courtesy of the BBC: 

Mr Walker, the MP for Broxbourne, had asked Mrs May: "When people make fun of Christianity in this country, it rightly turns the other cheek.

"When a young gymnast, Louis Smith, makes fun of another religion widely practised in this country, he is hounded on Twitter by the media and suspended by his association.

"For goodness sake, this man received death threats and we have all looked the other way.

"My question to the prime minister is this: What is going on in this country because I no longer understand the rules?” 

Mrs May responded, saying: "I understand the level of concern that you have raised in relation to this matter.

"This is a balance that we need to find. We value freedom of expression and freedom of speech in this country - that is absolutely essential in underpinning our democracy.

"But we also value tolerance to others. We also value tolerance in relation to religions. This is one of the issues that we have looked at in the counter-extremism strategy that the Government has produced.

"I think we need to ensure that yes it is right that people can have that freedom of expression, but in doing so that right has a responsibility too - and that is a responsibility to recognise the importance of tolerance to others.”

This mealy-mouthed mumbo jumbo about tolerance is on a par with Jeremy Corbyn’s “I oppose racism in all its forms”.

Several prominent journalists have been appalled at the way Louis Smith has been humiliated by the baying P.C. brigade, and I see his two-month ban by British Gymnastics as a very ill omen indeed. The BBC is maintaining its customary policy of impartiality in this matter. 

I tried to watch the Home Affairs Committee hearing on Sharia Courts that took place the other day. 

I got to the end of the first panel and gave up, but I might go back and give it another try later on. Yvette Cooper has taken Keith Vaz’s role and seems to have acquired some of his oleaginousness in the process.

What bothered me most was the way some of the committee seem to have taken an adversarial position against critics of Sharia courts. 

On the all female panel were:

• Zlakha Ahmed MBE, Chief Executive, Apna Haq
• Shaista Gohir OBE, Chair, Muslim Women's Network UK
• Dr Elham Manea, Senior Fellow, European Foundation for Democracy
• Maryam Namazie, Spokesperson, One Law for All

I was familiar with Namazie as she is well known for her views on reforming Islam, and I recognised the verbose Shasta Gohir OBE as she was on TV on and off all day. 

Dr. Manea spoke well, but was interrogated in a gratuitously hostile fashion by Chuka Umunna. The lady in black gave me the creeps. Sorry, but there it is. 

Naz Shah, who, perhaps to save herself some embarrassment, stood down from this committee when they were addressing antisemitism, was back in action. Having been convincingly contrite over her own ‘ignorant behaviour’ she reverted to type by invoking human rights and freedom to follow one’s faith, in a mixture of passion and aggression.

Throughout this section I felt that all the contributors were dancing energetically on the head of a pin and that the fatal flaw running through the entire process was the failure to question the fundamental concept of allowing Sharia Courts in Britain in 2016.

Massive Islam-shaped elephant in the room.

The premise of the inquiry seemed to be that Islam has been accepted as part of the norm in Britain, no matter how antithetical, therefore we have to accept it in all its forms along with all the cultural baggage it brings with it.

This normalisation is deeply worrying to many of us.

You will have seen this. 

Shafiq is a well known figure  to regular viewers of the BBC’s Sunday morning religious programmes like SML and TBQs. He is very rude and finds it difficult to shut up. His description of the Gatestone Institute and the Henry Jackson Society as fascist and totalitarian showed an astonishing lack of self awareness, as did his inability to pronounce “Baroness Cox”, which repeatedly came out as Baronex Cox.

Did you see that Canada has passed a motion? A new anti-Islamophobia motion to be precise. 

Some people might see this as progress. Theresa May might see that motion as Canada’s official sanctioning of taking a responsibility to recognise the importance of tolerance to others.

I just see that motion as shite. 

You can't blame the Zionists

Wasn’t it a bit weird to see Ken slithering sideways over his Hitler remarks on the Victoria Derbyshire show this morning. 

“The Zionists had to work with Hitler”  is his latest plea - “it wasn’t their fault”.

People keep bounding up to him in the street to encourage him, he attests. They say: “I’m Jewish and I know you’re right! Don’t let the bastards grind you down”. In fact, he's sure that the whole enquiry into his conduct and reinstatement is has stalled because everyone knows he’s right.

However deep his hole doth grow (must be near Australia by now)  he still can’t slither out of the context in which he made the remark. Defending Naz Shah, if you remember. Now that she’s been reinstated it appears that she’s still under investigation by the CPS.  (Not that anything will come of it) but a number of other incriminating remarks have surfaced, which she would find difficult to defend, although her ‘deep and sincere’ apology might  cover them. 

To her credit Victoria Derbyshire appeared suitably cynical throughout, and she did a mean, 'BBC thing' to poor old Ken at the end of his appearance.  She summed by announcing the very thing he’d just spent the last ten minutes trying to slither out of, i.e., that Ken still claims that Hitler supported the Zionists. Or was it the other way round? Anyway, I don’t imagine he’ll be very pleased with that. 

You’d have to have a heart of stone……. etc etc. 

Out of this world

It’s not you, it’s me. No; that’s the wrong way round. It is you, I’m pretty sure.

Me = out of kilter with you.

You = politicians, the media, the world, the universe and everything.  

I used to think it was just me, but oddly enough I keep coming across people who suspect the News is being beamed in from a parallel, extra terrestrial BBC, possibly staffed by shape shifting lizards. Sky News is coming at us from beyond the actual sky. It follows that the mysterious, abstract concept formerly known as cyber space is really outer space and the print media is collated by evil men from Mars.  

We can tell that evil, shape-shifting forces have taken charge, and we are wondering why hardly anybody has noticed up till now. In fact it’s almost official; we’re being fed iffy stuff by aliens.

 I’m writing this from a padded cell in David Icke’s personal dungeon.

*************

Brexit V Remain.

I heard this programme on BBC World service. “The Inquiry. Is Brexit inevitable?” The title suggests we were in for an objective analysis. An ‘inquiry’ sounds objective, no?

This episode was about the legal and constitutional implications of Brexit. Of course it had a palpable pro EU agenda.  “Brexiteers are regretting it”  “People are changing their minds” and so on. That’s par for the course with the lizards, but I’m citing it here specifically to illustrate how the BBC perceives Brexit voters.

“Our next expert witness is John Harris. He’s been travelling round the country for ‘Anywhere but Westminster’, a project run by the Guardian Newspaper” 

announced the presenter, Maria Margaronis, in a quavery voice.

“He’s found deeply wounded communities”  

You’ll guess what’s coming. 

Although full of nostalgia for the days when south Wales was a working-class area with a thriving mining industry and a sense of community, John Harris portrays the present day inhabitants as an unemployed, drug-addled underclass with racist tendencies and no hope. Through no fault of their own, it must be stressed. He’s not blaming them at all. He’s blaming the establishment for ignoring them for too long, and he warns that if the establishment  continues to ignore them it will result in the rise of UKIP “or something worse”. 

The have-nots railing against the ‘haves’. The disenfranchised expressing their anger at the political establishment. According to John Harris, these are the Brexiteers, while the Remainers are university lecturers -  pro-immigration, open minded and well-healed, but selfish.  

Melanie Phillips, on the other hand, has the definition I much prefer. (£)  

“Remainers swallowed their dislike of the EU because they didn’t think Britain could overturn the status quo and survive.”

See? That is a much more nuanced characterisation of the Remainers. Yes, indeed they probably were frightened by the scaremongering and did not wish to risk upsetting the applecart, despite the potential instability of the EU ‘going forward’ and a small matter of sacrificing our sovereignty.

  “Those who voted Brexit did so because the continued loss of national self-government was so intolerable it made the undoubted risks of leaving the EU worth taking.”

See what I mean? She gives both groups credit for their ambivalence and their nuanced appraisal of what was at stake. We’re not all selfish thickos.

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Aliens are in charge. Part two. Back-stabbing.

The BBC has attached a meme to Michael Gove. The “Backstabber” meme.

Jo Coburn said: 

“ Michael Gove is a backstabber, as you know”. 

According to the media Michael Gove is officially a backstabber.  The well-known backstabber.

Did you hear  Sarah Montague and guests discussing unsurprising things that (surprisingly) surprise people? For example, the referendum. A yes or no affair; yet neither David Cameron nor Boris Johnson were prepared for the outcome. They were taken by surprise. 

Let’s face it, neither Boris nor David Cameron really needed to chicken out, did they?

Hadn’t it crossed their minds that one of just two outcomes would automatically follow a ‘binary’ choice?  Heads or tails. One or t’other. In or out -  no mister in between.

What is going on? Alien forces are at it again.

Even if that mischief-making knife-related meme wasn’t wholly responsible for Theresa May’s decision to sack Michael Gove, it has served to justify it.

Michael Gove was regarded by many of his colleagues as the kind of reformer that Theresa May should have promoted rather than ditched, and her inability to recognise that looks short-sighted and vindictive, like cutting off one’s nose to spite the whole country’s face.

 Melanie McDonagh said: 

“There was neither sense nor generosity in the PM’s brutality to Michael Gove. He had patently acted like a lunatic over the leadership campaign, behaving neither rationally nor honourably, but all that is over now. But it is still quite extraordinary that Mrs May has not taken on board that Mr Gove was pretty well the one reformer in government.”

Still, does Melanie McDonagh actually know how Michael Gove, or for that matter Boris Johnson, ‘behaved’ over the leadership campaign, or is she just going with the flow?  Was she there at the time?

Describing Mr. Backstabber’s Gove’s behaviour as “neither rational nor honourable” suggests she’s taking the easy route and accepting a meme that is so entrenched that no-one has the strength to argue with it. 

  She says:

“He was shaping up to be a genuinely reformist Justice Secretary, having identified right at the start that prison was for people who had been failed by, among other things, the education system; it was in a way where his previous department left off. His Christian feel for rehabilitating the sinner was patently the driving force behind his programme of reforms. Rehabilitation is one of those things everyone talks about but he, remarkably and in a way his predecessors had not, started to engage with, though God knows, cuts fell disproportionately on prisons. 

His programme for giving governors greater autonomy was an interesting take on the same principle in schools; ‘academy prisons’, you might say, though the title was ‘reform prisons’. If you want to know why Mrs May should have left him well alone, read the account of Michael Gove’s address to the Howard League for Penal Reform.”

Libby Purves writes:(£) “Our squalid prisons needed the zeal of Gove

” My awareness of Liz Truss, the Norfolk MP and former Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) minister, has been pretty much confined to her eerily intense conference speeches about “opening up new pork markets in Beijing” and cheese imports being a disgrace. Now, as she takes over as justice minister, I hunger for reassurance that in her new job she will recognise a real disgrace when she sees one: our overcrowded, drug-poisoned, often squalid and educationally under-resourced prisons. She has a tough act to follow: when her predecessor Michael Gove was removed from education for undue abrasiveness, he…”

That’s the free part of the online Times. I have the hard copy, but I haven’t time to type it in here.

Theresa May has decided to appoint Liz Truss and we are left wondering ...why and what for? 

Here’s another piece, this time by Charles Falconer, even.  (£)

“The new prime minister’s reshuffle could not have revealed more clearly her indifference to the rule of law. In any government the lord chancellor has a duty to ensure that judges are properly protected from political attack and are able to act independently — and that the government itself always acts in accordance with the law. 

The lord chancellor has to be someone with the weight and stature to stand up to the prime minister or the home secretary when, for instance, they want to compromise on complying with the law in an attempt to placate the public. Or when…”

That’s the free bit, but you get the gist. Our prisons are in crisis. Violence, drugs and radical Islam rule the roost. Swapping Liz Truss for Michael Gove seems truly senseless and irresponsible.  It’s nearly as mad as appointing an accountant to head Culture, Media and Sport. 

I see I’m contradicting my theory here, as Melanie McDonagh, Libby Purves and Charlie Falconer are part of the media rather than men from Mars. There must be blips in the system.

*******

Aliens part 3.

Stabbing and car-ramming.

Wasn’t it odd that Jon Donnison happened to be in Nice at the time of the “Lorry Attack”? As the BBC reporter with the biggest obsession about Israel and the Palestinians, he was uniquely placed to inform viewers that car-ramming is not a new phenomenon. The difference is that when they occur in Europe, they’re called ‘terrorism’, but of course when the victims are Israelis car-rammings and stabbings are seen as militancy and acts of resistance. 

I know I’m not the first to point that out and I probably won’t be the last. 

As soon as we heard that 84 people had been killed in Nice, we were swiftly reminded that Muslims were victims too. 

We were told that the perpetrator (the driver, not the lorry itself) had mental health issues. 

The security services are looking into any possible connection between this man and Islamic State. 

It’s immaterial to me whether they find links or not. If Islamic State claimed him as their soldier, that’s enough for me. Soldiers of Allah, “structured in a quasi-military fashion” rather like the Salvation Army.

While they’re at it, Islamic State may as well claim ownership of every violent crime that takes place anywhere; then all murderers get to claim an ideological motive, Islamic State continues wreaking terror without lifting a finger, and the alien commentators get more blame to share out. Everyone’s a winner.

Panels of extra-terrestrial experts could appear on Sunday Morning Live and explain that what happened in Nice is our own fault because we make Muslims feel alienated and disaffected.  They even looked as though they’d just landed from Mars and they didn’t fool anyone.

***********

Talking of stabbings and vehicular rammings, I read a transcript of a recent question session in parliament (Foreign and Commonwealth office) which took place on or around the previous government’s final day. 

As a kind of tribute to Jo Cox, who apparently had a passion for Palestinians, Tobias Ellwood MP asked  a question about the continued demolition of Palestinian property by Israeli authorities. Aliens were evidently controlling this session, because the speakers gave little indication of why seemingly random demolitions might take place.  For sheer devilment perhaps. File it under “What Israel is doing to the Palestinians.”

Then Eric Pickles said : 

“There is, however, the other side of the coin, with 36 Israelis, along with four foreign nationals, murdered this year. Instead of condemning the murders, the Palestinian Authority glorified them.” 

Which was duly acknowledged by Mr Ellwood: 

“My right hon. Friend makes the important point that the actions of the Palestinians do not go unnoticed, and we require the leadership of President Abbas to make it clear that those actions must be condemned.”

But Sarah Champion (Rotherham) piped up with her concerns about Palestinian children being detained in Israeli prisons. I’m tempted to ask whether she showed as much concern for the children in her constituency who suffered sexual abuse under her watch, but I won’t in case it sounds bitter and twisted.

Beam me up.

*******

I saw Jan Ravens (off Dead Ringers) on TV the other day. They were perched under an awning on College Green chatting during a brief lull in the political revelations. She was asked how her Theresa May voice was coming along.

She demonstrated how, in order to produce the Theresa May voice, the muscles in the lower part of the face must be clenched rigid. Theresa May’s voice has a jangly timbre to it and her enunciation is stiff and posh. 

Have you noticed, Theresa May often does that Gordon Brown ‘jaw’ thing - a kind of grimace. You’d almost forgotten about that, hadn’t you? 

Daniel Finkelstein mentioned something recently that I swear I’d been thinking as well.

The BBC has a whole department dedicated to proper pronunciation, and it should  issue instructions on the correct pronunciation of Theresa.  Not Teraysa, not Tereessssa, but plain “Te - ree - za”.

Jon Culshaw hasn’t yet mastered his Jeremy Corbyn. Wind players have to control their breathing when playing, to keep phrases intact. Most of us do so naturally when speaking. 

Not Jeremy Corbyn. He takes tiny breaths, mid-flow,  like a small child whose vocabulary can’t keep pace with his thoughts.  Jon Culshaw needs to incorporate his mid-flow intakes of breath into his monotonous drone or he won’t get very far with his Corbyn impression.  

In order to get into character properly, he should cock his head slightly to the left, and the script should include repetitive socialist wish-lists that all start with the same few words, and he must finish every statement with a slight smirk (and he should never leave the stage)

*********

This is the one I wanted to write about yesterday, but I didn’t have time. It’s Mark Mardell introducing Naz Shah and that pesky "anti-semetic" incident. 

Naz Shah might well have made amends, apologised and genuinely built up a good relationship with the local Jewish  community. I’m not criticising that at all. But how could someone who’s bright enough to get herself elected as an M.P. not know that antisemitism was ‘racist’. 

The mind truly boggles. She now needs to question the racism that emanates from her constituents as well as her own racism, otherwise it’s all a bit hollow. She sounds fairly intelligent one minute and laughably, mind-blowingly stupid the next.  Is she .......from a parallel universe?

********

I also watched the Home Affairs Committee enquiry into antisemitism. Unfortunately it took place on a day when other matters were occupying the most perky members of the committee, so hardly anyone was present. 

Poor old David Winnick seems to think Israel should be grateful for his half-baked support and he assumes his criticism will be regarded as that of a friend. Some friend. 

John Mann was a witness. He is a strong character and his high profile campaign against antisemitism is of immense value, especially as he is not a Jew.  However, he is much more positive about Shami Chakrabarti’s review than anyone else seems to be, which seems a bit strange. ‘To boldly go where no Mann has gone before’ comes to mind, I don’t quite know why.