Business as usual

On the theme of last night's Newsnight, the programme also covered the Downing Street meeting between Boris John and Ursula von der Leyen, the new President of the European Commission. 

It was business as usual as far as BBC reporting goes, however, with Emily Maitlis quoting the words of Mrs von der Leyen as if they were written on tablets of stone. 

Nick Watt was at it too: Mrs VDL was delivering "home truths" to the Prime Minister, he said. 

We've been here many times before, with those "home truths" turning out to be just the EU side's point of view, and far from unchangeable holy writ. 

Language Emily!

While I'm still catching up and remembering things I meant to blog about earlier, the latest edition of Newsnight used some interesting language in its main Brexit report. Emily Maitlis and Nick Watt variously use the terms "a hard Brexit", "a moderate Brexit" and "Brexit hardliners in [Mrs May's] Cabinet" in their piece about Justine Greening, Amber Rudd and Damian Green's apparent plan to beat off Jacob Rees-Mogg. 

I raised my eyebrows at that. 

And then Emily moved on to the Italian political scene and the possible Five Star Movement-Lega-led new 'populist' government coalition there. 

Our Emily was straight in there with "The party started by a clown is about to govern Italy with a party of the far right". 

And - to the consternation of people other than just me - she later compared the coming-together of what she called "the alt-left and the firm right" to the idea of Momentum and UKIP forming a governing coalition in the UK. 

She also cited the horseshoe view of politics to claim that the extremes of right and left were converging, united by their Euroscepticism and pro-Russian sentiment. 

Now, I'm not a high profile BBC presenter (lest you thought I was) but even I know that the Five Star Movement isn't particularly close to the ideological place where Momentum sits - though an imputation that they're both rather cult-like might have held if she'd thought of explicitly pushing it. (Did she implicitly push it?) 

The Five Star Movement declare themselves to be neither left nor right, and surveys (of the kind I avidly read) show that their supporters range widely from those who also refuse to except traditional political labels (by some way the largest group) to smaller numbers of (in decreasing order) left-leaners, centrists, and right-leaners. 

To call them "alt-left" is peculiar. (Is it original to Newsnight? Or did they lift it from somewhere else?)

And I recall that, until recently, the Five Star Movement shared the same EU grouping as UKIP and that Nigel Farage and Beppe Grillo got on well, and that the Five Star Movement hasn't (at times) been too far from the Lega on the immigration issue. 

So when Emily described these 'populists' as "chalk and cheese" she seemed to be forgetting the slices, or maybe chunks even, of Gorgonzola that they seem to have in common.

And I've read enough about the Lega to know that simply branding it "far right" is too simplistic. 

Italian politics is confusing and not, I think, readily amenable to simplistic BBC groupthink, such as Emily displayed throughout here.

This was all very 'BBC', shoehorning all of these Eurosceptic populists into a maelstrom of prejudiced BBC labelling. 

And then came the two experts, both broadly pro-EU, neither sympathetic to the populists seeking to rule Italy.

Yes, all very 'BBC'.

Moderates

According to the BBC News website a "moderate" has won the Iranian presidential election - though, unlike me, the BBC didn't put the word 'moderate' in inverted commas. 

Indeed, the BBC seems to be calling Hassan Rouhani a moderate (without qualification) across much of its output. Today's lunchtime news on BBC One, for example, saw the newsreader say, " Mr Rouhani, a moderate who agreed a deal with world powers to limit Iran's nuclear programme...", and Jeremy Bowen was on this morning saying (of Mr Rouhani), "He's a moderate who would like more openness in politics and society".

Hmm.

Sky's former answer to John Simpson, Tim Marshall, even on Twitter, knows that sometimes inverted commas are needed:

Still, here's a witty riposte from the comments section of the Times report on the same story:

Tadcaster Tory: A contest between a nutter and an even bigger nutter. Lovely.
Lyndonium (replying): But that's enough about the UK General Election...

*******

Incidentally, in the singular and plural, the label 'moderate' has lately begun to be used by Newsnight presenters and reporters to describe people in the Labour Party who aren't Corbynistas, such as Nick Watt saying:

What's interesting is that the moderates in the Labour Party are relatively relaxed about this draft manifesto which they had obviously seen.

or Kirsty Wark asking: 

Was it the moderates leaking, trying to change it, it or was it the Left leaking it, going 'This is better than Corbyn sitting there next week delivering it?'

That must make the Corbynistas either 'hardliners' or 'extremists' or, perish the thought, like President Rouhani's opponents, 'conservatives'! 

The Gawd'elpusfather

Don Corbeone 

On the subject of the all-conquering Mr Corbyn...

This week's Newswatch followed last week's Feedback in giving voice to Corbynista complaints of anti-Corbyn bias, and even Norman Smith (the BBC reporter formerly known as 'Anti-Tory Norm') got it in his hyperbolic neck for bringing up Jez's disgruntled ex once too often.

I have to say that the chosen Corbynista, Kevin Foley, made his points reasonably and came across well. I could see some though not all of his points.

Unlike last week's Feedback, however, no BBC editor was willing to appear on Newswatch. 

Last week's Feedback, as loyal readers will know, featured that astonishing interview with senior BBC editor Katy Searle - the one where she immediately conceded most of the Corbynistas' charges of BBC bias and kept on apologising to them. 

This week's Feedback featured various listeners gasping in astonishment (as I did last week) that a BBC editor had behaved in such a totally un-BBC-like fashion - though Roger Bolton's selection did end with one Corbynista saying that Ms Searle had only conceded minor points and not grovelled anywhere near enough (the kind of 'nothing is ever enough' reaction that anyone who follows accusations of BBC bias will be well acquainted with, whichever side those accusations come from). 

I was already primed for such comments after watching last night's Newsnight where Nick Watt's report on the Labour leadership contest struck me, before I even went onto Twitter afterwards, as being guaranteed to attract Corbynista fury. 

I'd guessed that the image of Jeremy Corbyn as The Godfather (see top of post) wouldn't go down very well with them, and it didn't.

And I'd also guessed that the total imbalance of voices in Nick's report - Stephen Kinnock, Lisa Nandy, Chuka Umunna, Peter Hain, Chris Mullin, even Oliver Letwin, for the anti-Corbyn side and just Baroness Chakrabarti of Kennington in the London Borough of Lambeth for the pro-Corbyn side - wouldn't go down well with them either, and it also didn't. 

Indeed some of them did a 'me' and started vaguely counting the amount of time each side got. They were just guessing though. The actual stats are 54s (18.7% of airtime) for the pro-Corbyn side (namely Shami) versus 3m 55s (81.3% of airtime) for the anti-Corbyn side (all the rest).

It's not hard to see their point at times.

More 'Newsnight'

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

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

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

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

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

******

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

Take this from Evan Davis:

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

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

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

******

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

It came from the public.

******

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

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

For mass immigration: 1m 38s

Against mass immigration: 21s

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

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

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

******

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

What happened when four 'Newsnight' editors gathered around Evan's cauldron...

Beginning to catch up with Wednesday's and Thursday's editions of Newsnight, I'd just say that if you want to sample BBC bias over Brexit in full flow you only need to watch the opening discussion between Evan Davis and the four Newsnight 'editors' on Wednesday night's programme...

This, of course, came on the day that Mrs May became PM, and it began with Evan Davis talking of the "disconcertingly turbulent" last three weeks and how the ritual of the handover of power might have proved "reassuring" and provided "some calm at last". 

Leaning in, he added "but only up to a point"...

...before talking of the "national adventure" we are now embarking on and adding, with a chuckle, "For one thing Boris Johnson is foreign secretary!"....

....and this is the exact facial expression he adopted as he ended that thought:

Then his gathering of Newsnight editors began their review of the day.

Nick Watt was perky and jokey; Helen Thomas (shall we say?) less so. 

Evan asked the latter: 

The economy and the fiscal position...cos Theresa May was describing quite an ambitious kind of agenda...the economy may not be working to her favour for all that.

And Helen replied "No, absolutely" and talked (as is her way) of the "uncertainty", "a weakening economy" and "what damage has been done, what damage may be done...by Brexit". 

And then they turned to Boris. Evan kept chuckling and said, "Who would have thought it?" to Mark Urban. 

And Mark said that people on Twitter had found it "gagtastic" before adding that, as Mayor of London, "he had a rather unsuccessful trip to Israel and Palestine" before then saying "the best he can do" is to be ambassador selling the country to the world. 

Evan then stopped chuckling for a while and said:

Yeah. I mean, look, we need to talk about the Boris style of diplomacy. 

And he has history, doesn't he I mean, you know..just read you a couple of quotes.. 

On the Queen and the Commonwealth: "It supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies/ The tribal warriors will all break out in watermelon smiles." 

Now, that was a long time ago, so you might forgive that. 

But, you know, just a couple of months ago his limerick about the president of Turkey: "There was a young fellow from Ankara/Who was a terrific wankerer/Till he sowed his wild oats/With the help of a goat/But he didn’t even stop to thankera". He won a prize in the Spectator magazine for that...er...poetry. 

I mean, are people outside of Britain..I mean, we all know Boris is Boris..will people outside Britain take him seriously?

Mark Urban replied: "They'll have to, in a way". 

And then - to much chuckling from Evan - he raised the much-mooted suggestion that the trio of Brexiteers (Boris, David Davis and Liam Fox" would take the rap if Brexit trade deals proved "too hard"....

...and he (Mark) sarcastically called them "those three experts", pausing before 'experts' to signal the implied inverted commas even more.

Then Chris Cook applied a little irony to David Davis and the article DD had written outlining his take on Brexit:  

He actually this week published an article on Conservative Home about his vision. And, I mean, I'm not a trade expert. I think whoever wrote that...it may not be Mr Davis himself...isn't a trade expert either. There are some fairly fundamental problems with it.

Chris then went on to rubbish it, describing one of DD's ideas (in Yes. Minister terms) as "quite ambitious", describing him as "very, very nonchalant" about another idea, and then saying he "talked an awful lot" about something else,...

...pulling the following face as he did so:

Evan chuckled again.

I very much doubt that a single one of those five BBC journalists voted to Leave the EU. And, if so (like there's any doubt!), it showed.

A thoroughly biased-filled BBC discussion from start to finish.

What? Watt?

It's funny cos it's true...

We had a little exchange here a couple of weeks back about the likely replacement for ex-Guardian journalist Allegra Stratton after her departure from ex-Guardian editor Ian Katz's Guardian-like Newsnight:

And, yes, he would dare!...