Daindruss Times

Jeremy Bowen has been promoted from Middle East to **International** editor and has been mostly covering the war in Ukraine but he still can't resist pontificating on Israel/Palestine. On 4th Jan 2023, Today programme  (19 mins to 9) Nick Robinson called upon him to report upon a dastardly provocation that Melanie Phillips describes as:

“a Jew walking for 15 minutes on the site that is most sacred to Judaism … without fanfare or media attention, early in the morning when the compound was almost empty and didn’t pray there or say anything to stir up trouble.”

 The Arab press calls this “storming” the al-Aqsa Mosque!

Here’s a near-as-dammit transcription of the item I heard on the Today Programme last Wednesday at 19 minutes to nine. 

Nick R

Now, why did a brief visit by the new Israeli security minister to the Alaska (sic) mosque compound in Jerusalem lead to such international condemnation and also to warnings of violent retribution from Hamas? China and the UAE have now called for a UN security council meeting to condemn the visit. Jeremy Bowen knows the area well, he’s our international editor and joins us on the line. “Morning, Happy New year to you Jeremy!” (Bowen mumbles) “Deliberately naive question if I may Jeremy - a daft laddie question - he didn’t pray, he didn’t enter the mosque at all, so why the fuss? “

JBowen

Well, it’s very symbolic. Ah, the piece of ground in question, which Jews call the Temple Mount in English, and Muslims call - Palestinians call The Noble sanctuary in Arabic, ah it’s probably the - it’s certainly the most disputed ground - piece of ground - in the Middle East and quite possibly the world - it’s holy to both religions - the holiest place for Jews, the third holiest place for Muslims and it’s also a massive national symbol, particularly for Palestinians; and now this particular individual, Itamar Ben-Gvir is the most prominent group …. prominent of a group of militant right-wingers on whom the new government of mister Netanyahu relies for support, and they’re driving the ideology of the government and of course his supporters say that they’re elected fair and square, that’s democracy; but Ben-Gvir, he’s a police minister but he’s got a long criminal record of which includes incitement to racism and supporting a terrorist organisation.”

Nick R

Huge symbolism then, as it is it’s him going there, but I guess what everybody’s watching is to see the underlying question of what policy actually changes under this new wide coalition.

JBowen

Yes, well, Netanyahu’s come back to power, relying on the votes in the Israeli parliament of these hard-line right-wingers, which, y’know, Israelis in the election liked the look of their coalition and voted for it. It’s not just a question of supporting harder action against Palestinians in the occupied territories, although that’s a big part of it. The— in Israel when they form a new coalition government they have a … they put out a political agreement, a statement. Now, this is often, not at all um, ah, brought in ‘to the letter’, but it’s clear that Ben-Gvir and his colleagues, they want big changes inside Israel to make it more religious, more their version of how a Jewish state should be and this horrifies many secular Israelis, and what would that mean? It means putting orthodox Jewish beliefs ahead of the rights of women - of LGBTQ people, of Arab citizens - 20% of the population of Israel is in fact Palestinian Arab. Ben-Gvir says those people need to know who is the landlord of the country, by which he means “the Jews.“ And they’re also, there are talks about removing much of the independence of the Israeli judiciary which for Netanyahu may have the result of  rescuing him from his own trial, which is continuing, on very serious corruption charges and all this at a time when the West Bank is very tense and anything that stirs the pot there is… daindruss!

Nick R

When you say tense Jeremy I’ve heard people predicting that it could ‘blow’ this year, that we could see very serious trouble indeed. On the West Bank that might be the excuse the Hamas wants to move out of its stronghold in Gaza and move in, do you think that’s a likely scenario?

JBowen 

Tensions are very high on the West Bank, and also in Palestinian parts of Jerusalem without question and it’s a really daindruss situation, it’s a really daindruss cocktail of a new generation growing up of Palestinians, a lack of hope, a feeling that um their aspirations towards - towards independence, towards freedom because there are millions of people who’ve been under a harsh military occupation now for generations, if you feel that that’s never going to go away - one thing that Netanyahu’s government has given another hard right-winger Mr Smotrich a lot of authority over settlements to expand them and so it’s a very difficult and daindruss situation; it’s a really nasty cocktail. Last year in 2022 something like 150 Palestinians were killed in the area by Israeli security forces, and more than 30 Israelis. Now Netanyahu. in his politics, has tried to play a double or a treble game, where he says one thing and does something else, reality and rhetoric being separated, but hard-liners like Ben-Gvir are very serious about imposing their views - and now can Netanyahu control them? Does he want to? and at the same time there’s this rising tide of anger among Palestinians and it’s just one serious incident, I’d say, at any given time, away from a very serious situation.

Nick R

Jeremy, thank you.

It did occur to me that the disdainful description of the new Israeli government: “militant  ‘hard-right-wingers’ that's “putting orthodox Jewish beliefs ahead of the rights of women, of LGBTQ people, of Arab citizens” looks oddly hypocritical when it comes from someone who happily overlooks the illiberal “orthodox religious beliefs” of his favoured ethnicity. On this occasion, only Nick Robinson specifically mentioned the word “Hamas” but that particular absence from Bowen’s narrative was conspicuous.

Why does not Nick just interview himself?

I see Charles Moore is continuing to keep Nick Robinson firmly in the dock:

Nick Robinson to the new Chancellor, Nadhim Zahawi, on Today on Wednesday: ‘I am asking you whether you told the truth and whether Boris Johnson told the truth and the simple answer is that you didn’t and he didn’t.’ Since he has the answers to all his own questions why does not Nick just interview himself?

Nick Robinson and the dogs on the street

That drew this response from someone who's normally pretty pro-BBC:

Mike Love: Did he? Why is he expressing an opinion like that as a BBC employee? Fine quoting someone else, but not saying it himself.

There's a lot of that going on.  

Insulting listeners intelligence

And now for something completely different.  It’s not about Israel. (well, only a tiny bit)

Insulting voters’ intelligence? I thought: am I the only one who was taken aback by the bullying here? (scroll to about 2:21.41)  It’s Nick Robinson taking advantage of his position in the concluding moments of this tetchy interview with George Eustice.

G.E. “In the interest of balance you need to recognise that the leader of the opposition…

N.R. (interrupting) “I don’t think we need any lectures from you about balance Mr Eustice, we interviewed Mr Starmer all about it yesterday”..

I did spot another reference to this exchange within a GB News feature titled: 'Does Britain still love the BBC?’  (scroll to about 6:20)   Dame Esther Rantzen (Supporting the Beeb) and Rupert Lowe (not so much,) discuss with Mark Dolan. 

 

Rupert Lowe:

“I mean I listened to an interview the other day between Nick Robinson and George Eustice. I’m a farmer - George Eustice is not my favourite person but I couldn’t believe Nick R’s arrogance when he was interviewing GE and it’s an example of how they know they’re going to be there well beyond when that person they’re interviewing is going to be voted out of power so there is a degree of arrogance which I think is unacceptable now….”

Full disclosure; George is my M.P.   The  Eustice family farm produce is pretty pricey though. George has come in for such a lot of stick for his ‘let them eat cake’ remark, but it’s sound advice. (Shop at Lidl’s and Aldi) I don’t know if the Eustice family farm would agree.

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

So then I caught a programme on the radio late last night about  BLM.  on the theme of combatting racism. It was hosted by our old friend Samira Ahmed.  It came across as pretty vacuous, to be honest, but a couple of throw-away remarks suggested that the discussion was based on a somewhat creative interpretation of ‘anti-racism’. 

One participant navigated his self-inflicted minefield of tricky glottal stops with such agility that something that would normally send my hackles through the roof was so distracting that it slipped by almost unnoticed. “…the way Israel has colonised Palestine” On reflection, I found that so profoundly dumb that it threw the whole of his tenuous anti-racist thesis down the toilet.

I concluded that their version of ”anti-racism” is itself pretty racist, especially when Samira Ahmed brought in Azeem Rafiq as an example, evidently having forgiven and forgotten his casual antisemitism or disregarded it altogether. That's what I call insulting listeners’ intelligence. 

Rope-a-dope

  

I've learned a new phrase today, courtesy of Nick Robinson:

“Rope a dope” is clearly Boris Johnson’s new tactic on partygate - he simply absorbed & ignored repeated questions from Sophie Raworth before linking his plight to the Ukraine crisis by insisting he’s lucky to live in a democracy where PMs can face such troubles.

rope-a-dope

NOUN US informal

a boxing tactic of pretending to be trapped against the ropes, goading an opponent to throw tiring ineffective punches

In other news, it's being widely reported that there's a 'very BBC' all-female shortlist developing for Andrew Marr's replacement and Sophie's on it. Nick Robinson himself has stood in for Andrew Marr several times. I'm guessing he might have fancied the job permanently. 

Of Nick Robinson, BBC turkeys and GB News

Here's a civilised Twitter discussion (such things do exist) about an exchange on this morning's Radio 4 Today programme:

Nick Robinson: And you got 200,000 viewers at one point?

Jerry Dyer: 238,000 live viewers at one point.

Nick Robinson: They dream of that at GB News, I’ll tell you that”.

Rachel Wearmouth, Daily Mirror: Big Jet TV man is on R4 saying they had 238k viewers yesterday & Nick Robinson says “they dream of that at GB News”. Really unattractive attitude. Arrogant, even.

Mark Wallace, Conservative Home: It also reveals a lack of the confidence it’s intended to project.

Iain Martin, Reaction: Was quite a funny joke though? Media plurality is great but prominent people making jokes is to be encouraged, surely?

Mark Wallace: Oddly not a joke Nick made about various BBC turkeys…

Iain Martin: Just can't get remotely concerned about it? In the 70s and 80s people made jokes all the time, about TV programmes, football teams, politicians. Radio man makes funny joke about new TV station is... fine. GB news should make a joke back.

Mark Wallace: I’m not particularly concerned about it - but in an era of self-righteous hyperventilation by BBC people about the danger to their sacred institution/salaries, Beeb ads lobbying for itself etc, I don’t think it’d hurt to be a little less pissy about other outlets.

Iain Martin: Miles better than they used to be? Used to be prohibited from even mentioning what was on "the other side".

UPDATE - Meanwhile, GB News's excellent Colin Brazier has responded:

Every one of our viewers and, increasingly, listeners - is there because we've earned their interest, loyalty and custom. Our wages are paid, not by a broadcasting poll tax, but through the exercise of choice. Every sneer will cost you dear.

Accidents will happen

I accidentally listened to Nick Robinson grilling James Cleverly on the Today Programme one morning last week.  

As others have mentioned a few trillion times, surely opposing the government is the role of Her Majesty’s Most Loyal Opposition and not the role of the Beeb.

Maybe someone could remind Nick Robinson that the BBC is not yet officially amalgamated with the Labour Party? Or am I missing something?

ll

I was surprised to see this programme at lunchtime the other day, while the TV was accidentally tuned in to the BBC.

I hadn’t come across Jiyar Gol before. He’s a Kurd, I find.   I know it’s a bit of a stretch but this documentary reminded me of Fauda - but real-life!  (I looked at Rachel Shabi’s review of Fauda - in the Guardian, of course. Predictably, Shabi found a way of complaining that (the fictional ) Israeli series (made by Israeli TV) wasn’t anti-Israel enough.) 

I dread to think what the bulk of BBC-educated viewers made of this interesting documentary about the Iranian nuclear programme and Mossad’s efforts to disrupt it. BBC educated viewers will probably see things from a Guardianist point of view, but I found this film surprisingly impartial. Facts. Facts and derring-do. 

On the other hand, it’s possible that viewers more knowledgeable than I will have spotted flaws and biases that went over this viewer’s head. It was well worth watching.

Update:

And lo and behold, Camera has supplied more info. I hadn’t seen the BBC web article accompanying the film when I wrote the above. The flaws and biases may or may not have been more egregious in the written piece, but I’m linking to it. You be the judge.

lll

I meant to say something about this several weeks ago. It’s growing more belated with every day that passes.

Straight after the Ghislaine Maxwell verdict, the BBC accidentally aired an interview with eminent lawyer Alan Dershowitz - and, shock horror - without highlighting the fact that he ‘had a dog in the fight’.

We know the BBC believes this was ‘an accident’ because the BBC apologised for doing so. 

The fact that Dershowitz himself drew attention to his own involvement in the Epstein/Maxwell affair - he is one of Virginia Giuffre’s alleged abusers - didn’t seem to materially affect the BBC’s unique display of contrition. The regret was solely that they’d inadvertently given a platform to an undesirable speaker. After the broadcast, the corporation admitted that the US lawyer had not been "a suitable person to interview as an impartial analyst" at that time.

“4.3.12 We should not automatically assume that contributors from other organisations (such as academics, journalists, researchers and representatives of charities and think-tanks) are unbiased. Appropriate information about their affiliations, funding and particular viewpoints should be made available to the audience, when relevant to the context.” [emphasis added]

I hope that apology sets a precedent for all forthcoming interviews with agenda-driven and partisan spokespersons and that the BBC is obliged to state the interests and biases therein and provide relevant apologies where appropriate. 

Suggest all interviews with agenda-driven spokespersons be automatically accompanied by a sign-language interpreter signing ‘he (or she) would say that wouldn’t he’ 

Having each other's backs

Talking of spiked, Mick Hume has a piece in the Daily Mail today headlined Whatever you think of Boris, the BBC’s obsessive campaign to destroy him is a disgrace. Along the way he criticizes Nick Robinson for leading the "Boris-bashing" on Today, and "sneering" and "going beyond what could be considered objective journalism".

Far from being impartial, Robinson was editorialising at every opportunity, the tone always scathing or sarcastic — to the point where one could almost hear him rubbing his hands with glee during each dramatic pause in his diatribe.

Mick Hume puts it down to BBC bias:

It has built itself in the image of the woke metropolitan elites who run it. And they long since decided that, to appropriate Margaret Thatcher’s famous phrase, Boris is not ‘one of us’.

Interestingly, the comments at the Mail are going the BBC's way for once. "Boris-bashing" has spread in recent weeks among the public, unimpressed at everything they've been hearing about Partiesgate.

Still, I've rather enjoyed the irony today of the very personification, indeed the living embodiment, of those "woke metropolitan elites", ex-Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger, riding to Nick Robinson's aid on Twitter:

Alan Rusbridger: Portraying Nick Robinson as a member of the woke metropolitan elite - the latest Mail obsession - is wide of the mark. I doubt it will stop him doing his job rather well. It’s called journalism.

Nick Robinson: Thanks Alan. I rather enjoyed the irony of being accused of anti-Tory bias by a former editor of Living Marxism 🤣.

And Gary Lineker has popped in too with a smug "quick reminder":

Gary Lineker: Quick reminder: the BBC has tens of thousands of people that work for It, with a huge cross section of views. The corporation doesn’t think as one. There’s no political criteria from above other than impartiality in news & current affairs. Any perceived bias is probably your own.

It may be a typo on Gary' part, but I shall think of the BBC as "It" from now it. Never mind 'Auntie Beeb', it's 'Cousin It' from now on.

Twas the Saturday before Christmas

Thank you, even more than normal, for your comments this week. 

You really have captured all the main goings-on involving the BBC, particularly on the open thread - with a special doff of the cap to Charlie. 

It's been invaluable, so thanks again.

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Today, as JunkkMale notes, has been dominated by a mass 'flounce' by BBC types after Camilla Tominey, the delightful associate editor of the Daily Telegraph, published a BBC-bashing piece headlined The BBC is wilfully ignorant about Tory Britain. She began:

It may be apocryphal but it is a story worth telling anyway. A young producer turned up at the BBC to do a shift on election night in December 2019. Huw Edwards had just revealed the results of the exit poll, predicting a landslide Conservative majority and the complete evisceration of Jeremy Corbyn. According to the tale, the rookie journalist arrived at the newsroom in Portland Place to find half of Auntie’s staff in tears.

It might not be true but it certainly is believable.

Now, I dislike that kind of thing as much as anyone, possibly more so - the 'it's probably not true, but it reflects a real truth' nonsense. It drives me up the wall, round the ceiling and down the chimney, even while Santa might be busily climbing back up. Now, what I want is, Facts - to quote Mr Gradgrind. Camilla was probably just being rhetorical, but shouldn't have said it. 

But it's been huge fun watching The BBC Collective, and their allies, take to Twitter to spit out feathers and dummies at Camilla en masse. 

Nick Robinson, Marianna Spring, John Simpson and countless others have all piled in with furious 'tally-hos'. 

To sum up their grievance: It's not true and it's soooooo unfair.

You'd have to have a heart of stone not to burst a blood vessel laughing your head off at it all.

But, of course, such laughter might be misplaced. 

They're all piling in because they've spotted an obvious, easy chink in a BBC critic's armour. 

Camilla's opening paragraph is indefensible, so it was evidently all hands on deck and all grist to the Twitter mill from the BBC - and their fans - to exploit the situation to their advantage. 

Unfortunately for them, they're probably peeing into the Twitter wind - a tiny minority echo chamber. The folk 'below the line' at the Telegraph and their readers are somewhere else and on Camilla's side rather than the BBC's side - in another echo chamber possibly.

But maybe they're not peeing into the Twitter wind after all because although Twitter may be something some 5/6 of the UK population don't ever engage with they are still reaching the people who matter to them - their many fellow Twitter users in the high ranks of the media and the political class. In other words, their guardians.

Meanwhile, if this wasn't complicated enough already, Dame Nick Robinson also went on a massive [self-] righteous rant on Twitter about how Camilla had reported - or misreported -  a part of the story involving John Redwood MP, with Camilla swatting him off with a kiss and various counter-points. 

This was six of one and half a dozen of the other, though pompous Nick - being in his echo chamber - had the bulk of the support on Twitter.....which he really shouldn't take as reflecting anything much.

If you can't be bothered with any of the above I don't blame you. It's enough to make your head whirl like Recep Tayyip Erdoğan after hours of dervishing at an Ottoman revivalist rally. 

Nick Robinson disagrees [again]

If there's one thing we know about Nick Robinson is that he can do no wrong. Never mind 'papal infallibility', the popes have nothing on the BBC's Nick.

 

It sounds as if his latest Political Thinking with Nick Robinson isn't quite as friendly as normal. And, inevitably, that's now spilling over onto Twitter:

Katharine Birbalsingh: A lively ding dong between me and ⁦Nick Robinson for 40 mins. We disagree politely and but you can hear how annoyed he makes me! Well worth it to hear a little of my backstory and what I think is important for children to succeed.

Nick Robinson: It was lively, interesting and enjoyable but if I were your teacher I’d ask you to write an essay explaining “the difference between disagreeing and asking challenging questions”.

Nick Robinson, BBC Director of News?

The Mail on Sunday is on fire today. They are also reporting that Nick Robinson has has been ''sounded out by BBC bosses'' to replace Fran Unsworth as Director of News. ''BBC sources say'' he's considered an ''impartial and safe'' figure. [No laughing at the back!]. 

Nick has HIS say

Here's Nick Robinson saying something nice about former BBC colleague/Newnight political editor Allegra Stratton in her hour of need:

Now that really is an apology … https://t.co/CvnM4U5LYg

— Nick Robinson (@bbcnickrobinson) December 8, 2021#

Of course, he's also saying that as a transparent sneer about Boris Johnson's 'apology' in the Commons today. 

All in all, he's, as ever, being quite free with his opinions today on Twitter. Here's another:

“Never apologise. Never explain” has long been Boris Johnson ’s watchword. He has now apologised & he has explained … that it was all someone else fault. He’s threatened those who work for him with disciplinary action. Those who trash their staff often live to regret it. 

I think he's right, but I don't he should be saying it as an impartial BBC reporter. But, as we know, that ship has already sailed for good, like the Titanic.

Stop the presses

When I looked at the BBC News website yesterday the above was the third-most important story on their homepage. It was based on comments made by Chris Bryant on Nick Robinson's Political Thinking podcast, so whether the BBC really did think it was the third-most important story in the world or whether they were advertising Nick's podcast I cannot say.

Nick v Boris

Please check out the discussion on the Open Thread about the BBC's recent interviewing of Boris Johnson.

I've posted already about the hostile Andrew Marr interview on Sunday. 

One bit I missed was taken up by others, including some newspapers - namely the bit where 'Andrew Marr called Boris Johnson a liar' over the question of rising wages.

"You’ve said something that isn’t true, you’ve said something that isn’t true about wages," said Mr Marr.

But I see that Full Fact - a 'fact-checking' organisation many of the Right are sceptical of - found Andrew Marr rather than Boris Johnson to have been wrong.

Ouch! Wonder if the next edition of The Andrew Marr Show will address that?

---------------

As for Nick Robinson's famous Today interview yesterday where he told the PM to 'Stop talking!', well, statistics can perhaps add a little extra to the story. 

I've been applying the old stopwatch and counting.

From the moment Nick Robinson began speaking at the very start of the interview to the moment when he told Boris Johnson to 'stop talking', 6m31s had passed and Nick Robinson had been talking for 2m37s of it - introducing, repeatedly interrupting, asking several long questions, heckling.

So, if you crunch the maths, the BBC interviewer had talked for slightly over 40% of the time and his guest - the UK Prime Minister - just under 60% of the time. 

If a BBC interviewer talks for over 40% of the first six-and-a-half minutes of an interview then I don't think that BBC interviewer has been particularly hard done by. 

In fact, that sort of balance makes me think that the interviewer was trying to dominate the interview, because interviewees are usually allowed to speak a lot more than interviewers during interviews.

Indeed, Nick had already tried interrupting twice in the first minute of Boris's opening answer. His first attempt came just 33 seconds in, and - after a further go at interrupting soon after - he'd 'fully' interrupted barely a minute after Boris began.  

Thereafter, the pace of Nick's incessant talking quickened, and eight more significant interruptions followed before the 'Stop talking!' moment.

Now Boris can certainly waffle and bluster, and he can dodge questions for England, but he wasn't dodging the questions here.

I'm guessing that Nick went in tooled up for a fight with a ready response, especially following [a] the Andrew Marr interview and [b] it having been two years since Boris Johnson agreed to be interviewed by Today. 

Part of the evidence is that he introduced the PM [very 'unhelpfully' for Boris] by framing it as 'Crisis? Which crisis?' and that, even before letting him speak, Nick said it was 'the first time he's agreed to talk to us...[dramatic pause]...in two years'. 

And, after his first two attempts to stop the PM, his third [successful] attempt - 1m 6s into Boris's first reply - was prefaced with the words, 'Just have to pause for a second, then I can put a question to you'.

Yet Boris repeatedly gave in when when Nick made attempts to intervene, giving way a second time shortly after. Another Nick interruption soon followed as Boris began his third answer and Boris tried to counter this next, very swift interruption [Nick pushing a pro-business, pro-immigration line] and the following exchange ensued:

Nick Robinson: No, no, no, Prime Minister. You've made that point. You've made it at length in a series of interviews in the run-up to this conference. 

Boris Johnson: [jovially] Hang on, I haven't had the chance to make this point on your show for two years, by your own account. 

Nick Robinson: [sourly] That was your choice not ours.

Nick and Boris then squabbled for a while, interruptions flying, before Boris got a while to speak for about half a minute before Nick made his famous intervention:

Nick Robinson: You have made that point very clearly and I'm going to make...Prime Minister, you are going to pause. Prime Minister...Stop talking! We are going to have questions and answers, not where you merely talk if you wouldn't mind.

Remember that Nick Robinson had been talking for getting on for half of the interview by that stage. 

And that shows [I think] what I strongly suspect, that Nick Robinson had his 'Stop talking!' interruption prepared in advance. My suspicion is that BBC editors encouraged him to deploy it.

After two years of avoiding the programme, Boris might now remember why he avoided appearing on the programme and might well begin avoiding it again.

In which Nick Robinson avoids answering the question

The Telegraph features a letter from Nick Robinson replying to criticism from Lord Howard. 

SIR – I’m sorry that Michael Howard is turning off his radio. He will have missed some illuminating and civilised conversations this week on Today – with the head of MI5 and Tony Blair examining the fallout from 9/11; the Archbishop of Canterbury on climate change and the Health Secretary on the crises in the NHS and social care.

The joy of live radio is that it can move us – bringing joy when we hear of Emma Raducanu’s success; tears when we hear the memories of those haunted by 9/11 and, yes, sometimes anger when we shout at the radio at a politician who is being evasive or an interviewer who interrupts too much.

We presenters don’t always get it right but we do our best to balance allowing those we interview to get their message across and holding them to account. 

I hope Lord Howard will be back listening soon and, perhaps, back in the studio too, where he has always robustly answered, rather than ignored, challenging questions.

I had to chuckle at Nick's closing paragraph because he, Nick Robinson, didn't ''robustly answer'' the nub of Lord Howard's criticism of him. Or to put it another way, he, Nick Robinson ''ignored'' the ''challenging'' point at the heart of Michael Howard's piece:

The final straw, for me, was Nick Robinson’s interview with Nadhim Zahawi, the vaccine minister, on Tuesday of this week. Tuesday was, of course, the day when the Government announced its proposals for the reform of social care.

But as Mr Robinson well knew, the details had to be announced to Parliament before they could be broadcast. Indeed, had this convention been broken and caused a reprimand from the Speaker, the BBC’s journalists would have been the first, gleefully, to point to the Government’s discomfort.

Yet when Mr Zahawi attempted to explain this and said that he had come on to the programme to discuss the £5.4 billion which had just been announced for the NHS, Mr Robinson said that this was a complete waste of time and threatened to end the interview there and then.

You and I may think that listeners would have been very interested in how this money was going to be spent but not a single question was addressed to that topic. Instead Mr Robinson spent the whole interview berating the minister for not doing what Mr Robinson knew full well he couldn’t do.

So why did Nick Robinson avoid answering that? Was it a little too close to the bone?

Nick Robinson tweets

I've no desire whatsoever to write about Meghan & Harry, but I think Nick Robinson's editorial on Twitter needs recording for posterity:

Nick Robinson: Some dismiss it as a trivial Royal soap opera unworthy of the attention on serious news programmes. Yet Meghan & Harry have given young & diverse Britain all they need to see the Royal Family (tho’ not the Queen) as at best old fashioned & at worst bigoted. That really matters. 

It is, of course, only one side of a story which is, first and foremost, about family tensions. The Royal Family must now decide whether the traditional response - getting on with their duties which defy the caricature whilst saying nothing in public - is enough.

One of the upsides of Twitter is that people get to reply and this is, by some way, the highest rated response so far:

David Robertson: Such impartiality....such empathy...such understanding! You forgot to mention that they also let us see just how intolerant, self-obsessed, narcissistic, wealthy and entitled they are....I guess it just slipped your mind...?!

China v the BBC

It's been a dramatic week for the BBC as far as China goes. First, the BBC was banned in mainland China then, later, in Hong Kong.

The BBC issued two press releases on the matter:

The communist dictatorship accused the BBC of a 'slew of falsified reporting' on issues including Xinjiang and China's handling of coronavirus and said that 'fake news' is not tolerated in China.

BBC staff have taken to Twitter to back the BBC, including Nick Robinson:

My Mum used to hide in a cupboard in Shanghai in the 40’s to listen to the radio with her parents - refugees from the Nazis. They wanted the news from London not self serving propaganda. It was banned then. It’s banned now. The BBC will carry on giving the news to the world.

In which Nick Robinson lets himself down

 

If only BBC journalists like Nick Robinson could resist the temptation to go for the easy 'gotcha'.

And I'm not talking about politicians here but (possibly licence-fee-paying) members of the public.

Going back to an earlier post, and Nick's notable tweet:

Nick Robinson: Was there a cover up of what was known about sexual harassment allegations? This is an extraordinary story about a war between the two leading figures in the drive for Scottish independence. Imagine how big it would be if it was about, say, Johnson & May.

One reply said: 

Leading Edge: This is a huge story but the BBC and other MSM hardly touch it.

At which Nick pounced and replied:

Nick Robinson: Except you’re commenting on the BBC reporting it so...

No, Nick. You're missing the word "hardly" in Leading Edge's comment. 

Leading Edge's point stands. 

Yes, Nick Eardley wrote a piece of the BBC website about it, but, as I wrote earlier, BBC One had barely touched the story, covering it (briefly) just twice so this year so far, and Newsnight has avoided it completely in 2021. 

That, in my book, supports Mr Edge's point that the BBC has 'hardly touched it'. 

I suspect Nick Robinson is well aware of that (he's not daft), but the chance for a cheap comeback proved far too alluring - hence his easy snark.

P.S. Nicola Sturgeon is back on The Andrew Marr Show tomorrow. Will Andrew go hard and dig deep, with an eye-watering, Boris-interview-like battering of interruptions, or not? 

(He's also got on Israel’s Minister of Health Yuli Edelstein, so where will he go with that interview too, as if we can't guess?)

Another of our stories is missing

  

The extraordinary civil war in the SNP between supporters of Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon is proving gripping if nothing else, and now has the potential to bring down the previously all-conquering Scottish First Minister. 

As my favourite commenter on Scottish politics, Effie Deans, notes today though:

If the Salmond Scandal had happened in England it would be headline news on the BBC every day.

So far this year, it's made BBC news bulletins just twice - once on 8 January (when it got less than 2 minutes) and once last night (where it got 25 seconds) and - Newsnight hasn't covered it at all. 

Indeed, Lewis Goodall, who hyperactively tweets about every possible hint of scandal involving the Westminster government, remains resolutely uninterested in the story. He's tweeted nothing specifically about Mr Salmond since 24 Jan 2019: 

Wow. 14 counts against Alex Salmond. 9 sexual assaults. 2 attempted rapes. 1 breach of the peace. 2 indecent assaults. If these prove to be true, there are huge questions about how much, if anything, was to known to his SNP colleagues and those in the wider Scottish govt.

If those questions were "huge" then, now they're surely even bigger, given that "how much, if anything, was known" to Nicola Sturgeon is only the starting point. An even bigger question is: What there a conspiracy against Mr Salmond? And: Has there been a cover-up? Given that Lewis regularly travels up to the Scotland to report for Newsnight, why isn't he reporting on them now?

(Just to add to my point, he's retweeting stuff today about the Welsh Tory leader resigning after a Covid-busting booze-up). 

*******

UPDATE: Blimey, even Nick Robinson seems to see there's an issue here: 

Was there a cover up of what was known about sexual harassment allegations ? This is an extraordinary story about a war between the two leading figures in the drive for Scottish independence. Imagine how big it would be if it was about, say, Johnson & May. 

The top-rated reply reads:

This is a much bigger story about government corruption on an unprecedented scale Nick. Scottish media outlets silenced, pro indy quangos all over the place, misuse of data, grant based organisations government criticism bought off, Covid politicised. You guys have gone AWOL.  

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P.S. More from Effie Deans: 

We pay top BBC journalists hundreds of thousands of pounds to find out things. Not one of them has contributed to the revelations about Salmond and Sturgeon.

Leaving only his toenails behind

 

So as someone on Twitter said yesterday, here we got the BBC's Nick Robinson "basically tweeting, with a nod and a wink, telling people to complain to Ofcom about the new "Fox News" channel".

If the overwhelmingly hostile online response to Nick's outrageous tweet is anything to go by, it backfired on him  spectacularly. (Good!). 

This is a highly representative selection of the most-liked replies:

• Dear Ofcom, please ignore Nick's ramblings. He’s really not qualified to speak on our behalf, even though he thinks he is.
• Does a biased, socially elitist, metropolitan public service broadcaster completely out-of-touch with working class people improve democracy? Send your answer to Ofcom and 10 Downing Street.
• Surely "debate" is best served by providing more than one opinion?
• Perhaps those who are scared of this new channel are merely recognising that the wider public have never shared their flavour of opinion?
• I'm not wild about the idea. But it was sadly inevitable given the blatant lib-left bias of the BBC and Sky News over recent years. We've lost impartiality in our news coverage; it's a shame that it's come to this, but a counter-balance is long overdue.
• Heaven forbid it might not conform to the “correct” opinions mandated by the the BBC? The fact that you can’t see, or simply don’t care, that your woke hive mind, has ruined BBC impartiality, is precisely why we all now need to seek diversity of thought elsewhere.
• Without a doubt if it balances the left wing bias of the BBC and Sky News. Can't wait.
• How worried is fake news BBC? THIS worried.
• If it includes Andrew Neil, I can't wait. He was the BBC's best presenter and questioner and highly thought of by the viewers.  Freezing him out was a big mistake for the BBC.  How stupid to get rid of one of their biggest assets.
• The BBC created the gap in the market. If you are feeling threatened by the competition then you should have thought about that before.
• I find TV news unwatchable now, as I know do many others.
• Are you saying that situation should continue, and because we don’t like what you’re offering, we should be deprived of any alternative?