It tells the tale of how Douglas fell foul of a very unfriendly and censorious left-wing, feminist academic on a Radio 3 discussion programme.
Because of her feminist views, she herself has now fallen foul of very unfriendly and censorious people - namely transgender militants. And it's even worse for her, as she fears physical violence from them and has two security guards to protect her, ironically both men.
Douglas says, whether she likes it or not, he's prepared to literally take a punch for her in order to protect her right to free speech. And I, for one, don't doubt that he is,
The relevance to this blog is the BBC-related tale Douglas tells in passing. The fall-out between this academic (Selina Todd) and Douglas Murray was a BBC set-up - an engineered cockfight. It was a debate about class and Douglas is posh, and Selina is left-wing. Selina obliged and was rude to Douglas...but Douglas refused to be rude back.
Straight away I knew two things: that I had acquired a new enemy and that I had ruined the programme. After all, it’s not what you’re meant to do. When the BBC prepares a cockfight, you are meant to play your part, collect your fifty quid and ask to be invited back once the bruise has subsided. If you fold your arms and say you’re not playing, the BBC doesn’t have a show. I later learned that this edition of the programme had been used at BBC training days as an example of editorial failure, which made me rather proud.
I thought of that this morning after seeing flame-flowing, race-obsessed Kehinde Andrews listed among the guests on today's The Big Questions. He's a particularly aggressive cock.
And then, while watching the Andrew Marr show, I saw Nicky Campbell, previewing that very programme, promising "very lively and controversial debates" - i.e. a cockfight.
Such is the way of the BBC, promoting healing and a less aggressive national debate while inviting the likes of Selina and Kehinde to stir the pot and make it boil over, not for the sake of free speech but purely for public entertainment.
Fresh from having its ruling against Naga Munchetty squashed by the elegant shoe of Lord Hall, the BBC's Executive Complaints Unit has contented itself with upholding two complaints on the grounds of swearing. Mrs Whitehouse would have been delighted.
Over the past week, two rulings have been released. The first concerned the use of the f-word during BBC One's D-Day 75: A Tribute to Heroes in June, while the second concerned Nicky Campbell's mis-speaking of Jeremy Hunt's surname as 'C***' on Radio 5 Live in June.
They have been fully upheld on the grounds that neither programme gave a prompt apology for the use of blue language.
Tellingly, it's taken about three months for both complaints to crawl their way through the maze of the BBC's complaints process.
It is more that the BBC has surrendered to a politically correct or progressive culture that pretends to want simply to avoid causing offence. But the actual effect is a wholesale redistribution of power and influence. This culture has no problem causing offence to Christians through an erosion of Christian culture and ethics; nor, it seems to Sikhs, if we take Lord Singh at his word. Instead it prefers the victim causes of identity politics and Islam. Lord Singh’s vital and principled intervention signals the increasing restriction of freedom of speech and thought that the privileges of our culture are predicated on.
Very true.
I see. incidentally, from the Times report that both James Purnell and Lord Hall got personally involved in batting away Lord Singh's concerns.
*******
III
Talking of the Times, the paper also reports that Newsnight's Kirsty Wark recently told a literary festival audience that she got where she is today thanks to positive discrimination by the BBC:
I joined the BBC as a graduate entry when they needed more women. I became a producer young because they needed more women in senior positions. Now I’m still on television because I’m older. I’m not quite sure it would have been the same if it were ten years earlier, but I’ve been quite privileged to have the longevity of this career.
The top-rated comment below the article rather rudely says, "Positive discrimination. That explains a lot, Kirstie [sic]."
Following the BBC’s misconceived attempt to shame Boris Johnson by ambushing him with a surprise question from the “imam from Bristol” it seems that Nicky Campbell’s morning show (I believe it’s on radio 5 ?) also featured the good imam. Subsequently, Nicky Campbell himself felt moved to apologise on the Twitter.
I would like to apologise. We had the Imam from the BBC Tory leadership debate on our programme this morning. His social media comments have been extremely disturbing. We should have checked. We didn’t. I’m sorry.
All five candidates should be ashamed of themselves for rushing to align themselves with Abdullah Patel last night and to commit to Sajid Javid’s grandstanding call for an investigation into Islamophobia in the Conservative Party.
(Did I really hear Baroness Warsi demanding that this inquiry was to be ‘proper and rigorous’ thereby tacitly admitting that Shami’s was not?)
It’s absurd of the BBC to assume that colourful descriptions of the burka are Islamophobic. Why doesn’t anyone ask Maitlis and Co if they seriously think it’s in any way normal to walk about in such an absurd costume. Here is Dr Taj Hargey’s take on the matter:
“The burka and niqab are hideous tribal ninja-like garments that are pre-Islamic, non-Koranic and therefore un-Muslim.
“Although this deliberate identity-concealing contraption is banned at the Kaaba in Mecca it is permitted in Britain, thus precipitating security risks, accelerating vitamin D deficiency, endorsing gender-inequality and inhibiting community cohesion.”
He added that Mr Johnson “did not go far enough” in his column for the Daily Telegraph on Monday, which sparked widespread outcry.
This morning Nick Robinson interviewed Richard Ratcliffe for what appeared to be another spot of Boris-bashing. The gist of it was that Boris had tried to “blame” Iran for Mrs Ratcliffe’s predicament, when “obviously”, as Nick implied, it was Boris’s gaffe that was to blame. The Iranian regime was bound to leap upon any remark that might justify holding Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe for an extra stretch, and Boris’s remark was reckless, whether there was any truth in it or not. Fair enough.
Think about it though. Mrs Ratcliffe is Iranian. Her Iranian mother currently resides in Iran. Mrs Ratcliffe is in prison in Iran, as a kind of hostage, if you like.
Richard Ratcliffe could hardly say anything too harsh about the Iranian regime publicly, for fear that they would seize upon it and extend her incarceration even more. You wouldn’t want to annoy the Ayatollahs if your wife was at their mercy, would you?
So was the BBC wise to orchestrate that interview?
I had to smile at Nicky Campbell previewing today's new series of The Big Questions by telling us the show had "a brand-new look" and yet as soon as it began there was Peter Hitchens, 'the only right-winger in the BBC village', seated at the front, as he so often is.
I'm all for Peter Hitchens on the BBC, but he does seem to be 'the right-winger for all seasons' on programmes like The Big Questions.
The first Big Question today was 'Should drugs be treated like alcohol?'. And it turned out to be a very good thing that Mr. Hitchens received his usual invite becausewithouthim it would pretty much have been a 'let's legalise cannabis' rally.
Nicky Campbell raised a pitchfork-brandishing Twitter mob last night and sent them marching against the Mail on Sunday. His tweet read: "Appalling headline in the Mail Online. Beggars belief".
The headline in question was this:
Unfortunately for Nicky, lots of sensible people pointed out that BLACK DOG is the pseudonymous name of a Mail on Sunday columnist and the Mail on Sunday has a BLACK DOG column every week and has done for years.
Of course, lots of less sensible people were already incensed by this stage and weren't for letting this irritating fact get in the way of their outrage. They are raging on.
Nicky, however, deleted his original tweet. He then posted another one (minus any manifestation of contrition):
The answer, regardless of any silly Twitter debate, is that "it's the name/pseudonymn of the column/journalist and has been for years". End of story.
Join us at ten from Brighton where with calls from across the political spectrum for a second Brexit vote we ask whether the people should have the final say on the terms of the deal.
Today on The Big Questions, should the people have the final say on the Brexit deal?
The debate over who should have the final say over the Brexit deal continues to rumble on. This week the campaign group Best for Britain launched a legal challenge to make the government concede a second vote on Brexit. This comes on top of the private member's bill tabled by the Labour MP Geraint Davies calling for a second referendum on whatever the Brexit deal turns out to be, plus a call from Caroline Lucas, co-leader of the Greens, for a people's poll on the final deal because of its possible effect on Northern Ireland. Last year, Gina Miller's private action against the Government secured the right of Parliament to a final vote on the Brexit deal. But given the ever-changing demographics of the UK, where those who were most likely to have voted for Brexit are being steadily replaced by young people, who overwhelmingly favoured staying in the EU, we ask, "Should the people have the final say on the terms of Brexit?"
As regular readers might know (or guess) I am a big fan of Harry’s Place. I only lurk, because I made it a rule not to acquire an online presence by commenting here, there and everywhere. I might do that when I give up this blog. Also, I’m too much of a wimp to create a load of sock-puppets and creative IDs and pretend they’re not me.
What I particularly like about H.P. is the palpable sense of ‘family’ below the line, which I think is pretty unique in the blogosphere. I’m not saying I approve of the the vitriol, which can spring up all of a sudden for no obvious reason. It’s colourful I suppose, but that's the internet for you.
Lurkers like myself would probably have the impression that the general consensus on Harry’s Place is that the BBC is a bit of a lost cause.
"Come on! Harry’s Place is a lefty blog," I hear you say. Well, it kind of isn’t these days, especially now, what with the rise of Corbynism. And, of course it’s a Zionist blog, and the commentariat are not just any old commentariat, they’re the M & S variety.
So why am I saying all this? I nearly forgot. It’s about the BBC. However well informed, highly qualified, educated, literate and eloquent the btl H.P. family may be, they’re not all geeky about the BBC like we are. We seem to know all the presenters by name and can remember things they said years ago. (By the way, I see Jon Donnison is back reporting on hurricane Irma, as is Alan “I’m telling your story” Johnston.)
So when Sarah AB wrote about Radio 5’s breakfast show, which tackled the BBC’s flavour of the month news item, namely the news concerning some members of the British Army belonging to the banned neo-Nazi organisation National Action, the discussion inevitably turned to Nicky Campbell.
I know Nicky Campbell is, or used to be one of the pet hates of contributors to the Biased BBC blog. If you search the site for ‘Nicky Campbell’ about 200 posts pop up, mostly concerning The Big Questions or Radio 5 Breakfast.
"So nothing changes," I hear you say. "You’ve wasted about eight years of your life blogging about BBC bias, and had precisely zero effect." Well, that’s as may be, but in fact things do change. Have changed. For one thing The Big Questions has improved. I quite miss it when it’s off air. Is it that I myself have become more tolerant, or is it that the BBC has tried a little harder to get better quality guests? I don’t know, but when Douglas Murray agrees to appear on the show, it can’t be that bad.
And Nicky Campbell is a good presenter. He handles the volatility much more competently than many a hardened BBC professional. As to how much serious understanding of Islam-proper he has, who knows? He’s no scholar, nor does he claim to be, but let’s say he’s matured. Nowadays he seems less credulous when it comes to being taken in by the likes of Mo Ansar.
Here is another confession. I don’t listen to radio 5. I don’t even know how to tune in, should I suddenly decide I want to. I did follow the link on H.P. though, and I have to say the very tone of it wasn’t to my taste. I don’t want to be rude. Actually I do. It sounded dull, childish and irritating and I don’t think I’ll be visiting again.
Many people on ‘right wing” blogs (you do realise that anyone right of Jeremy Corbyn is now considered right-wing) have mentioned the BBC’s disproportionate interest in the news about four or five members of the British armed services being investigated for belonging to a “proscribed anti-Semitic and homophobic group”. That’s it. That’s how the group is being described, as if the BBC believes that hearing about that particular duo of hatreds is all we need to know to ensure we are horrified at the very idea. Well, we are. But when identical dual prejudices are associated with Islam, as they famously are, it’s somehow deemed insignificant. I don’t get it.
Incidentally, while we’re on the subject of BBC presenters, someone brought up Emma Barnett. She seems to be a BBC favourite at the moment, (you know how the BBC over-exposes its pet presenters till we’re sick of the sight of them) Grilling is Emma’s forte. One minute she’s demolishing Jeremy Corbyn’s credibility, next she’s humiliating the gymnast Louis Smith for mucking about in a manner offensive to the Muslims.
It’s indiscriminate grilling that grates. Yet we call for impartiality, and you can’t get more impartial than indiscriminately dishing out your grillings. Or can you? It may be technically impartial, but it seems unintelligent. Choose your victims wisely, is all I can say.
Here’s Pat Condell. (H/T Daphne Anson)
I don’t think that would be popular on Harry’s Place, but it’s a damn sight more sincere than the feigned 'game' - ‘find the extremist’.
Nicky Campbell popped up towards the end of the Marr show, as always, to tease us with the upcoming delights of The Big Questions.
Join us from Birmingham at Ten when we'll be debating Islam - do we misrepresent it? - then reincarnation - have some of you been here before? - and marriage - one of the last bastions of patriarchy or is marriage what you make it? See you at Ten on BBC One.
Here's how Nicky framed the first debate:
The activities of Islamist extremism across the globe have killed many more Muslims than people from other faiths, as we saw yet again earlier this month when 80 worshippers were killed and 250 injured by an Islamist suicide bomber at the Sufi Muslim shrine, Sehwan Sharif, in Pakistan. Last week Pope Francis declared that Muslim terrorism does not exist. Just as no-one puts the blame on Christianity when Christians engage in violent or criminal activities, so neither should Islam be blamed for the crimes of Islamists. Do we misrepresent Islam?
The front row contributors were former Respect leader Salma Yaqoob, imam Ajmal Masroor, author of 'The Islamic Enlightenment' Christopher de Bellagiue, Peter Tatchell, Dr Afshin Shahi from the University of Bradford, Sadia Hameed of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain, and humanist Alison Rawlinson.
I didn't get very far with it. When Imam Masroor stated being unpleasant to ex-Muslim Sadia (almost from his first word), I switched off.
Mr. Putin won't be happy with the BBC this morning.
First, on The Andrew Marr Show, came the Russian leader's best-known political opponent, the admirable Garry Kasparov, and then the first question on The Big Questionswas "Is Russian cyber warfare undermining the West?"
On the latter the (Kremlin stooge) Russian broadcaster Sputnik came under the most intense fire, with Nicky Campbell putting this question to its head:
Nikolai Gorshkov, I want to bring him in, editor of Sputnik news. We hear about this, various elections coming up. We hear about trying to undermine the opponents of Marine Le Pen and undermining the opponent of Geert Wilders - anything that will ultimately put a politician in place who will be anti-NATO and anti-EU. If I may say so provocatively, your puppet masters, they bump people off. We're on the same moral road as North Korea...you know, people disappearing, assassinations.
Nikolai Gorshkov replied that they are journalists, a news agency that gives people "an opportunity to see other angles, more context, background".
He got quite a roasting though, especially during a memorable, forensic intervention from Ben Nimmo of the Atlantic Council, which I'll transcribe below...
Look out here for Nicky Campbell's feeble, jokey play of devil's advocacy and, above all, for the way the BBC presenter tried to pile on the pressure for Mr. Gorshkov with a little 'alternative fact' of his own...namely that Sputnik is also guilty of being homophobic.
Spiked's Tara McCormack immediately corrected Nicky by (accurately) pointing out that it wasn't Sputnik who had called called backers of Emmanuel Macron "a very rich gay lobby" but a French politician speaking on Sputnik (Nicolas Dhuicq of the Republicans).
What is it with BBC reporters and presenters at the moment? Why do they keep making such mistakes during their attempts to damage someone's (or some organisation's) reputation?
It's especially ironic (and inept) that Nicky Campbell made that false statement about Sputnik during a section which was highlighting the point that Sputnik is a purveyor of false, propagandist news.
Anyhow, here's the transcript:
BEN NIMMO: Can I jump in on the question of the journalism? This is important. You ask, "What is the founding document?" It's the presidential decree signed by President Putin on the 9th of December 2013 establishing the Rossiya Segodnya news agency, which is your parent company, which says in Paragraph Four that the purpose of this news agency is "to communicate the state policy the Russian Federation abroad. OK? Compare that with the BBC charter which says the purpose of the BBC is to be independent and impartial. Then if you look at your reporting. Good example would be the 2nd of February last year - I do this all the time, so I'm afraid I'm a geek on it! - Donald Tusk presents his proposals for how to keep Britain in the EU. The Vote Leave campaign issued a press release on it. The Vote Remain campaign issued a press release on it. Reuters in their reporting quoted both the Leave and the Remain press releases. Sputnik quoted the Leave press release and not the Remain press release. If you look at the coverage over the last two weeks, last week the BBC did a feature on Sputnik and the allegations that it's a propaganda outlet which quoted you saying that 'we're not'. Yeah? That's balanced journalism...
NICKY CAMPBELL: Is the BBC blameless?
BEN NIMMO: Let me finish...
NICKY CAMPBELL: Selective reporting? Editorialising? I'm being devil's advocate by the way.
BEN NIMMO: OK. Let me finish.
NICKY CAMPBELL: Go on.
BEN NIMMO: The BBC quoted the allegations against Sputnik and the response from Sputnik. The week before, Sputnik France ran a feature on allegations of propaganda and bias by the French media in favour of Emmanuel Macron. Only one person was quoted in that story, who was a political opponent of Macron who was accusing French journalists of going to a Moscow rally for Macron and putting on his T-shirts. No French journalist was interviewed in that...
NICKY CAMBPELL: And also, if I may say, it said on Sputnik that Macron was backed by "a very rich gay lobby", so homophobic as well?
TARA McCORMACK: I think that was a French parliamentarian, a quote from a French parliamentarian.
Mr. Gorshkov, incidentally, has an interesting back history. He worked for the BBC from 1993 to 2013, beginning as a producer and desk editor for the BBC World Service before becoming a BBC correspondent and then, via BBC Monitoring, rising to be a BBC regional manager and, finally, the head of the BBC Hub in Ukraine and Moldova. He started as director of Sputnik in December 2014.
It’s hard to blog about the BBC’s bias without straying from the narrow remit of the BBC’s bias and gravitating to the bias of the interviewees and participants in programmes like TBQs and Andrew Marr’s Sunday morning annoyingfest.
I’m going to use the anti-Nigel Farage manoeuvre to say that I don’t see why we have to see so much of Rachel Shabi on our screens. She’s shrill, biased and irritating. (Maybe that’s why?)
Laura Perrins (and Kathy Gyngell) must have invented some kind of skin-toughening technique as they’re always going to be in a minority on the BBC, and will have to be subjected to boos and heckles, and endure the subsequent fall-out on social media. But someone’s got to do it, and luckily for those of us who want to hear the other side of the story, the BBC is marginally more interested in creating theatre than total consensus.
You can tell how this plays out in the way they frame TBQs. For starters, today’s Big Question about Israel . “Should the UK Trade with Israel now settlements are recognised?” is as imprecise as it is inflammatory. What do they mean “Now settlements are recognised”? Well, the term ‘settlements’ is almost enough on its own, even without the “are recognised” bit. Red rag to a bull, especially when the bull consists of the average panel, the average TBQs audience and yer common or garden average BBC viewer.
My guess is that the BBC saw the controversial (in Israel too) new bill to retroactively legalise settler homes built on privately owned Palestinian land as an ideal excuse to do a bit of Israel- bashing.
Never mind, this is the BBC and we know what to expect. Our loins are girded and our breath bated.
If we’re sticking strictly to the BBC’s bias, we have to confine ourselves to what Nicky Campbell did or did not say, and how he chaired the debate. I imagine he must have given a stern warning to the participants before they got started. Don’t get physical or something?
We already know that War on Want is much more of a pro-Palestinian campaign group than a charity dedicated to addressing “want”, so nothing Rivka Barnard was going to say should have been surprising. Her hypocrisy was challenged fairly robustly by Nicky.
The audience member with the red jumper was confused. I’d hazard a guess that he was a Pakistani Muslim who had been informed that something (Gaza? the PA? Israel? ) was the biggest concentration camp in the world. From the Naz Shah school of philosophy, perhaps.
Although Nicky let Paul Charney from the Zionist federation respond, I do feel that this would have been a good time for the chair himself to intervene over the slanderous and demonstrably false ‘concentration camp’ allusion, which he could easily have done, rather than leave it to the lone defender of Israel to whom the bulk of the audience might be subconsciously applying the Mandy Rice Davies response.
I found Professor Hogwash predictably devious, (But then I would say that, wouldn’t I?) full of the usual inaccuracies and pleas of victimhood - and then setting that sneaky little trap, asking Paul Charney “Do Palestinians exist as a people?” which Charney neatly side-stepped and let pass. Not even worth getting into that one.
Tom Wilson was the other panel member who was drafted in to defend Israel, (double brownie points for not being a Jew) and he duly did, making some indisputable points and posing some difficult questions.
I won’t even mention the BBC’s go-to Moderate Muslim Imam whose diatribe seemed to fizzle out without the finale.
On the whole the studio audience was less hostile to Israel than usual, and I do wonder if the viewers at home might be starting to see the light. At any rate I do believe people are getting tired of seeing and hearing about the Palestinians.
“How do you feel when you use Google?” Nicky asked Rivka Barnard, who wishes to boycott products from Israel.
It’s not just Google you’ll have to forego, though, if your anti-Israel feelings are that passionate. For example, here’s just one week’s worth of Good News from Israel. Good News from Israel / not such good news for BDS fanatics. Good luck with that, as they say.
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
New treatment to fight cancer. (TY Atid-EDI) I reported previously (Sep 2013) that Dr. Sarit Larisch of Haifa University discovered ARTS - a protein missing in tumors that regulates apoptosis (cell death). Israeli biotech ARTSaVIT is developing a treatment based on this research and has just received $6.3 million of funds.
NICKY CAMPBELL: On Tuesday, Mrs May held talks at Downing Street with her opposite number in Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu. Increasing trade and investment with Israel was high on the agenda. The day before, the Knesset, Israel's parliament, passed a bill legalising settlements on privately owned Palestinian land on the West Bank, in direct contradiction of a UN Security Council Resolution. Mrs May was clear that Britain opposes settlement activity and believes the two-state solution is the best way to bring peace to the region. Should we trade with Israel now the settlements have been recognised? Well, I've been doing debates on this issue for 30 years now. And it's never that quiet. It's very, very impassioned on both sides. We shall attempt to proceed in a civilised direction. Now, Ryvka from War on Want, many would say, "Are you serious? Come on! We've had trade deals with Saudi Arabia, with China, with Russia, with the United Arab Emirates, some of the worst human rights abusers on the planet - none of them a democracy like Israel is. How can you possibly justify this?"
RYVKA BARNARD (War on Want): Well, I think there's a major issue with the UK. The UK should be putting human rights and international law at the centre of all of its trade negotiations with all countries.
NICKY CAMPBELL (interrupting): Should we stop trading with all those countries?
RYVKA BARNARD: I think it's a question to be brought up. I think we can't talk about trade without talking about human rights and international law. That's why it's important for the UK to take action right now, move beyond words and suspend its trade relations with Israel because of its systematic violations of international law.
NICKY CAMPBELL (interrupting): If we stop trading with countries with human rights abuses, at a time when we need friends, we'd go out of business.
Ryvka Barnard
RYVKA BARNARD: I think what happens when you continue trading with human rights-abusing regimes like Israel, you're basically incentivising human rights abuse and you are giving a green light to say that violations of international law, doing things like building settlements, demolishing Palestinian homes, is OK. We might say on the side, we don't like it when you do that, as Theresa May did, but incentivising them with trade and especially things like the arms trade - the UK Government has approved over £100 million worth of arms exports to Israel in 2016 alone - those arms are used in violence against Palestinians. So it's a real double standard to say 'no settlements' on one hand but then to be no settlements but giving arms to the country that is building them.
NICKY CAMPBELL: You refer to Israel. Paul, good morning Paul, chairman of the Zionist Federation, former tank commander with the IDF, there's a couple of things I need to ask you and then we'll throw it out. I want to hear from the audience, because, of course, hands going up already. Ryvka referred to, in unequivocal terms there, Israel as a human rights abuser. How would you respond to what she said there?
PAUL CHARNEY (Zionist Federation): Well, that needs to be qualified. Israel, certainly by Freedom House, is recognised as the only free country in the Middle East. It has a very strong democracy. It has a Supreme Court. It is not subservient to the executive. It will look at this legislation and it will decide whether it's legal or not. There is a huge social housing crisis amongst the Palestinians and among the Israelis, and these towns that are expanding need to expand. So, it is a controversial issue and you can disagree, but the same time, if the UK disagreed with every country, with every political decision, it certainly wouldn't be dealing with China, it wouldn't be dealing with India over Kashmir,wouldn't be dealing with Turkey over Northern Cyprus, and the opposite would be true. It's not like Spain would cease dealing with the UK over Gibraltar, or Argentina would cease dealing with the UK over the Falkland Islands. What we need is to understand to put this into perspective, that the settlements are an issue but they're one issue, since 1967, that needs to be dealt with in the much larger framework of a peace agreement which the Palestinians require and when they want to build a home in a state for themselves more than they want to destroy and boycott Israel. When that priority changes then peace can be achieved.
Today's 'big questions' on The Big Questions, just like last week's ones, all seemed to spring from a left-liberal standpoint:
The first focused on the campaign to boycott Israel and the last - hinging around the desire of a married Muslim man (from Polygam.com and secondwife.com) to have another wife - discussed whether polygamy might be a good thing?
Here's how Nicky Campbell framed the debates today:
On Tuesday, Mrs May held talks at Downing Street with her opposite number in Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu. Increasing trade and investment with Israel was high on the agenda. The day before, the Knesset, Israel's parliament, passed a bill legalising settlements on privately- owned Palestinian land on the West Bank, in direct contradiction of a UN Security Council Resolution. Mrs May was clear that Britain opposes settlement activity and believes the two-state solution is the best way to bring peace to the region. Should we trade with Israel now the settlements have been recognised?
This week, the National Health Service has been acknowledged to be in crisis. Hospitals have been failing to meet patient targets for waiting in A&E, waiting for cancer treatments, waiting on trolleys, and waiting for ambulances to arrive. A key factor has been the inability to discharge patients no longer in need of medical treatment, that awful phrase bed blockers, because of the lack of social care in the community. And while the number of people over 65 has risen by more than 15%, budgets for adult social care run by local councils have been cut by 6.4% since 2009. Now local councils, who need to win a local referendum to raise council taxes by more than 5%, are raising or introducing charges for burials, parking, planning applications, and garden waste removal. And the councils with the biggest social care problems tend to be in the poorest areas. Has the time come to raise taxes to cover social care?
It's World Marriage Day today, honouring the partnership of husband and wife and their faithfulness to each other as the foundation of the family. But across the globe, monogamy is not the most popular option. Six times as many societies, over 1,000, allow men to have more than one wife. Although only four allow women to have more than one husband. Is monogamy bad for marriage?
The 'big questions' on this morning's bad-for-your-blood-pressure edition of The Big Questionswere framed as follows by Nicky Campbell:
This week there's been more protesting against President Trump - this time over his new immigration policies for people entering America from seven mainly Muslim nations. But Britain's moral high ground looks pretty shaky. Last week a report by the Home Affairs Select Committee slammed the quality of accommodation used to house many asylum seekers in the UK as "a disgrace" and "shameful". Filthy, vermin-infested conditions, inadequate support for vulnerable people, contractors housing far more people than they are funded for and asylum claimants being concentrated in a small number of highly deprived areas while richer towns and cities took very few. Can Britain be proud of its treatment of asylum seekers?
And this year it has been the transgender cases that have been hitting the headlines. Last week, a High Court judge decided that the wife and children of a man who was now living as a woman should no longer have contact with their father in case they were excluded from their strictly orthodox Jewish community. And another woman transitioning to be a man decided to have a baby before continuing with her sex change but objected to being called a mother by the nurses. Others have faced problems when placed in male or female prisons midway through their transitioning process. And on Friday, Russell Brand declared that he wouldn't be "forcing gender" on his baby daughter, Mabel. Should we have the right to decide our own gender? Of course, the very verb is contentious. It is not a decision for some people. It is absolutely what they are, it is escaping from what they are.
On Friday, the MP Dan Jarvis hoped that his private member's bill would change the Government's approach to child poverty. It ran out of time, at least for now, which is unfortunateas the number of children living in poverty is already rising and predicted to rise even more. According to the respected Institute for Fiscal Studies, the percentage of children living in officially declared poverty in the UK will rise from 14.9% to 18.3% in the decade 2010 to 2020. Relative child poverty, that's the number of children living in households with an income less than 60% of median earnings, will also rise over the same period from 17.5% to 25.7%. These changes would reverse all the improvements made to levels of child poverty in the previous decade. But critics say the bold figures obscure a more complex picture. Will more children be raised in poverty?
All were put from a left-liberal standpoint.
Of course, Nicky could have just been playing devil's advocate and simply getting the (emotional shoutfest) discussion going (though he was playing devil's advocate very badly if he was)...
...but his use of the phrase "which is unfortunate" in his third introduction was surely well beyond the bounds of strict BBC impartiality, wasn't it?
It surely strayed into party political matters.
(Some people - namely me - might think it sounded rather to much like a party political broadcast for the previous Labour government (and Dan Jarvis)).
*******
If the questions were typical of the BBC, then so was the studio audience.
At one point Kathy Gyngell told the TBQ audience, "It's very easy to virtue signal", and asked, "How many people here would take in a male economic migrant for an indefinite period?"
Nicky Campbell, seizing the moment, dramatically spun on his heels and asked the audience that very question.
Being a BBC studio audience, the majority of them raised their hands. A mere smattering of hands went up when Nicky asked them who wouldn't take such a person in.
Nicky said that showed what a compassionate audience it was.
When Kathy and Dan Hannan forced a third question on them, "And how many of you have taken in a migrant or a refugee?" only one hand went up (a pro-refugee charity worker).
Says it all really.
*******
I know that Nicky Campbell has his fans, but I can't say that I find he makes for pleasant viewing at times.
Or that he's even-handed.
His treatment of Peter Saunders from the socially conservative Christian Medical Fellowship during the transgender discussion, for example, was strikingly different to his treatment of the socially-liberal voices ranged against Mr Sanders (meaning, strikingly less respectful). Nicky's first interruption, "Please just answer the question", came literally after just second of his first answer - and, though he was then allowed to speak, Nicky's evident disdain for his views didn't seem to diminish.
Among its contributors are three senior BBC journalists/presenters - Andrew Marr, Nicky Campbell and John Simpson.
Andrew Marr's piece - "How a monumental establishment cock-up led to our biggest act of democracy" - is an expansion of his 'editorial' on last week's Marr programme. He even quotes Chesterton's poem containing the famous lines, "For we are the people of England, that never have spoken yet." The 'new' thing here is his latest prediction for where we're heading politically:
My guess is that parliamentary chaos and an overwhelming sense of drift at the centre of politics will propel us into an election later this year or early next year. If so, that will mean that, tactically, the Brexiteers, who don’t want to trigger Article 50 just yet, must do so before the people are asked for their view again. [He seems to be presuming that the people are likely to give a different answer].
And, of course, if it turns out that George Osborne’s blood-curdling warnings about jobs and investment turn out to be even half accurate, then those same cheerful gentlemen will have many personal apologies to make to people who do lose their jobs, or see prices rise and their pensions fall. There is plenty of anger still to come.
Nicky Campbell's piece shamelessly sings the BBC's own praises. He claims that everyone at Radio 5 Live wasn't remotely surprised by the result of the referendum. Why? Because of what's been happening during phone-ins. Up until 23 June, the fervour was coming from the Leave side. After 23 June the other side became fervent too. The Radio 5 debates have been great. "We pride ourselves on reaching far beyond the confines of metropolitan England," he says. (Self-praise is no praise, Nicky).
Both Andrew Marr and Nicky Campbell are careful not to sound like the kind of BBC types that 'people like us' are meant to imagine. John Simpson - that great, veteran 'voice of the BBC' - doesn't give such concerns even a moment's consideration and it's not hard to guess how he voted in the EU referendum.
I think I need to quote at some length here (though it's only a fairly small part of a long piece):
Forty-one years later, the sheer nastiness and mendacity of the 2016 campaign was, by contrast, stunning. So was the careless way many people wandered into the voting booths to vote on the entire future of their country. “Oh yes, I voted Leave,” a specialist at a big NHS hospital told me. “Well, I couldn’t make my mind up, it was all so complicated, so I plumped for No because I thought it’d make life more interesting.”
An opinion poll carried out immediately after the result was announced indicated that seven out of ten Leave voters hadn’t thought the referendum mattered very much. In comparison to 1975, we seemed to sleepwalk our way to a decision that could have the utmost consequences for the lives and prosperity of our children and our children’s children. “I hate the f***ing old people of this country for what they’ve done,” an engineering student at a notably gloomy street party in Oxford said to me afterwards. Another explained in some detail how the funding of six graduate students he knew would be cut off almost immediately. All of them, he said, would now apply to US universities for jobs there.
We didn’t appear unduly shaken by the murder of a young and immensely promising MP by someone apparently stirred up by the issue. “Britain first” or “Put Britain first”, he is alleged to have shouted as he shot and stabbed Jo Cox to death. To him, it seems, she was a traitor for wanting to remain in Europe.
In the two centuries since 1812, only eight MPs have been murdered – six of them by Irish republican fanatics, one by a lunatic. Jo Cox seems to have been the first MP to be killed for personal, reasoned views. Did this change the campaign? A week later, she seemed almost to have been forgotten. When the news of his victory came through, Nigel Farage had put the memory of her murder aside to such an extent that he could say the referendum result was a revolution achieved “without a shot being fired”. He apologised later, but perhaps it showed how far from the forefront of his mind the atrocity had been.
We know where such views 'come from', politically-speaking, don't we? They come from a standpoint similar to that of Mr. Simpson's near lookalike, Lord Chris Patten. They also come from a standpoint that many if not most of Andrew Marr, Nicky Campbell and John Simpson's BBC colleagues are likely to share.
Was it supposed to be affectionate but slightly ironic? Or was it another example of Islam infiltrating our cultural norms? In other words, does it demonstrate the BBC’s normalisation of Islam in the UK.
Putting into context by taking Nicky Campbell’s and TBQ’s past performances into account, it’s truly hard to say,
Remember, not everyone can be an obsessive BBC geek. Some of us know more than enough about a given BBC employee’s political affiliations and preferences. We trawl their Tweets and document their impartiality lapses, be they overt, covert, subtle, subliminal or imaginary. We might spot something genuinely worrying, or, on the other hand we might get over excited about something that turns out to be nothing.
Nicky Campbell has been eviscerated (and the contents analysed) by connoisseurs of BBC bias over the years, particularly as regards his radio 5 shows, which I’m afraid I’ve never heard. My radio doesn’t go there.
Lookie here. And, on this very blog, there are 12 items tagged Nicky Campbell! (only one was mine)
Personally, I do watch TBQs, not only for the pantomime but also to keep an eye on what’s going on. Watching one’s back. In my opinion Nicky Campbell does tend to over-apply moral equivalence. Not that he tolerates radicalism or violence, but let’s call it an almost rigid adherence to the non-value-judgmentalist, multicultural ethos preached by the BBC.
On that occasion Campbell’s use of that term may have been tinged with irony, but at the same time, in that particular context there is certainly an element of deference to Islam. Which some of us find sycophantic and - I don't know - disconcerting.
As we know, the BBC is used to pleading ‘we must be doing it right because we get criticism from “both” sides’, so maybe Campbell’s gratuitous use of this expression with an infinitesimal touch of irony is pure mischief-making. A way of hedging his bets and leaving enough mystique in its wake to please the Muslims while simultaneously heading off the inevitable cries of bias from the likes of us. Or maybe it’s none of that; just creeping Islamisation.
Meanwhile the normalisation of Islam in the UK grows apace, and if it makes some of us feel uneasy, we must suck it up. Happy Ramadan.
If you're thinking of watching Nicky Campbell's The Big Questions tomorrow (and may the Lord have mercy on your soul if you are!), The Times Literary Supplement blog has a piece about it by one of the people who will be appearing on it: Christian writer Rupert Shortt.
I say "appearing on it", but the piece make its clear that the episode of TBQ to be broadcast tomorrow was actually recorded lastSunday, so he's already "appeared" on it. Rupert is describing his experiences on a programme the BBC hasn't yet broadcast.
I had absolutely no idea TBQ was pre-recorded a week in advance. When you watch the Marr show and see Nicky's plug near the end of it, you see Nicky, his guests and his studio audience as if 'live', ready and waiting to spring into action five minutes later, just-as-live on BBC One. I'd also assumed there were 'live'. Not a bit of it it seems. Another little bit of BBC artifice, apparently.
Anyhow, I'm gathering from Rupert's piece that he found himself in the lions' den, so to speak. That wouldn't have been a surprise to regular TBQ viewers, but it seems to have been a big surprise to Rupert himself (bless him!):
Though promised “an in-depth encounter with more time than usual” by a Corporation researcher, I was largely relegated to the role of spectator. Apart from bowling me a googly (“Aren’t religions by definition exclusionary?” – a question almost impossible to answer in a nutshell), Campbell gave me no opportunity to speak at all. Instead, the baton was passed again and again to the shouters and mud-slingers, especially on the atheist side. One of the more constructive non-believers was kind enough to note the oddness of all this in a message to me afterwards. “Nicky is very uneven-handed in terms of the people he turns to”, this person wrote.
None of that, in fact, will surprise regular (or even occasional) TBQ viewers, and "shouters and mud-slingers" sums up much of the programme's regular invitations list to a tee.
It's all par for the course, frankly.
(P.S. The rest of Rupert's piece argues various religious points that I don't agree with {being a non-believer}, but enjoy hearing {being a very-slightly-regretful non-believer}, and I see his point about how his way of thinking gets repeatedly marginalised by the overwhelmingly secular BBC which confines religion to pigeon holes like Songs of Praise and Thought For The Day {his examples}.
...and Sunday, Sunday Morning Service, Prayer for the Day, Choral Evensong. Beyond Belief, etc {my extra examples}).
After last week's absolutely disgraceful edition on the subject anti-Semitism I really couldn't face watching today's The Big Questionson the question: Should we be proud of the British Empire?
I've not looked at the guest list yet but if I know The Big Questions the front row won't be full of mutually-respectful academics and authors. It will probably be full instead of flame-throwing controversialists.
So let's look at the programme's website now:
Taking part are the writer and historian Lawrence James, writer and historian Charles Allen, Owen Jones of the Guardian, commentator David Vance, the speaker's chaplain, the Rev Rose Hudson-Wilkin, the entrepreneur Dr Kartar Lalvani, Femi Nylander from Rhodes Must Fall Oxford, Dr Andrea Major from Leeds University, Dr Anindita Ghosh from Manchester University and Jagraj Singh from the educational charity, Basics of Sikhi.
Well, it looks as if I might be mostly wrong. I see academics and authors after all, alongside Sunday morning BBC One regulars Owen Jones and David Vance (and both Owen and David are first-rate, watchable controversialists).
Still, I'm going to sit this one out. If any of you watched it please give us your take below. (Consider it a (very) Open Thread if not. Did anyone watch Robert Peston's new show on ITV?).
I didn't need my blood pressure tablets for today's The Big Questions. No holders of unfashionable views were fed to the lions for once and there was no Verona-style brawling in the studio either.
The programme discussed Shakespeare and the Bible and the panel featured lots of professors, including Professor Stanley Wells. Everyone treated everyone else respectfully and everyone enjoyed themselves. Intelligent, entertaining discussion followed - especially after people started forgetting the 'big question'. It was all very civilised. (Those lions must be feeling hungry, poor things).
That 'big question' though was a typically provocative one: "Is there more truth in Shakespeare than the Bible?"...
...which points up something blindingly obvious about The Big Questions: its makers want it to be provocative, to raise people's blood pressure. It's good for the ratings and it can generate light as well as heat (though that's usually more in theory than in practice).
And it's not as if they aren't even open about it. Nicky Campbell called himself an "agent provocateur" today. And when Shakespearean rapper Akala observed, "Obviously the question was set up to kind-of diametrically oppose people", Nicky replied, with mock horror, "Not us!!"
Being provocative, therefore, is the nature of the beast...though who the programme is being provocative against may suggest it can be a somewhat timid beast.
"The nature of the beast". Now, is that Biblical or Shakespearean in origin? Apparently neither:
colloq.the nature of the beast : the (usually undesirable) inherent or essential quality or character of a person, event, circumstance, etc.
First appearance: 1678 John Ray's Collection of English Proverbs : It's the nature o' th' beast.
Incidentally, my favourite Shakespeare quote is Hang there like a fruit, my soul/Till the tree die! (from Cymbeline)as Imogen rushes to embrace her reunited future husband and he responds tenderly, passionately.
Only Baroness Afshar gets the joke (tough crowd for Prof Glees!)
I wonder if more chemists might care to open their doors on Sunday mornings. I suspect they'd do a roaring trade in blood pressure tablets and calming herbal remedies during Nicky Campbell's The Big Questions. It certainly doesn't make for the most restful viewing on a Sunday morning,
Take Baroness Afshar. (Please!). She laughed and put her head in her hands theatrically through out pretty much everything Professor Anthony Glees said this morning on the subject of Islamic radicalism and the PREVENT strategy, and was about as rude as you could get. (She later played the 'Islamophobia' card),
Then there was the usual BBC audience, loudly jeering Professor Glees or clapping attacks on Professor Glees for not saying the right things.
The central 'big question' today was "Is the PREVENT strategy stifling discussion in schools?"
Here's how Nicky Campbell introduced the topic:
Now. on Monday the National Union of Teachers conference called for the government to withdraw its PREVENT strategy in schools. Teachers say they're being asked to report even minor concerns about pupils who they fear may be at risk of radicalisation. The teachers say the unintended result has been to silence Muslim pupils in class discussion for fear their families might be reported to the security services. Is the PREVENT strategy stifling discussion in schools?
Watch it if you dare! (Or do something more fun instead).
The topic of BBC bias came up during the central portion of today's The Big Questions.
The panel featured many a Sunday morning BBC One regular - from Owen Jones, Jonathan Bartley and the Rev Peter Owen-Jones to Richard D North, but also included one Piers Corbyn - brother of Jeremy and non-believer in man-made global warming.
Piers said that only 7% of scientists believe in man-made global warming and that the globe is in fact cooling. He was duly booed by the audience.
Green Party supporter Jonathan Bartley then criticised the BBC for inviting people like Piers on in the first place. He told Nicky Campbell "You're not helping".
Nicky then made a short speech saying that the BBC has a duly to allow such people on and it's up to people like Jonathan Bartley to explain the public why people like Piers and Rupert Darwall (the other full-blown 'sceptic' on the panel) are wrong.
For JB, such 'balance' is wrong.
He and Nicky then shared a joke about the BBC allowing flat-earthers on. "I wouldn't put it past you", said JB. Nicky laughed.
The odd thing about Jonathan Bartley's protest against 'BBC impartiality' here is that Nicky Campbell had, at all times during this section of the programme, not even made the slightest pretence of being neutral. He was blatantly one-sided.
He repeatedly made the case for believing in global warming and the need for action. He waxed apocalyptic at times. He made several slighting remarks about people who don't believe in global warming. He encouraged one side, and challenged the other. He introduced Piers by comparing him to Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio (and he didn't mean it as a compliment)...
,,,and, finally, turning back to the lady from Friends of the Earth (after another burst of Piers) said "I think for the sake of sanity, I think we should give....I'm going to give you the last word."
He knew exactly what he was doing with that as he immediately added a 'BBC bias' joke: "There go the BBC again!"
Indeed.
How should people like Piers Corbyn be treated by the BBC? Should they be excluded (pace Jonathan Bartley)? Should they be invited on and then demolished and mocked (pace Nicky Campbell)? Or should they be invited on and argued with respectfully under the as-neutral-as-possible gaze of a BBC presenter (pace me)?
