Not taking it very well

 

Meanwhile, from an alternate universe near you...

Guess what's agitating these four people?

Yes, they're talking about the BBC's decision to end Nish Kumar's The Mash Report! 

As Francis Howerd would have said, Oooh noo, please, it's wicked to mock the afflicted! 

The BBC's bread magnet comes unstuck

 

Two critics of Nish Kumar

The Independent quotes Nish Kumar's reaction to the BBC's cancellation of his The Mash Report:

Responding to the news on Twitter, Kumar wrote: “A lot of people are asking me for a comment and here it is” – accompanied with an image of himself on the show pointing to a screen that reads: “Boris Johnson is a liar and a racist.”

Of course, Boris Johnson isn't a racist.

The Independent also quotes James O'Brien, the ex-Newsnight presenter, complaining:

The Mash Report, a comedy program critical of the government has been axed by the state broadcaster, reportedly for political reasons, and at the behest of a director general appointed by the government.

Of course, Tim Davie wasn't appointed by the government. JO'B is confusing the BBC director general with the BBC chairman. The BBC chairman is appointed by the government. The BBC director general is a BBC appointment made by the BBC board, and they appointed a BBC insider. 

In the present world of spreading emojis: James O'Brien = 🤡.

Nish v Nigel - An Update

 

This comment from Jeremy Vine's nemesis LunchTimeLoather on the Open Thread needs a post of its own (especially for readers new to the blog and just passing by and merely glancing at posts):

LunchTimeLoather: New Year's Eve seems a distant memory now, but some will remember Nish Kumar's remarks about Nigel Farage on the Graham Norton show.

Jeremy Hayes, BBC Complaints Director, told me this week: "I think there is little doubt that it would be regarded as offensive by Mr Farage but the test here is, I think, whether it could be said to breach generally accepted standards, taking into account that the programme was broadcast very late in the evening to an audience of adults. Not everyone appreciates Mr Kumar’s sense of humour, which is often targeted at politicians and can be quite brutal. Having reviewed the programme I do not think his jibe can be regarded as so extreme as to breach generally accepted standards and I am therefore not upholding your complaint. There is no provision for further appeal against this decision within the BBC.". 

JunkkMale: In a sane world, what this oaf ‘thinks’ is worth zippy.  

Vrager: Usual weasley response when the BBC doesn't think it will be sued for libel/slander.

Nish Kumar "brutally" called Nigel Farage "not technically a man, just a sack of meat brought to life by a witch’s curse" on late evening New Year's Eve BBC One.

His comments were clearly neither hate-free nor hilarious. 

And it came from a man who's widely regarded as being 'not technically a comedian', merely a very lucky, shameless, agitprop, bread roll magnet who's never been a hit with the general public but has been privileged and brought to public prominence - and claque applause - by the BBC overwhelmingly because he ticks a number of key BBC boxes. 

He is, perhaps, the ultimate barely-talented beneficiary of positive discrimination promoted beyond his abilities purely for reasons of BBC virtue-signalling (no offence). 

As they used to say on exam papers: Discuss.

Will Andrew Neil's new channel bring us Nigel Farage and Nish Kumar sharing a bottle of champagne and agreeing to disagree on New Year's Eve 2021? 

I suspect Nigel at least would be up for it. Would Nish though, lacking his BBC claque?

New Year Nish & Frankie

 

Other than talk and issue pleasant-sounding declarations of intent, I wonder what Tim Davie has actually done to tackle bias at the BBC? 

The Mail on Sunday suggests not much on the issue of bias in BBC comedy at least.

It really is striking that at the very moment when the UK finally, fully left the EU - 11pm on New Year's Eve - the BBC gave us The Graham Norton Show, which featured Nish Kumar insulting Nigel Farage (‘not technically a man, just a sack of meat brought to life by a witch’s curse’) and attacking Brexit. 

Meanwhile, Frankie Boyle compares Brexit to cancer on his own New Year's Day BBC show. (‘Having Brexit at the end of a year like this is like finding out your cancer has spread to the walls of your house.’)

What's happened to Frankie Boyle over the years is akin to what happened in the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires. Frankie has castrated himself and become a eunuch at the court of the BBC, living a live of comfort and influence in exchange for his testicles. 

Have They Got Bias For Us

In what must surely be the least surprising report into BBC bias ever produced, the Campaign for Common Sense analysed comedy programmes on BBC One, BBC Two and Radio 4 throughout November and found - across 364 slots - and found that 74% of the slots were occupied by comedians “with publicly pronounced Left-leaning, anti-Brexit or ‘woke’ views.”

So that's 74% of 141 comedians, with only two comedians - Geoff Norcott (of course) and Gyles Brandreth - holding openly expressed pro-Brexit or Conservative sympathies. 

Even DG Tim Davie has acknowledged that BBC comedy has a problem in this respect, so a letter outlining the findings from the CCS's director Mark Lehain won't be News For Him.. 

The Telegraph quotes Sir Robbie Gibb responding to the study:

This report starkly reveals just how much the BBC has to change to be truly in touch with the people who pay its licence fee. 

Comedy is not the exclusive preserve of the left and the BBC has a duty to reflect in its programmes the wide diversity of opinions held in this country, not just those with anti-Brexit or woke views.

But the real punchline here is the statement from "a BBC spokesperson". Its glib, dismissive tone couldn't be more BBC:

We don’t analyse our comedy by comparing numbers. We judge it on it being funny, how popular it is and whether it reflects a range of different voices and views.

The BBC always says "We don’t analyse our comedy by comparing numbers" to any quantitative study that comes their way - unless it's research that comes from, say, Cardiff University and tells the BBC what they want to hear! 

And "We judge it on it being funny, how popular it is and whether it reflects a range of different voices and views" is particularly galling as the study proves that the BBC's judgement is faulty and that BBC comedy barely even begins to reflect a range of different voices and views.

Well done to the Campaign for Common Sense for trying to prove the obvious, but the BBC have had a couple of decades of honing their responses to the kind of two-sentence brush-off quoted above and they were never going to get a respectful hearing from the BBC. 

***********

And then there's Nish Kumar....

As Charlie notes on the open thread, the Telegraph article recalls the following:

On a past episode of BBC Two’s The Mash Report, Nish Kumar referred to the BBC’s impartiality guidelines as a requirement to provide “a platform for widely-discredited views because the licence fee dictates we should pander to weirdos”.

BBC Complaints on Nish Kumar's "shovel-ready" 'joke' about Laurence Fox

So Nish Kumar's 'joke' about Laurence Fox's face being "shovel-ready"...

Yes, this is a leaked report which suggests that HS2 could end up costing the government £106 billion. Work on HS2 was initially delayed when construction workers discovered that Yorkshire was actually a load-bearing county. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said that the massive decision on whether to go ahead with HS2 needs to be a fact-based, or at the very least inspired by one of the more recent episodes of Thomas the Tank Engine. Almost £9 billion has been spent on the project so far, and the London to Birmingham phase is said to be "shovel-ready" - a bit like Laurence Fox's face.

...is not only ruled OK by BBC Complaints but was discussed beforehand by The News Quiz team and given the green light, as we learn from a reply from BBC Complaints that has been kindly shared with us on an earlier thread. 

YOUR COMPLAINT:

Incitement to violence regarding Laurence Fox 

Nish Kumar intimated that Laurence Fox's face should be hit with a shovel, by saying (apropos HS2) "... the London to Birmingham phase is said to be shovel-ready, a bit like Laurence Fox's face". This is incitement to violence, on a day-time family radio show. The show in question is Series 101, Episode 3. 

----------


Dear [redacted]

Thank you for contacting us about The News Quiz on January 24.

We raised your concerns regarding the reference to Laurence Fox with the programme team, bearing our editorial guidelines in mind. They respond:

“The News Quiz is one of the most established comedy programmes on Radio 4, offering satirical and other comedic comment based on notable stories in the news. This particular line combined reference to that week’s developments on the future of HS2 with the notable public reaction that was continuing to Laurence Fox’s appearance on Question Time, reflecting the strength of public reaction in some quarters.

We discussed the joke internally prior to broadcast, and felt that it was defendable as a play on HS2 Ltd’s own use of the phrase “shovel ready”. Nish is well-known for a tone that's occasionally confrontational. As a comedian from an ethnic minority, his act often touches on matters of race. Listeners may well expect him to be strongly opposed to Laurence Fox’s denials of racism, which emerged so controversially that week.

It should be noted that News Quiz is broadcast in Radio 4’s most established comedy slot on weekdays at 6:30pm, to an adult audience used to hearing a very broad range of comedy from gentle wit to the most acerbic black humour and satire.

We recognise that violence is a sensitive subject to be treated with care but, when taken in the context of a long-established comedy programme like The News Quiz, we consider that listeners would understand that the line was a dark joke, figurative and not to be taken seriously, and therefore did not condone any violent acts.”

We make listener feedback like yours available to programmes and senior executives on our daily report. This ensures we’re aware of how things come across at home - thanks again for taking the time get in touch.

BBC Complaints Team
www.bbc.co.uk/complaints

In conclusion

Just to sum up the last two posts, here's something I've just written to a friend of the blog:

It only gets worse (though it helps us).

CBBC (a BBC children's channel) gets leftie political 'comedian' Nish Kumar to present an anti-Brexit children's programme called Horrible Histories. He sneers at Britain and Brexit. It's broadcast by the BBC on today of all days, Brexit Day, to a target audience of 6-12 years olds.

What is the BBC thinking of?

Hordes of people are now, rightly, up in arms about it and complaining. The BBC will, as ever, flannel but the programme was outrageously biased. 

It also got its facts wrong [over British history and tea, and Mozart] - and it's meant to be an educational programme.

And now Andrew Neil has piled in on it calling it "anti-British drivel of a high order" and asking "Was any of the licence fee used to produce something purely designed to demean us?"

It's another bad day for the BBC.

Andrew Neil damns "anti-British drivel of a high order" from the BBC's children's channel (and Nish Kumar)

Thanks to Charlie for spotting this especially feisty tweet tonight from Andrew Neil concerning Nish Kumar and CBBC's Brexit special:

This is anti-British drivel of a high order. Was any of the licence fee used to produce something purely designed to demean us?

Well said, Andrew. 

So just what is the BBC broadcasting to children?

As discussed both here and elsewhere...

CBBC, the BBC channel aimed at children aged 6-12, has put out a programme today called Horrible Histories: BREXIT consisting of a series of clips from the long-running children's history programme, newly 'curated' by 'comedian' Nish Kumar. 

It may be aimed at kids, but Nish doesn't hold back on the politically-charged, anti-Brexit sarcasm.

A time and a place, Nish? Children's TV?

In fairness, he has a habit of doing the same routine, whatever the audience. It famously got him booed and breadrolled off stage at the Lord's Taverners' Christmas lunch. And again - minus the British bread rolls - in Brighton (of all places). And, actually, a better question would be: A time and a place, BBC? Children's TV?

Here's a clip, courtesy of a BBC tweet:

"British things… turns out there’s hardly any.”@MrNishKumar and @HHTV_ are spilling the tea on British stuff in #HorribleHistories #Brexit special ☕️ Streaming now on @BBCiPlayer 👉 https://t.co/2S40YIQuTG @RealMatBaynton pic.twitter.com/jn1EvbYZLX

— CBBC (@cbbc) January 31, 2020

Our old friend Alex Deane is surely right when he tweeted, "I can’t help but feel that the timing of this isn’t a coincidence."

Naturally, comments could be going better and, obviously, most of the complaints understandably concern BBC bias. 

But others are objecting to the 'onesty of 'Orrible 'Istories too, and to the programme's failings over the basic facts of the matter. 

Of the latter, here's the most widely-cited example:

When the BBC programme tells its young audience, for example, that "Tea is not from Britain, ma'am. From India it was brought", well, no, that isn't so. Tea is from China and was brought to India by the British.

The programme captions in capital letters TEA IS FROM INDIA as a fact for 6-12 year olds to take away, even though it's not true. 

(I can't wait to read the replies from BBC Complaints and Ofcom to this, as - apparently - plenty are going in). 

***********

You probably knew all this already, but here's where ITBB gives added value...Pedantry about classical music is very much My Thing. 

In the full programme Hilarious Nish (as he's widely known by nobody) recalls Great Europeans of the past, and asks:

Where would we be without Mozart? He composed Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, among other things. 

No, no, no, no, no, no, Nish, you're misinforming the young.

Mozart did not compose Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. The melody is an anonymous 18th Century French tune and Herr Mozart simply wrote a fine set of piano variations on it. And his variations were on Ah vous dirai-je, Maman not Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. Poor Wolfgang was in his pauper's grave by the time a British woman, Jane Taylor, wrote Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star to the tune. 

To channel CBBC:

British things, British things. I knew that there were many. (Even the words the BBC ascribes to Mozart.) 

British things, British things, afraid the BBC's wrong when they say there's hardly any.

The BBC needs a kick up its sagging Reithian posterior for this kind of thing. 

Nish Kumar does a Jo Brand

As it says on his name-tag (lest he forgets)

Just for prosterity, here's a comment from Monkey Brains that needs a post to itself: 

Incidentally, meant to mention I heard the News Quiz being used to promote violence against opponents of the Left. Nish Kumar said "...that HS2 would be shovel-ready...just like Laurence Fox's face." So next time Kumar comes out with his hypocritical "hope not hate" schtick.

Here's that 'joke' in context, should anyone wish to complain to the BBC about it:

Yes, this is a leaked report which suggests that HS2 could end up costing the government £106 billion. Work on HS2 was initially delayed when construction workers discovered that Yorkshire was actually a load-bearing county. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said that the massive decision on whether to go ahead with HS2 needs to be a fact-based, or at the very least inspired by one of the more recent episodes of Thomas the Tank Engine. Almost £9 billion has been spent on the project so far, and the London to Birmingham phase is said to be "shovel-ready" - a bit like Laurence Fox's face. 

It's little over a month since the BBC's Executive Complaints Unit ruled on Jo Brand's very similar battery acid 'joke' which it judged to have been "capable of causing offence beyond what was editorially justified", and that it "should have been edited out before transmission".

Wonder what possessed the programme’s producers to give this a free pass?

⍣⍣⍣⍣⍣⍣⍣

P.S. Nish was on Pointless Celebrities last week. There's always one, you know - the annoying celebrity who is trying far too hard to be funny, and laughing louder than anyone else, and clapping when no one else is clapping, and being unfunny and cringeworthy. Nish was that celebrity last week, embarrassing himself, his fellow guests, the studio audience and the audience at home. If only the studio audience had brought some shovels along.

Boo

Reading Rod Liddle's column in The Sunday Times, I see that Nish Kumar is to host the next series of Radio 4's The News Quiz. 

Rod reckons that he ticks a box...in that "like seemingly every other comedian employed by the corporation, he is about as funny as kidney stones or gas gangrene of the shin". 

You may recall that the left-wing comic did his act (i.e. a political rant) at a charity event recently. Not being in front of the usual obliging Radio 4 audience, he bombed badly and ended up getting booed and breadrolled (if it's possible to make a verb out of 'bread roll'). What you may not know is that he got booed again at a comedy show last Monday night, in Brighton of all places. 

It's turning tough beyond the BBC bubble it seems.

A little bit of politics

#TrollingTheGuardian

Bashing Nish

Nish

I can imagine a fair few eyes rolling, eyebrows raising and lips curling when they see that an article in today's The Times headlined Double standards of the smug liberal left has a byline naming Matthew Parris. But it's a fine piece.

What got grumpy Matthew's goat this time was a BBC comedian, The Mash Report's Nish Kumar ("a thirtysomething leftie stand-up comedian educated at a super-selective Kent grammar school and Durham University"), using the Index on Censorship’s annual “Freedom of Expression” awards ceremony to attack one of the newspapers funding it. Guess which one? Yes, every BBC comedian's most time-honoured target, OMG The Daily Mail. 

Matthew accused Nish of "going for the laughs he gets easily among the audience he presumably targets", and called his "diatribe" "intellectually flimsy", "barely coherent" and "smug and sanctimonious". (I can probably guess what you're thinking there!).

MP's piece ends:

Have I been too hard on Mr Kumar? He’s only a poor stand-up doing his nut, trying to earn his keep by milking laughs from an audience. But if, on an evening devoted to defending others whose stand-up is of another kind — a stand-up for freedom — and who by standing up risk torture, imprisonment and death . . . if on such an evening you suppose that you and your mates’ fashionable dislike of the Daily Mail is in the same frame, is on the same planet, as these brave souls, then something has dislocated in your world view.

Ah but, Nish didn't get where he is today by not pandering to his and his mates' fashionable dislike of the Daily Mail. (Or Brexit. Or Trump. Or Boris and Gove. Etc.)

Maybe that's on the application form to be a BBC comedian: "Do you dislike the Daily Mail enough to write endless jokes about it?". If you tick 'Yes', you'll be on a BBC panel show in no time, and might even get your own show. If you tick 'No', you're instantly shot, attached to a concrete post and dumped in Salford Quay where not even the most politically-correct BBC drama detective will ever find you.