Book plug?

Hmm. What to make of this morning's Broadcasting House devoting a full twenty minutes to an interview with John Bercow? 

It was certainly a nice book plug for the anti-Brexit former Speaker. His book got several mentions.

But Paddy did well in challenging him on the bullying allegations and on picking up on his ad hominem mode of defence, deployed with no little malice against two alleged victims and other former colleagues during the interview, and pursued the bullying question further. 

Mr. Bercow is more Marmite than Marmite (calamari?), it seems. Twitter Remainers thought he came across brilliantly. I thought he came across as a thoroughly nasty piece of work. 

"The hard Brexiteer of the ERG who insults Muslim women in print or the centrist London mayor who marches with Gay Pride?"

As regular readers will know, I don't mind a bit of Paddy on a Sunday morning, but not even I can defend him over this part of his narrative this morning:

After millions of us picked a candidate, so too must the Prime Minister. Which Boris Johnson will he choose? The hard Brexiteer of the ERG who insults Muslim women in print or the centrist London mayor who marches with Gay Pride?

How's that for a loaded dichotomy! 

And, of course, Boris was actually defending Muslim women's right to dress as letterboxes in that article, and he was actually joking about the item of clorhing they wore, but Chris Morris is otherwise engaged so probably won't be reality-checking Paddy over this. 

OK, let me just end this section by by reading what the Labour spokesman's told the Telegraph...

Professor David Abulafia

Yesterday Sue mentioned some comments during the newspaper review on yesterday's Broadcasting House, discussing an article in the Sunday Telegraph by former British diplomat Sir John Jenkins.

I did think myself of posting about Paddy's behaviour here. He often jumps in and challenges or changes the subject (or both) when something controversial-sounding comes up or when he thinks the guest is going too far - and he did it last week when Chris Neal began ranting wildly about Boris Johnson (as I commented here at the time) - but, yes, this was a particularly 'edgy' interruption and a particularly determined change of subject.

As well as being interested in what historian David Abulafia had to say about the story, I was also struck by Paddy O'Connell's dramatic first interruption and then his swift 'moving on' from the story:

Paddy O'Connell: David Abulafia, you want us to start...wherever you like.

David Abulafia: I'd like to start with the Daily Telegraph, at page 17, where there's an excoriating article by John Jenkins, who was British Consul General in Jerusalem earlier this decade, this century, and it's called "To Islamist Jeremy Corbyn is just a useful idiot", Now, the Consul General in Jerusalem - very interesting post, because he's not accredited to the government of Israel. He's effectively ambassador to the Palestinians - and here is somebody who really takes issue with Corbyn over his contacts with Hamas and who particularly takes issue over the fact that, well, if you're trying to talk to one side but you're not talking to the other at all. And indeed the moderates, Palestinian moderates, get totally left out of this as well. And he makes the same point about the Ulster Unionists as well...

Paddy O'Connell: (interrupting) So do you think all politicians should disclose that talks with everyone in the past. I mean, what's the point? How far to go back? And then do we look at everyone? What's the public record? What should it be?

David Abulafia: I think when one's looking at the leader of a major political party and when some of these contacts are with groups which are frankly terrorist groups - I mean, the IRA and Hamas - then it is a matter of very great public interest.

Paddy O'Connell: OK, let me just end this section by reading what the Labour spokesman's told the Telegraph: "Jeremy's a long record of campaigning for peace, democracy and helping to end conflict through dialogue and negotiation, while John Jenkins has argued against Saudi Arabia introducing democratic elections". So we can see that this argument will be back with us next Sunday. Thank you very much. Marie Le Conte, where first for you?

Kathy at The Conservative Woman has taken Paddy to task for this:

At which the programme’s presenter Paddy O’Connell, with an edge to his voice, asked: ‘Do you think all politicians should disclose who they talk to in the past?’ 

If you listen, you will hear Abulafia standing his ground. With significant weight, he said that when it comes to the leaders of major political parties, and some of these contacts are with terrorist groups, ‘then it is a matter of very great public interest’. 

Amen to that, I thought. But not so Paddy. Was he content to let it rest there? What, let a guest malign the Left’s leader without a comeback? ‘Ok,’ he said dismissively, ‘let me just end this section by reading what the Labour spokesman told the Telegraph: “Jeremy has a long record of campaigning for peace and democracy and helping to end conflict . . .”’ and so on, as though this was necessary balance to a slightly off-the-wall opinion. 

So is this ‘balance’ now the norm when it comes to Mr Corbyn, used to cut off criticism of him? 

And is this the exercise of impartiality or the abuse of it? Are BBC executives using a perverted notion of balance to dissociate themselves from criticism of Corbyn when what they should be doing is investigating and reporting on his known terrorist sympathies? 

I did think myself of posting about Paddy's behaviour here yesterday. He often jumps in and challenges or changes the subject (or both) when something controversial-sounding comes up or when he thinks the guest is going too far - and he did it last week when Chris Neal began ranting wildly about Boris Johnson (as I commented here at the time) - but, yes, this was a particularly 'edgy'-sounding interruption and a particularly determined change of subject. 

And, moreover, it struck me as very odd that in being 'balanced' over 'controversial' remarks about Jeremy Corbyn here (especially as Mr. Corbyn wasn't present to defend himself), Paddy then read out the Labour spokesman's claim that "John Jenkins has argued against Saudi Arabia introducing democratic elections" (without Sir John being present to defend himself). 

And that is 'controversial' too. 

As far as I can see, the Labour assertion is based on something put about by an online London-based news portal called Middle East Eye. (According to Wikipedia, it is Qatari/Muslim Brotherhood-linked, despite its denials.)  That said, the writer is none other than Peter Oborne.

Looking at a transcript of what Sir John Jenkins actually said his point is that the Arab world is a hard place for democracy to grow, that elections there tend to produce "tribal, reactionary, sectarian and unstable governments" and that Islamism and democracy aren't easily reconcilable. I don't get the slightest sense that Sir John would be unhappy if a genuine stable democracy was achieved in Saudi Arabia. 

So, after then reading Peter Oborne's less-than-nuanced take on it, it suggests to me that the claim the Labour spokesman regurgitated wasn't at all fair to Sir John (to put it mildly).

And yet Paddy simply passed it on.


P.S. Here's another Middle East Eye writer tweeting about a "hidden hand" (a phrase with a strong antisemitic pedigree) behind the criticism of Jeremy Corbyn over antisemitism, and a reply:

Gone tomorrow

You can’t say it’s never worth listening to the BBC. This morning I heard a speaker mention (on Paddy O’Connell’s Broadcasting House) a brilliant piece in today’s Telegraph by Sir John Jenkins, British Consul-General in Jerusalem, 2003-06. 

As I haven’t subscribed to that newspaper since their self-declared ‘move to the left’ I was pleased to be able to access it online by simply ‘registering’. 

Under the heading: “For Islamists, Jeremy Corbyn is a useful idiot”, this erudite piece by a person who actually knows what he’s talking about sums up Jeremy Corbyn and his ridiculous claims about ‘working for peace’.

In the interests of the greater good, I’ll respectfully steal as many passages from it as I dare. 

“When confronted with the evidence of his close association with senior figures from Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and Hizbollah, and his presence in Tunis at the 2014 wreath laying for Palestinians killed by Israel, including those responsible for the 1974 Munich atrocity, Corbyn says he does it all for Middle Eastern peace: if only we’d all talk to each other more, there would be no more conflict. 

Fine words. But perhaps Corbyn might start by explaining how exactly his meetings with these groups, his clear sympathies with at least some of their aims and activities, and his public support for them has helped promote the peace he claims to want – though has failed so far to achieve. “

How well I remember the BBC’s continual plea - that we should “Talk to Hamas’. It was one of Sarah Montague’s recurring themes.

“When Hamas won the last Palestinian legislative council elections, in January 2006, I was British consul-general in Jerusalem. Progressive opinion immediately demanded that the West should abandon its policy of decades, talk directly to the new Palestinian government and continue funding it – irrespective of its commitment to the politics of physical force, including suicide bombings and other terror acts, its refusal to recognise Israel, its rejection of instructions from the Palestinian president and its structural anti-Semitism. 

And yet the only thing that ever really mattered was for Hamas to talk to Israel. There is no evidence that Western governments or individuals talking to Hamas had the slightest effect on its policies, any more than our talking to Hizbollah in Lebanon, the violent Shia militias in Iraq or the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt had the slightest effect on them. 

The reverse was the case. These organisations used those who talked to them as useful idiots, persuading them against all the evidence that they were committed to peace while continuing to do what they had always done and believe what they had always believed: that the problems they faced could be resolved at the right time through force.[…] 

It may be that I too don’t get Corbyn’s exquisite irony (anti-Semitism as the new anti-racism: who knew?). But for anyone with a normal moral compass, it is hard not to think that Corbyn’s account of his activities is deliberately evasive and deeply troubling. He can clear all this up tomorrow by releasing records of his meetings and revealing himself as the man of peace he claims to be. If he doesn’t, many may unfortunately conclude that he’s just another delusional, virtue-signalling, right-on poseur. “

Since this is bound to be a long post, bear with me or scroll past the following snip from Justin Webb and Tom Barton speaking on BBC Today 24/08/2018

TB
“Labour’s defence of that point in context is that he was talking about a group of people, pro-Israel activists who were made up of both Jewish people and non-Jewish people and he was using….. 

JW
“I see….. 

TB
“…..to refer to…. this particular group of activists and not, they say,  to the Jewish community.

See? Here we’re talking about a group of activists, not just Richard Millett the blogger who apparently confronted Manuel Hassassian because he didn’t get the irony in the Palestinian Ambassador to the UK's comment: 

“You know I’m reaching the conclusion that the Jews are the children of God, the only children of God and the Promised Land is being paid by God!
I have started to believe this because nobody is stopping Israel building its messianic dream of Eretz Israel to the point I believe that maybe God is on their side. Maybe God is partial on this issue.”

Yes, it’s that old “Chosen People” meme, which is deliberately misinterpreted by most antisemites to infer a nasty kind of Jewish supremacy. 

However, it was Richard Millett himself  - he who supposedly doesn’t understand English irony - who, in his 2013 blog, pointed out the actual irony.  Which is, of course, that Hassassian started that particular rant - the one that Jeremy Corbyn thought demonstrated real English irony - with this gem:

 “We, the Palestinians, the most highly educated and intellectual in the Middle East, are still struggling for the basic right of self-determination.” 

If one needed to spell it out, which one really shouldn’t need to do - one would remind the good Ambassador that he has projected a bucketload of wishful thinking about who’s educated and intellectual and who ain’t. That’s pretty ironic - not the kindergarten-level ‘joke’ about “Children of God”. You know, when little kids crease up when pretending something false is true, that something big is small, or something black is white. Hilarious, if you’re three years old. 

Hassassian's joke is that “God” must be on the side of the devil. Ha very ha. But it’s not irony.

Anyway, for good measure, here’s the last part of the Today banter:

 JW

“Do you think this statement will make a difference, within the party - I mean I’m thinking about his own MPs

TB

“Well, y’know I think there is, within the Labour Party a group of MPs, Jewish MPs in particular who have and are, taking an increasingly dim view of the party’s approach to - y’know - this broader issue of antisemitism. There’s the…. the broader row around the code of conduct within the party, whether they should adopt all of the examples that are included in the internationally accepted definition of antisemitism and I think, incrementally, each of these new revelations, and I have to say I think this one, in particular, is causing many to draw breath whether that statement will ease their concerns, frankly I think it’s quite unlikely.

Here’s another report this time introduced by an old BBC favourite, Caroline Wyatt. 

She too introduced Tom Barton.

TB
“I’ve been speaking to Richard Millett who writes a blog about antisemitism, and for that blog he regularly attends pro-Palestinian events - events he where he thinks people might use antisemitic language in order to record what people say and write about to on his blog and it’s in that capacity that the was at a speech in 2013 y the Palestinian representative to the UK Manuel Hassassian, now, in that video that you mentioned Caroline, when Jeremy Corbyn was talking about Zionists who attended that event failing to understand English irony, now Mr Millet, who’s Jewish, said that that characterisation strongly implied that he was not English, and was, therefore an antisemitic statement.” 

R M
When they say that I have no sense of English irony, it strongly implies that I’m not English and that obviously is strongly offensive. It was unnecessary to do it, and racist” 

TB

And to be clear, you’ve lived in Britain all your life and you are Jewish but you also feel English?”

RM
I’m very English - member of the Marylebone Cricket Club, big supporter of Yorkshire Cricket Club, Leeds United Football Club,  my dad served in the army towards the end of the second world war, he built up a fashion chain and gave employment to thousands of people, he’s provided more for this country than Jeremy Corbyn could ever dream that he could provide for the people of this country.

(Hmm! Sterling credentials for Englishness, what? I’m obviously a bit foreign) 

TB
And Mr Millet called on Jeremy Corbyn to apologise to the Jewish community for those comments. 

CW
But Tom, labour sources have told the BBC that Mr Corbyn’s comments were taken out of context. What have other Labour MPs been saying, and has there been any further comment from the Labour leadership? 

TB
Well some Labour MPs have been very critical of Jeremy Corbyn. Wes Streeting said that the language used here was inexcusable and abhorrent while Luciana Berger said the video contained inexcusable comments - it’s also worth noting though that less frequent critics of Jeremy Corbyn, people like Catherine McKinnell MP from Newcastle North, Phil Wilson the Sedgefield MP also tweeted their support for Luciana Berger, which underlines I think, the concern among some Labour MPs.

There is some confusion about whether Corbyn’s irony comment was about a ‘group of Jewish and non-Jewish Zionists’ or just one solitary Richard Millett, but let’s let that go. The most ironic thing of all is that Corbs thinks only the Pro-Palestinians amongst us (and the Palestinians themselves, obvs) “know history.” 

That's so telling. I mean, it’s tantamount to a public declaration of ignorance about, (not to mention complete disregard for)  the whole “other side of the narrative”. 

Anyway, back to the superficial and typically shallow way the BBC has treated this entire here- today-gone-tomorrow debacle. (It looks as if it’s off the agenda already)

The way John McDonnell has repeatedly stated, unchallenged, that Corbyn’s remarks were taken out of context. 

Well, what is the context then? Isn’t it that the remarks were made in the context of an antisemitic conference amongst a whole bunch of virulent antisemites. That puts it in its proper context. There; “fixed it for you”, as they say on the interweb.

As for using the word ‘Zionist’ in its true, political sense - the term ‘Zionist’ may not be a convenient substitute for “Jew” every single time someone utters it, but nowadays it is nearly always used in a derogatory (and antisemitic) manner.  The true political sense is all but forgotten, if not totally toxified.

Back to my opening topic, "Peace." Jeremy Corbyn’s version of peace looks to me like this.  At the very time - the first time since W W ll - that his party is helping to create a more urgent need than ever for a refuge for British and European Jews - Corbyn’s vision of peace means there can be no specifically Jewish state in the Middle East. 

His vision of justice for the Palestinians means the Right of Return and/or international recognition of a hostile, predominantly Islamic, aggressive Palestinian State side by side with a weakened, vulnerable, indefensible Israel. Corbyn’s aspirations for peace amount to the creation of yet another of the most undemocratic, war-like, antisemitic states on the planet. 

One-track Broadcasting

This morning's Broadcasting House on Radio 4 was quite something.

It began: 

It's 9 o'clock. Hello. Good morning. This is Broadcasting House. I'm Paddy O'Connell. Here are the headlines: A campaign to force a public vote on the Brexit deal has been given a £1m boost....

Yes, the programme had made the People's Vote story its main headline. After reading out the headlines, Paddy said:

Ahead. Europe, past and present. 

Theresa May: The Article 50 process is now underway and in accordance with the wishes of the British people the United Kingdom is leaving the European Union.

Well hang on! The man who wrote Article 50 is here to talk deal, no deal or delay.

Hmm. Well, that's arch-Europhile Lord Kerr, someone who has publicly backed the People's Vote campaign.

I could guess where this was going, so my eyebrows were moving skywards even before Paddy mentioned who would be reviewing the papers later: 

On the newspaper review the Conservative peer Patience Wheatcroft, the film fan Gaylene Gould and the comedy writer Chris Neal. 

Yes, that's Baroness Wheatcroft, another leading figure in the People's Vote campaign! 

After the news, which, of course, featured the £1m donation People's Vote story, Paddy conducted two interviews on the Brexit issue.

The aforementioned interview with Lord Kerr, former UK ambassador to the EU and a long-term cheerleader for British membership of the EU, came second. Lord Kerr said that Article 50 shouldn't have been triggered so early, should now be delayed and can be taken back.

But Lord Kerr's interview was preceded by an interview with....yes, another Remainer: Ian Birrell of The Mail on Sunday. He passed on an overheard conversation between an EU ambassador and a senior British diplomat saying that a second referendum is now more likely than not.

I could hardly believe my ears by this state, but it got worse...

During the paper review Remainer Baroness Wheatcroft and comedian Chris Neal, who expressed his support for "ardent Remainers", both got to denounce Boris (though Chris's rant was quickly brought to a hold by Paddy, the latter doubtless thinking it was getting a bit too wild), and Lady Wheatcroft got to talk about the £1m donation, calling it "a great good news story", and to promote her People's Vote campaign ("...the People's Vote media hub, the campaign I'm involved with, where we are really, really striving to get a People's Vote on the deal over Brexit"). 

And, yes, there really were no pro-Brexit voices to be heard across the entire programme. It was pro-second referendum, anti-Brexit voices from start to finish.

Oh and for good measure Matthew Price came on to preview The World This Weekend, and guess what? Yes, he promised us more of the same:

We've got an expert today but we are giving back control to the ordinary, everyday experts. There's a man called Kevin Hopper. He lives in North Ferriby in North Yorkshire and he's an expert in the road haulage industry. He started when he was 15. He's now 60. He met the Transport Secretary about a week ago and he told him how it works now and how he's really worried about what happens if we drop out of the European Union with there being no deal whatsoever. According to his account, which you'll hear at 1 o'clock this afternoon, the Transport Secretary didn't really get it. So we'll be talking about that and wondering what would happen to Britain's road haulage industry if there is no deal.

Hmm.

Was this edition of Broadcasting House guest-edited by Lord Adonis perchance? Is Alastair Campbell going to guest-edit The World This Weekend today? I think we should be told!

P.S. Here's a tweet where the hashtags make the bigger point:

P.P.S. Lol. An #FBPE is happy:

Mad World

The BBC has been under attack for bias again this week.

You can probably put aside the celebratory bottles of Prosecco or (for Nigel Farage fans) magnificent English beer though.

The attacks have been without substance. (You might even call them 'fake news'.)

Nonetheless, the BBC has been preoccupied with them and heavily on the defensive against them. 

Examples? 

Well, there was Kirsty Wark on Newsnight on Friday night getting slammed by one of her guests after he'd appeared (at Newsnight's invitation) on her programme - namely Cadwalldrista Chris Wylie: 

Was just on BBC Newsnight and yet again they try to shut down an established fact: Vote Leave cheated and broke the law in the referendum. That's not an 'allegation'. That's a fact. That is the finding of the Electoral Commission and is why Vote Leave was referred to the police.

Thousands of #FBPE types, along with Carole Cadwalldr, Alastair Campbell and the other usual suspects (even Nick Cohen), then amplified this charge and it spread (like myxomatosis in the 1950s) across the interweb.

And yet it was all 'fake news'.

Christopher Wylie, Carole Cadwalldr, Alastair Campbell and all of the pandemomic legions of #FBPEs had either misheard or misunderstood (or deliberately misinterpreted) what Kirsty had said.

Even I grasped straightaway that their complaints were nonsense-on-pretentious-stilts on watching the interview after reading their complaints.

(P.S. I'm slightly stunned to be defending Kirsty Wark on a question of bias).

Kirsty Wark hadn't said what the Cadwalldristas claimed she'd said. Kirsty was talking about Chris Wylie's claims about Facebook not about Vote Leave.

As former BBC man Gavin Esler (now a fervent anti-Brexit Twitterer) accurately put it in a response to the head of the Cadwalldr community: "Carole, I am a great admirer of you work but Chris said Facebook acted illegally - that is an allegation. The FACT is that they found Vote Leave broke the law. My former colleague Kirsty Wark was being rigorous and accurate".

An entire Twitterstorm was therefore based on few thousand very vocal people (including at least two journalists at a respected Sunday newspaper, The Observer) either not understanding or not wanting to understand Kirsty Wark's questions and crying 'BBC bias!'

(Whither English Comprehension these days? Or can it all be blamed on Kirsty's habit of slurring her words slightly, as she's wont to do?).

BBC editors scrambled onto Twitter and the BBC Press Office was pressed into a rebuttal:

Naturally the #FPPE brigade didn't accept any of the BBC's rebuttals, even though the rebuttals were correct, and the storm has gone on and on, like...simile alert!...a mad rabbit hopping its way up Mount Everest without an oxygen mask. 

This stuff and nonsense is taking up a lot of the BBC's time at the moment. 

A second (related) example from this morning, with some typical and some untypical responses:

PETER JUKES: Arron Banks is believed to have donated £8.4m to the leave campaign, the largest political donation in British politics... “He failed to  satisfy us that his own donations had, in fact, come vrom (sic) sources within the UK.” Says  Damian Collins, Washington Post. This should be BREAKING news on the BBC. A cross party parliamentary select committee has concluded that Britain's biggest ever political donor could well have been funded by a foreign power. This is illegal. It's also treacherous. Silence in the face of this is complicity.
GUY LAMBERT: We won’t have a BBC in 10 years time. Endless tweets like this will kill it. Every day it’s “why isn’t the BBC doing what I want it to do in the exact way I want them to do it?” Most of them turn out to be untrue anyway. Peter Jukes will one day wake up without it and wonder why.
SCOTT MATTHEWMAN: Indeed, Damian Collins has just been on Radio 4 talking about these very issues.
GUY LAMBERT: Oh really? What show? I’d like to hear that ta.
SCOTT MATTHEWMAN: Broadcasting House. And his comments then made one of the lead items in the 9:30am news summary.
TOM JAMIESON: Was one of the lead stories on BBC news all day yesterday - interview on Today etc etc.
ROB BURLEY: Also, the DCMS Committee story is on the front page of the BBC website.
NIK MORRIS (to ROB BURLEY): Nice of you to catch up. Who forced your hand?

Ah, but to our old friend Scott's point that Damian Collins was on Broadcasting House slamming Arron Banks and Dominic Cummings (and thus debunking Peter Jukes's complaint), there's always something else for the #FBPE crowd to come back with and defeat Scott with. Here's one of their other leading Twitter voices, Tim Walker, reacting to that very same interview: 

Absurd larky isn’t-this-all-a-laugh tone to the Broadcasting House report on @BBCRadio4 on the fraudulent win of Leave in the EU Referendum.

Well, it wasn't a 'report'; it was an interview. And it was with Damian Collins, the man Carole Cadwalldr & Co. are praising today. And it was the programme's lead story. And it wasn't larky. It was just Paddy O'Connell doing what he always does in his usual manner.

So, yes, even when - as on Newsnight or Broadcasting House - such people are seeing their favourite stories get prominent and extensive BBC treatment - and, in BH's case, just seeing someone from their side of the argument being interviewed, it still isn't enough. The tone has be how they'd like it too. Paddy has to stop being Paddy just for them.

And there's more - again from this morning:

HELEN TROY: BBC News gives more prominence to possible cheating in Football World Cup award to Qatar than Leave fraud and cheating in 2016 referendum.
TIM WALKER: Every day now, the BBC allows Rupert Murdoch’s Brextremist newspapers - and the Daily Mail - to decide what is news

Of course they are, Tim, of course they are! (Nurse, nurse!)

And it goes on. The World This Weekend this weekend has been under sustained rocket attack from the same social media crowd for not going with the Arron Banks/Dominic Cummings Leave fraud story and, worse, for going instead with the possible suspension of Ian Austin from the Labour Party and making antisemitism in the Labour Party the programme's main focus.

Please gird up your loins in advance because here's a flavour of those complaints (without corrections to spelling or grammar!):

• Utterly appaling extended hatchet job on Corbyn and abour by the BBC on #wato starring critics of Corbyn including Ian Austin.
• #wato had nothing on Banks, Leave campaign after Joe Cox's murder and nothin on the threats to our democracy today. Again. Come on @BBC stop failing Britain.
• #wato talking to a Jewish Family this is sounding very rehearse and very political this isn’t a Vox Pop, But an Attack On Lab allows no new nuance allowed on #wato 25 Mins in examples of AS thin on the ground BBC Making a Martyr Of Ian Austin #really
• Serious concern re fake news, Facebook and Fascist Banks and the threat to democracy, major discussion on BBC Radio 4 lunchtime news, er no. Programme devoted to @jeremycorbyn anti-antisemitism smear campaign.
• This is only an 'ongoing controversy' because #wato and #bbcnews keep up their trolling and abuse of Jeremy Corbyn.
• 25minutes of anti Corbyn and AS... seriously our country is not being governed, we’re being warned of food shortages and this is what the bbc chooses to lead with......
• What other program would give one hand picked Jewish family from North London the right to "speak for all Jews"? #wato also Diamond just this minute substituted Ms Schindler's word "discrimination" for "persecution". This is propaganda.
• #WATO 30 mins of prime @BBCNews spent on anti semitism in Labour. Is this a legitimate way to spend licence payers money?
• Why didn't Johnny Diamond interview Michael Rosen and his family? Why is he so keen to misrepresent what Jews believe? This looks like an attempt to corrupt democracy.
• It would appear that @BBCRadio4 has decreed that the whole of #wato will be nothing but #torypropaganda on AS and Corbyn. Utterly incredible.
•  Ian Austin is charged with being abusive. Why does @bbcnews grant several minutes of prime BBC Radio 4 lunchtime news to give his side, but the other side or witnesses not heard? Balance, impartiality? 
• This is one of the worst examples of #bbcbias I have ever heard on #wato and I have heard plenty. #bbcstatepropaganda, #bbctorypropaganda

Not content with having their story of choice as the lead item on Broadcasting House such people also wanted it to be the main story on The World This Weekend.

And they must definitely don't want antisemitism in the Labour Party to be made a made topic of conversation on the BBC, even on the day when Ian Austin MP followed Margaret Hodge MP down the disciplinary route.

Yes, they want it all their own way. 

The extended feature itself was scrupulously 'balanced'. First came Ian Austin MP and then the Schindler family. They were in the anti-Corbyn camp. Then came Professor Geoffrey Bindman QC and Richard Burgon MP to represent the pro-Corbyn camp. 

However, after all of this onslaught of foolishness from 'the other side', what do you make of this framing narrative from Jonny Dymond (aka Johnny Diamond) prior to his interview with Mr Corbyn-friendly Sir Geoffrey Bindman? (The emphases underlined here are Jonny's, though the bold emphases are mine):

Cathy Schindler there referred to the ongoing controversy over Labour's adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition of anti-Semitism. The refusal to adopt the definition and working examples in full has caused some to doubt the party's commitment to the battle against anti-Semitism. That refusal was in part of the reason why, this week, three Jewish newspapers put on their front pages a statement of their deep concern about Labour's position on anti-Semitism. Why? They said that Jews faced an existential threat if Labour came to power. But the party has adopted the code in full and, in effect, all but one half of the examples that were issued alongside the code. The single sentence that it has not adopted from the one working example has been admitted, it says, so as to allow for legitimate criticisms of Israel. The adoption of the code has yet to be voted on and is still up for consultation.

What do the Twitter crowd (who seems to have missed) make of that?

There's the BBC's Jonny telling The World this Weekend listeners that Labour has basically adopted the IHRA in full, except for "all but" half the added examples and a "single sentence" that sounds entirely reasonable. And it's all up for discussion.

So what's the problem, eh?

And that statement was immediately followed by Jonny introduced Sir Geoffrey, who reinforced this message about the good will and good wording of the Labour re-working of the IHRA definition of antisemitism.

And how did Jonny introduce the controversial QC?

Sir Geoffrey Bindman is a senior barrister, human rights lawyer and visiting Professor of Law at University College London.

Aha, an expert (of a certain kind)!

Is this a case of me being as silly and partisan as the Corbynista/Cadwalldrista crowd? Or am I being reasonable in my criticism of the BBC while the others are being unreasonable?

You decide!

Meanwhile, I'm going back to my early teens and a favourite pop song of mine at the time. (Will it finally overpower the overpowering voice of Comrade McDonnell on this blog?...Update: Aargh, no. It looks as if we're cursed with Old McDonnnell for a view days more yet!

Paddy O'Connell falls for fake news

Poor Hugh Sykes got teased on Radio 4's Broadcasting House this morning for misidentifying a singing bird in his garden. He thought it was a blackbird but a hundred or so BH listeners protested that it was a thrush. Apparently he has form too, getting his swallows and swifts mixed up in Syria a few years ago. 

Meanwhile his teaser, Paddy O'Connell, was busy telling the audience:

The rapper Kanye West has come out for Donald Trump. West, who praised their shared dragon blood, gained an important friend in the White House but lost 10 million followers on Twitter.

Now, Paddy should have then got his Trump impersonator to say, "Paddy, you're FAKE NEWS!", because that was fake news. As The Independent put it:

Kanye West isn't actually losing followers on Twitter despite his use of it to support Donald Trump. 

In the wake of West's string of posts, a number of websites claimed that his follower count had dropped by millions in just a few minutes. A number of viral tweets suggested that his follower count had dropped by nine million users in just a few minutes, after he posted tweets including a picture of a signed Make America Great Again hat. 

But despite the controversy around the posts, West's followers do seem to be staying the same, at around 27 million. The number might be changing on some people's screens, but that appears to be a problem with Twitter rather than people taking issue with his posts. 

A Twitter spokesperson that the fluctuations were a mistake. 

"We can confirm that Kanye's follower count is currently at approximately 27M followers," the company said. "Any fluctuation that people might be seeing is an inconsistency and should be resolved soon."

In fact, Kanye appears to be closing in on 28M followers now.

Oh Paddy!

As a New Year dawns...

(h/t StewGreen)

This is a good start to the New Year. Paddy O'Connell is promising to correct his mistake about Lord Adonis on next week's Broadcasting House. If he also credits John Longworth for being correct in that apology, it would be admirable behaviour indeed. 

Paddy O'Connell mounts his high horse and promptly falls off

Lord Adonis

Returning to this morning's Broadcasting House on Radio 4, I really do have to note this startling confrontation between presenter Paddy O'Connell and Leave Means Leave co-chairman John Longworth: 

John Longworth: I find this quite remarkable because Lord Adonis, of course, is a classic example of somebody's who's not been elected, has been appointed, doesn't represent anybody and is a classic of the Whitehall problem which is...

Paddy O'Connell: [interrupting] But he was a minister, he was elected, he was an MP.

John Longworth: Well....he has been in the past...yeah...

Paddy O'Connell: [interrupting] But unlike you and me he has been elected. 

John Longworth: He has been in the past...

Paddy O'Connell: [interrupting] That's a point of fact! He has been!

John Longworth: OK, OK, fair enough, but...but...

Paddy was very assertive there and temporarily put Mr Longworth off his stride.

But there's one major problem with his rant at Mr Longworth: He was wrong.

Lord Adonis has never been elected as an MP. He tried to become an MP but didn't succeed. The only time he's ever been elected was in 1987 when he was elected (for four years) for the North Ward on Oxford City Council. He was appointed to the House of Lords in 2005, making it possible for him to become a government minister.  

Hopefully Paddy will start the New Year on next week's edition of Broadcasting House by publicly apologising to Mr Longworth and putting the record straight for Radio 4 listeners. 

What Jeremy Vine Learnt, plus Samira Ahmed's Nigelophobia

Someone Samira Ahmed wants to hear less from

This morning's Broadcasting House featured an opinion piece from Jeremy Vine (brother of comedian Tim Vine) based a book he's going to publish next year called What I Learnt: What My Listeners Say - and Why We Should Take Notice. 

Jeremy's argument was that the views of you and I are more valuable than those of experts. Experts have disgraced themselves over everything from diesel in cars, to fat 'making us fat', to the financial crash of 2008; indeed, they've done serious harm. He'd rather hear first-hand accounts from the man and woman in the street than listen to experts, as the people have a wisdom derived from lived experience. He'd rather hear from the astronaut than the astronomer. "An expert in parenting is a mother of five. An expert in Lyme Disease is someone who's had it for five years. An expert in ladders if someone who's fallen off  one." This is the future, he said.

Well, well! Jeremy Vine the Populist!

What followed was a lively discussion between expertophile Samira Ahmed of the BBC's Newswatch (who disagreed strongly with Jeremy) and expertosceptic Toby Baxendale of the Legatum Institute (who thought there was some truth in his argument). It's well worth a listen.

Incidentally, in the course of this discussion, Samira mounted one of her favourite hobby-horses again. Citing "viewers", she said, "They'll challenge, 'Why does Nigel Farage get on so often?'".

Now, as regular readers will know (see here and here and here and here and here), that's also Samira's own view, expressed umpteen times on Twitter over the past year or more. She doesn't believe it's "responsible" of the BBC to give him such airtime.

The discussion ended:

Samira Ahmed: What really worries me as a person listening to the audience is how often it's the same privileged people who are pushing their personal point of view. That's not expertise, and that's not experience either. Nigel Farage is not the experience of the nation. 

Paddy O'Connell: No. I think that is probably...no one is going to write to disagree with you there. Thank you very much indeed, both of you. 

Does anyone fancy proving Paddy wrong and writing to suggest that the man who led a often lonely-seeming campaign to get us a referendum on the UK's EU membership and whose apparently unpopular cause eventually received the support of 52% of the UK population (17.4 million people) might just reflect more of 'the experience of the nation' than, shall we say, Samira Ahmed? 

Another sign of the times

Another sign of the times. 

This morning's Broadcasting House paper review heard Helen Pidd of the Guardian bringing up a Daily Mail piece headlined Our swimming pond is NOT gender fluid: Fury of Hampstead Heath ladies after men identifying as women are allowed into their famous bathing lake. 

I'd already read a similar story in The Times, headlined The female NHS nurse I asked for came with stubble which began, "A woman who requested a female NHS nurse to perform her cervical smear test was “embarrassed and distressed” after a person with stubble and a deep voice summoned her for the intimate procedure." 

Being a good Guardian gal (if I'm allowed to say that), Helen declared, "But what we need to remember here [a very Guardian way to put it] is we're not talking about men. We're talking about transgender women who who've taken the very difficult decision, a very painful, costly decision, which will probably mean they're subject to a lot of abuse, to transition into a woman and I just don't think they'll be there to perv on woman in the changing rooms". 

So far, so predictable. But then came the two male press reviewers (if I'm allowed to call them that). The first said, "I'm not sure it's my place to comment on it". The second said, "Probably not" to Paddy's question, "Do you want to wade into these waters?".

Paddy read out feminist Julie Bindel's response. 

Lip-smacking, sandal-wearing, muesli-eating, left-leaning pinkoes

So it's not just Corbynistas who have been making hay with the appointment of the BBC's Robbie Gibb to be Mrs May's director of communications. Paddy O'Connell was coming the old 'complaints from both sides' game on Broadcasting House this morning: 

Downing Street has poached a man called Gibb from the BBC as its new director of communications. We thought this was Robbie Gibb, but it can't be him because the Right has long feared the BBC is full of lip-smacking, sandal-wearing, muesli-eating, left-leaning pinkoes. So has Mrs May instead hired another Gibb, Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees? 

(Cue a 'humorous' item on Bee Gees songs with messages for Mrs May -'For Whom the Bell Tolls', 'Stayin' Alive', 'Heartbreaker', 'You Win Again' and 'Tragedy' - and what splendid songs they are!). 

Private Eyes

This morning's Broadcasting House made for a pleasant listen, as ever.

This week's Slow Listen feature (minus any sighing) featured a minute's worth of the sound of a steam train in motion (along the magical Settle-to-Carlisle railway). I'd have happily scrapped The Archers for a full hour of it.

The paper review featured Britain's only Conservative-supporting comedian - his phrase! He was quite funny, and certainly much funnier than Vince Cable.

The big interview of the day was with Ian Hislop of Private Eye, in the wake of the apparent eruption of satire (mainly Saturday Night Live) since Donald Trump became president. 

Paddy kept telling us how well the magazine is doing, sales-wise - especially since Brexit and Trump. And Ian sounded as pleased as (Punch) punch about that.

Paddy did disagree with Ian a bit. Paddy (being Radio 4) suggested that satire is predominantly left-wing. (Listening to Radio 4 comedy, who could blame him for thinking that?). Ian said that's not actually true and that satire is, in fact, inherently conservative (with a small 'c'). 

Paddy also raised the following concern: 

If we come home, do you think that the Conservative Party have been given a free pass, in the sense that there's been a lot of focus on the Labour Party's divisions, but David Cameron has run off to the Cotswolds. He called the In-Out referendum. Boris Johnson was stabbed in the face by Michael Gove. And yet the attention of the media, pretty much, has been on the Labour Party. Is that fair?

All I can say is that Paddy mustn't have been watching Have I Got News For You very often!

With the Brexit, with Donald Trump, with the new missile test in Korea...

Though I remain a fan of Paddy O'Connell's Broadcasting House and enjoy hearing the occasional contributions of sound recordist Chris Watson, Paddy's 'slow radio' theme (featuring Mr Watson) has a very 'BBC' undercurrent to it: The news at the moment is so awful (Brexit, Trump, etc), so wouldn't it be lovely to escape from it for a minute or so and listen to the sounds of a Finnish lake instead? 

Paddy gave that recurring BH theme a classic, sighing statement this morning: 

With the Brexit, with Donald Trump, with the new missile test in Korea, with...I can get updates even while I'm asleep of all of this...do you actively seek out a world where there are no humans?

Nice linkage of Brexit with the North Korean nuclear test there, Paddy! 

Not sticking with the papers

This morning's Broadcasting House saw Brexit being discussed during the paper review (with a balanced-sounding panel on the subject). 

Paddy always likes to keep things tied to what's in the papers ("Stick to the papers!") but, unusually, broke his own rule today by twice pushing a theme no one else was discussing and which didn't seem to be in any of the papers under discussion: 

Here's a question that I think Radio 4 listeners would like to know, that should be answered by...I don't know if you can answer it...Should our parliament have a vote on the Brexit deal? So, in other words, yes, Brexit does mean Brexit but the shape of the deal - which will have very important things in it - should our parliamentarians have a vote?

His press panel bit on that slightly before getting into a lively debate about fishing quotas and the EU. Paddy, pursuing his original line, responded...and then moved on to a new subject:

And then we come back to the point about when do MPs get to review all this material. Now, Andrew Pierce,...

Now, I'm (perhaps controversially in these parts) quite a Paddy fan but even I could smell something fishy about his random-seeming interventions there. Our Eurovision-obsessed BH presenter sounded as if he was singing from the same Abba sheet music as Mark Mardell today. (The Brexit-voting United Kingdom jury duly awards him nil points).

Interesting LBC's Shelagh Fogarty, in responding to Paddy's first question, said: 

Well, my listeners on LBC, talking about that very question this week...It's amazing how many people who voted Brexit believe that is an attempt just to thwart Brexit and those who voted to Remain say 'Yes, yes, yes, we must have a vote!' 

And Paddy seemed to be questioning, like Mark Mardell, from the standpoint of the latter (losing) side of the argument this morning.

Paddy makes an analogy

Tim Loughton, acting chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, was on Broadcasting House this morning to discuss the committee's Antisemitism in the UK report. Paddy O'Connell put the following, startling question to him (in defence of Jeremy Corbyn):

But then...did you...did you...did you hear evidence that 75% of antisemitic incidents come from far-right sources? Did you hear that evidence?...So...(inaudible)...with Mr Corbyn...It would be the same, isn't it, as saying, with the volume of hate crime in Britain, which is rising, is somehow something to do with Theresa May? That the people who are picking on black people, Muslim people, in the country, Asian people, post the Brexit referendum, you could say that, somehow, that was linked to the Prime Minister?

Michael Crick on UKIP

Alan at Biased BBC....(in a piece headlined 'BBC Stalinists grind out the propaganda' - something which might well win Seumas Milne and the Corbynistas back to the BBC again!)....gives the BBC a good right hook over this morning's Broadcasting House and its treatment of UKIP: 

This morning on R4’s Broadcasting House we heard another addition to the BBC’s long sneer (28 mins) at UKIP as it again tried to paint it as racist and an irrelevant rabble.  We were told we’d have a quick run down of UKIP background but you’d have little idea that this has been a highly successful party that has brought the Liberal Establishment to a heightened state of panic, not only as it disembowels Labour and scoops up its supporters with 4 million voters, but has also been the driving force behind one of the most momentous events in British political history…Brexit of course.  The BBC preferred to mock and ‘Trumpify’ it by suggesting it is packed with violent, sexist, probably racist, back-stabbing people who have no interest in ‘ideology’.  They dragged in Michael Crick to do a little hatchet job….apparently UKIP is the worst of the worst…no other political party has any of its problems or attitudes.  The presenter finished off of course with a suggestion that the ‘tone’ of UKIP was a bit nasty…..again based upon what? 

That final comment from the presenter (Paddy O'Connell) was an evidently pre-prepared closing question to UKIP donor Ko Barclay: 

You raised that you're an immigrant, and on the radio people don't know that unless you raise it, which you've kindly done, but it helps me in the final question: Does a little bit of you, who has funded UKIP, worry about a tone in British politics which has left some immigrants frightened? Does a little bit of you, who has given £600,000 to UKIP, worry?

Michael Crick (that old basher of the political Right) was audibly dripping with salaciousness over UKIP's goings-on. He said that UKIP people are forever bombarding him with "incredibly juicy" gossip about each other - sexual, political but rarely ideological - and that he's even thought of writing a book about UKIP called Beer, Blood and Semen. 

He did, however, also say:

It seems to me that the potential for UKIP right now is massive. Those millions of people who regard themselves as left out, who are badly paid (the people who Theresa May was talking about last week), the people in northern England who traditionally used to vote Labour, are worried about immigration and low-paid jobs and things like that...With Labour moving to the Left and having this air of being a metropolitan socialist party under Jeremy Corbyn and the other figures, many of whom in the shadow cabinet are London MPs, the potential for UKIP is massive right now. They could do to Labour in northern England what the SNP did to Labour in Scotland. But to do that does require a pretty well-organised party and a leader, and they don't seem to have a leader anything like as good as Farage. But even a leader half as good as Farage, who could hold the party together and march into the Labour heartlands, would be a very significant factor in British politics. 

Indeed.

Who brought the race into this row?

Broadcasting House.

It has been drawn to my attention (I didn’t listen to it live) that radio 4’s Broadcasting House covered the Mail on Sunday’s piece about the feud between Michael Foster and the Corbynistas  in their paper review. 

The guest reviewers were: popular Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, anti-Israel campaigner Rachel Shabi and Kenton Allen, TV producer and former sound-effects person on the Archers. (I wonder if the Ambridge character ‘Kenton’ was named after him.) 

The topic in question came after the discussion about the Archers and I thought it was almost worth transcribing it, as it neatly encapsulates the contributors’ attitudes. to the topic in question. 

Paddy O’C:

Rachel Shabi, move the page. The Mail on Sunday -  what’s happening? 

RS:

“Well. It’s a bit um annoying to see the Daily Mail frame the story in this way. 

The headline ‘Corbyn purges top Jewish donor’ of Mail on Sunday article, and ‘reignites race row.’ Well I think it’s the MoS that brought the race into this row, um, this is about Michael Foster who was barred by Corbyn after he mounted an attack on the Labour Party leader though the MoS, and he likened the  Corbyn supporters to stormtroopers. So the, hehe, the violent, intimidating Nazi forces that helped their rise to power in 1930s Germany - um to call - to suggest that this is a purge of somebody who is Jewish, I think is …incredibly dangerous and damaging and unfair and the worst way to frame this subject. Antisemitism is a real and serious issue and the last thing we wanna do is to dilute or detract or in any way weaken people’s perception of what antisemitism looks like, and feels like and sounds like - um - Michael Foster has not been barred because he’s Jewish, he’s been barred because he’s likened Corbyn supporters to stormtroopers, which, at a time when the Labour Party is using, you know, theres’s abusive language all round, it’s the very last thing he should have done and it’s clearly a mistake.” 

Paddy O’C:

Well he’ll be giving his account of that on TWATO, thanks for bringing it to our attention. Jacob Rees Mogg, where would you start? 

JR-M:

Well just on that. I thought that was an excellent story by the MoS and it’s worth looking at the dateline that they produce, of serious problems in the Labour Party with antisemitism, and Maureen Lipman with whom I’ve reviewed the papers on your programme in the past, a very sensible intelligent lady, has raised these concerns, so I think just to brush them under the carpet is a mistake, ugh, but I would start with the Sunday Express…… 

Paddy O’C:

Rachel wants you to know she doesn’t want to brush it under the carpet… 

RS:

Actually the last thing I’m suggesting we do is brush the matter under the carpet and I just think that’s a really erroneous way to frame the debate. It is an issue, let’s make it an issue of antisemitism and not just a way to attack the Labour Party… 

KA: 

Well maybe the way to deal  with it is not just to expel the Jewish member who brought it to your attention…

RS: 

The Jewish member who brought it to your attention has been expelled or suspended for…

KA: 

That would be a moronic thing to do…

RS:

 ….for calling Corbyn supporters stormtroopers.

KA: 

Prone to hyperbole, he’s a former showbiz agent. I’m sure he’ll apologise for that, but to expel the Jewish member for just raising the issue of antisemitism seems to be a bizarre thing to do.

RS: 

Well I think that antisemitism is really important and I wish we could discuss it in a sensible way, without using it as a stick to either bash or, you know, not bash, the Labour Party. 

Paddy O’C:

Ok, we’ve got the passion here.

Well, at the risk of reigniting the race row yet again, I’ll refrain from using this to bash, you know, not bash, Rachel Shabi.

Bingeing

Like Sue, I binged on politics this morning. It matters, it's fascinating, and it was still raining.

My ears, as ever, were listening out for bias and Paddy O'Connell's Broadcasting House decided to mock Andrea Leadsom for overusing the word 'clear'.

They had a dizzying montage of her saying 'clear' in their introduction and the 'feature proper' mocked her repeated use of 'clear' to the accompaniment of the kind of music I associate with late '50s/early '60s adverts showing women trying out soap powders.

Does she use 'clear' more than other politicians? I'm not at all clear about that. After all, the famous Jeremy Corbyn said 'clear' twice in his Marr interview today and the sainted Theresa May used the dread word three times in her last Marr interview.

Was this an example of some clever biased BBC type (who doesn't like her) spotting her using a word on a few occasions, finding it funny and then wangling it onto a receptive BH?

Still (much to at least one of our readers' disgust), I have kept crediting Paddy for raising his game, impartiality-wise, in recent years (after his appallingly biased early years), and I'll give him a bit more credit here too - if not for the above!

The programme had been repeatedly pushing both the 'politics is too much for us at the moment' and the 'everyone's feeling down' memes this morning, and Paddy pushed them again during the paper review (and his reviewers followed suit).

Then (like in an old cartoon) a light bulb very clearly switched on inside his head and Paddy began saying that he was pushing this because even some of those who voted Leave were now feeling anxiety because of uncertainty over when Article 50 would be activated. He then pledged to find and put on air people (Leave types presumably) who are still feeling happy. I hope he does.

Meanwhile, over on BBC One...

The Andrew Marr programme's paper review sandwiched poor Tim Loughton MP between former Labour advisor Ayesha Hazarika and CNN's highly-opinionated (and rude) chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour. 

Mr Loughton is, as you'll doubtless already know, leading Andrea Leadsom's campaign. Ayesha and Christiane aren't fans of Mrs. Leadsom. I bet you can guess what happened? (Poor Tim.)

The picture the programme's website uses to illustrate the programme will give you a flavour of it:

Later came (i) David Davis (on (a) to call for Tony Blair's head and (b) to back Theresa May), (ii) leading Leave/UKIP supporter Arron Banks (backing Mrs. Leadsom) and, finally, (iii) the famous Jeremy Corbyn (backing himself).

On how Andrew Marr dealt with David Davis over Theresa v Andrea, I'll just quote the questions he asked:

Now, you clashed with Theresa May a bit in the old days over civil liberties and other things.

You’re now backing her campaign. We’ve talked a lot about Andrea Leadsom, she’s a fresh face and so forth. Do you think that she is fit to be a British prime minister?

So people talk about the glass cliff, not the glass ceiling. But you take a women into a really difficult position and there’s a cliff and you push her off it. 

And you think she’s just a bit lacking in experience?

I was expecting fireworks with Arron Banks but they never came. Both sides treated each other with cautious respect. Andrew, inevitably, raised the issue of the 'worst poster ever', but he didn't make anywhere near as much of it as, I suspect, Evan Davis or James O'Brien would have done:

Andrew Marr: I guess, if there was one moment or poster which crystallised people’s worries about the Brexit side of the argument it was that Breaking Point poster with the migrants leading up, and Nigel Farage. Do you regret that in any way?

Arron Banks: I wasn’t really involved in that. That was a UKIP matter.

Andrew Marr: Did you think it was a mistake?

Arron Banks: I didn’t think it was a mistake. I think that in terms of the referendum it was very much the economy versus immigration, and I think it put immigration right at the forefront of people’s thoughts. I thought it was not a mistake at all.

As for Jeremy Corbyn, well, I don't think it was a 'toughie' (to put it mildly) but JC took exception to AM's line of questioning from the word go:

Andrew Marr: Now all this started with reaction to the Brexit vote, so a very, very straight forward question if I may to start with. Which way did you vote in that referendum yourself?

Jeremy Corbyn: Remain. I’m surprised you even ask the question.

Andrew Marr: Well I asked it because quite a lot of people around you suggested that you had never been a supporter.

Jeremy Corbyn: Nobody ever suggested I was going to do anything other than vote Remain, and I think you’re very well aware of that.

Despite that, the Bearded One generally seemed very relaxed, chipper even, throughout.  

And an even-more-heavily-bearded individual appeared at the end - the lead singer of Miracle Legion, a group I'd never heard of before (and who sound agreeably REM-like to me):