The Strange Case of 'The BBC-Deprived'

Peter Hitchens, in his Mail on Sunday column a few weeks back, mentioned an experiment about the BBC. 

200 people, many allegedly BBC sceptics, were kept BBC-free for nine days and most of them ended up saying they couldn't live without the BBC.

It's something I'd heard about earlier because BBC types were gloating about it on Twitter.

I'm sceptical. I've managed to almost entirely avoid the BBC's output for over two months with no adverse consequences or regrets whatsoever.

The exception was Composer of the Week on Radio 3, which - see a few posts below - was celebrating a major Vaughan Williams anniversary. But I even gave up on that and reverted to YouTube and Spotify to supplement my record collection. 

I may or may not be an outlier, but I think this blog - and others like it - have long been onto a growing mood among a growing swathe of the population. 

The BBC was invaluable to me when I was young. It isn't now.

From now on I suspect my re-engagement with the BBC will be limited to checking up on the BBC for the purposes of this blog, and very little else. 

Ukrainian affairs

Peter Hitchens has the BBC squarely in his sights in his Mail on Sunday column this week. 

I'm rather proud of having helped him, ever so slightly, by using TVEyes to track down all the broadcasts of the offending Orla Guerin report for him.

I suspected he was going after her usual mawkish, award-winning purple prose. But, no, he was concerned about something more specific. 

Given how relentlessly the BBC will focus in on fringe figures/groups, neo-Nazi swastikas, Confederate flags, etc, even if they are in no way representative of the group the BBC disapproves of, if they are reporting on people they disapprove of, he wonders how the BBC last week “repeatedly broadcast an entire news item, featuring a group of undoubted, shameless neo-Nazis, actually wearing SS insignia on their clothes – and not even notice?”.  

The report “starred a sweet old great-grandma” from Ukraine - a “doughty 78-year-old” woman, being taught to use a gun against the Russians by Ukrainian soldiers sporting shoulder-flashes displaying a Nazi emblem, the ‘Wolfsangel’”, used by the Waffen SS. Many wartime massacres were perpetrated by men sporting that jagged symbol. And their Ukrainian supporters proclaim their membership of the ‘Azov Battalion’ - a ‘paramilitary unit… known for its association with neo-Nazi ideology and the use of Nazi symbolism’, lately absorbed into the Ukrainian National Guard. 

Peter Hitchens asks: 

Is it really possible that, in the BBC’s vast and costly apparatus of reporters, editors, producers, fact-checkers and bureaucrats, not one person spotted the problem? If so, we are dealing with Olympic-level incompetence.  

But it is my suspicion that something else is going on. The generation that kept the BBC relatively impartial is fast dying off. Those who remain have accepted a large number of contentious opinions as facts. 

One of these opinions is the ridiculous cartoon idea that Russia is like Mordor in Lord Of The Rings, an utterly evil country ruled by a Dark Monster. And that Ukraine, its current enemy, is by contrast a shining Utopia, pluckily defending itself against the orc-like hordes of Moscow. This explains why the BBC were so keen to use this film, in which a Brave Granny Gets Her Gun. ‘Brave Granny Gets Her Gun From Some Neo-Nazis’ is not quite the same, is it? 

He ends by arguing that “if we are going to interfere in this very complex problem, then we are going to need to tell each other the truth about it”. Including the BBC.

UPDATE - Meanwhile, an old blog favourite has roared back in this morning, smearing away:

John Sweeney: Peter Hitchens says that Ukraine has "quite a few Nazis." So does UK. But President Zelenskiy is Jewish, something he does not mention. Peter Hitchens is Putin's man. Happy to debate this, Hitchens Minor, in person. I'm in Kyiv. And you?

Peter Hitchens: John Sweeney, you are incapable of debate, as you proved during the great panic with your repeated untruths. Why am I not surprised that you have attached yourself to the latest liberal fad?

John Sweeney: Vladimir Putin has the knout, the whip, the tanks and Peter Hitchens. Ukraine is a democracy. Once again, Peter, you're welcome to come to Kyiv and we can debate in person. But don't call a nation pro-Nazi when it has a Jewish President. Unless, of course, you are Moscow's man.

Peter Hitchens: I know you won't read my replies, because your mind is shut, but others might. I have not 'called a nation pro-Nazi'. Mainly I have pointed out that the BBC has failed to report that there are neo-Nazis in Ukraine. My actual words: 'One of the roots of the Russia-Ukraine problem is, alas, the existence of some very crude and nasty factions of Ukrainian nationalism, many of them unblushing neo-Nazis. Of course there are plenty of perfectly civilised Ukrainian patriots, but bigoted racialist thugs have an influence way beyond their numbers in that country'. I am a British patriot and defend the interests of my own country, no other.

A Saturday Selection

I've been a bit out-of-action recently, but here are a few things I noted down this week:

I

Never mind Partygate. Sue Gray and Dame Dick need to investigate the Foreign Office for blowing lots of licence fee payers' money on a sparkling farewell party for departing BBC North America editor Jon Sopel. 

That's reported by Steerpike at the Spectator. 

You'll find beneath his piece this comment from former Harry's Place regular Lamia which will doubtless strike a chord with many of us:

Sopel spent the four years of Donald Trump's presidency Tweeting his disapproval of Trump and his Tweets, helping keep the humble folk of Broadcasting House and North London in a permanent state of gratified superior outrage. Once Joe Biden got into power, Sopel and the BBC simply lost interest in reporting about the US President, except what flavour of ice cream he likes. Sopel is a worthless journalist, let alone a journalist for a supposedly impartial broadcaster, because his personal and political biases have infected and dictated everything he reports (and everything he doesn't report about). Not only should he not be the BBC's political editor - if the BBC had any standards (yes, we know it doesn't...) then he would have been sacked years ago. So obviously he's a shoe-in as BBC political editor.

II

Rod Liddle probably ought to hang up his satirical spurs because BBC reality is outpacing him faster than the winner of the Kentucky Derby. A Guardian exclusive reports that the BBC is preparing to broadcast a new take on Dickens's Oliver Twist that will “make a conscious effort” to put food poverty “to the fore” and echo footballer Marcus Rashford’s campaign to reduce child hunger. Very BBC.

III

The BBC is celebrating what they call “a hundred years of our BBC” and they've released a two-minute campaign video - in response to Nadine Dorries - about how the “BBC belongs to all of us”. As you'd expect,  the last word - “every one of us” - goes to Sir David Attenborough and the whole party political broadcast on behalf of the BBC ends with the caption, “This is our BBC.”

The estimable Lance Forman responded:

If the BBC belongs to me - Please can they release the Balen Report which examined anti-Israel bias at the BBC. The BBC have spent circa £500,000 to keep this covered up. With antisemitism rampant there is a public interest in releasing this. Transparency belongs to us all!

IV

The BBC's world affairs editor John Simpson pompously gives us “a reminder”:

Just a quick constitutional reminder for the BBC’s 100th anniversary: it belongs to the people of the UK. It doesn’t belong to the government. And, contrary to what the current Culture Secretary seems to think, it isn’t state-funded.

It may not be, but it still drags thousands of reluctant viewers through the courts.

V

As Paul Homewood notes, BBC Future has a piece by some white woke guy called Jeremy Williams headlined Climate change divides along racial lines. Could tackling it help address longstanding injustices? The pasty-faced gentleman in question has a book out too, Climate Change is Racist: Race, Privilege and the Struggle for Climate Justice, thereby evidently making him absolutely irresistible to the BBC. I'm not sure I was even aware of BBC Future. The BBC has no many tentacles it's hard to keep track.

VI(a)

I see some people on Twitter have been complaining that BBC One's main new bulletins gave mere seconds to the jailing of former Labour peer Lord Ahmed of Rotherham for paedophilia last night. Indeed, News at Six gave the story 17 seconds and News at Ten gave the story 13 seconds. It beggars belief.

VI(b)

It remains a telling fact that Newsnight has still never covered the Barry Gardiner/Chinese Communist Party influence story or that their policy editor Lewis Goodall, despite being a hyperactive Twitterer, has never tweeted about it either - despite the CCP's influence on the UK being one of the biggest new stories out there. I put it down to bias. 

VII

Wagner's Ring cycle lasts 17 hours and runs for over four days. In it the bronzed Valkyrie Brünnhilde disobeys the Director-General of the gods Wotan, ensconced in Valhalla House. The weak Wotan, despite Brünnhilde's flagrant disregard of Valhalla editorial guidelines, merely slaps her wrist by giving her a talking-to and then sentences her to a good night's sleep on a luxury bed surrounded by fire. The dragon-slaying idiot Siegfried awakens her with a kiss and an embittered, self-righteous Brünnhilde then - after various twists and turns - mounts her mighty steed Grane and, immolating herself in the process too, brings about the fiery destruction of Valhalla House and the godly board. Similarly long-lasting is the BBC's Monologue cycle. In this saga the bronzed Emily Maitlis disobeys pasty-faced chief god of the BBC Tim Davie. Tim Davie weakly slaps her wrist by mildly saying she might, possibly, not have been quite entirely right - and then does nothing more. She disobeys him again. And again. And again. Always playing throughout to her main audience, her fellow Valkyries on Twitter. The Trump-slaying Jon Sopel awakens her with a kiss and she mounts her mighty stallion Twitter and disobeys Tim Davie yet again. So what happens next? Well, if my tortuous Wagner analogy runs on, Emily's biased behaviour will help precipitate BBCdämmerung, The Twilight of the BBC, as Tim Davie sits forlorn in Broadcasting House as everything around him goes up in flames and, amid floodwaters, the Thamesmaidens swim in to take back the BBC licence fee. So is Tim Davie ever going to do something about her? She's making a mockery of 'BBC impartiality' and sneering at her BBC bosses, but I doubt he'll do anything. He doesn't seem the type to tackle BBC bias full on. As BBC TV sitcom Valkyrie Mrs Slocombe was wont to say, he's ''weak as water''. 

VIII

BBC disinformation reporter Marianna Spring has been busy promoting a new 10-part podcast series “investigating the human cost of pandemic conspiracies online in one town, who believes them - and why” for Radio 4 and BBC Sounds. She “will share more details soon!” This drew a sarcastic reply from Peter Hitchens: “Looking forward to this, Marianna Spring. Obviously this is the most urgent lack in BBC coverage of the last two years. But will a mere ten episodes be enough?”

IX

The BBC's diplomatic correspondent James Landale followed UK PM Boris Johnson to a press conference in Ukraine with the Ukrainian president and provoked criticism in some quarters for “making the UK look like a joke” by asking Boris about Partygate rather than Russia-Ukraine. I suspect that as extraterrestrials first emerge from their twenty-mile-long mothership to make contact with humanity for the first time BBC types will be there at the front of the press pack asking about the Sue Gray report. 

Peter Hitchens v Marianna Spring

This looks like an interesting encounter - Peter Hitchens v Marianna Spring:

Is the BBC Licence Fee now being used for Thought Policing?

The BBC has now moved on from trying to tell us what to think, to policing those who don't share its views. Last week I was approached by a Marianna Spring, who proclaims herself the Corporation's 'Disinformation Reporter'.

She wants to question me about my work during the Covid panic. I'll keep you informed about her enquiries, which are proceeding.

But my view is that her very title is an expression of prejudice. 'Disinformation' is just a long way of saying 'lying'.

If she thinks I'm dishonest, then let her say so on the BBC and we'll see how that goes. But in general, if you want to investigate something, you start with an open mind and see what you find. How can your mind possibly be open, if you glorify yourself as a judge of truth before you even start? And remember, this is being done with licence-payers' money.

If the BBC wants to hunt down 'disinformation' about the Covid crisis, it is my view that it should clean its own house first.

Sunday morning reading

I

The Mail on Sunday quotes Sir Iain Duncan Smith not so quietly ripping into the BBC's Covid coverage:

The vaccines are really good at stopping hospitalisation and death, yet every night we report the infection rate – why?

Why does the BBC throw over every single bit of data, when Covid is about sixth on the death toll? Can we have the death toll for pneumonia while we're at it? 

Cancer, heart disease, liver problems? Why are we continuing with the Covid stuff on the BBC and the main news channels? It frightens people.

Older people are still asking, 'Are we allowed to hug now?' Even when they have had all the jabs.

We have people who are now scared of normal life.

We certainly don't do it for flu, and we don't do it for cancer. 

Either we go the whole hog and every night publish a list of how you're going to die, or not at all. Covid isn't the major reason for death.

II 

The same paper also reports Peter Hitchens's rare victory over the BBC Complaints department. 

It concerned an episode from a Radio 4 series Mayday: The Canister on the Bed, broadcast on 20 November 2020. The BBC summarised the case like this:

The programme, part of a series on aspects of the conflict in Syria, dealt with the chemical weapons attack at Douma, which it described as “one of the most contested events in the war”, and included an account of the role subsequently played by a former inspector with the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), known pseudonymously as Alex, who had expressed concerns about the OPCW’s conclusions on the matter. The journalist Peter Hitchens complained that the programme had been inaccurate in insinuating that Alex’s disclosures had been motivated by a reward of $100,000 offered by WikiLeaks, that he believed the attack had been staged, and that he had made his views known only through “a select few journalists who share the Russian and Syrian state views on the war”. The ECU considered the complaint in the light of the BBC’s editorial standards of due accuracy.

And the BBC upheld Mr Hitchens's complaint, concluding that this episode in Chloe Hadjimatheou's Orwell Prize short-listed series [a] did indeed make an “insinuation” against Alex and that [b] the evidence for that insinuation wasn't strong enough to warrant the programme calling Alex's motives into question. It also found that [c] the programme's claim that Alex “believed the attack was staged” wasn't justified by strong enough evidence and [d] the programme mischaracterised Alex’s dealings with journalists, saying he had collaborated with journalists who held broadly the same views on the war as the Russian and Syrian governments, whereas he had in fact “also collaborated with journalists of whom that could not be said (Mr Hitchens among them)”.

The ECU found that, although they were limited to one aspect of a investigation into a complex and hotly contested subject, these points represented a failure to meet the standard of accuracy appropriate to a programme of this kind. The ECU noted that a posting about one point of the complaint had been made on the Corrections and Clarifications page of bbc.co.uk but, as it was not reflected in the extended version of the programme which continued to available on BBC Sounds and the website of the series, it did not suffice to resolve the issue in question.

And what Further Action has been taken? Well, “the finding was reported to the Board of BBC News and discussed with the programme-makers in question.” 

That'll teach 'em!

Hope Springs Eternal

The other day I read Peter Hitchens saying, "I was inoculated against optimism at an early age, and it has served me well all my life. I thoroughly recommend you, too, get yourself immunised against this dangerous scourge", yet today he tweeted:

Click! Off, yet again,  goes the unbearable BBC Radio 4 Today programme, for decades my habitual morning listen. Relentless conventional wisdom, unquestioning, incurious, and therefore immensely boring as well as stifling.  Yet day after day I hope foolishly for a change.

Oh Mr Hitchens, please book yourself a new jab soon!

Talking of which, he also tweeted this earlier:

Tried to get comparative viewing figures for BBC Question Time over past few years. BBC replied: 'Not available'. BBC not, in reality, subject to FoI because of incredibly wide exemption, so is anyone there able to leak? 

A chat about Any Questions, Chris Mason & Peter Hitchens

For those who listened to Any Questions on Radio 4 last night (or are about to do so again when it's repeated shortly), here's a little Twitter chat about it. 

It's a rather civilised one by the standards of Twitter, and I think that fair points were made all round.

Chris Mason is a great improvement on Jonathan Dimbleby. I think he'd also make a great replacement for Anita Anand on Any Answers - though, alas, I don't think my prayers will be answered on that front. 

Moreover, I do hope that the Monster Munch story below is true. I rather like pickle onion-flavoured Monster Munches, and haven't had one for aeons. I think I would have gratefully accepted Chris's kind offer.

Ron Swanson: Might actually be worth listening to Any Questions tonight. The BBC have, reluctantly I’m sure, invited Peter Hitchens on.
Chris Mason (to Ron Swanson), retweeted by Peter Hitchens): Thanks for listening. We don’t invite anyone onto the programme reluctantly. Peter is a brilliant debater and I’d love to have him back soon.
Ron Swanson (to Chris Mason): Chris, I don’t want a row with you, and this isn’t even aimed at you or Any Questions which has people from all views on. My issue is with the BBC in general. Have a good day.
Mike Wilson: Peter always gives his honest opinion with no flannel, you don’t have to agree with him to see he’s genuine, which is a breath of fresh air these days.
Ron Swanson: Chris is much better than Dimblebot too, IMHO. He actually lets people talk and doesn’t constantly interrupt. A good appointment. Thumbs up. As for Peter, I don’t always agree - which is good! I don’t want to always agree with someone. How boring. But what he says he believes. Rare.
Sir Radfoot Strongdoctor: I once encountered Mr Mason in a long queue at a post office in Hounslow. He was eating noisily on a packet of pickled onion flavoured Monster Munch. On catching my gaze he offered the packet to me and invited me to take one. I politely refused. "Suit y'self" he said.
Robert Miller (to Chris Mason): You gave him a fair hearing too. More than some other programmes did.

'Why am I trying to disturb the consciences and sense of justice of people who plainly have neither?'

Peter Hitchens is one of those people with a longstanding attachment to the BBC. Its a BBC of the past and his imagination, of his memories and hopes. He can't bring himself to call for its abolition because, as he says, he loves what it used to be, and what it ought to be. But, as of this week (as he writes in today's Mail on Sunday), he no longer feels any inclination to defend it.

Despite feeling that in the past two or three years "it has grown sharply worse" and that there has been "a crude slide into open partiality on so many things", the straw that finally broke his camel's back was an "insulting" reply from the BBC to his complaint about Christmas Day's Gavin & Stacey breaking BBC editorial guidelines by condoning the use of illegal drugs before the watershed:

I was wasting my breath. They ignored what I had said, and responded to different points I had not made.

(Ah yes, that's BBC Complaints in a nutshell!)

And I thought: 'Why am I trying to disturb the consciences and sense of justice of people who plainly have neither?'

So that's it. He simply "can't be bothered" to defend the corporation any longer.

Given that it's 'Peter Hitchens of The Daily Mail' (actually The Mail on Sunday, a different paper), I'm guessing many a BBC type will shrug this off. But they should beware: it's another straw in the wind.

trading as WDR

There's lots of fascinating stuff (as ever) at Bill Roger's trading as WDR blog. 

As Charlie pointed out on the open thread, Bill has caught Lord Hall in the act of spinning the ratings for BBC Sounds. By Bill's calculations, the BBC's justification for launching the service - that it would increase the number of listeners aged 16-34  - hasn't been realised. The figures have barely budged.

Another post tells us that the BBC's preferred supplier for booze is Majestic and that over the past twelve months the BBC has bought close to £25k from them. By my own calculation, the amount they spent rose by 22.6%. Wonder if, post-election, post-Brexit, this year will see a sharp drop in fizz? 😜

Meanwhile, BBC Editorial Director Kamal Ahmed is focusing on what Bill calls a "woke wheeze" called "Growing up, Learning and Identity". Ah, an even greater focus on identity politics from the BBC? How delightful!

And there's something too about our old friend 'Opinionated' Huw Edwards:

The BBC's lead anchorman Huw Edwards is back from his social media holiday, and piling in on those who have given Welsh place names new English monikers. 

Huw doesn't approve. 

There's lots more too, including a regal response to an FoI request about the disappearance of the BH piazza Christmas tree. a very W1A BBC job advertisement, and various job moves...

...plus something I meant to mention yesterday. The National Audit Office has found that of the BBC's commercial successes, only four of its forecast top 16 money-spinners date from after 2010 - i.e. the BBC is replying on stale cash cows. Bill adds something that I've not seem reported elsewhere though:

The NAO notes a load of money was lumped on a second series of His Dark Materials, way before the first could be assessed financially.

I do hope Peter Hitchens takes note. He's not keen on the BBC's pushing of Philip Pullman, which gives me a chance to post his take on it from this week's Mail on Sunday:

Flop after Flop, but Pullman's Atheism keeps the dramatisations coming

The atheist author Philip Pullman is, I suspect, more admired and bought than read. When his finger-wagging anti-Christian books are dramatised, on stage or film, they flop. Yet people still keep trying to stage them. Why? My diligent colleague James Heale has obtained for me the viewing figures for the BBC’s recent costly TV version of ‘His Dark Materials’. They started at 7.2 million in Episode 1. Then they fell almost continuously, with one hiccup at Episode 5, to a poor 4.1 million at the end. But how many of them were awake? It was quite boring. A friend who stuck it out to the end confesses that he fell asleep during the final bout.

You many remember Mr Pullman from such foam-flecked tweets as:

Of course Meghan Markle is attacked by the British press because she's black, and of course Prince Harry is right to defend her. What a foul country this is.

— Philip Pullman (@PhilipPullman) January 9, 2020

😮

Anyhow, if you're not already a fan, please take a look at Bill's very fine blog.

Conversations

I

Peter Hitchens: The BBC has no right to meddle in this crude cheap way with Charles Dickens's 'Christmas Carol': "The BBC plans to rewrite Charles Dickens tonight, complete with the f-word and a scene showing a character urinating on a grave. It has no right to do so."  

David: No doubt done deliberately to get media backlash & increase audience figures.

Peter Hitchens: I’m not sure this is true about the ‘backlash’. Though yes, it is about numbers. The BBC genuinely think the ‘Peaky Blinders’ appproach to the past is a good one. This mad incomprehensible rubbish gets good ratings. 

II

BBC One: We are thrilled to announce that Stormzy will be bringing Christmas Day to a close this year on BBC One, telling the story of the first ever Christmas with a reading from Luke’s Gospel. On Christmas Night.

Allison Pearson: This is the man who just said the UK is “100% racist”. And he’s allowed to read the CHRISTMAS STORY on the BBC funded by the licence payer. The very people who are 100% racist? A new low for public broadcasting. #bbc

III

Iain Dale: Somewhat appalled by the idiots piling in on Owen Jones for no apparent reason other than he is Owen Jones. Grow the f**k up, He has as much right to a voice as anyone. #whycantwealljustgetalong. #ItsChristmasFFS. #SolidarityWithOwenJones.

Andrew Neil: Agreed. Even though he has run a campaign to shut me down.

Laurence Fox: Owen Jones has sought to divide people at every opportunity. I am enormously encouraged that his narrative has been so roundly rejected by the electorate. Do I feel that mocking him furthers the cause of reason? Not really, but you live in the sun and you die in the sun. X 

IV

Dr Paul Stott: If there's one thing the British are rubbish at, it's racism. After Stormzy's dad did a runner, our welfare state helped bring him up. It may not have been perfect, but it was better than what was on offer in Ghana. As a celebrity, we invite him to our schools, where he tells the next generation our society is 100% racist. Our national broadcaster (presumably funded by 100% racists) gives him a platform on the most important day of the year. Although he does not realise it, half the world would swap places with Stormzy in a shot, if they could. If there's one thing we need to hear from this young man in 2020, it is surely thank you Great Britain.

V

Michael Swadling: Are they finally starting to get it? “THE BBC is looking at restricting its journalists use of Twitter, following the waves of online criticism...It comes as Channel 4 reportedly have told non-political staff not to tweet about current affairs”.

Suzanne Evans: Ludicrous idea. Twitter is now my primary source for news and I want to read what journalists are reporting here. Shoving them off social media isn’t the answer - reinforcing principles of objectivity, factual reporting and ensuring sources are checked, is.

VI

Bruce Lawson: BBC Editorial meeting: “So who are we going to get to close Christmas Day by reading from the Bible? How about a misogynist, homophobic millionaire who thinks our country is 100% racist and shouts “f*ck Boris, f*ck the government” at every opportunity? Yes, that’ll do nicely.”

"A series of liberal editorials on medical and social issues"

Peter Hitchens is still pursuing his complaint against the BBC over pro-abortion bias on Call The Midwife. Here's his latest take on the matter, from his Mail on Sunday column: 

The Left-wing magazine Private Eye says the BBC’s drama Call The Midwife has become ‘a series of liberal editorials on medical and social issues’. 

A gaggle of pro-abortion groups has praised the programme for repeatedly handling this issue ‘extremely sensitively and courageously’, that is, in a way they like. 

Yet the BBC still absurdly denies any bias. A genuinely independent body must be created that can rule on such cases.

Marples

Talking of Peter Hitchens, his latest Mail on Sunday column has another BBC-related section:

The Beeb’s scandalous addiction to Profumo

Here we go again, this time it’s the BBC making a series called The Trial Of Christine Keeler in which the sad 1960s call girl will be beautifully impersonated by Sophie Cookson. 

You’d think nothing happened in that era apart from the Profumo Affair, which didn’t matter at all. But it was packed with scandal. 

A decent drama about the Suez Crisis or the anti-railways Transport Minister Ernest Marples, who actually skipped the country (in a train), are badly needed. But they don’t involve sex. Could that be the problem?

That sent me looking up Ernest Marples as, beyond a vague recognition of his name, I know nothing about him. It turns out that he was the man behind Dr. Beeching and his notorious railway cuts (plus premium bonds, postcodes and the M1), and that he ended up fleeing the taxman and bolting to Monte Carlo in 1975 before ending up on his 45-acre vineyard estate in the Rhône Valley. Alas for Mr Hitchens though, Wikipedia has a section which says:

Use of prostitutes 

When Lord Denning made his 1963 investigation into the security aspects of the Profumo Affair and the rumoured affair between the Minister of Defence, Duncan Sandys, and the Duchess of Argyll, he confirmed to Macmillan that a rumour that Ernest Marples was in the habit of using prostitutes appeared to be true. The story was suppressed and did not appear in Denning's final report.

So even if he got his BBC Ernest Marples drama - presumably to be called Marples -  Mr H. would still be unable to escape the Profumo affair, or the sex. 

In fact, the BBC - should they learn about this - will doubtless think that Marples is a cracking idea. I should probably start writing it now:

Marples: Dr. Beeching, I'd like to see you take an axe to the national railway system.
Beeching: (in the style of Sid James) We'll can do it together Ernie. I hear you're very handy with a chopper. (Dirty laugh)

"Am I serious? Perfectly. Will their response be? I doubt it"

Breaking Peter Hitchens news...

Listen up! I've applied to run Radio 4 

I have just applied for the post of Controller of BBC Radio 4. My application form went in on Thursday. Am I serious? Perfectly. Will their response be? I doubt it. 

I was partly motivated by rumours of the names that were being considered – a collection of liberal establishment figures of the sort who are already strangling the BBC. 

My view is that, in return for the licence fee, the BBC owes a duty to listen to, and treat seriously, the views of people who are not in that establishment. 

And they don’t do this. Many of them don’t even realise there is any other view of the world than their own. I have promised that, if appointed, I will most certainly bring equality and diversity to that great radio station. Just perhaps not the sort of equality and diversity the BBC has in mind.

Peter v Alastair

For someone who's hardly ever off the BBC, it's surely a bit rich for Alastair Campbell to moan about someone like Peter Hitchens getting an invite to the Today studio. Yet moan he did:

As you might expect, Mr Hitchens didn't take that lying down. I hope you enjoy his replies as much as I did:

New Look, Familiar Face

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 because without him it would pretty much have been a 'let's legalise cannabis' rally. 

Issues

Doctor Who

Peter Hitchens tuned into the first episode of the latest series of Doctor Who - the one where "a large clove of garlic from another galaxy was trying to take over the world by stealing people’s teeth" - and found it:

...a heavy-handed expression of equality and diversity propaganda, a comprehensive school, post-Christian, multicultural mish-mash, so full of pious messages that it left no room for a decent plot...

So I'm guessing he'll not be pursuing Jodie Whittaker's new Doctor much further. 

I have to say that I am watching and enjoying it, but it looks as if the "equality and diversity propaganda" is going to get even more heavy-handed. This week's episode will apparently see the Doctor travel to Alabama in 1955 where she'll witness Rosa Parks refuse to give up her bus seat for a white passenger before "Jodie's sidekicks then discuss the problems of racism today". And a future episode will explore sidekick Yaz Khan's family history during the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947. Sounds fun!

"The propaganda arm of our ruling class"

What Sunday would be complete without Peter Hitchens? 

His Mail on Sunday column today begins by talking about "our new power elite" and their "hate" for "lifelong marriage", and the BBC is his specific target: 

Why does the propaganda arm of our ruling class, the BBC, promote a drama called Wanderlust with publicity which, in the BBC’s own words, ‘asks whether lifelong monogamy is possible – or even desirable’. You know as well as I do that they’re not really asking. 

They are saying, amid countless wearisome and embarrassing bedroom scenes, that it is neither possible nor desirable. This is a lie, as millions of honest, generous and kind men and women proved in the better generations which came before this one.

Mr. Hitchens, of course, knows as well as we do (if not more) that the BBC is a 'progressive', 'socially liberal' organisation and that BBC drama has been relentless in promoting that particular outlook for donkey's years. 

In writing that sentence and using the term "donkey's years" I was inspired to 'do a Peter Hitchens' and investigate that phrase - in true blogger's style. 

According to the OED, it's a “punning allusion to the length of a donkey’s ears and to the vulgar pronunciation of ears as years.”

I'd actually assumed it itself had been around for donkey's years, but it's apparently more recent than I though - i.e. just over a hundred year's old, which I don't count as being donkey's year ago. 

Two 1916 books - a novel by E.V. Lucas called 'The Vermillion Box' and 'With Jellicoe in the North Sea' by Frank Hubert Shaw - used the earliest published references to it, respectively:

“Now for my first bath for what the men call ‘Donkey’s ears,’ meaning years and years” 

and

“This isn’t a battleship war at all; it’s a destroyer-submarine-light cruiser show. They’ll never come out in donkey’s years, not they. They know jolly well we shall scupper ’em if they so much as dare to show their noses outside the wet triangle.” 

The E.V. Lucas quote points to the outstanding question of which came first: “donkey’s ears” or “donkey’s years.” It looks as if it may have been “donkey’s ears”. 

Anyhow, I won't be watching Wanderlust, however steamy it is. 

Medley

A short medley of observations about BBC bias, Jeremy Corbyn, and related matters.

I am not a Beeb-basher, not least since so many of the people who bang on relentlessly about the BBC’s supposed biases are stupid or horrible or both.

So says James Kirkup on the Spectator (£)  His area of expertise appears to be transgenderism. And he has spotted a bias related to this issue within the BBC. Personally, I can’t seem to get interested in transgenderism no matter how hard I try (not very) but I have to admit that when I see a six foot five-inch ‘woman’ in high heels and mini skirt mincing along, the mind does automatically boggle.

I didn’t get very far with Kirkup’s article. As someone said below the line, tl;dr, but I did ask myself if I was truly stupid and horrible -  wot, moi?  - but then I realised he wasn’t talking about us (Craig and I.) surely he had to be talking about the semi-literate Momentum type keyboard warriors that accuse the BBC of being the mouthpiece of the far right. Like the tweeters on the Victoria Derbyshire thread. You know, the Judophobes who get cross when they’re accused of antisemitism.

 H/T Anonymous (Open Thread.) In a post, circa 2006, Peter Hitches presents a curate’s egg type précis of pre-Nazi era antisemitism, from which I have plucked the following excerpt:

 “But of course most people don't form their opinions in this way. They pick them up, as they pick up other fashions, from what they hear around them, from the prejudices of the media, which become their prejudices by a subtle process. These, by the way, don't take the form of the BBC correspondent saying "Israel wickedly bombed civilian targets last night". You only catch it on the edge of a remark. The reporters themselves often don't know they are doing it. It is their unconscious choice of verbs and nouns, their tone of voice, the selection of pictures and the attitudes to spokesmen that you have to watch. 

For instance, Palestinian and Arab spokesmen tend to be interviewed respectfully and courteously, whereas Israelis are often interrogated fiercely and aggressively (Watch out for this. I'm interested to see if any readers noticed a flagrant example of this on a well-known news programme recently). 

Well, if this bias is based on racial prejudice, which I rather suspect it is, then it should stop right now. And if it is designed to appease Muslim hostility to Jews (which I am afraid to say exists, encouraged by some passages in Muslim scripture, and which - unlike Christian Judophobia - is not adequately disowned and denounced by the leaders of the religion) then that is just as bad.

 SOHRAB AHMARI / AUG. 14, 2018 Commentary magazine “As a right-wing American:”

“There is a great danger looming inside Labour. Its shadow extends from the British Isles across the West, including the United States. That danger has a name, Jeremy Corbyn, and there is a duty to prevent his ever coming to lead Her Majesty’s Government.

Then, of course, there’s our own Rod Liddle. (£) (He's not literally 'our own') We used to write “Is the BBC’s bias due to ignorance or malevolence?” we never settled that question, but of course the answer is ‘a bit of both’.

Same goes for Corby. 

But what Corbyn has never done is meet with the other side. He will not meet with the Israeli government, ever. He has not done so. The last Labour party trip to Israel commended itself for not meeting a single figure within the Israeli government. Corbyn himself declined even to meet Benjamin Netanyahu when he visited Britain. So the dialogue for peace stuff is a downright, absolute lie. He is an anti-Semite who, furthermore, is happy to suck up to whatever foul ideology is opposed to this country’s interests or the interests of western democracy. Cuba, Venezuela, Soviet Russia, Black September, Hamas, Hezbollah, the IRA. You name a crock of purulent, murderous, anti-democratic, racist shit — and he’ll be for it. 

Oh — and the BBC. Nice of you, auntie, to cover the story of the wreath-laying two days later than everyone else did. I have a screen shot of BBC News online on the day the papers were carrying the Corbyn story. As both Guido Fawkes and later the Daily Mail pointed out, there were no fewer than six stories about Boris Johnson making a joke about letterboxes and none at all about Jezza. Get rid of the licence fee, now. The level of bias has become absurd.

And now for something completely different.

Poor little Ahed. How ever did she endure her eight-month incarceration?

Shrugging off critics Trump-style, Corbyn withstands outrage, rises in polls https://t.co/94yYTtnq9m pic.twitter.com/F727LOk9BD

— The Times of Israel (@TimesofIsrael) August 16, 2018

Update (2)
Brendan O’Neill  The shameful double standards of the Corbyn crew

“Yet far from denouncing Corbyn, his supporters are turning a blind eye to the photo, or are even denouncing its publication as yet another smear on their Dear Leader. And that’s because the man Corbyn was snapped alongside wasn’t linked to the slaughter of imams in a mosque but to the slaughter of rabbis in a synagogue. And as we now know, almost beyond reasonable doubt, Jews matter less to Corbynistas than every other social group. 

The photo published in the Times comes from the now infamous 2014 ceremony in Tunisia; it shows Corbyn mixing with Maher al-Taher, leader of the proscribed Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. This was an often ruthless terror group. Just a few weeks after Corbyn hung out with its leader, the group claimed responsibility for an attack on a Jerusalem synagogue in which four rabbis, including a British one, were massacred with guns, knives and axes. The photos of the synagogue’s floor and books coated in blood are among the most disturbing to come out of the Middle East in recent years.
[…]
As I say, double standards. Jews and Jewish issues are always treated differently by Corbynistas. And there’s a word for that: prejudice. If you attack people for making mild gags about burqas but shrug your shoulders over people who mix with men whose associates murdered Jews in a synagogue, if you say freedom of speech is unimportant except when it comes to the freedom to call into question the legitimacy of the Jewish State, then you are sending a quite extraordinary message into the public sphere: ‘Jews are different. They’re fair game. Screw them.’

Leading the way

Maureen from 'Driving School'?

Who says ITBB doesn't lead the way in incisive commentary about the BBC? (Not me.)

Where I led on Christmas Day Peter Hitchens of the evil Mail on Sunday has followed on New Year's Eve (and with some brilliant jokes): 

As Nick Robinson would say, LOL!

Into the Labyrinth

Peter Hitchens's Mail on Sunday piece today contrasts how hard it is for most complaints to successfully pass through the eye of a needle that is the BBC's labyrinthine complaints process with just how easy it appears to be to get a happy result out of the BBC if you're complaining about the BBC allowing 'climate sceptics' onto programmes and then failing to do the decent thing and pour boiling hot oil over them throughout. Along the way Mr H. gives a neat description of the BBC complaints process for the rest of us mere mortals: