In which Aslan sees off Polly Toynbee

A BBC taxi brings Polly to Broadcasting House

Like the Pevensey children, I lived in Narnia for part of my childhood and felt the breath of Aslan on my face. So I tuned in with great interest to this week's Beyond Belief to hear three writers singing the praises of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.

By the Lion's mane, alas, it appears that not everyone appreciates C.S. Lewis's children's classic, foremost among them Polly Toynbee. She calls it "manipulative" because she doesn't like its underlying Christian message. She was definitely the White Witch denying us Christmas in the eyes of Ernie Rea's contributors, but they saw her off with a mighty roar. And she was never heard from again. (If only). 

We heard some extracts. Ernie Rea described the following as "beautiful" and "a great piece of descriptive writing", and I agree. The resurrected Aslan is here carrying the children on his back to the Witch's castle as winter gives way to spring in Narnia:

That ride was perhaps the most wonderful thing that happened to them in Narnia. Have you ever had a gallop on a horse? Think of that...and then imagine you are going about twice as fast as the fastest racehorse. But this is a mount that doesn't need to be guided and never grows tired. He rushes on and on...right across Narnia, in spring, down solemn avenues of beech and across sunny glades of oak, through wild orchards of snow-white cherry trees, past roaring waterfalls and mossy rocks and echoing caverns, up windy slopes alight with gorse bushes, and across the shoulders of heathery mountains and along giddy ridges and down, down, down again into wild valleys and out into acres of blue flowers.

"That's recognisably County Down", said Frank Cottrell-Boyce - which rather makes me want to go to County Down. 

Shares

Fine blogger David Hansard appreciated this morning's Sunday special from Nigeria.

There was a bit of a sting in the tail to his compliment though. He tweeted, "Turned on BBC R4 Sunday expecting the usual identity politics fare, but was pleasantly surprised to hear an excellent programme-length special about Nigeria, with Edward Stourton. Includes interesting interview with Femi Anikulapo-Kuti". 

"Turned on BBC R4 Sunday expecting the usual identity politics fare" sums up my expectations of the usual Sunday programme too but, yes, this was very good from Ed Stourton. 

Incidentally, a couple of other tweets from David are worth quoting too. This one comes from Thursday:

A brief discussion with Peter Hitchens on the BBC's Today at 7.50 am, about free speech at universities. Good performance. Introduced by Justin Webb as having "strong opinions". Outside the BBC they're known as reasonable and commonly-held opinions.

Justin did indeed trail the feature by calling Mr Hitchens "a man of strong opinions on a variety of subjects". 

And here's David calling out Polly Toynbee:

On Jo Cox

It's proving hard to take in the horrific murder of Jo Cox, isn't it? 

I'm still struggling to find something helpful to say two days later.

I'd never heard of her before she was killed but, like many, I've been in shock at her murder ever since.

I just keep thinking of the hideous way she was murdered and about her poor children - her three-year-old daughter and five-year-old son. Plus how everyone in politics, from whatever side, seems to have liked her.

And then everyone else piles in with their suffocating agendas and I find myself getting lost again. (I don't cope well with piles).

But it's time to at least try to say something, probably - for what it's worth...

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I drove home on Thursday listening to the moving reactions to the murder of Mrs Cox from Labour's Joan Walley and the Conservatives' Andrew Mitchell on Radio 4's PM, sensitively handled by Carolyn Quinn.

Then I watched the BBC One News at Six, which did an excellent job. It (and Nick Robinson, who the programme interviewed) managed to convey the sheer horror of what had happened whilst keeping a cool, cautious manner of reporting. It didn't seek to speculate or score points, and even held back from mentioning the 'Britain first' (or 'Britain First') claims then widely circulating in other parts of the media (and on social media).

I then went online. Some of what I read helped. Quite a lot didn't. There were more touching articles in the online newspapers but also quite a lot of unhelpful speculation. 

One thing is certain though: The agenda-pushing started very early. Almost immediately, in fact.

I felt so annoyed by that agenda-pushing that part of me felt like posting about it at the time, but I thought better of it. It would have felt too much like me agenda-pushing. And it was far too soon anyhow.

Former senior Sky journalist Tim Marshall held back a day or so before registering similar feelings of disgust:

Remainers point to the Leave campaign’s dog whistle politics. Leavers now argue that Remainers are politicising the issue to score cheap points. Some people argued that there was a reluctance to call the attack terrorism. All sides have valid arguments but minutes after the confirmation of the death of Jo Cox was not the time to make them.  

Looking back, Tim certainly had a point. A lot of people just couldn't help themselves. The bees in their own bonnets appear to have trumped everything else, including common decency.

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And so it's gone on: Remainers are still pointing to the Leave campaign's dog whistle politics and Leavers are still arguing that Remainers are politicising the issue to score cheap points.

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I garnered - from comments on other 'anti-BBC sites' - that the BBC had behaved much more cautiously that day than Sky (and many of the newspapers) when it came to airing speculation about the political motives of the killer.

(Not that any of those comments directly said as much. It was just that all their fire was, for a while, squarely aimed at Sky, the Telegraph, the Guardian, etc. 'BBC bias' was largely forgotten for a few hours).

That matched my experience of what I'd just heard and seen that evening. 

Elsewhere things were falling apart though. The Guardian, on one side, was starting to smear the pro-Brexit side. And Breitbart London, on the other side (and then some), was desperately seeking to discredit the idea that the killer might have far-right links.

Agendas were seriously, disgracefully and very vigorously being pushed....

....and both of those media outlets have continued down their respective paths ever since, to their great discredit.

******

I won't go into to much detail about Polly Toynbee & Co's contributions at the Guardian, about which they should be ashamed of themselves (and regular readers will know what to expect from them), but Breitbart's coverage (which has spread onto other 'anti-BBC sites') has been at least as shameful.

Breitbart's feverish attempts, while Mrs Cox was still breathing, to promote the 'nothing to see here' line regarding the alleged killer's alleged links to the alleged far-right and promote the counter 'it's all about his mental illness' line have been frankly jaw-dropping and appalling.

And after all their desperate 'debunkings' of the mounting evidence that the alleged killer might actually, allegedly, have a far-right distant past and even a far-right recent past - plus his responses in court, "'Death to traitors, freedom for Britain'" -, they've still kept on grimly trying to assert that 'it's all about his mental illness' and that it's everyone else who's biased and behaving shamefully.

It may well be. Or it may not be. The suspect's alleged motivation is for the law to decide now. Accusing others of pre-judging while furiously pre-judging yourself just isn't good though.

And quite a lot of people on our 'wing' on the blogosphere have been doing it just as much of that as those on the opposite 'wing' of the blogosphere. They should all be ashamed of themselves. (Not that any of them will be).

(And Louise Mensch hasn't exactly done herself proud either, railing against the Left for speculating and pre-judging whilst simultaneously speculating and pre-judging herself).

Plus now a surprising large number of the commenters below the line at Breitbart are indulging and furthering disgracing themselves (and their blog) by group-hugging themselves in a crazy 'false flag' conspiracy theory that the EU/Remain murdered Jo Cox to derail the pro-Brexit campaign.

(I'm not joking, I'm afraid. They really have been saying that in large numbers over there.)

It needs to immediately stop - as this piece by Iain Martin makes clear (please click on the link!)

******

As for the BBC, I also watched Thursday and Friday nights' editions of Newsnight and found both of them, taken together, absolutely exemplary. They were duly cautious about things they ought to have been cautious about, and kept sounding those cautions whilst giving voice to various non-controversial and controversial points-of-view from various angles. Their reports were honest and fair. And if Thursday's edition gave more of a platform to those who wanted to push the 'dog whistle politics' line, Friday's edition gave more of a platform to those (including Danny Finkelstein and Douglas Murray) who eloquently dismissed such charges. I was relieved and heartened by Newsnight's behaviour.

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The one BBC reporter who struck me as seriously letting the BBC down was Mark Easton. His blog was barely distinguishable in content from those articles and tweets from those partisan pro-Remain types who have absolutely disgraced themselves in the past couple of days (like Polly Toynbee):

The phrases "political class", "the establishment" and "the metropolitan elite" are almost routinely deployed to undermine respect for our democratic representatives, for Parliament and for public servants.
Anti-politics is now a recognised force, particularly online.
Social media can be the most antisocial place. Good manners and decency are drowned in a sea of bile and hostility.
The EU referendum campaign has seen the normal rules of political engagement suspended, traditional party lines washed away as supposedly honourable members trade insults and foster contempt.
Facts and expertise are dismissed as self-serving fictions, the cry of "liar!" echoing from both camps.
And with immigration the dominant theme of the referendum debate, there have been moments when the "respect for other cultures" the prime minister wishes to promote has been replaced by statements that sound more like inflammatory xenophobia.
There are, of course, very real concerns about the impact of immigration on our country.
But the rhetoric has shifted from concerns about the phenomenon to the threat from "foreigners".
I have heard it repeatedly from voters on the streets in recent weeks.
It is certainly unedifying and, perhaps, dangerously subversive.

Not that Mark Easton's liberal bias on immigration has ever exactly been well concealed, but here he's being blatant in focusing his criticism on the rhetoric of one side of the present EU argument, and in linking "xenophobia" and the word "unedifying" to the views of "voters on the streets". He's taken us right back to exactly the kind of ultra-biased BBC worldview that various 'repentant' BBC types have kept assuring is now a thing of the past.

He even uses a word I doubt he's ever used before in a BBC article - at least without putting it in heavily inverted commas. He calls such views "perhaps, dangerously subversive".

When was the last time you ever heard/read a BBC reporter describing any contemporary strand of British opinion as "subversive"? I'm betting - like me - you've never heard it before. It's not the BBC way, is it? And, if I may be so bold, m'lud, he's talking about us.

I've not watched the BBC One News at Ten or much else on the News Channel so I don't know if it's true, as I've read elsewhere, that Mark Easton was the BBC journalist most eager to report the 'Britain first' claims - i.e. to push the political angle to the murderous attack. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if that was the case though.

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Today's I've watched Dateline London and listened to Any Questions. 

Dateline focused on the Mark Easton/Polly Toynbee angle. Fortunately leading Brexit campaigner Alex Deane was on and argued robustly - and admirably (to my mind) - against that angle - and against the combined onslaught of Marc Roche and Stephanie Baker and BBC presenter Gavin Esler - and, albeit much less strongly, Brian O'Connell (who tried to strike a middle way between them and, unusually, found himself in the line of fire for so doing).

Alex took it in good spirit though:

It's well worth catching up with, if your blood pressure will stand it. It will make you think.

And talking of threats to your blood pressure...

Any Questions, in reaction to the killing of Mrs Cox, was an audience-free studio discussion. It featured Polly Toynbee and Max Hastings (both Remain), and Claire Fox and Peter Oborne (both Leave). It's also well worth listening to.

Polly, as ever, was the biggest threat to my blood pressure. She railed about the wickedness of one side of the EU referendum debate but I note she didn't answer Claire Fox's point about the demonisation of Nigel Farage, UKIP and UKIP supporters from her side.

I had that in mind especially because of a point from Sarah AB at Harry's Place regarding Alex Massie's original piece at the Spectator all-but-smearing Mr Farage with a charge of culpability for the murder of Jo Cox: How would the likes of Mr Massie (and Polly Toynbee) feel if Nigel Farage was assassinated by a far-left extremist, 'as a result of' all the hatred aimed at him?

Jonathan Dimbleby controlled the discussion fairly, though his own contributions clearly placed him as not being on Claire Fox and Peter Oborne's side (and he embarrassed Max Hastings too). Though he wasn't too biased, I'd put him as clearly 'pro-Establishment' and 'pro-Remain' on this evidence (unsurprisingly).

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Sorry. I know this isn't a post that gets anywhere close to doing justice to any of the issues at hand, but it's all I can manage. Whether 'something' is better than 'nothing' I'll let you judge. 

Polly Toynbee and Jeremy Corbyn on Labour's anti-Semitism problem

The rest of the Andrew Marr paper review with Polly Toynbee and Iain Dale predominantly focused on David Cameron's tax affairs, though Labour's problems with anti-Semitism were also discussed, briefly:

Andrew Marr: The Labour Party. I talked to John McDonnell about it last week on this programme, about the anti-Semitism problem, and he was very, very strong. He will have nothing to do with it, but it's a story that won't go away, isn't it? 

Polly Toynbee: It is. Of course, they should immediately fire forever and not keep taking them back. I mean, I think Labour doesn't seem to be very good at controlling its various wings and local parties where people who say appalling anti-Semitic things suddenly seem to be back, and what's more, holding offices. 

She then switched back to talking about the EU referendum and Andrew Marr didn't pursue the point. Still, it was a good, firm statement from Polly.

Andrew Marr also brought the issue up with Jeremy Corbyn later, but - again - only briefly:

Andrew Marr: Jeremy Corbyn, can I just ask you two very quick questions on other subjects if you don't mind? A lot of criticism again in the newspapers...I talked to John McDonnell about it last week...of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. Do you not need to say and do more to reassure the Jewish community?

Jeremy Corbyn: Anti-Semitism is absolutely abhorrent and wrong. Anyone that commits any act of anti-Semitism, that makes any anti-Semitic remarks, is auto-excluded from the party and an inquiry follows immediately. We have suspended, we will suspend, any member that behaves in that way. Inquiries are going on in the cases that have been referred to us. We are absolutely resolute on this. There is no place for any type of racism of any sort within our party and I will ensure that it is rooted out where it exists. But I have to say it is a very small number of cases over the whole country. We are dealing with it.

And that was it. Andrew Marr then switched to talking about the EU referendum.

Only 48 seconds of the Jeremy Corbyn interview was spent on the issue of anti-Semitism. (81% of the interview was spent on David Cameron and tax avoidance, 13% on the EU referendum and 6% on Labour's anti-Semitism problem). Mr Corbyn's answer needed challenging, and wasn't challenged. 

I'm sorry to say that all seemed a bit perfunctory to me. 

The BBC continues reacting to 'What British Muslims Really Think'

What British Muslims Really Thing also came up during the paper review on the Andrew Marr programme, and credit is due to Andrew Marr for not downplaying the story and not going along with some of the deflection tactics employed by his two paper reviewers.

Interestingly, Iain Dale ended up saying much the same as what Sally Hitchener said earlier on BBC Breakfast - that, anecdotally, the Muslims he speaks to in his daily life aren't like that. And Polly Toynbee simply tried to wish the Muslim problem away by saying it's a more general problem with older people and, very surprisingly, went on to suggest (hope) that the next generation of British Muslims will be like other young people - ie much more liberal than their parents on social issues. That's not something other reports into the views of young British Muslims have borne out, is it? They've tended to show that many young British Muslims are becoming more religious, more socially conservative, than their parents. So Polly seems to be engaging in wishful thinking. 

Andrew Marr: One other story that's caught my attention...front page of the Sunday Times again, under the masthead. It's this big poll of British Muslims and an article by Trevor Phillips, ex of the EHRC. 

Iain Dale: Well, it's interestingly on the...in the paper this is allied to a small article about Sadiq Khan, the candidate for Mayor of London, who, according to the Sunday Times, in 2004 said he wanted areas of Sharia law introduced in the UK, particularly on inheritance tax so it could be divided between wives. His spokesman now is insisting that he's always opposed Sharia law, says there's no place for Sharia law in the UK. You look at this survey and that's not the view of the majority of Muslims.  

Andrew Marr: Just read out some of those percentages for us. 

Polly Toynbee: Percentages. 'Wives should always obey their husbands', 39%; 'It's acceptable for British Muslims to have more than one wife', 31%. I think you've got to put this into some context, that if you look at older people who were born abroad...I mean, it is...quite a lot of that is quite like Britain 50 years ago.... 

Andrew Marr: Yes. Polygamy less popular, even in the 1950s... 

Polly Toynbee: Less popular,... 

Andrew Marr: ...though it depends which circles you moved in, but... 

Polly Toynbee: ,,,but the idea that wives should obey their husbands. I think a lot of people would have said that. A lot of older people would have said... 

Andrew Marr: And strong hostility towards homosexuality as well. 

Polly Toynbee: And the Church of England. Just look what the Church of England marriage service says: 'Love, honour and obey' . 

Iain Dale: I cover a lot of these Muslim issues on my LBC show and I have to say the people that phone in to talk about them - the Muslim callers - do not reflect that. I mean, they're very much sort-of integrated and all the rest of it but, of course, this survey will include all Muslims, maybe people who've come recently from Muslim countries. 

Andrew Marr: Half of Muslims want gay sex to be outlawed it says there. 

Iain Dale: Yeah.  

Andrew Marr: Yeah. 

Polly Toynbee: But that older people,. you know....I think that the next generation will be, you know, will be different. You know, older people among the white population also are very different to young people. 

Andrew Marr: At any rate, a very, very interesting read and well worth it.

Jonathan Sacerdoti vs. The World (According to the BBC)

Bloggers should always watch the programmes they berate. 

Mea culpa, therefore. Having watched the first few minutes of today's Dateline, I saw red - or, more specifically, saw Palestinian extremist Abdel Bari Atwan - and switched off, hurrying instead to 'Is the BBC biased?' to do some further research on the programme's guest selection and point out its mad (and maddening) bias (see previous post) towards ol' Bari.

Sue, however, encouraged me to watch the whole thing though - and quite right too, because I missed a lot...

I'd failed to hang around long enough to hear flame-thrower Abdel Bari Atwan, talking about Benjamin Netanyahu, and saying, "He split the Jews himself". Yes, Jews. Not Israelis. (What is it with people with aggressive moustaches?)

I'd also missed his fellow flame-thrower, absurd, earnest, ranting, well-past-her-sell-by-date, ex-BBC home affairs editor Polly Toynbee, characteristically bolting to the extremes and calling Mr Netanyahu "far right". [Various other examples of Polly's tendency towards name-calling flew around during the British politics section at the end too - and two can play at that game, Pol.]

And I'd missed John Fisher Burns, the "dean" of the U.S. press corp [who I rather like and who is, on the whole, a reasonable man], complaining about Israel's behaviour, (like Bari and Polly) calling for for a U.S.-Iranian rapprochement, and blaming the West. (He clearly has some blind spots). 

Jonathan Sacerdoti's lonely, embattled presence as a defender of Israel [and my way of thinking] was something to be grateful for - but not too grateful for, given what Dateline flung at him. He was attacked on (at least) three fronts. (He made a decent fist of it though, in spite of everything hurled at him.) 

Ah, memories!...

I recall a comment I made at Biased BBC back in 2011 [which I can't, unfortunately, link to, but which I saved in my own drive when B-BBC was having technical problems], following Jonathan's first appearance on Dateline. I complained about how he "faced regular interruptions" from "Atwan, Polly Toynbee and Esler (and a couple of "I'll come back to you in a second"s from Esler to boot)". [I was far less polite back then]. 

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose, as Dateline's very own Marc Roche might say.

Polly put the kettle on, and call it 'black'

One more on the Guardian, courtesy of Trending Central. 

The Guardian and the BBC kicked up not so much a storm as a full-blown hurricane over the Daily Mail headline The Man Who Hated Britain (about Ralph Miliband). Yesterday Polly Toynbee published her latest Michael Gove-bashing piece under the online headline It is the Baby Ps and Hamzah Khans who pay for this Tory vandalism - a headline which make it seem as if the Tories are responsible for the deaths of children (despite both Baby P and Hamzah Khan dying before the last general election, when Labour were in power). 

An inept and distasteful headline, which Polly Toynbee stresses she didn't write (and yet refuses to denounce), and yet where's the storm on the BBC about it? 

There is, thankfully, something of a storm below the line at Polly Toynbee's piece where - to their great credit - huge numbers of Guardian readers are laying into Ms Toynbee with a vengeance. Polly's replies aren't exactly going down well either. 

Polly put the kettle on and we'll have...the BBC

The Commentator raises an interesting line of argument, and relates it to every right-winger's favourite bogey-woman, the BBC's former Home Affairs editor, Polly Toynbee of the Guardian...

In a Grauniad article, Polly "nervously acknowledges" that the BBC gets "73% of news audience", but says that's "because people choose it". She claims: "The BBC is not an opinionator, and its size is no democratic threat but a democratic asset in a world where moguls buy press power. It's Murdoch who intimidates governments...". She simply cannot understand why conservatives don't want to conserve this "great", "independent", "non-market" British institution. "The BBC stands as a monumental public good", she says. 

The lesson The Commentator draws from his is that Polly has an "abject, almost sociopathic, inability to empathise that leaves one dumbfounded. It never occurs to her that people of a different political-ideological disposition might genuinely look upon the BBC as possessed of an institutionalised liberal-Left bias. Because the BBC reflects her own prejudices, she cannot but assume that it must be objective; all the biased opinions being on the other side of the political spectrum."

When one of the Guardian's most biased columnists argues that the BBC is essentially impartial and worth cherishing many a right-winger will raise their eyes to heaven. The question is: Will those who aren't right-wingers raise an eye-brow too?