Big Question

Who is (was) on Question Time tonight? (Last night)

The fact is, (as they say on W1A) who cares? I have to level with you - I didn’t watch it. Did anyone?
In the era of Lockdown, Q.T. is incontrovertibly dire. ‘Direr’ than usual. There’s not even a whooping and hooting audience to complain about. But that panel even surpasses itself in terms of irrelevance and dullness; the antidote to click-bait.

Let Q.T. join HIGNFY as another casualty of coronavirus. But (in the absence of a suitable test) did it die OF coronavirus, or WITH?

It's not just me saying it

Craig is a gem. (You know that) He often receives unsolicited suggestions for topics to blog, as if he hasn’t more than enough topics of his own to get stuck into; I admit that I too have been known to lumber him with extra homework. But you know the saying 'if you want something done ask a busy person'.

It always annoys me - probably disproportionally - when people get things slightly wrong, especially people whose hearts are in the right place. For instance when they get their Begums mixed up with their Abases and their Shamimas confused with their Amiras. Know what I mean?

So I like to check that I haven’t made too many mistakes, used wrong names or spellings etc., that’s where the lack of editorial scrutiny in blogging is most sorely missed. So I relied on Craig’s indefatigability to help me identify that familiar face we saw on The Big Questions. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Anyway, Craig found it pretty damn quick;  It’s him (again)

This brings me to a question I’ve been thinking about but I don’t know who to ask. Whoever you are, might I just ask ‘what does de-radicalisation actually mean?”

It can’t be anything that involves criticism of Islam, (that would be racist) therefore it must be something to do with putting thoughts of violence and aggression to one side. Does it mean separating extreme beliefs from extreme actions to such an extent that violence in the name of holy jihad is off the table? Does the concept of putting religious or ideological beliefs into practice (physically) have to be taken completely out of the equation? Like, for example, de-clawing the cat or muzzling the dog. You can think what you like, but don’t let me catch you ‘doing’ stuff. (In principle, this is not unlike chopping off hands and feet)  It doesn’t sound doable to me. 

Or is it, like, hypnotism? Look into my eyes…….. fluffy clouds, peace, love and happiness, paradise, 72 virgins……….. aaaannnd back in the room.

So, whom should I ask?

……….

It’s not just me saying it  (to borrow John McDonnell’s favourite insurance against being jeered at)  - others are saying the same thing - which is that the BBC has abandoned all pretence of impartiality and now they’re just letting it all hang out. (Maybe we should take some of the blame according to the well-known psychological reasoning: “if you treat me like one I might as well behave like one”)

At a time when the BBC faces more criticism than ever from all sides, the notion that this proves they must be getting things ‘right’ has shifted to a point where criticism from both sides actually means they must be getting everything wrong.

You’ll guess that I’m talking about Question Time. Last week’s episode was so awful that I really had to use the ‘off button’ literally rather than metaphorically. The guest list itself was bad enough, but I expect it’s ‘D-list’ quality was due to the tacit BBC / BDS strategy that the A-listers seem to have collectively adopted. 

This boycott malarky is getting embarrassingly obvious throughout the entire spectrum of political programming. Even Sophy Ridge managed to snag a few comparative whoppers while poor old Andrew Marr and the other Andrew only seem to be able to attract minnows.

Any Questions was just as lacklustre and boring. The discussion about the BBC’s future was dull enough, but when the topic came up on Any Answers, both callers were so passionate about the BBC they must have just awakened (by a gentle kiss from a prince or a frog) from a deep fifty-year sleep-in.

The other example of letting things hang out was, of course, Ed Stourton’s absurd haranguing of evangelist preacher Franklin son of Billy “come on down” Graham. 

Apparently once upon a time, Franklin was said to have called Islam ‘evil’. Ed went berserk. Like a bad-tempered Lady Bracknell, he wouldn’t let it lie. On and on he went, indignantly protecting his precious Islam from sacrilege and historic and retrospective blasphemy. It was doubly odd, therefore that the next line of attack concerned an unsympathetic remark about LGBT marriage or some such. The antithesis within these two positions didn’t seem to bother Ed Stourton.  I for one could hardly believe mine ears.

A Question (Time) of Sport

I stayed up past my bedtime to keep guard on Question Time last night. In the current atmosphere, ‘keeping guard’ is a (self-imposed) obligation I feel compelled to fulfil, while the impending storm gathers momentum.  Lunacy? Paranoia? Well, there it is.  

If anyone has the stamina to tot up the interruption quotient they’d conclude that Fiona Bruce had simply forgotten to flick the off-switch of her personal-opinion-regulator before going on air because it was undoubtedly still on ‘ON’.  As a newsreader renowned for her unique method of ‘acting’ the news, Brucie behaved more like an extra panellist than a chairperson. She virtually rolled up her sleeves and got stuck in.

Lionel Shriver must be shell-shocked. I hope she’s okay. I had a peek at social media. That is truly, truly gruesome.

“From that rhetoric, I get told to go back to my own country”

“I can’t see how you can blame Boris Johnson for that”

This #bbcqt audience member clashes with Lionel Shriver over the Prime Minister’s past comments about women in burkas. pic.twitter.com/KhqxaC25md

— BBC Question Time (@bbcquestiontime) November 28, 2019

Caroline Lucas droned on interminably with that trick of theirs, where they start another sentence almost before the last one has reached a full-stop and carry on seamlessly in a continual filibuster to stop anyone else getting a word in - that’s where the chairperson should step in - but  this particular chairperson only sprang into action when  it was Brandon Lewis’s turn. Whenever he began to speak she interrupted confrontationally, whereupon the audience joined in, preventing him from completing a sentence. Meanwhile, the increasing volume of the moaning and booing resonated the more the audience scented blood. 

Off its rocker

Can anyone help explain why I feel compelled to watch these TV debates? It must be something to do with morbid curiosity; I wish I could break the habit. I’m not going to re-watch the latest torture vehicle, but I’ll take the words of Sarah Vine, Allison Pearson, Kate Hoey and Iain Dale even if his name does contain an extra i. (Or do we pronounce it Ee-ay-an) Fiona Bruce was appallingly biased. The audience was Momentum-heavy.

Anyway, the way the media encourages and inflames the baying mob has a chilling effect on free speech. Anyone in public life now needs to approach their every utterance with extreme caution. A society that dictates that lies must be accepted as truth and a man only has to say he’s a woman to make it so, albeit perhaps a ‘woman with a penis’, leaves many of us wondering if we’re alone in noticing that “the king is in the altogether.” 

Of course the millennium generation or whatever they’re called, the ones who run things, won’t even know what I’m referring to - which reminds me of the BBC expert wheeled in to opine on two election videos ( the one featuring “Beattie” and the slick Momentum video that got into trouble for stealing content from Coca Cola.) He said “I had to Google the character (Beattie) as well as the actress”, (Maureen Lipman) whereupon it dawned on me that these woke young pundits have no understanding of even relatively recent popular culture, which almost explains why someone (other than Anne Marie Morris) - I forget who - got into trouble for “using the’n’ word”. It transpired that this terrible word occurred within the out-of-date idiom meaning "some fact of considerable importance that is not disclosed—something suspicious or wrong." This bonkers scenario is concomitant with the new rules concerning trans issues, whereby everyone has to go along with the Orwellian type convention that lies are truth, and if we transgress we’re toast, remorselessly gobbled up by the mob.

Boris has a choice. 1) Apologise for his past use of the terms ‘Watermelon Smiles, Picaninny, a new one on me “Tank-top Bum-boy’ and of course ‘letterbox and bank robber’, or 2) he digs in deeper and sheepishly defends these terms by  providing context, none of which will be listened to let alone understood by the history-resistant mob.

Boris’s natural ability to express himself verbally in a colourful and cartoonesque way is part of his charm. Maybe it is his charm. 

How can he explain that those ill-fated watermelon picanninies were part of his cynical and satirical response to being subjected to some crude propagandistic displays laid on by the organisers of a Commonwealth tour as described here about three years ago, by Rod Liddle. 

I got Boris Johnson into trouble once, without meaning to. The two of us had been driven hither and thither across Uganda by Unicef in the back of an expensive Mercedes 4×4 to gaze at the fatuous projects they had delivered for the benighted natives. We had been chosen for the trip because we were perceived, rightly, to be unconvinced by the efficacy of some western foreign aid programmes and even less convinced — in my case, at least — by the UN. 

Our chaperones were two humourless Scandinavian women who ferried us both from one remote village to the next: ‘Look, here we have built a women’s drop-in centre,’ one of them would remark proudly of a breezeblock edifice in some pitiful settle-ment which primarily needed a road, a school, some industry etc. But the Unicef women had an agenda and the Ugandans had bloody well better get on board with it. At each village the natives would be rounded up to meet us and explain how exceptionally grateful they were. 

Shortly before we arrived at every stop, the Scandi harridans would smear thick layers of insulating cream on themselves, and then don rubber gloves and face masks. They urged us to do the same — there is bilharzia here, they said, and perhaps worse — but we declined. It seemed staggeringly rude. And so that is how these matrons greeted the natives each time — stepping out of an air-conditioned limo which cost the GDP of their entire country and shaking hands encased in rubber gloves because the black people are all diseased. And then lecturing them about women’s rights. 

It eclipsed satire. This seemed to me racist, patronising and as fine a case of cultural neo-imperialism as you could ever wish to find. After we left one settlement and climbed back in our limo, Boris remarked, with acid on his tongue: ‘And so on to the next bunch of grinning piccaninnies.’ It was one of the most apposite statements I have ever heard; anti-racist in its intent, mocking the attitudes of the Unicef staffers and the purpose of this charade. 

The left-wing press couldn’t care less. They want to see Boris as a racist and that’s the way they’ll see him. If they say it’s racist, then so it is.

As for the letterbox thing. Everyone will by now have seen the talking letterbox on QT. The one who hijacked the topic of antisemitism to rant at will, unimpeded by madam chairperson. This was one of those ‘you couldn’t make it up’ moments, but even worse was the way the panel and the audience took her side. Look at Chuka Umunna! What a creep!

 Why didn’t anyone dare to ask the question “is this ridiculous garb in any way normal?” and “How can this letterbox be an English teacher?”  or “Has this country gone completely off its rocker”

“How can I put my faith in a leader when that same leader likens me to a letterbox?”

This audience member, who is an English teacher, criticises Boris Johnson for previous comments he made about Muslim women in burkas. #bbcqt pic.twitter.com/yzswGBIl7J

— BBC Question Time (@bbcquestiontime) November 21, 2019

No-one would dare. The truth has departed. 

Battle-worn but still standing

Who feels sorry for James Cleverly? He is being served up as a human shock-absorber to bear the brunt of the media’s hostility to the Tories. Behind the fragile shield of his ‘funny tinge’ he’s sent out alone, to boldly go - to the battle zone, to fight, single-handedly, the massed armies of the media.

Yep. I watched Question Time (plus Politics Live and several election-related variants of).

Down but not out

Fiona Bruce’s anti-Tory hostilities are firing on all cylinders; a strangely subdued Clive Lewis was allowed to waffle on ineffectually. The Olympic cyclist seemed as surprised as everyone else to find himself sitting there; what he was doing there no-one will ever know. The Welsh lady seemed superfluous, ( As Marcus Wareing might say, “too much on the plate”) and the BXP lady shot herself in the foot by unnecessarily alienating everyone in the room with her shrill resentful wails of distress.

Another "young Tory" popped up in the audience for the benefit of conspiracy theorists everywhere.

With a final flourish, the audience member who wanted everyone to be ‘nice’ let out a vitriolic stream of consciousness rant aimed, as ever, at a somewhat deflated James Cleverly.

Am I the only one?

‘The moment Boris Johnson entered No. 10, there was no intention of getting a deal.’

The only way to avoid a no-deal Brexit is to remove the Conservatives from government, says this audience member. #bbcqt pic.twitter.com/6XTnZLQnyx

— BBC Question Time (@bbcquestiontime) October 10, 2019

People were amused and entertained by this young fellow. (Look at the comments below this tweet) I wonder if anyone at the Beeb reads below the line responses to its Q.T. Twitter thingy.

 “am I the only one who spots the youthful Momentum plants in BBCQT audiences most weeks? I love how confident they are of the dear leader's popularity with the masses, in the face of all the evidence. Nothing that a little strategic entryism into live telly broadcasts won't surmount”

says a commenter on H.P. (link to website temporarily unavailable)
No, I don’t think you are (the only one)

Update: Brendan O'Neill

"As soon as the Beeb announced that Hartley-Brewer, the journalist, broadcaster and fiery talkRADIO host, would be on QT tonight, the mob got into action. They said it was repulsive for the national broadcaster to ‘platform’ someone like Hartley-Brewer. They demanded that the BBC rethink – that is, it should throw this foul, Brexit-supporting woman off the panel."

How could I have not realised?

I suppose one of us ought to gather together a word or two about Question Time. Fiona Bruce has had time to settle in. 
At first, I thought her interventions were pretty un-chairmanlike. She seemed to want to be a participant, rather than ringmaster. Perhaps it’s that she sees her role as a one-man adversary - as if she has to vanquish all five guests all by herself, like a black-clad Clint Eastwood strolling manfully into a bar and felling the whole bar-full, single-handedly.

Then again, some of her interventions were okay. I don’t think the chair should allow any of the guests to ramble on interminably or say something outrageous without being properly challenged. 

Last night’s edition didn’t seem at all promising. I wouldn’t have bothered to stay up for it, but I happened to be awake, and I did watch it, even though I knew it would be about Brexit, and worse still, Scottish Independence.  There was no-one on the panel to spark up much in the way of anticipation - mainly because none of them were household names, exactly. 

The audience were the ones who brought some excitement to it, and I have to say that Fiona’s schtick is to bring the audience in from the get-go, so that they’re full participants, so to speak. They certainly livened things up as far as critiquing the SNP is concerned. 

I Googled Q.T. this morning just to see what impression it had made on the blogosphere. Up came the Daily Express. Who reads the Daily Express? As far as I could see it’s mainly celebrity gossip about nothing and considerably dumber than the Daily Mail. But the Daily Express went to town on last night’s QT.

 Anyway, this caught my eye; the bit when Fiona got shirty.

Tory peer Baron Forsyth told the BBC audience in Motherwell in Scotland that the Irish border was not an issue due to there being no desire for a hard border by both the UK and the Republic of Ireland. BBC host Fiona Bruce asked why the Irish border was not mentioned during the Vote Leave campaign, to which Baron Forsyth replied and insisted it was not an issue. Lord Forsyth added: “It’s an issue by those people who are trying to reverse the result of the referendum.” 

“The BBC audience laughed at the Brexiteer’s claim as the BBC host added: “But what do you think about the response you get from the audience when you say that? People are laughing.” 

Baron Forsyth fired back: “I think it’s because they have been listening to the BBC who has made this an issue when it is not an issue.” 

Ms Bruce responded: “Oh, it’s our fault. How could I have not realised it is the BBC’s fault?” 

The Tory peer responded and said: “I can help you.” 

But in response, the BBC host chuckled and said: “I might pass on that if you don’t mind.”

The bit where she said:

“Oh, it’s our fault. How could I have not realised it is the BBC’s fault?” 

was indicative of the BBC’s arrogant attitude to criticism. Fiona kind of ‘acted it out’ in the way she does. Just the way she said it was priceless. Someone should make it into a gif, for posterity. 

Open Thread

Brucie - didn't she do well? .........Praise for Fiona (or otherwise) on the new Open Thread

Ways to Change the World

This is about ITV and Channel Four. Turn away now if you’re exclusively interested in bias on the actual BBC.

Did anyone see Rachel Riley and Krishnan Guru-Murthy: the Podcast  “Ways to Change the World” ?

She’s clever and pretty and she’s not afraid to swear at George Galloway on Twitter. What’s not to like?

 The first thing that struck me here was that she was extraordinarily late in the day in becoming - may I use the word ‘woke’? (i.e., alert to injustice in society, especially racism.) I mean, how disappointing was it to discover that she has existed (I assume) within the Metropolitan bubble for at least ten years, yet until the Jewish community got its act together and took some concerted, high profile action, she knew zilch about the media’s relentless bias against Israel or the antisemitism in the Labour party?

But there you go.  Her personality + brains + beauty are invaluable assets for publicly raising awareness; and who knew the glamorous mathematician from Countdown possesses a fully functioning Jewdar? 

What we did hear, loud and clear, was Krishnan G-M’s appalling ignorance. Of course, one expects him to take a pro-Palestinian / anti-Israel stance in accord with Channel Four’s remit, but publicly displaying (and hence perpetuating) his core ignorance of the topic under discussion is (should be) a huge embarrassment to himself.

He tries to expound on the ‘difference’ between anti-Zionism and antisemitism and pretends to be playing Devil’s advocate. But Rachel Riley, as a beginner  - a newcomer to the subject - is ill-equipped to make the strong rebuttal that this particularly foolish “Devil” deserves. 

“I’m having to have so much knowledge that I didn’t have before, to combat it” she declares.

She insists that Israel is necessary as ‘somewhere for Jews to go’ should the need arise, to which Guru-Murthy counters that the Palestinians shouldn’t have had to be “displaced” for this to happen.

“As you know, people on the there side will say it is not racist to say Israel shouldn’t exist because all I’m saying is …. they (are saying)…it was wrong to displace the Palestinians; we should go back to a pre 1948 situation and that means the modern state of Israel doesn’t exist, that doesn’t make me….I’m not hating a people, I’m not hating Jews, I’m just saying that state, you know, is an unjust state … let’s go back to before it existed.”

In the eyes of this particular devil’s advocate, Israel’s Jews are simply interlopers in “Palestinian Land” - and violent and aggressive with it.  Perhaps the Naz Shah remedy would satisfy Mr G-M. Of course, nowadays even the United States is beginning to look a lot less like the safe haven for Jews it might once have been. Antisemitism is rife on campus, and now in congress too.  

It’s pretty shocking that Krishnan Guru-Murphy invites a guest to discuss a frought topic on film and doesn’t even bother to gen up beforehand.

Sarah Baxter has written about this in the Sunday Times. (£)

Riley was inspired to speak out on Twitter after the Jewish community protested against Labour anti-semitism outside parliament last spring. “Jews complaining about anti-semitism in 2018?” she wondered. “This is a bit odd.” 

As she explained on a Channel 4 podcast last week: “There were moments when my mouth was on the floor about Holocaust denial.” With a Jewish mother — and, she laughed, a “Manchester United father” — she was horrified by the level of abuse she received from Corbyn supporters.
“This is what Jeremy Corbyn is inspiring,” she said. “You can’t say anything against [him] without getting shot down.” The hard-left fan site Skwawkbox falsely repeated smears accusing Riley of “meeting” Jacob Rees-Mogg for talks about her “potential political future”, a piece of nonsense designed to discredit her.

By her enemies you shall know her. Riley also attracted the wrath of George Galloway, leader of the so-called Respect Party, after he was kicked out of Labour. He was incensed by her attack on the intellectual guru of the far left, Noam Chomsky, who had previously defended a French Holocaust denier. “Dumbfounding,” Galloway tweeted. “She calls Chomsky . . . an anti-semite and slanders half the Labour Party as the same.”
To which Riley replied with a simple four-letter expletive: “F*** off George Galloway.” If only Corbyn would do the same.”

Ms Baxter also mentioned Fiona Bruce’s debut Q.T. 

Personally, I thought Fi was pretty ineffectual as a chairperson. Rather than facilitating free and fair debate, I thought she took a bit of a liberty in exploiting her position. Rather than letting the panellists get on with it, she kind of ‘joined in’ and took on the argument with each panellist herself. Some would call her approach ‘interventionist’. 

I don’t know if that’s what’s required of a chairperson. I’d prefer the chair to be a non-interventionist with the ability to allocate time between members of the panel fairly, sensitively and intelligently. 

Several commenters online remarked that Melanie Phillips wasn’t given much space. However, she made good use of the window she was given, slapping down the obnoxious comedian, Nish Kumar. No-one knows why he was there. Since this was meant to be a ‘fresh look’ at the programme, how about abandoning the role of rogue, comedy guest altogether.?

Favourite

So, according to Nick Robinson, the auditions have already taken place for those seeking to replace David Dimbleby on Question Time. The six applicants were: Nick Robinson, Emily Maitlis, Samira Ahmed, Kirsty Wark, Victoria Derbyshire and Fiona Bruce. Nick doesn't reckon he'll be picked, and I'm pretty sure he'll be right about that as David Dimbleby is bound to regenerate into a woman this time. Nick thinks it will be (and deserves to be) Emily Maitlis. 

Abstinence

I’ve been away for a month and I think I’ve discovered the cure for blogging about the BBC. Don’t watch it. 

Coming back after a break, it all seems so petty and superficial. Instead, I’ve been mostly watching Fauda on Netflix.

Now there’s a compelling set of back-to-backs to binge-watch. James Delingpole says it’s popular with the Palestinians as well as the Israelis. 

The BBC should buy it in for their BBC Four foreign language / double episode / Saturday night slot. 

As if!

   It doesn’t have a sanctimonious lefty agenda.

Bear pit

I’ve also been reading Melanie Phillips (£) about being ‘set up’ by the Question Time team, and I’ve heard people discussing the US’s decision to walk away from the UNHRC -  mostly to opine that the right way to deal with this corrupt outfit is to ‘stay and change it’. 

As if!

   UNHRC is like the Eurovision Song Contest. It has as much to do with Human Rights as Eurovision has to do with music. It won't change.

#Jew

I heard Will Self on the radio saying he’s reconsidering his resignation from being a Jew. Now he wants to be a Jew. I’d need to listen again to figure out if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but I don’t know if I can be bothered.

Did you see that atrocious Question Time? 

So “the producers last year boasted of the programme’s “rigorous background checks” to ensure balance”?

Well, they’re not boasting now. As Bob Monkhouse famously nearly said. 

Without suggesting that there should be a basic IQ test before the public is granted admission, is it too much to expect some sort of crowd control to defuse what Andrew Neil might call expressions of social unrest? Dimbles seems unconcerned. I think he’s lost the will to chair. Would it be proportionate to suggest riot police and live fire but only as a very last resort?

I mean the sheer stupidity of some of the participants on both sides of the border desk beggars belief. I don’t blame Hamas Momentum - I blame Israel the BBC. 

“Will the Israeli government be held accountable for their crimes against Palestine?”

What sort of question is that? What is this “crimes against Palestine”? I was told this edition of Q.T. took place in Kensington, London. But I see a last-minute change of venue meant it was actually from Royston Vasey and - was the questioner, by any chance …Tubbs? It was surely authored by Tubbs. 

“What we saw this week was a massacre!” 

announced the Guardian’s Aditya Chakrabortty. “Britain should review its position on selling arms to the Israelis” he continued, muttering something about internal repression. (Where and by whom he did not specify.) In fact, the contributions from the anti-Israel contingent seem to have everything vaguely accurate; but in reverse.

Dimbles wondered, 'how could the Israelis be held accountable?' and I’d estimate that a disproportionate percentage of the audience would settle for Hamas getting its wish.

The questioner then stated that Israel "keeps kicking out Palestinian families who have lived there for over fifty years". I assume Yolande Knell would be willing to verify that fact.

“Horrific,” said Bernard Hagan-Howe. “The Israeli government should accept an investigation by an impartial body such as the UN,” he quipped with deadpan wit.  

“The border is illegal, first of all” began an assertive lady, “and, um, um, nobody is saying Hamas have the right to kill people. Secondly, the Palestinian people have their... 

(reads from a pre-prepared list) 

“…their poultry, their olive trees, their cattle, their children - there are fourteen-year-old boys that wet themselves at night time, in nappies because they’re frightened that the IDF are going to come in and take them in the middle of the night”.    

“That land is illegal!’” she ended, with a flourish

Odd that. I may be wrong, but understood that Hamas is digging tunnels to facilitate that very thing, And wasn’t kidnapping Israelis one of Hamas’s prescribed ambitions? (Presumably, the ones that hadn’t already had their hearts ripped out.)  We never got to hear what had happened to the poultry, cattle etc.

‘The man at the back there.’ What is he like? Very animated, you can tell, as he barely pauses for breath as he delivers his 'opposite of the truth' rant. 

People say that Israel has a right to defend itself it does but the Palestinians have a right to defend themselves, right? And you talk about selling arms. […] Stop the arms sales to Israel, make sure the aid is going to the children that are being shot and I’m not being funny, there are people being kicked out of their houses, they got no bread and water!! They have to defend themselves, they need bread and water and they keep saying it’s Hamas, it’s this and that.  It’s all Israel, and the first thing Netanyahu tweeted as soon as Trump was in charge - ‘that is it. No two state solution’ - Israel never wanted a two-state solution they want an actual greater Israel project and they want nothing to do with Palestinians they want to clear them all and it’s people like you, that’s a disgrace to the two-state solution. 

But where on God’s dear earth has he and most of the audience (and panel)  got hold of these post-truth facts?

I wonder.

Mud won't stick

“Only 8 per cent of voters think worse of the Labour leader since the furore over his contact with a Czechoslovakian spy masquerading as a diplomat” 

says Sam Coates in the Times (£)  Who’s surprised?

Did you watch Camilla Tominey on Question Time, (that is if you could bear to listen to John Prescott’s semi-decipherable streams of verbiage, or watch the Asian lady brandishing those scissor-hands menacingly as she performed exaggerated expressions of disapproval) No, Question Time was barely watchable, and the clip from Tominey’s Corbyn speech was a brief highlight amongst a large field of lowlights. It makes no difference whatsoever. Friend of Hamas? Hezbollah? IRA? Press TV? Commie spy? Everything thrown at Corbyn is simply dismissed as a smear; not that his loyal followers would care either way.  

Did you listen to The News Quiz? I accidentally caught part of it. The panellists were amusing themselves with affectionate jokes about Corbyn’s ineffectual spying, but the fact that they ridiculed their hero was probably enough to counter accusations that the BBC’s comedians never satirise Jeremy Corbyn. We learned that Jeremy Hardy has been a friend for years; name-dropping of a most peculiar kind.

According to the Guardian Ken is coming back! Did you know that Ken Livingstone is all set to be reinstated as a member of the Labour Party? He never did anything wrong.

The tide of antisemitism engulfs the Labour Party and it looks as if a great many people are resigned to a Labour Government in the not too distant future.

“But the toxicity of the Hampstead and Kilburn Labour Party has meant that I have had no choice but to speak out on racism, time and time again. At seven of the last nine meetings, the Kilburn Brent Branch of the party has tabled toe-curling motions singling-out Jews and Israel. Seven out of nine. If that is not institutional racism, I don’t know what is.”

I watched Nigel Slater the other day. He went to the Middle East (Turkey, Lebanon and Iran) because he loves Lebanese cuisine and wants to experience the renowned hospitality of the people. That’s something that people like Nigel Slater always marvel at. Because of their generosity and their aromatic cuisine, he and people like him overlook the antisemitism and more barbaric elements of Islamic culture. 

This is mad, I know, but I always feel instinctively sorry for Nigel Slater. He seems lonely. But at least he has a lovely kitchen, and like Nigella, always has special artisan groceries wrapped up in crinkly greaseproof paper, not like the vacuum-packed and impenetrable stuff from Lidl’s and Morrison’s. Nigel and Nigella - the his and hers of posh shopping.

One aspect of Nigel’s jaunt through (some of) the Middle East troubles me in the same way ex-hostage (in Lebanon) John McCarthy used to when he hosted a travel programme on radio 4. He was always extolling the virtues of Damascus as a holiday destination. Of course, that was way back in the days when Damascus was merely a police state, rather than an out and out war-zone.  He never mentioned that Bashir al-Assad’s spies were everywhere, eavesdropping on every conversation.

But still, nice middle-class people have a thing about Muslim countries and people so hospitable that, no matter how poor, they’ll give a stranger their last sheep’s eye. Well, last week Nigel left Lebanon, where he had been most warmly received by all, Hezbollah was nowhere to be seen and politics was never mentioned but for a couple of oblique references to “the War”. How would he be expected to care that Hezbollah has about 500,000 rockets pointing at Israel? 

Off he trotted, to Iran. Nigel was overcome with joy at the hospitality of the Iranians. And only one teeny little mention of the current regime; something about ‘fun’. ‘Long lost,’ it was. I heard there's no such thing as homosexuality in Iran. Luckily for Nigel.

"Unbearable bunch of right-on bores..."

“The Now Show (BBC Radio 4) - unbearable bunch of right-on bores who think they are funny at the best of times - but today - dearie, dearie me. Some American woman insulting Bush (force of habit) to add to her ranting unfunny insults about Trump. Dreadful rubbish.”

Not my words. A commenter on another site. I daren’t listen. Still traumatised after watching Question Time. 

How can “they” not know what most people are thinking? (Or, if they do know, are they really arrogant enough to think their duty is to re-educate everyone?) 

We’ve been speculating over this conundrum for years. Is it ignorance or malevolence. You decide.

Torn between Question Time and Newsnight

Imagine being torn between watching Question Time BBC 1 and Newsnight BBC 2! 

Oh the anguish.

As if the morbid fascination of Katie Razzall’s ‘half-the-story’ film about a Syrian refugee family’s suffering in Newcastle wasn’t compelling enough, the equally morbid, almost rubber-necked compulsion to watch Emily Thornberry crash and burn on Q.T. proved irresistible. 

I tore myself away from the tearful Syrians whose son Omar had just been found not guilty of sexually assaulting a teenage girl in a park, and turned instead to the excitement of Damian Green, Isabel Oakshott, Amol Rajan, Alex Salmond and Emily Thornberry performing before the audience in the RAF Museum in London.

Most of the programme was devoted to Brexit and whether Theresa May should be compelled to publicly reveal her negotiating hand so that various ‘remoaniacs’ could have their say, and possibly their vote,  and Jeremy Corbyn could reflect on it, have a conversation about it, possibly demand another referendum and generally hold the Tories to account. 

Emily Thornberry addressed the Leave voters in the audience:  “How many of you voted for your neighbours to lose their jobs?”  That didn’t go down too well. The assumption was that Leave voters ‘didn’t know what they were voting for’ (redundancy for the neighbours course) because that was what will happen when we leave the EU. 

This struck me as an example of what Emily Thornberry might call ‘people saying different contradictory things’  since Leave voters (supposedly) objected to unrestricted immigration which drives down wages and steals (our) jobs. 

All along, Emily Thornberry emitted a stream of words in her specially adapted version of ‘Just a Minute’, the sole objective being to speak “without hesitation”. (Repetition and deviation were abundant.) Maybe  Q.T. should introduce buzzers.

Isabel Oakshott was good, her hair resting upon her heaving bosom. This infantilising fashion for long hair on adult women is getting irritating. 

Emily Thornberry’s media appearances have been so awful since she was anointed Shadow Home Secretary that having her on this particular panel must have been an act of pure mischief on the part of the producers. I expect they were hoping for another Dermot Murnaghan moment.  In the event it was just one long, drawn out exhibition of unintentional self parody.

The audience has become more unpredictable of late. There were a few surprising contributions, not least of which came from a young man with a giant afro, which doubled the impact of his pro Trump sentiment.

When the programme ended I had the urge to finish watching Katie Razzall’s rose-tinted film. “Did you ever think that this was worse than what you’d left behind?” suggested Katie, in the most one-sided anti-British bit of film I’ve seen for …at least half an hour.

Syria is currently hell on earth and I have sympathy for families like this, but Katie Razzall has managed to portray these particular reality TV stars as such paragons of virtue that this film will have raised the hackles of many more viewers than the filmmakers set out to seduce.. 

It appears this family had been tortured by the Assad regime before they fled to Jordan, where they’d been living for two years before arriving in the UK. 

The suggestion that Omar’s experiences in the UK were far worse than anything they’d experienced in Syria (being tortured) was pushing it. For ‘conservative’ Muslims, whose reputation was one of “high moral standing”, this unfortunate prosecution must indeed have been galling, but let’s not forget - he was acquitted. Found not guilty. British justice and that. 

We heard that Omar couldn’t have committed a sexual assault on a schoolgirl because “our religion” doesn’t permit things like that, and although the local council had laid on classes to educate immigrants on how we treat sluts women in the UK,  the classes were for adults only and the father, amusingly named Marwan Badreddin,  (!) said they couldn’t talk about it to youths such as Omar because “We don’t talk about such things in Syria”.

18 year old Omar says he’s never had a sexual relationship. “Here, we see boys and girls kissing all the time and we just have to try and get used to it; in Syria we wait to get married.” 

The film included a clip of rampaging skinheads wearing ‘rapefugees’ T-shirts.  Throughout the film certain “complexities” within the tale were alluded to, and introduced, bit by bit. 

The family had another son, Abdel Malek, whom they’d left behind in Syria and hadn’t seen for three years. Now it seems they’d just heard he’d been killed while fighting Assad, with “an Islamist group,”  though his father denied that that made him an extremist.

Understandably the family yearned for Syria, but they appeared to have little intention of acquiring any real affinity with the country that had shown them a considerable amount of generosity. 

This wilful blindness to the problems created by the cultural and religious differences between Muslim refugees and ordinary British citizens does more harm than good. Katie Razzall’s conspicuously rose-tinted bias added greatly to the confusion.

Typical Syrian refugees

Later, against my better judgment I saw Katie Hopkins chatting about Donald Trump with a rather irritable Andrew Neil.  Andrew Neil took a disappointingly BBC approach to the subject, while Michael Portillo almost took Katie Hopkins by surprise by unexpectedly siding with her. 

Some trivial responses to some serious matters

So much to cover, so little time. Theresa May. What did you think? Being inherently suspicious I wondered if her new New Labour approach was a cynical and cold-blooded attempt to poach disillusioned New Labour voters. It would be an understandable strategic manoeuvre before the next general election.

The next thing I thought was that she had a really good hairdo. 

I rather like the choice of that unfussy dress for the occasion.The press described it as ‘bergundy’ or ‘magenta’. Without Pantone that colour has no definitive description.   Have you noticed that Theresa has started walking with a Thatcheresque gait - slightly stooped, with her head leading the way. 

***** 

All that frantic waving that people have started doing. I’m thinking of Diane James. That waving - she waved both her arms so vigorously that she nearly toppled over - was the undoing of Diane James. No question.

******

UKIP next.

Why did the BBC dump Ruth Lea and put Neil Hamilton on the QT panel? Was it unadulterated mischief-making? They knew Christine’s hubby has it in for Stephen Woolfe who seems to epitomise ‘architect of one’s own destruction’.

In the event, Neil Hamilton was disappointingly uncontroversial, his reptilian demeanour being the most notable part of his performance. 

*******

The Labour Party reshuffle.

OMG is all one could say. Making Diane Abbott Home Secretary is a deeply weird concept, which the nation will need some time to get its head round. Just the thought of it leaves one reeling with incredulity.

Shami Chakrabarti we already knew about, but we must wait and see how that pans out. Suspend your disbelief. The unbelievable is happening before your vey eyes.

Sarah Champion? Really?  Yep.

********

I did watch Question Time from Neath, to my regret.  Chuka Umunna chose to take up the cartoon version of his political opponents and use it as a kind of straw man. Leanne Wood did the same: “People throwing punches in Strasbourg today, is that not thuggish?” What about the woman in purple who accused Leanne Wood of  taking the “English stream” out of her local school, and the man who said  Plaid Cymru was a racist party and resented being called a thug. All good sport. I didn’t know Alun Cairns MP, but he bore his role as victim with good humour.  

Take the childish humour out of Andy Parsons and you’re left with a pub bore. Neil Hamilton’s spat with Leanne Wood and David Dimbleby’s multiple digs at UKIP seemed to amuse the audience more. 

If you’re going to watch just a little bit of it, please watch this bit, the Harry Enfield moment:

DD:

“At the very back, in pink, yes”

Woman in Pink:

“Yes. There is no future for UKIP because children are our future, and I don’t think they are going to be voting UKIP. Simple as. No future.”

Woman in Pink

A man of principles and honour

I don't watch Question Time these days because I always seem to be asleep by 10:45.

Of course I could catch up next day.  I did so yesterday out of mild curiosity after noticing that Question Time was to have an unusually balanced panel. (Having dropped a controversial guest at the last minute and brought in Caroline Lucas instead.) 

The only thing I've got to say about it is that there was strange and wonderful diversity-of-audience as well. A genuine mixture. It was heartwarming to see Caroline Lucas getting a cool response and Jacob Rees-Mogg a comparatively warm one. He’s a bit of a pin-up these days, in a retro, shabby chic, kitsch, ironic kind of way.

Dimbles (D) said next time they'd be in Boston, 'A strongly Leave' area. (I must say the people who decided to separate voter trends by area have a lot to answer for. I thought it was supposed to be a yes/no referendum, not a rerun of the G.E.) If everyone had just accepted the result in the proper spirit of referendums and left it at that we wouldn't have to go through all this "We Londoners/Scots/ Educated People voted Remain so we should be allowed to remain" malarkey.

Anyway, this all pales into insignificance in the light of today’s historic vote for Jeremy Corbyn as Labour’s forever leader, and I must say my heart is still sinking. As I said to Craig, my trepidation about Brexit is down to a deep concern over the exact nature of the “we” who will be taking back control of ‘our country’. 

Don’t forget, they all laughed when Hitler first reared his unelectable little head, and I know, I know, gratuitously mentioning Hitler immediately turns one into Ken Livingstone.

Anyway, despite this I listened to Any Questions last evening, which will by now have gone out on its Saturday slot and anyone listening to Radio 4 will know that there won’t be the usual Any Answers this week because of the aforementioned cataclysmic event. 

Before I start on Any Questions, let’s just mention that Shami Chakrabarti appeared on last night’s BBC News with her colours firmly nailed to the mast. She hoped and believed that “Jeremy” will win, and then she said something about ‘mugging a decent 67 year-old man in cold blood’. You couldn’t make it up.

Well, I transcribed the whole A.Q. section devoted to antisemitism, apart from the last bit which got awfully long-winded and I feared I had bitten off more that I could chew -  so I skipped the dullest bits.

Jonathan Dimbles began by asking:

“Do you like being called Baroness Chakrabarti of Kennington?”

“No” replied Shami in a very sullen voice.

Here is the question:

"Andrew McMillan: Is it right that Jeremy Corbyn, supposedly a man of principles and honour should preside over a party where a Jewish Labour MP feels the need for personal protection when she attends her party’s own conference?"

Tim Farron was given the first shot at this question. You’d need to read the transcript to get the full effect, but do bear in mind that the Lib Dems are the party of David Ward and Jenny Tonge. Predictably, Mr. Farron (or Gollum as he is affectionately known) banged on about racism of all kinds.

Next in line was a young Sikh lady called Harsimrat Kaur (me neither) who wears a very tall turban, beehive style, oddly reminiscent of the ‘Bomb’ in that oh so provocative Mohammed PBUH cartoon.  She has experienced racism too, particularly on social media, and she criticised the leader of the party for not standing up for Ruth Smeeth.

Jonathan turned to the good Baroness:

"Shami Chakrabarti of course, many of you will know that you produced - wrote a report for Jeremy Corbyn the issue of allegations of antisemitism within the party."

SC:

“So I’ve had a pretty miserable summer looking into this pretty awful subject” 

she began, evidently feeling sorry for herself. Poor her. Oh, not for the opprobrium she got for her whitewash, as one might assume. No, it’s antisemitism (and all other forms of racism) that has made her miserable. 

“There is some antisemitism, no question, and there is also incivility and toxicity and misogyny and all the things we talked about, and it’s not unique to any one party, but my view is that we don’t have a competition about this” 

she continued, now well into her stride. Hang on, it wasn’t a competition till Shami and her cohorts brought Islamophobia into it. 

Throughout this and all her other answers, she does her best to herd the conversation away from antisemitism and towards anything else she can think of, which clearly demonstrates that she really doesn’t get it.  Doesn’t even want to. 

Now we know that she’s a devoted, nay besotted Corbynista, out and proud, how can anyone take her ‘report’ seriously

Full (ish) transcript over the page:

Another QT to remember

Yesterday’s Question Time was quite extraordinary. Recently the airwaves have been buzzing with chatter about the BBC’s outrageous anti-Brexit campaigning. The BBC must be aware of the buzz on the street, but they still put out an edition of QT with a panel of four pro-remain political figures and one (non-MP) pro-leave parliamentary sketch writer. 

The message is defiant: not only are we going to ignore our charter obligations with regard to impartiality over the referendum, we’re actually going to ratchet up our anti-Brexit campaign.

David Dimbleby seems to have given up. He quickly realised that he’d better just sit back and let them get on with it. 

Anna Soubry caused Twitter outrage by saying John McDonnell was a nasty piece of work, and someone tweeted that Dimbleby’s non-response to that remark evidenced the BBC’s right-wing political bias lol. 

Looking at Twitter, as one must these days, one might be confused by the Q.T. related Twitter accounts. 

It seems that QT’s official promotional Twitter is mostly excerpts from the programme and so on, whereas  the other one is the audience’s bear-pit, full of angry Corbynistas complaining that the BBC is not lefty enough. 

However, it has also discovered the video of John McDonnell “Welcoming the financial crash as an opportunity” which Harry’s Place posted yesterday, and

which has also appeared in the Mirror. 

Alistair Campbell exudes 'dismal'. Watching him makes one feel dismal. Has anyone else counted the number of times he says “I think”? He starts with “I think” and peppers the beginning, middle and end of every sentence with it, as though he finds his own thoughts as unconvincing as we do.

The vitriol between the panellists was about to bubble over any minute. John McDonnell has been found out. It’s well known that he’s nothing but an unreconstructed communist with an anti-capitalist agenda and that he’s the one pulling the strings. Jeremy Corbyn, whose incompetence, dishonesty and dullness of intellect is revealing itself more and more each day, as is his antisemitism. Despite all this, and despite the Labour Party being in disarray and near collapse, the politically illiterate and the bitter, resentful hard left are determined to avoid seeing what’s in front of their faces; their determination is alarming to witness. 

The young lady in the audience, a starstruck Corbynista, seemed sincere when she said that what she liked best about Jeremy Corbyn is that he’s honest and truthful. Her painstakingly  ‘groomed’ appearance somehow accentuated her stupidity.

Quentin Letts was right when he said that the pretty teenager who would have voted ‘Leave’ should have been on the panel.  As it is, it’s a wonder she was even able to smuggle  herself into the audience.

“Swivel-eyed crazy”

I was just about to compose a shell-shocked rant about Paul Mason’s extraordinary outburst during last night’s Question Time, but I see OMG The Daily Mail has done it for me.

In a sidebar, a brief reference to the BBC: 

“Dismissed as a 'revolutionary marxist' by George Osborne, Paul Mason's left-wing leanings were no secret during his decade long career at the BBC.”

Toby Young  and William Cameron Tweeted:

I wonder if anyone from the BBC will have anything to say?