For anyone not watching the Theresa May-Donald Trump press conference, here's a flavour of what you've been missing...
Theresa May: Laura?
Laura Kuenssberg: Thank you very much, Prime Minister. Laura Kuenssberg, BBC News. Prime Minister, you have talked about where you agree, but you have also said you would be frank where you disagree with the President. Can you tell us where in our talks you did disagree, and do you think the President listened to what you have to say? And Mr President, you have said before that torture works. You have praised Russia. You have said you want to ban some Muslims from coming to America. You have suggested there should be punishment for abortion. For many people in Britain, those sound like alarming beliefs. What do you say to our viewers at home who are worried about some of your views and worried about you becoming the leader of the free world?
Donald Trump(turning to Theresa May): This was your choice of a question? (Audience laughs). There goes that relationship!
******
This provoked a short Twitter exchange between a Breitbart journalist and a BBC journalist:
Raheem Kassam, Breitbart London: Horrible question by BBC claiming to speak for the British public. You speak for no one but the liberal elite!
Daniel Sandford, BBC Home Affairs correspondent: Breitbart, the future of journalism?
Raheem Kassam, Breitbart London: Hey "Home Affairs" editor... how about reporting some actual news, like how Rotherham style gangs still persist?
******
Update: It's turning into a tag-wrestling match over on Twitter:
Raheem Kassam, Breitbart London: Horrible question by BBC claiming to speak for the British public. You speak for no one but the liberal elite!
Mark Lowen, BBC Turkey correspondent: The response by @BreitbartNews to @bbclaurak's utterly legitimate and probing question to @POTUS
Raheem Kassam, Breitbart London: Your "news" outlet flubbed the biggest chance of the year to get more trade deal details. R u gonna ask Erdogan his fave dessert?
Mark Lowen, BBC Turkey correspondent: Solidarity among journalists is a great thing. (Independent journalists).
Raheem Kassam, Breitbart London: I agree. Which is why we as a private company have more legitimacy than you as an arm of the British establishment funded by threats.
Mark Lowen, BBC Turkey correspondent: The standard-bearers of legitimate journalism.
Isn’t it unsettling when the TV pundits evidently know less than you do? I want them to know more than I do otherwise what’s the point?
I’m not talking about the I/P conflict for once - you’ve undoubtedly already written that off as the topic no-one wants to know very much about. A few judicious cries of “What Israel is doing” and “Shame on you” should suffice.
No, I’m referring to the extraordinarily pedestrian discussion about the UKip leadership contest on today’s Sunday Politics, with Tim Shipman, Isabel Oakeshott, Steve Richards and of course Andrew Neil.
They began talking about Raheem Kassam, whom some people believe is a strong contender.
“He’s something to do with Breitbart, isn’t he?” said Andrew, looking rather pleased with himself.
“He’s extremely right-wing” asserted Isabel,” he has a picture of Enoch Powell by his bed” (or words to that effect)
Well, did you know, as I’ve just found out, that Raheem Kassam’s favourite journalist is Rod Liddle? (I thought Rod was supposed to be a bit of a coconut - wobbly leftie on the outside, wibbly righty on the inside. Or something like that. Did you read his amusing piece on Baroness Tonge in the Sunday Times (£))
I actually read that scintillating insight (and others) into Raheem Hassam on Buzzfeed. It’s not a site I’d normally look to, and I don’t expect the BBC would see it, as you’d have to go to the trouble of Googling ‘Raheem Kassam' to find it. And interestingly it also sheds a tiny bit more light on the intriguing bust-up between Kassam and his former business partner Robin Shepherd. It’s weird that hardly anyone brings up this mysterious and very acrimonious fight when the UKip leadership issue comes up, since skeletons in closets are the driving force behind much of our current political discourse.
So here, for the information of the Sunday Politics team, is the link, and a brief extract.
“By this point he had become a pundit, and sought funding from “pro-Israel, anti-Islamism” American neocons to run a blog called The Commentator with fellow activist Robin Shepherd. The pair split in incredibly acrimonious circumstances in 2013.
“Working with Raheem Kassam was a nightmare,” Shepherd said when contacted by BuzzFeed News this week. “I formally reported him to the police on suspicion of fraud. Since I had never before reported anyone to the police, perhaps a reasonable observer might wonder why that seemed necessary. Kassam is a psychopath, and a crook. Kassam is a nasty piece of work, and prides himself on being so. Being a ‘wrong ’un’ is something he relishes, as do the shabby characters who associate with him.
“Raheem Kassam is a danger to British democracy, and the rule of law. I saw at first-hand behaviour that was so appalling it was, and remains, difficult to internalise.”
In response, Kassam says Shepherd wrongly accused him of taking thousands of pounds from the blog when the business venture collapsed: “We never codified the relationship between us. When we had a bust-up he said I was sacked.”
Kassam said he went back to the American donors. “I said, who do you want to keep the money? Me or Robin?” He says the donors chose him, much to the anger of Shepherd, who struggled to deal with this and has written furious posts about the situation ever since.
Oh well, we still don’t know exactly what has happened, but then, neither do we know the fine details of various other game-changing revelations that have been given the full-on press coverage, which (arguably) are designed to scupper certain political ambitions. I just wish the pundits knew what they were talking about so that they could tell us.
This post might have but a tenuous link to the core purpose of this blog, but we reserve the right to go off-piste if we’re sufficiently piste off.
"Bringing in the RESPECT Party helps Grassroots Out’s chance of getting the official designation for the referendum. Because those who check with the Electoral Commission would know that you could have every Cabinet Minister under the sun backing you, but it wouldn’t help with the “cross party” requirement. This is where the establishment Vote Leave are failing. And indeed it is a problem of their making."
That is Raheem Kassam’s argument for holding your nose and tolerating George Galloway’s inclusion in the Grassroots “Go” campaign.
I’ve had a look at this and I haven’t found a ruling that says the ‘cross party requirement’ needs to include the Respect party. Surely it’s already cross-party enough. Labour, UKip, Conservative, monster raving loony - who else do they need?
Even if Nigel Farage was thinking long-term, and merely gritting his teeth and tolerating Galloway “for the good of the country,” he has undoubtedly sabotaged the reputation of UKIP. In fact he’s forfeited it altogether.
I understood there was a hard-fought struggle within UKip’s ranks to weed out racists and antisemites.
The EDL failed to win the battle against its hooligan-riddled image, but UKip almost succeeded in ridding itself of its racist image, and distancing itself from all those murky comparisons with the BNP and the NF.
By tolerating Galloway’s support of Islamic extremists and antisemites, even if he’s been cunning enough not to be caught expressing outright antisemitism himself by always carefully couching it in criticism of Israel or hiding it behind other indirect slurs - Nigel Farage has foregone all the potential UKip might once have had to be taken seriously as a credible and honourable political party.
Since the “Out” campaign is already fragmented, why couldn’t Galloway muster all those followers of his whose vast numbers are supposedly vital to bolster the Grassroots movement, and set up his own Islam-friendly ‘Out’ campaign.
Giving Galloway a platform was totally unnecessary. A gross lapse of judgment. He was okay as he was - marginalised and ridiculous. Now look. Rejuvenated, rehabilitated and as poisonous as ever.
At the moment the Out campaign could hardly be more vulnerable to the BBC’s obsession with schisms. Why add another divisive element into the mix?
Galloway’s Islamophillic politics are precisely what many of the Out campaigners are afraid of. The mass Muslim immigration that Galloway encourages hardly typifies most people’s vision of a better Britain. Or any kind of Britain at all.
I am disappointed now. I was leaning out, but now I’m seriously wavering.
There’s quite a storm brewing. Did Raheem Kassam and about 100 other people walk out of the grassroots meeting because of George Galloway, or because they were afraid they’d miss the last bus home?
What do you think?
Has Farage scored a massive own goal by allowing George Galloway to spook a considerable number of potential “out’ campaign voters, or will the “Go” movement swallow their differences in the name of unity?
I did notice that many of the speakers seemed to be preparing the audience to accept that they’d have to work alongside people they disagreed with - and -yes, even people they didn’t like. But is this step too far?
I was just lamenting the fact that antisemitism has become something we are expected to overlook. “Suck it up” they say.
You have to ask, would they have co-opted Hitler if they thought it would boost the numbers?
Despite various glowing reports of Galloway’s “terrific speech” and the predictable standing ovation, I for one was not impressed. It was an average speech, full of the usual Galloway mannerisms that seem to impress people. He’s a great orator - to people who are unfamiliar with great orators. He’s the stupid person’s idea of a great orator in the Stephen Fry sense.
We were just discussing the appalling way that the increasingly overt antisemitism expressed by students, the man in the street, the Muslim community as well as in certain public figures, is overlooked these days.
Now it seems that the Out Campaign is another area which has been polluted.
I heard Kate McCann from the Telegraph being interviewed by a school-marmish Mishal Husain this morning. She said 200 people walked out of the meeting when Galloway was revealed as the mystery speaker, and some allegedly told her they left because they couldn’t tolerate his antisemitic views.
We’re used to Galloway behaving in a quite rational and even normal fashion on QT, or with Andrew Neil. But his duplicity is very well known.
Raheem Kassam, who had said of Galloway’s appearance at the meeting “It’s not a good look” has subsequently rowed back.
We can all change our minds, but I think he’s got a lot of explaining to do.
Here are a couple of YouTube videos that are well worth watching.
The first, Callers challenge BBC presenter over biased coverage of migrant crisis, is a selection of calls to BBC 5 Live presenter Stephen Nolan over a couple of nights earlier this month.
At the start Stephen dishes it out with a vengeance but towards the end the tables are well and truly turned as listeners call him out on his behaviour. He isn't happy, and I think it's fair to say he dishes it out a lot better than he takes it!
The second, INTERVIEW: Ex-EDL Leader Tommy Robinson interviewed by Breitbart London’s Raheem Kassam, is (in a different way) hardly less intense, especially the section on his prison experiences, which - if true - are shocking (to put it mildly). A 40-minute interview with Tommy Robinson isn't something you'll ever see on the BBC (unless they ever start broadcasting show trials!).
For those interested in the issue of BBC bias, the opening few minutes are particularly interesting. They touch on the media's (especially the BBC's ) coverage of the phenomenon of 'Asian street grooming gangs'. (I didn't know about Eastenders).
Watch for yourselves (if you wish) and please make up your own minds.
I wrote about Raheem Kassam the other day. Trouble follows him where ‘ere he goes. Although he’s purportedly ‘on the right side’, there’s something of the night about Raheem.
First he appears and disappears from his post as the Henry Jackson Society’s director of marketing, then an acrimonious split with Robin Shepherd and departure from the Commentator, then something or other at Breitbart London, then all this gossip about a much (self) edited Wiki page, subsequently deleted, then he was Nigel’s chief of staff, then he resigned, then back to Breitbart, forcing Dellers and the other chap, Milo Yainnopoulos, out.
Guido understands that shock-jock firebrands James Delingpole and Milo Yiannopoulos are both exiting Breitbart London. The return of Farage’s former chief of staff Raheem Kassam to Breitbart has left the two in despair, after they had spent nine months trying to move the site away from the hectoring Tea Party-style news service Kassam ran it as during his previous stint at the site. Kassam says the US-funded site will once again take a keen interest in UKIP’s affairs.Rumour has it the two have retreated to the country to plan a new YouTube-heavy entertainment website of their own. The walkout is bad news for Breitbart London, Delingpole and Yiannopoulos were two of the most well known writers on the staff and both are brands in their own right with considerable personal followings; [...[The ever energetic Kassam more generously says “James and Milo have been fantastic columnists for Breitbart London, we wouldn’t be where we are now without them. I hope that despite the loss of editorial control they will continue to contribute to the site.”
I can’t help thinking of Lady Bracknell. To lose one job, Mr. Kassam, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose a handful looks like carelessness.
There was a distinctly “Alistair Campbell” look on his face when he appeared with Emily Maitlis on Newsnight; a look that expresses a kind of satisfaction from publicly dishing the dirt and speaking “as an insider”, while trying (but failing) to look self-sacrificial and slightly pained. (Alistair Campbell had that look while doing the rounds as an ex-alcoholic, intimate and adviser to Charles Kennedy.)
Raheem Kassam’s Ukip related gossip, some of which, as it happens does ring true, has been featured in both the Spectator and the Guardian, and many of the below the line comments in both politically opposite papers are uncannily similar. Mostly suspicious and critical.
A Guardian comment:
“Something very unpleasant about this man, I'm sorry but I wouldn't trust a word he says.”
Trust him or not, the BBC will relish these revelations as they denigrate UKIP. Come to think of it, so will the Guardian and the Spectator. Common enemy and all that. In the short term Raheem Kassam can only benefit from the publicity, but we’ll have to wait and see if anything more damaging comes to light.
Would it be fair to say that the BBC is gloating over the latest Ukip debacle?
After the BBC’s pre-election attempts to sideline Ukip, then all that speculation about the imminent collapse of Ukip following Douglas Carswell’s refusal to accept all the ‘short money’ which various Ukip members thought they were entitled to keep.
(Isabel Hardman’s piece in the Spectator attracted several scathing below the line repsonses.)
Now there’s this new row about Nigel Farage’s leadership and personality, sparked off by an article in the Times (£).
Nigel Farage has become a “snarling, thin-skinned, aggressive” man who is making Ukip look like a “personality cult”, the party’s campaign director has claimed in a devastating attack. Patrick O’Flynn, the party’s economics spokesman and one of its most senior MEPs, breaks cover today to warn that the Ukip leader’s recent behaviour risked depicting the party as an “absolute monarchy”.
One aspect of this unfortunate row is that it does make one reflect in awe at how hard other political parties, much bigger than Ukip, strive, and usually succeed in keeping their internal squabbles in the family. The downside, from the public’s point of view is that it does lead to the robotic repetition of the party line like Priti Patel’s Dalek-like chanting of Tory party policy I watched on the excruciating Victoria Derbyshire show yesterday. (lucky she’s good looking, with such a name.) (Priti, not Victoria)
However, at least part of the behind-the-scenes disharmony in Ukip is said to boil down to a couple of Nigel Farage’s advisers, one of whom is Raheem Kassam.
I’ve been wondering about the slightly mysterious Kassam ever since that odd outburst of cryptic Tweets by Robin Shepherd of the Commentator, which hinted at a scurrilous betrayal by his (ex)partner Kassam. Some said Robin Shepherd must have been completely pissed when he Tweeted.
I have to say that I used to enjoy the pro-Israel blog “Robin Shepherd Online”, but when he set up the more ambitious ‘Commentator’ project with Raheem Kassam I was less keen. It seemed to feature very few of Shepherd’s own articles in favour of a more varied, broader political remit, which was obviously a step up, but at the same time a kind of dilution. ( I’m probably alone in that)
Here’s a bio of Kassam from one of his - shall I say ‘political opponents’? You can see where Mr. Mushy Peas coming from in this intro.
“UKIP’s newest fascist to join their ranks is none other than Raheem Kassam, a former managing editor of the right-wing website Breitbart and he has been hired as the party’s new election strategist.”
Anyway, this is what the author has to say about the Kassam/Farage relationship.
“Raheem Kassam has become the person Nigel Farage refers to as his “boy” or “my man”. I would suggest you read this piece here for little bit more information on the right wing Raheem but briefly, he is of Indian Ismaili (not to be mistaken with Islam or Muslims) origin, his parents are immigrants from Tanzania (what an irony that he is now a member of UKIP, who knows, he may seek to ask his parents to leave the UK).”
So is Raheem Kassam a trouble maker and a damned nuisance? He certainly seems to have ruffled some left-wing feathers.
The accusation here is that Kassam has been fiddling with Wikipedia. But then who hasn’t? “
Kassam loves trolling left-wingers, including Mehdi Hasan (calls him “hateful” and an “extremist”), Laurie Penny and Shami Chakrabati, whose resignation he demanded from the LSE.”
Well, is that a plus or a minus?
There is definitely some litigation in the air. Goodness knows what Kassam actually did, but whatever it was it doesn’t make him sound very appealing as an associate.
Trouble at t’mill at The Commentator where Raheem Kassam has upped sticks and left to form his new multi-contributor website Trending Central. Kassam was somewhat tightlipped when I called, but it seems he has had a falling out with the owner of The Commentator, Robin Shepherd. It seems that My Learned Friend has become involved. However, the very entrepreneurial Kassam has wasted little time in setting up Trending Central as a multi-authored commentary platform. It seems to have a much wider remit than the foreign affairs and Westminster politics themes of The Commentator. “We’ve already attracted some big name contributors and we want pieces from people who are sick to death of being constrained by the mainstream media," he tells me. Indeed, it seems that most of the Commentator contributors have jumped ship with Kassam. Building traffic for a multi-authored site which covers a raft of subjects is no easy task, as I remember from Dale & Co. But if anyone can do it, Kassam can.
In July 2013 Kassam launched a new blog news website called Trending Central, which '..was conceived with a view to bring fast-paced, interesting news items and blogs to the English speaking world'. Run by a voluntary staff of writers and analysts: The site is geared towards serving the Anglo-sphere content that is of a political or cultural nature, though we’re totally open to things like book or restaurant reviews, as well as anything else interesting you might be able to muster up. Please do consider that the site is pro-free markets, pro-democracy, pro-Western and pro-Israel in its outlook, so if any of that bothers you, perhaps you should look elsewhere!Contributing editors as of September 2013 included: Peter C. Glover (Energy, Markets, Geopolitics and Environment) Fernando Menendez (North America, Central America and Latin America, Economics), Benjamin Harris-Quinney (British and European Politics) Andrew Ian Dodge, US Politics, Nathalie Tamam (Middle East, British Politics), Simon Miller (Finance, Civil Liberties). [10]Breitbart LondonIn February 2014 the Guardian reported that Kassam would join 'green-baiter' James Delingpole as part of the team working for a new London outlet of the right wing U.S.-based news and opinion website Breitbart.[11]UKIP roleIn October 2014, Kassam's own news site, Breitbart London, announced that he would be leaving the organisation to start working as 'senior adviser' to United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) party leader Nigel Farage. The move followed Kassam's work on a number of UKIP puff-piece for the right wing media outlet. According to the write-up, the role was 'the first of its kind as UKIP grows and professionalises' and Kassam was 'set to lead on advising Mr Farage in developing party messaging, strategy, fundraising and publicity'.[12]The right wing Spectator magazine mocked the the appointment, calling Kassam 'troublesome', 'wildly self-important', and a 'professional wind-up merchant'. Columnist Steerpike noted that the fawning tone of the anonymous Breitbart Londonannouncement, including the line:'Breitbart understands from senior UKIP sources that Kassam was picked specifically for his political nous and campaigning prowess'.The Spectator suggested that UKIP could now adopt 'vicious American-style attack politics' and suggested that 'if UKIP is trying to be popular, they could hardly have picked a more unsuitable hire'.[13]
So what’s going on? Has Nigel Farage made a hugely damaging decision in bringing Kassam into the fold, or is it all some kind of left-wing smear?
Judging from the (possibly coincidental) havoc wreaked in Kassam’s wake, wherever he goes, it does seem a bit like a case of “If you’re looking for trouble - you came to the right place”
"Kassam had already been reported to the police under the Fraud Act. He stands accused of multiple counts of fraud, as well as theft, blackmail and extortion. Tens of thousands of pounds are reported to be involved. He is also accused of false and malicious accusations of harassment against his alleged victim."
"Interpol may be involved, given that Kassam's alleged offences took place in more than one jurisdiction. Cross-border tax crime regarding a UK law firm is also under consideration."
