Recap

As I was saying in my previous post, we all make use of cherry-picked examples when it suits us. Sometimes it’s genuinely necessary to cherry-pick for quick and easy, soundbite-style emphasis, but there’s a fine line between wilful bias by omission and diluting one’s argument with too much background information. Taking things out of context on purpose is nasty, but people who do it habitually dent their own credibility, which ultimately has to be counter-productive. 

Back to finding oneself politically homeless, which is how Melanie Phillips seems to feel. I mean, the way politics is constructed automatically involves a whole bunch of compromises and caveats. It’s a Party Line thing. We toe it for the sake of political unity and efficacy. Finding flaws and faults in your political or ideological compatriots is par for the course.

Who could support Trump unconditionally?  With unconditional love? No-one! He’s decidedly repulsive, inarticulate, almost infantile and seemingly totally un-self-aware. But somehow, his fundamental political instinct seems - if not ‘simply the best’- at least “better than all the rest.”

Another of my bête noire obsessions is the Sarah Champion contradiction. She’s cast as the epitome of unjust political ill-treatment and victimhood - sacrificed at the altar of Corbynism. But she’s no saint, and painting her as one is lazy and misleading. She’s a 'Philo-Islamic' antisemite who kowtowed to the Rotherham Muslim community throughout a vitriolic anti-Israel campaign in 2014, and who sat through Rotherham’s grooming gang activities for a good long while before ‘bravely’ speaking out. So, no, she’s not quite the innocent victim she’s made out to be. 

(I've posted this video about four times now - it's when the camera pans out to reveal 'the room' that I find fascinating)

On the opposite side of the coin, there’s the curate’s egg of Miriam Margolyes. She’s totally and utterly wrong, ignorant and gratuitously vociferous about Israel. Nevertheless, a certain charm still seeps through the narcissism, crudeness and ungainliness. If you see what I mean.

In a similar vein, there’s Jo Brand. Everyone loves to hate her, and even more so following her battery acid quip. Not funny Jo. However, she has a certain wit and I liked her ‘Getting On’ sitcom. It was quality TV.

See? I even like the Guardian. Only for its TV reviews and recaps, mind. At the time when most TV dramas are more or less incomprehensible, the Guardian is invaluable for  ‘explaining’ what passes for ‘the plot’.

I was wrong about David Goodhart. I felt insulted by his definition of ‘Leavers’ as ‘somewheres’, which I interpreted as a euphemistic term for parochial, narrow-minded and insular. Turns out not to be exactly the case. 

I’m ambivalent about nearly everything -  the thing that goes “I used to be indecisive but now I’m not so sure’ that's me, that is. 

Although I am pretty decisive about the (admittedly few) things I do know about. As Douglas Murray said - when you read nonsense about something of which you have first-hand knowledge, it dents the credibility of everything else that emanates from the same source. 

Political choices. Part 2.

While I’m aware that this topic represents something of a minority interest and many visitors to sites like this will scroll past as soon as they see what it’s about - I still feel that, well, someone’s gotta do it and it might as well be me.

And I haven't forgotten the reason I started writing about bias against Israel (and/or antisemitism) in the first place, and why I chose to do so on a general ‘BBC bias’ platform, rather than below the line on a dedicated “Zionist” blog, like, say, Elder of Ziyon or Harry’s Place. 

I know that this specific issue isn’t necessarily at the top of every bias-watcher’s agenda, but such people aren’t likely to visit ‘Jewy’ blogs at all, so in the hope that I might catch the eye of someone who might otherwise avoid listening to me, I keep soldiering on.  

I’m not apologising in any way. I’ve said this many times before. I’m not religious. I’m secular through and through. I don’t belong to any association, group or community. But I do feel compelled to make a fuss about a massive injustice that has been going on forever and seems to be getting worse the more ludicrous it gets.

Yesterday I just scraped the surface of it, but the piece grew a bit too long and unwieldy for a blog post. Brevity is a virtue - I wish I knew how to achieve that.

So let me recap. 

I began by asking myself whether singling out the BBC’s undue respect for someone with such unpleasant “political views” as John Ashton was justified when it was really nothing out of the ordinary.  The BBC routinely promotes virulently antisemitic individuals without so much as a whisper that their views might be in any way controversial.

The people who immediately came to mind (Chris Gunness, Richard Horton, Abdel Bari Atwan, etc) were but the tip of a giant iceberg. And that’s before we got to the long and terrifying list of (mainly Labour) MPs. Lo and behold, David Collier came up with just such a list, and all the more sinister for the fact that these individuals were ‘democratically elected’ and their ferocious anti-Israel activities are regarded as ‘political choices’. 

One of these people - Sarah Champion (MP for Rotherham) is routinely lauded as a “champion” for the victims of the Pakistani grooming gangs and the MP who selflessly sacrificed a front-bench position for the cause.

However, calling her courageous for naming the perpetrators as “Pakistani men” in a Sun newspaper article is ‘benefit of the doubt too far’. Because, well, this crime was being perpetrated for quite a while before she ‘spoke out’ and she was by no means the first MP to do so. 

As we have pointed out before, Sarah Champion has long been pandering to the virulently antisemitic ‘political choices’ of her constituents, and as Collier points out:

"How many times did she critically mention Israel? – and how many times did she critically reference the world’s serial human rights abusers?
Israel: 60
Syria: 7
Iran: 5
N Korea: 2
Pakistan: 1
DRC: 0

That’s dealt with section one. 

Next, there’s the mountain of a communication problem to overcome regarding those wretched “annexations” which the BBC and its international ilk are determined to misrepresent in their default “It’s all settled” manner  -  i.e., as yet another of greedy Israel’s characteristic land-grabs. 

As I said yesterday, legally, the land is already Israel’s, and here is another easy-to-read and a particularly accessible piece which I enjoyed, despite my own recently acquired short attention span syndrome.

“The Palestinians have adopted a paradigm of the conflict in which Israel is entirely at fault. Justice, they say, requires that we vacate “their” land – in fact, if you asked them, they would say that this includes everything from the river to the sea; they believe they are being generous by just asking for Judea and Samaria (at least, for now). But this paradigm is wrong. In fact, we are the ones who have been excessively generous in repeatedly offering them large parts of the land, offers that were rejected because they did not provide a clear enough path to an Arab state in all of the land.

Within the article, there's a link to  Why Israeli Rule in the West Bank Is Legal under International Law in which Professor Eugene Kontorovich explains the legal (not the political choice) aspect of it.

Professor Eugene Kontorovich

Lastly, I’d like to expand on the final section of yesterday’s post. Matthew Sweet’s piece in UnHerd. Anti-Semitism runs deep in Britain.

Antisemitism is not exclusively ‘on the left’. I read some interesting comments generated by this article on Harry’s Place. Commenter Fritz Wunderlich linked to several detailed and extremely lengthy historical accounts of Britain’s role in the establishment of Israel in 1948 and I’m afraid it doesn’t look good for Blighty.

Two conclusions can be drawn from research into these documents, which are relevant to the role of British intelligence in the war in Palestine. 

The first is that, in the 1940s, Britain conducted a two-track policy in the Middle East: one, a well-documented, official policy defined by Whitehall under both the Conservative and Labour parties; the second was informal and secretive, which can be termed “regional,” implemented by “agents in the field,” which left few traces in British archives. 

It was perpetrated by a small, influential group of Arabist secret agents who manipulated the cabinet in London and implemented their own policies, which deviated from the official position. These agents enjoyed a unique status as intermediaries between Whitehall and local Arab leaders. Either intentionally, or because of deep-seated personal beliefs, they provided biased assessments. 

They did not merely gather and interpret information and recommend policy, but controlled the flow of information and implemented their own policies while keeping the London decision makers in the dark. They joined forces with Arab rulers, whom they portrayed as voicing the Arab view, in order to mislead their government. Their tactics, which were backed by senior military officers in Cairo, gathered momentum under the post-WWII Labour government and during the crisis in Palestine in 1947-48. 

The second conclusion is that the British secret agents succeeded in implementing their policies due largely to their use of indirect control over local “agents of influence.” They employed undercover political operations, clandestine diplomacy and covert propaganda to manipulate Arab leaders and public opinion – methods widely used in the Middle East during World War II.

British Prime Minister Clement Attlee and Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin

Britain’s antisemitism runs deep indeed. It looks like our covertly (right-wing) Arabist agenda and our arrogant meddling planted the seeds of an increasingly intractable conflict. So the ongoing situation in the Middle East is our fault? Not entirely, though. The religiously-based hatred of Jews emanating from the religion of peace probably had something to do with it as well. 

"Palestine" and other non-coronavirus musings for April fool’s day 2020

Part One: Jeremy Corbyn

“Under his dull, dismal leadership, Labour has become a byword for animus against Jews and every strain of conspiracy theory that proceeds therefrom.”

So says Stephen Daisley 

“Every Labour MP returned in December, every Labour activist who knocked on doors or delivered leaflets, knowingly tried to elect an antisemitic government out of sentimentality and tribalism.”

This taints the whole lot of them as far as I’m concerned. Including  Hilary Benn, Yvette Cooper, Liz Kendall, Uncle Tom Cobley and all.  Might as well throw in the contenders for the leadership and deputy leadership while I’m at it.

“Decorbynisation cannot be a trim job; the diseased roots must be hacked out. As well as reforming the complaints process along the lines proposed by Lisa Nandy, Labour will have to rid itself of the fallen redeemer and his sullen apostles. Expel him. Expel everyone who nominated him. Expel everyone who voted for him. Burn it down and salt the earth.”

I love that expression: ‘salt the earth’. It reminds me of “Quick! Get rid before it lays eggs” if you see what I mean.  Yup. Sanitise all the surfaces, wash your hands to two verses of The Red Flag and mind you don’t catch your keffiyeh in the door on the way out. 

Part Two: Sarah Champion.

I have a long memory. Certain things, such as my longstanding awareness of Jeremy Corbyn’s petty-rebellious antisemitic antics are etched in the hard-wired department of my brain.   

I well remember Corbyn, (alongside characters like Andy Slaughter, Paul Flynn, Grahame Morris and a clutch of Muslim Corbyistas like Zara Sultana lobbying furiously and viscerally against Israel and for “Palestine”, but I won’t be joining the anti-Corbyn brigade when they cite Sarah Champion as some kind of martyr for being demoted by the dear leader for (belatedly) naming and shaming the ‘Pakistani grooming gangs’ that had been operating in her constituency (Rotherham). 

 Some people regard the article in the Sun that got her into trouble with Corbyn as an ‘act of bravery’  - but it took her long enough to get round to writing about a crime that had been going on under her nose for some time and the true nature of the crime had already been pointed out by others as they expressed sympathy with the victims. 

I’m afraid I well remember Ms Champion sitting at the head of the table presiding over a 99.9 % Asian council committee meeting castigating Israel with great gusto at the time of Israel’s 2014 incursion into Gaza. Where Ms Champion is concerned, I believe a large dollop of opportunism is involved as articles on this blog can testify.

Part Three: Lovely Poem

Today Programme

On #R4Today some of the BBC's best known voices will offer their favourite poems of #comfortandhope.

Here @MishalHusain reads 'On Time' from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. https://t.co/tSSau3acnC pic.twitter.com/4NTeotibGW

— BBC Radio 4 Today (@BBCr4today) April 1, 2020

“That was lovely,” said Nick Robinson, choking back emotion.

Part Four: "Palestine"
There’s no sport, due to the lockdown, but sports commentators are still in full swing, so Rob Bonnet interviews 10-year-old skateboarding whizz, Roxanna Howlett, from Exeter. Roxanne is a versatile skateboarder and she has travelled widely through her sport.

RB

"Well, I hear that you travel a lot with your skateboard. Where’ve you been” (as if he didn’t know)

RH

"Palestine, Sweden, Berlin, Amsterdam, America

RB
"Goodness me, you’re the best, well-travelled ten-year-old I think I've ever met. That’s fantastic! What about Palestine? What was that like?

RH
It was amazing, actually. It’s quite a poor country.

RB
What did you do there?

RH

We met up with the State Pal, they’re a charity and they help children from all around the world

RB

How much equipment did they have in Palestine?

RH
They didn’t have very much it was quite bad to see but they had brilliant skate parks

Good to know Rob Bonnet has such a keen interest in …. “Palestine”.

Forgive and forget

I think I am handicapped by my long and unforgiving memory. So I can hardly complain about the media attaching all those ‘long-lost’ labels to Tommy Robinson. Nevertheless, I do complain.

Take the Lib Dems. I can’t get my head around Luciana Berger joining the Lib-Dems after they (as a Party) tolerated those two arch antisemites, Jenny Tonge and David Ward. Former Brent Central MP, Sarah Teather, obsessed with defending her radical Muslim ‘constituents’ wasn’t much better. Admittedly, the Lib Dems sacked Tonge under Clegg and Tim "Ward is unfit to represent the party"  Farron. Yes, the party eventually got rid, but it took them forever and a day. I suppose the Lib-Dems held seats in many predominantly Muslim constituencies at the time, but what if they regain them in future?

Here’s another example of me as ‘hostage’ to my lengthy, unforgiving memory. It concerns Sarah Champion. I can’t forget her appearance at that Muslim-heavy council meeting where she was filmed obsequiously pandering to some full-on, undiluted, Israel-bashing. (See vid below)

When she is held up for her ‘bravery’ in publicly identifying the grooming-gang phenomenon as being perpetrated by “mainly Pakistani men’  and getting herself demoted by Corbyn into the bargain, she meekly toed the line thereafter. Where’s the bravery in that? She should have kicked up a fuss. I think it’s high time to resurrect one of my abandoned (gone but not forgotten) posts. It’s no longer topical, but what the hell.  Here goes:

"Covering your arse". (Working title)

"I caught part of the select committee debate on LGBT education with Sarah Champion MP speaking passionately in favour of  LGBT education. Brendan O’Neill has written a curate’s egg of a piece about Pakistani grooming gangs. It’s mostly critical but he sneaks in a jarring note to distance himself from nasty ‘right-wingers’, like so:

“it plays into the hands of hard-right elements who politicise the issue of Muslim grooming gangs. It actually empowers these troublesome political groups who will say: ‘Only we are brave enough to talk about this problem.’ And of course they talk about it for very cynical reasons — in order to promote a view of all Muslim men as predatory, and all Muslims as a problem.

However, he receives plenty of flak below the line for that arse-covering paragraph. He praises Sarah Champion for her ‘bravery’ in specifically mentioning ‘Pakistani’ men in a famous article she wrote for the Sun; the one for which she lost her shadow cabinet role. (Sacked by Jeremy Corbyn.)

“Look what happened to the Labour MP for Rotherham, Sarah Champion, when she wrote about the problem of largely Pakistani gangs abusing white girls. She was demonised by Corbynistas. She was forced out of Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet. The message was clear: talk about this issue and you will be punished

says O’Neill, admiringly. What did she do then, though? Did she make a fuss about being sacked? No, she did not. She toed the line and she’s still in the antisemitic Labour Party backing Jeremy Corbyn for PM. 

Now she’s taking another risk. She’s risking the ire of the Pakistani councillors (her constituents) by defending LGBT education. Brave again? Mixed messages from opportunist Champion? - she was, after all, MP for Rotherham during the period when the Pakistani men were happily a-groomin’. 

Brendan O’Neil again:

“Strikingly, the judge didn’t only condemn the men – he also criticised the authorities in Rotherham. He said they had at best been ‘totally ineffectual’ and at worst ‘wholly indifferent’ to the abuse of girls by Muslim gangs. He said he was ‘quite satisfied’ that the ‘relevant authorities’ in Rotherham knew girls were being targeted for sexual exploitation. And their failure to do anything about it is a ‘lamentable state of affairs’.”

Surely she must have had a little inkling about what was going on under her nose? She never said a word until the whole thing was out in the open. Her ‘bravery’ entirely consisted of using the words “largely Pakistani men”, rather than obfuscating like everyone else did, by using the misleading term “Asian”; to me her belated outrage looked more like covering her arse for (at best) ‘not noticing’ what was going on, than *bravery*.

Am I just being bitchy, or is all this criticism fundamentally because she was filmed chairing a meeting of the Pakistani councillors that represent her constituency.  She was ingratiating herself with these men by enthusiastically castigating Israel for retaliating after a heightened spate of rocket attacks fired from Gaza.

We spotted her appearance on a BBC documentary about the HoC.  “I don’t understand how you can have negotiations when you only talk to one party,” said Sarah Champion. Of course, she’s not talking about Corbyn.

 I blogged it at the time and have referenced it whenever the opportunity arose because I don’t think of her as ‘consistent and certainly not ‘brave’. Rather, she comes across as an opportunist with no principles.

Perhaps she's changed. Should I forgive and forget?  I might be able to 'forgive', but it's oh so hard to 'forget'.

Poetic justice

When stuff comes back to bite you on t’bum

Sarah Champion c. 2014.

Terror police boost security for MP Sarah Champion over criticism of Asian sex gangs (£)

Everyone’s entitled to change their mind, but really, I had to smile at this prescient comment on HP: “Karma’s a bitch.”

This may only be tangentially related to the BBC, (until one remembers the way it “champions” all things Muslim) but the BBC hasn’t so far mentioned the fact that ‘terror police” have boosted security for Rotherham MP Champion, which one might consider newsworthy. The Times seemed to think it was.  

This next bit is laugh-out-loud bonkers. (You don’t think it’s anything to do with Sacha Baron Cohen, do you?)

“The strongest public attacks on Ms Champion, who campaigns for the victims of child sexual exploitation, have been made by a Rotherham-based racial justice charity, Just Yorkshire. 

The charity’s leader has accused the MP of “industrial-scale racism” and “inciting and inviting hatred against minorities”. One of its leading figures is a radical academic, Waqas Tufail, whose research speciality is Islamophobia and the “racialisation of crime”.

More...

Though the BBC News website coverage of the Telford child abuse scandal has now been 're-buried in Shropshire' under the headline Telford abuse: Victim numbers 'sensationalised' says police chief, the story continues to unfold. The Mirror is now putting the police themselves under its searchlight:

Police slammed over memo saying Telford child sex abuse was 'consensual'

Officers investigating child sexual exploitation in the town were sent an internal memo telling them “in most cases the sex is consensual”

The report says:

A person under 16 cannot be deemed in law to have consented to sex, but the word “consensual” was used to describe offences involving children four times in the memo. 

I see on Twitter that Sarah Champion MP is angry about this:

Police slammed over memo saying Telford child abuse was 'consensual' Grrrr! When will people understand that a child cannot consent?!?

As Laura Perrins of The Conservative Woman says, "This is incredible. Under section 5 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, rape of a child under 13 is a strict liability offence. Consent is irrelevant".

Hopefully the BBC will be asking questions of West Mercia Police about this - though given how they've dealt with the story so far that probably isn't very likely. 

Newsnight, Hair, a giant baby and a bit more

This is a series of observations I would have posted earlier if I’d had time. Some of it might be past its use-by date, but what the hell.

++++++++

What a dilemma, whether to watch Newsnight with Kirsty Wark (afraid of missing something after last week’s spat with Tommy Robinson) or succumb to a nagging desire to watch Question Time. (afraid of missing something) You have to keep an eye on these things.

Switching back and forth between them, I stumbled upon a bizarre exchange between Ann Coulter and Laurie Penny,  in some ways chalk and cheese, and in other ways cheese and cheese.

A surprise location switch found Ms. Coulter in the studio with Kirsty and Laurie Penny in the US against a backdrop of the Hollywood sign, culturally appropriating LA speech patterns and saying “right now” instead of “at the moment". The interview concerned Fake News, a subject close to the hearts of these interviewees with their diametrically opposed interpretations of what is ‘news’ and what is fake.

Ms. Penny was convinced that journalists (like her) were the sole purveyors of truth, while Ms. Coulter said decisively 

 “The internet is the only place you can get the truth.” 

The discourse  became increasingly ludicrous, but Kirsty eclipsed both guests by calling people who doubted the absolute integrity and honesty of the BBC “despots” 

“Aren’t you aiding the despots who say “it’s all about fake news from CNN even the BBC, so we won’t believe it?” You are aiding people by undermining the probity of the mainstream media?” 

Ms. Coulter, never known to be lost for words, was in full flow, when Kirsty turned to Ms. Penny.

“Are you finished!” said Laurie Penny. “May I speak now? Are you finished?” 

she said menacingly in her tiny penetrating voice. 

“Now Miss Coulter is a troll, with no credibility, and so is her president” 

said she, looking suspiciously troll-like herself.

This must have been desperate attempt to boost the ratings, as Newsnight must have known there was no conceivable prospect of meaningful dialogue between these particularly outspoken, ideologically opposed polemicists, specially when there was no time to progress beyond a slanging match and with a host whose speech is so slurred and nasal you have to wonder why she is a host.  

++++++++++

Continuing ITBB’s popular series of posts dedicated to hair. (Episode 3) 

I spotted “Next: hair.” at the top of the screen as I watched The Daily Politics this afternoon.  (The other day, now) Naturally I was excited and I knew immediately where they got the idea. (here!)

The discussion was strictly confined to politicians’ hair, but I suspect Jo Coburn surreptitiously plumped up hers, which had been looking rather flat, while the cameras were focussing on celebrity hairdresser Nicky Clarke as he slid into the studio to explain Donald Trump, which he was unable to do. 

Even the comedians on programmes like Mock the Weak Week sound bored with Trump while wearily churning out their tedious Trumpisms.

extreme short back and sides

Images of obvious hair-centric politicians, Boris and both Michaels Heseltine and Fabricant were shown, as well as (for some reason) Tony Blair and Gordon Brown while real man of the moment, hair-wise, Kim Jong Un, was conspicuously absent. After all, his extreme haircut has conquered the world with the trend for short back and sides. Celebrity hairdresser Nicky Clarke, modelling a fetching Lauren Bacall style, is about the only man-about-town with whom this fashion hasn’t caught on. Luckily for Andrew Neil, he wasn’t present, or there may have been some sniggering in the background. He seemed to be sporting a new toupee when I last saw him discussing PMQs with Laura Kuenssberg.

Lauren Bacall

******

Oh dear what shall I do with my Saturday evenings now that Spiral has finished? The series ended on an enigmatic note, and will be returning when we’ve all forgotten how we left it.

One thing I do know; if that baby continues to grow at the rate she’s ballooned since birth, she’s gonna be massive by then.

*******

Has anyone else noticed the way the BBC’s man in Jerusalem, Tom Bateman, has been prefacing or appending information that comes from Israeli sources with “Israel says” even when reporting something it seems Israel didn’t exactly say. Oh yes, BBC Watch has noticed, and more besides.

This sounds almost as if Bateman is terrified - either for himself,  for the BBC in general or on behalf of the puffed-up Middle East Editor — of sounding like an “Israeli shill”, which is the boilerplate term Israel-haters are inclined to throw at the BBC to intimidate them, and and make them stop sounding as though they ‘believe’, or heaven forbid, approve of anything an Israeli spokesperson might utter.

I’m no particular fan of Sky, but their man on the spot doesn’t seem to need to use caution-laden qualifiers in that way.

+++++++++

I once knew a sexually voracious and predatory chap who worked for Oxfam. Young girls were slightly in awe of him, which made him feel important.  I believe he was ‘let go’ from his post. Huge charities nearly always turn out to be rabidly political, like War on Want and Amnesty International etc etc. and I am wary of them all. 

I have a feeling that this kind of sexually predatory behaviour has been going on in these circles for a very very long time but I don’t know how long the antisemitism has been part of the remit.

***********

I watched the replay of this debate that took place in Westminster Hall on 7th. It was shown on the Parliament channel this morning. Children in detention. (In Israel)

All the usual anti-Israel MPs had their say, as did the small number of pro-Israel MPs, most notably Matthew Offord. 

You wouldn’t get a sense of this from Hansard, but there was some disturbing background noise, including some whoops and cheering from the public gallery. The debate was brought by Sarah Champion who was looking very pleased with herself. 

Ahed Tamimi has a strong fan base in the Labour Party, and the degree of animosity towards “Israel”  (if that’s how they want us to  see it) is based on superficial (mis)understanding of history. This is Gathering Storm territory. Goebbels would be proud.

Are we done with Sarah Champion?

When “former race tsar” Trevor Phillips spoke out “On abuse it's time to call a spade a spade” it caused a mere ripple. Did his words carry less weight that Sarah Champion’s?

What about Trevor Kavanagh? The backlash from his “Islamophobic” piece in the Sun mainly concerned his ‘extremely poor choice of words’. His critics felt “The Muslim Problem” sounded a little too much like “The Jewish Question” and by implication, well, everyone knows how that ended up.

Sarah Champion has received much publicity, mainly praise and support, for what turned out to be a short-lived bout of truth-telling. Her subsequent apology for her ‘extremely poor choice of words’ and resignation from her post in the Labour Party (did she jump or was she pushed) was equally welcomed and derided. 

Is she weak for caving in or was she strong for speaking out? We who will not be divided, are divided.

I thought we were done with Sarah Champion, but no.  The affair still simmers. People who agreed with what she said in the Sun  are still praising her for having the courage to speak out, despite her subsequent resignation and, if I may say so, imprecise apology. Exactly which words were the extremely poor choice? All of them? We should be told.

Most people assume she was silenced by Jeremy Corbyn, but 'they would say that wouldn’t they' because they choose to see her as a political martyr rather than a vacillating self-publicist. 

For the record, I too agree with what she said in the Sun and I don’t doubt that Jeremy Corbyn welcomed her resignation and probably encouraged it, yet I still see her as a vacillating attention-seeking self publicist.  I’ll just have to accept that if it takes a vacillating, attention-seeking self-publicist to initiate a taboo-busting debate about the relationship between Islam and ‘British values’ I’ll have to lump it. But I don’t much like it.

Sarah Champion’s initial fifteen minutes of fame came about via the documentary ‘Inside the commons.” The cameras followed her rushing eagerly round the HoC learning the ropes and getting to grips with being a new MP. She was entertainingly portrayed as energetic and driven; ready willing and able to ‘do good’. Fantastic free publicity for the brand.

I repeat, many people agreed with her Sun piece; it was about time someone came out with it, and as she herself said in the Sun:

“British Pakistani men ARE raping and exploiting white girls… and it’s time we faced up to it”.

Or did she? Not quite sure - later she was to claim it was the Sun wot wrote it. Maybe the Sun fiddled with the original content, who knows, (they deny it) but assuming she did write, in the body of the piece:

“There. I said it. Does that make me a racist? Or am I just prepared to call out this horrifying problem for what it is?”

No-one who has seen her on YouTube castigating Israel over ‘the Palestine issue’ and telling an audience of Pakistani men just how passionate she was about the Palestinians could accuse Sarah Champion of being an Islamophobe. The video was so good I posted it twice. I thought it was remarkable, partly because of the inappropriate way she was 'exercising her right to bare arms' and almost flirtatiously flaunting her ‘immodesty’.  Goodness knows why she would do that, when simply denouncing Israel would have been enough to guarantee unanimous support from that particular audience - some sort of committee of local councillors. Rotherham folk.

Her disgust for Israel was peppered with references to herself:  “to me” or “for me”- a habit that surely begs a psychological diagnosis. 

Even if the only MP  brave enough to say so is an attention-seeking opportunist, the truth is that there are issues (as Jeremy Corbyn might or might not put it) with British Pakistani men and underage white girls. 

Of course the term  ‘Pakistani men’ is a euphemistic one. It’s an improvement on the  BBC’s default ‘Asian men’, but technically inaccurate since the perpetrators in the Newcastle case were not solely British Pakistanis; some originated from elsewhere; the elephant in the room is their religious/cultural  backgrounds. They’re Muslims.

If Sarah Champion was genuinely brave, she might have called them ‘Muslim men’, but either way, be it Pakistani men or Muslim men, it did turn out to be an ’extremely poor choice of words’, or extremely unwise words from an MP whose constituents are predominantly Pakistani and Muslim.

Shortly after expressing pleasure at the way the Sun presented her article, she rowed back, claiming the Sun had fiddled with it, apologised for the article and promptly resigned as ‘Shadow Secretary of State for women and equalities’.

If you’ve got that feeling of deja vu all over again but are wondering why, it’s probably because Sarah Champion has form when it comes to resigning when she sees fit. 

For example, when she thought Jeremy Corbyn was unelectable, she quit  - and when that particular bandwagon appeared to be hurtling off piste she ‘unresigned’ again, resuming her post as  “Labour’s domestic violence spokesperson” (officially “Shadow minister for preventing abuse and domestic violence) first-hand experience, evidently, qualifying her for the post, though her role as perpetrator rather than victim would ordinarily seem something of a drawback. 

Because of my dismay at Sarah Champion’s shameless sucking up to antisemites (call me paranoid) I have probably monitored her roller coaster political journey with more interest than absolutley necessary, and I know I judge her negatively / see her through a negative prism and so on.

However, praising her courage for speaking out, and for ‘saying the unsayable’ is easy. For one thing it provides cheap ammunition against Jeremy Corbyn - as if more of that was needed.

It’s just a pity that there was so little praise for the courage of people whose words can genuinely be taken at face value on the numerous occasions they have spoken out and said ‘what Sarah Champion said’. 

Can one unequivocally praise Sarah Champion for her courage without her track record diminishing the impact of her words? Former MP Denis McShane believes so, for example.  Accuracy may not have been Denis McShane’s priority; for example he wrote: 

“My plea was triggered by a young South Yorkshire Muslim, groomed by British-based Islamists, who blew himself up in Tel Aviv in a failed terrorist mission.” 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but was he referring to the 2003  terrorist Omar Khan Shariff who I understand hailed from Derby?

  

In 2004 Denis McShane was a Foreign Office minister representing the same Rotherham seat where Sarah Champion is a presently “hard-working Labour MP”, and he believes she was badly let down and harshly treated by her political masters. Here is a passage from his Times article:

“No one came to me when I was an MP to speak about the awful sex crimes committed against local children by groups of men whose family roots lay, as is the case with much of the British Pakistani community, in rural Kashmir.”

Read on for more of his thoughts about the incredibly difficult question of sexuality in the Pakistani Kashmiri community.

However, according to Mr McShane, he learnt about the situation  in 2012, “when years of failure by Rotherham’s child-protection authorities to act against known abuse gangs” was exposed by “painstaking journalism” in The Times. 

But Sarah Champion was MP for Rotherham at the height of the abuse. To quote from an earlier article about Denis McShane in the Telegraph  “I was too much of a ‘liberal leftie’ and should have done more to investigate child abuse”.  

Surely if Denis McShane felt he should have done more to ‘burrow into’ the problem then, it might have occurred to him that Sarah Champion could also have done some burrowing, or that she appeared positively blinkered by showing far more concern about Palestinian children than about what was being done ‘right now’, by Muslim men to children under her nose. Did no-one at all in Rotherham raise the matter with their MP while all this was happening?  

I still see Sarah Champion as opportunistic, vacillating and irresolute, but her antics have attracted publicity to  the malevolence of Corbyn’s Labour Party and that’s almost enough to forgive her for everything. Almost.

Regrets

Goodness me. What is going on?  

Is this the end of the story

Or just the beginning?

Discuss

Misogyny: Pakistani style

Newcastle Grooming Gang

Is Sarah Champion as opportunistic as she looks? It seems like only yesterday that we were looking at the video of Ms Champion in her constituency (Rotherham) giving an impassioned speech to some sort of committee, mainly consisting of Pakistani gentlemen. A council meeting or something. Ms Champion was demanding that Israel must immediately stop slaughtering Palestinian children. Under the circumstances it seemed quite odd that she was sitting at the head of the table with a disconcerting amount of bare flesh on show. I mean, tut tut. A little modesty, surely.  

Condemning Israel must have seemed the most  appropriate way to serve the interests of her constituents at that time.

When the Pakistani grooming cases were coming to light, Rotherham in particular having occurred under her nose apparently without her noticing, Ms Champion switched her attention from the children of Gaza to the children in her own constituency and became the people’s Champion, with the welfare of children 'closer to home' as her area of special interest.

On the Today programme, having courageously announced that the latest scandal concerned mainly Pakistani men, she thought it was time someone did a study to find out what is going on. Are these cultural issues? Why are we not commissioning research to see what’s going on?

“Do we need the research?” asked Humph. “We know what’s going on.”

“We don’t know why it’s going on though” countered Ms. Champion as if she hadn’t seen any of the headlines that screamed: “ NEWCASTLE GROOMING GANG ‘White women are good only for people like me to use as trash’ "

Of course the BBC has been playing its usual tricks with this story, trying to make the main issue about the police using a convicted child abuser and rapist as an informer, and paying him a tidy sum for doing so.  I’d say it’s pretty obvious to (almost) everyone but the BBC that in this particular case the end (very probably) justified the means. (I don't want to stick my neck out here because I don't know all the facts) but this unfortunate side issue shouldn't be allowed to eclipse the main story.

The only thing ‘new’ is the fact that people are naming ‘Pakistani’ rather than Asian. This might seem like progress, were it not for the fact that people are reminding each other that some of the infamous 17 were from countries other than Pakistan. No-one has so far mentioned anything else that the men might have in common.

Poor Ms Champion is losing sleep over it. “because I know every time I talk about it the level of Islamophobia increases.” Hmm. Since no-one has specifically mentioned the religion of peace, why should that be?

Another Sara (without the H) was interviewed towards the end of the Today programme. Speaking to John Humphrys were the real life heroine of BBC one’s “Three Girls” dramatisation of the Rochdale sex abuse case, (played in the drama by Maxine Peake) health worker Sara Rowbottom, and Nazmin Akhtar, vice chair of the Muslim Women’s Expert (.....when it’s at home.) 

Rochdale Grooming Gang

The one common factor, opined the latter, is that the perpetrators are all men, targeting women. This is about misogyny, and nothing to do with you know what.

You absolutely couldn’t make it up.

On Sarah Champion, TherAYza May and Geology

The aforementioned Sarah Champion MP appeared earlier on today's Broadcasting House. 

She was on to discuss the Labour Party's present position.

The segment itself was pretty balanced. There were three guests (all Labour of course): (1) anti-Corbyn Tessa Jowell, (2) pro-Corbyn activist Stephen Low and (3) anti-then-pro-then-anti-again-then-pro-Corbyn-again Sarah Champion. 

It was all rather amicable, except perhaps for "kinder, gentler" Mr Low calling Dame Tessa an "establishment figure" (though he did preface that by saying "forgive me for using the term", which, of course, makes it all right!). 

Unexpectedly, however, the discussion began with Jonny Dymond (standing in for Paddy) asking Miss Champion about the revelation (this week) that she'd been arrested and cautioned by the police in 2007 after a violent row with her then-husband. 

That has some political resonance because Jeremy Corbyn made her his Shadow Home Office Minister for Preventing Abuse and Domestic Violence last year (thus entering 'You couldn't make it up' territory).

Though widely reported in the press (from the Daily Mirror to the Times), I'd previously heard or seen nothing about this story on the BBC (and I've checked the BBC News website very carefully to make sure of that corner of the BBC's vast output), so well done to BH for at least raising the subject. 

Here Jonny asked her if she should keep her job, after a campaign group had complained that a man who'd behaved as she'd behaved towards her then-partner would have been sacked. Miss Champion. in response, said she should keep her job and defended herself strongly, and Jonny then moved straight on, thanking her (without further questioning).

*******

Incidentally, Jonny Dymond himself had earlier apologised. He said sorry for mispronouncing Mrs May's name 'TherAYza' rather than 'TeREEza'. 

In fairness to him, however, he's far from being the only BBC presenter to have mispronounced her name. (I keep hearing them do it). 

He is the only one to have apologised for it though (so far). 

*******

And while I'm on about BH, the paper review told us that Geology is the course that results in the highest earnings for graduates. The lowest-earning subject is Psychology (which it's been for some time, if I remember rightly - replacing the old lowest-earner Sociology). 

The cited Times headline was 'Geologists hit gold with best graduate pay'. I'd have preferred 'Geology rocks!' (I won't give up my day job).

Out of the shadows

Norman Smith got very excited today. He couldn’t fathom why Sarah Champion MP (Lab) has written to Jeremy Corbyn to unresign and Jeremy Corbyn has accepted her unresignation. She’s to get her old job back on the front benches. What was her role again? The MP for Rotherham was shadow home office minister for preventing abuse and domestic violence.” 

That appearance on the Victoria Derbyshire show must have whetted her appetite for more of the adulation to which she has become accustomed. 

Norman Smith thought her mysterious capitulation would herald an avalanche of returning MPs, as in the domino effect. Someone had compared the Labour Party’s resignees to the striking miners. Norman Smith thought the miners’ strike had lasted about a year, whereas Ms Champion’s spell in the sidelines has only lasted for about two weeks. 

Wot no Flying pickets? Now that Corbyn looks set to stay indefinitely, deciding to ‘blackleg’  looks like a good career move. Get in quick so no-one else can nick your seat.. 

Sarah Champion is campaigning about raising awareness of bullying and online abuse, which is all very well. But it’s a bit like protecting synagogues rather than addressing antisemitism. Shouldn’t Ms. Champion prioritise raising her male constituents’ awareness of the modern, British, enlightened attitude to girls and women?

Talking of child sexual abuse, the BBC is to dramatise the Rochdale abuse scandal.

Filming begins this week on Three Girls, a new three-part BBC One drama based on the true stories of victims of grooming and sexual abuse in Rochdale.The drama will look at the way in which these girls were groomed, how they were ignored by the authorities directly responsible for protecting them, and how they eventually made themselves heard. A BBC Studios production in association with Studio Lambert, Three Girls is made by the team behind the multi-award winning BBC drama Five Daughters. 

Maxine Peake (Silk, A Midsummer Night’s Dream) and Lesley Sharp (Scott And Bailey, Capital) will play two women who were instrumental in getting the girls’ voices heard.Other cast includes Paul Kaye, Lisa Riley and Jill Halfpenny as parents of the girls, alongside Ace Bhatti as Nazir Afzal, former Chief Crown Prosecutor for the North West. They will be joined by Olivia Hill, Ria Zmitrowicz, Molly Windsor, Simon Nagra, Qas Hamid and Wasim Zakir. 

Written by Nicole Taylor (The C Word), Three Girls is produced by the same team as the acclaimed and award-winning BBC Drama, Five Daughters including director Philippa Lowthorpe (Call The Midwife, Jamaica Inn), producer Simon Lewis and Executive Producer Susan Hogg.

I can’t imagine hard leftie, pro-Palestinian Maxine playing anything other than a passionate Social Justice Warrior. It will probably be all about the struggle against those heartless authorities who wouldn’t listen. Not about the grooming gangs with a warped attitude to females.

Raising awareness

When the BBC doesn’t report a story that other news outlets do, it forces ‘bias bloggers’ into negative territory. Why are you commenting on non-BBC stuff which is none of your business? people might ask. "It’s technically called ‘bias  by omission’ "  one might reply.

I don’t think the BBC reported anything about the latest insult that the controversial NUS president Malia Bouattia handed out to Jewish students the other day. She had the casting vote on whether Jewish Students should be allowed to select their own rep. on a racism committee. 

Needless to say she voted no.

"Chilling environment"

I don’t think it would interest the BBC that Michael Gove made an oblique reference to this from the back benches, so I haven’t bothered to tackle the BBC’s unresponsive search engine to find out.  

“Speaking at the second reading of the Higher Education and Research bill in parliament, the former education secretary said “at the moment there are voices and individuals within the NUS who have not upheld the best traditions of academic freedom and who have created in some respects a chilling environment and a cold home for students, particularly those who are Jewish.”

You can read the transcript of the whole speech here.

I caught a glimpse of Sarah Champion speaking on the Victoria Derbyshire show yesterday  about online bullying and sexual grooming. She has set up a campaign especially to “raise awareness” of it. 

I have no first-hand knowledge of the actions Sarah Champion MP actually took when she discovered that sexual exploitation had been going on under her nose - not online, but in real, non virtual life. So if I assume she’s ‘deflecting’ by initiating these other campaigns I might be all wrong, and I’d be quite pleased to be, but it seems odd that under the circumstances, when she is not obsessing about Palestinians, she is warning children about online sexual grooming. 

We’ve blogged about this before, but here she is in July 2014 sitting at a table amongst a committee of male Muslim councillors, obsessing about Israel. (The YouTube version has attracted a number of strongly-worded comments) 

A month later this excoriating report came out.  

Although the article says the council commissioned the report on Rotherham’s grooming gangs, it also says:

“It lays out how Rotherham Council and the police knew about the level of child sexual exploitation in the town, but didn't do anything about it.

They either didn't believe what they were being told, played it down, or were too nervous to act. The failures, the report says, are blatant.

The report estimates 1,400 children were sexually exploited over 16 years, with one young person telling the report's author that gang rape was a usual part of growing up in Rotherham.”

So I don’t know whether I am being harsh in criticising Ms Champion, or for criticising the BBC for letting her publicise her campaign on TV. I just thought it was worth raising awareness of it

Sarah Champion had quite a lot to say about child cruelty when she was shadow minister (Home Office) The children in question weren’t Rotherhamians, but Palestinians. 

She brought this debate to Westminster Hall in Jan 2016. It was about child prisoners in the occupied Palestinian territories. The usual Palestinian obsessed MPs were there including the late Jo Cox.

Also present, and with plenty to say, was one Nassm (Naz) Shah, the young lady who didn’t know that antisemitism was racism. However, she did seem to know quite a bit about Mahmoud Abbas, for example that he was promoting peace and not encouraging terror. She said Palestinian children were being blindfolded and tortured - and that Israel hasn’t provided any evidence of a stone throwing incident causing death. Perhaps she expected Israel to prove it to her, personally, before believing it?

Palestine: Children

This topic is extremely popular with British MPs. Another debate on the subject took place the other day, in the Lords this time. (Yesterday to be precise) They really love this topic. “Palestine: Children.”

The usual Palestine obsessed Lords were there, including Baroness Tonge. One noble Lord after another produced context-free anecdotes of suffering and depravation in the occupied territories, having been entertained by CAABU in the customary manner, until all of a sudden no less than four, yes four, noble Lords spoke up for Israel.

 Lord Hamilton of Epsom

Lord Polak (con)

 Lord Turnberg (lab)

Baroness Deech

If that’s the kind of thing that interests you, do click and have a read. 

Interestingly, several of the speakers spoke admiringly of the Palestine Youth Orchestra, which is presently touring the UK.

I don’t suppose there will be any mobs out on the streets outside their concert venues with leaflets or inside with banners and loud-hailers disrupting their concerts. 

Apologies and Reinstatements

I suspect the Chakrabarti inquiry satisfied the Labour Party that the allegations about antisemitism had been dealt with. They’re reinstating their discredited  councillors and MPs as fast as they can. Gerry Downing, Naz Shah, Jackie Walker, Terry Kelly - forgive me if I have left anyone out.

One Labour member, however, the leader of Brent Council, has offended his co-religionists by apologising to the Jewish community. 

Of course, there are Jewish residents amongst his constituency, so there’s an element of expediency in his apology, but it looks pretty fulsome as apologies go, (as did Naz Shah’s)

Muhammed Butt

What is Zionism? 

I wouldn’t normally link to this website, but the bitesize definition of ‘Zionism’ at the foot of this article is almost amusing in the child-like imbecility of its one-sided, counter-factual explanation.

Israel was created in 1948 after Zionist settlers colonized Palestinian land and expelled around 750,000 people though a campaign of ethnic cleansing. 

In 1967 Israel occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip during the 6-day war with Egypt, bringing all of historical Palestine under its rule. 

Israel has launched brutal wars on Lebanon twice – in 1982 and 2006; it continues to occupy the West Bank and Jerusalem, implementing harsh security measures against its Palestinian residents; it keeps Gaza under military and economic siege; and within Israel itself, Palestinians live as second-class citizens.

 I wonder if the BBC has taken that into consideration, because their mini definitions aren't much more informative, (or impartial) than the 5Pillarz version.  

After the Holocaust, Jewish people were allocated land to settle on. 

They considered the region of Israel their homeland. However, many of the Arab people who were already living in Palestine and the surrounding areas found it unfair. 

Typically those who identify as part of the Zionist movement believe in the protection and development of Israel as the Jewish nation. 

Not all Jewish people agree with Zionism.

 Not all non-Jewish people agree with Zionism, either. Malia Bouattia and assorted Corbynistas use "Zio" as a term of abuse.