OMG

I nearly missed this, but here's another 'in a nutshell' revelation from John Humphrys's post-BBC book: 

Sarah Montague "gave him a hard time" for reading The Daily Mail. 

Should Jihadi brides be allowed to come ‘home’?

Should Jihadi brides be allowed to come ‘home’?

Everyone is talking about “The Three Girls” who ran away to become IS brides, one of whom has resurfaced and now wants to come “home”. Shamima Begum is nine months pregnant and unrepentant. The question is, should she be let back into the UK?

The general public thinks no, she made her bed and she must lie on it. The internet says no, overwhelmingly. 

I’m ambivalent myself because... what if she and her child die or get killed? I don’t like the idea of martyrdom. The very idea is grotesque.  

The World at One dealt with this news. The car radio is a bit crackly and tends to fade in and out, but I thought I heard Sarah Montague chatting to a former Met. Chief Superintendent called Dal Babu. (I’ve looked him up, and it seems he bears a grudge against his former colleagues) and I do believe he said it was the police’s fault that these girls managed to get away. He said they had been under surveillance at the time, and the police could have warned their parents, but didn’t. He said the police gave the girls letters for their parents but they didn’t pass them on. 

Babu’s theory that the parents were completely ignorant of their daughters’ Jihadi-like aspirations struck me as extremely dubious, since at least one of the other girls' parents, Hussen Abase, pictured at the time of their disappearance holding a teddy bear, turned out to be pretty a radicalised Islamist himself. (he was caught on film gesticulating angrily, amongst the mob at an Islamist riot)

The next part of the programme included an explanation as to what might have driven the girls to run away. Henna Rai of the Women Against Radicalisation Network suggested that the girls’ families were “orthodox” and would have controlled their girls’ lives and imposed the customary severe Islamic-style restrictions upon them, so, what with “their hormones flying and no other way to express themselves”, naturally they’d want to escape, who wouldn’t? 

I’m inclined to blame Islam itself, which - as well as the so-called 'groomers', was surely conveyed directly through the ones who fuck you up - your mum and dad. I love the way BBC people like to describe repressive, unreconstructed sixth-century cultural practices as “orthodox’ or sometimes ‘conservative’.  

So go and interview the families. They put on a fine histrionic display of emotion for the cameras at the time of the girls’ abscondences; what with the tears and the teddies, and “Please come home, you’re not in trouble” 

Yes, You. Are.

It’s very sad that both this girl’s babies have died. I’m sure the conditions in Syria were appalling, but you can’t help noticing that Ms Begum herself didn’t look particularly malnourished. Should she succeed in making her way back home with the baby I doubt she’d ever be trusted to look after it.

Into the bubble

Around lunchtime today, this was the second story on the BBC News website: 

The "gaffe" by Ben Broadbent, a deputy governor at the Bank of England, sprang out of comments in a Telegraph interview:

According to Broadbent, the UK hasn’t seen such a slump since the late Victorian era. In the 1880s, economic historians have noted that there was what is termed a “climacteric” effect when “productivity growth suddenly slowed pretty much to a halt”. 

It was similarly severe to the sluggish improvements seen in the last decade, Broadbent believes.

This term, used by economic historians, is borrowed from biology, he says. It essentially means “menopausal, but can apply to both genders”. Put simply, “you’ve passed your productive peak”. 

An in-depth explanation of the term had the central bank’s policymakers squirming, Broadbent says.
“I once got an economist into the MPC to explain the origins of the word ‘climacteric’. As soon as he started talking to all these middle aged men – about [how] it means you’re past your peak and you’re no longer so potent – they all said: ‘We understand’.”

You might find nothing objectionable in that, but then you're a reasonable person. Others, however, as is the way of the world these days, 'took offence' and the BBC, naturally, made the resulting row top headline news.

Not everyone shares the BBC's sense of news priorities though - or, for that matter, the Corporation's take on this particular story. Here's Telegraph business writer Juliet Samuel for example:

Insane that this confected “row” is BBC’s second headline, with KamalAhmed editorialising that there are now “questions” about Ben Broadbent being bank governor. Makes me despair for this country. 

Here are some stories that could instead have graced slot 2 in the headlines: 

1. North Korea says it won’t denuclearise and Kim might not attend Trump meeting

2. Italy seemingly on cusp of forming revolutionary new government

3. Trump threatens EU w tariffs

4. Turkey struggling to stabilise its currency

5. May cladding pledge

A Twitter exchange ensued, with Kamal Ahmed himself chipping in (before quickly exiting pursued by a bear):

Mark Watson: It was a really stupid thing to say IMO, raises questions about his rationality and judgement. There are much better phrases that he could have used. Just my opinion of course!

Juliet Samuel: Everyone ought to read the interview. He didn’t say it was menopausal. He said it was “climacteric”, realised that was jargon and then said, effectively, “climacteric means menopause but for both sexes”. I just can’t understand how that’s offensive or inappropriate in any way.

Kamal Ahmed: Bank and Ben Broadbent don't appear to agree with you. Say language was "poor" and caused offence. I did say on #WATO is was important to keep it in perspective, but clear communication is an important part of the job. Even more important if you ever want to be Governor.

Juliet Samuel: Did you read original interview & context? How can it possibly be top news that he tried to explain jargon “climacteric”? Yes Bank apologised to neutralise it precisely because of coverage like this, which legitimises online mobs who would tear Broadbent’s head off for no reason.

Tim Montgomerie later added a couple more points:

Two thoughts on this (1) there’s now an epidemic of BBC journalists giving their opinions rather than simply reporting and (2) Juliet’s thread of alternative news headlines suggests she gets what public service broadcasting could and should still be. 

The World at One even had Jane Garvey, one of the BBC’s own journalists, as a pundit to judge the “menopausal” row.

*******

It's really worth listening to that The World at One to get a sense of what Juliet Samuel and Tim Montgomerie are objecting to.

The discussion about the story consisted of BBC presenter Sarah Montague interviewing the BBC economics editor Kamal Ahmed and then chairing a discussion between BBC Woman's Hour presenter Jane Garvey and a single non-BBC guest - writer Celia Walden. 

Kamal came first, editorialising that it matters because "I think language matters" and going on to say:

You've got to modernise how you talk about things and using 'menopausal' in a pejorative sense like this - i.e. not a very good thing - something that half the population go through perfectly naturally - shows that the Bank has a bigger issue here....

"It is important" he insisted.

His BBC colleague Jane Garvey was of the same mind, calling Mr Broadbent's words "thoughtless", "dismissive" and "hurtful" and insisting that the "language of economics" would have to change if what Mr Broadbent said is typical. She took it personally. Both she and Mr Broadbent are 53, she noted. "I'm a useless old hag but he's a thrusting silver fox", she huffed.  

It was left to the one non-BBC guest, Celia Walden, to break out of this BBC consensus and to bring a little reasonableness into the proceedings. She pronounced herself to be "not remotely offended" and, though calling it "an odd metaphor", was far more put out by people "deliberately working themselves up into states of offence all the time" about frankly nothing. 

When Jane resumed her rant against Mr Broadbent, saying his comment "puts women very much in their place", she drew in Kamal to back herself up, saying "and, as Kamal's already said, their place at the moment is not at the very top of the Bank of England".

And when Kamal was brought back in, he took up Jane's cudgels and re-insisted that "I think it does matter though" and deployed feminist arguments about power relationships and language to answer a point about how using derogatory language about men in such circumstances could be seen as as bad as using derogatory language about men in such circumstances. ("Men of a certain age don't have prejudice working against them. Women do," he said. "So, therefore, you have to use language differently for men and for women.")

The BBC does feel very much like a bubble at times like this.

P.S. Here's BBC Scotland Editor & Sunday Politics presenter Sarah Smith leading the charge much earlier. She's offended!:

John Humphrys - "I think we sometimes do lose touch with the population"

What interested me more about that Radio Times interview with all five present Today presenters was the section on Brexit - one part of the interview that didn't hit the headlines.

(There's no direct link to it as I can see, so the quotes here are taken directly from the dead tree version).

The Radio Times interviewer (Tom Loxley) posed them this question:

Jeremy Vine said recently that if you were listening to Radio 2, you wouldn't have been surprised by the Brexit referendum result. But if you were listening to Radio 4, you were shocked....that there's a metropolitan mindset on Today that means you got it wrong. You are out of touch with the country.

Now I have to say I didn't know that Jeremy Vine had made such a disobliging and frankly damning comment about his BBC colleagues over at Radio 4, but there you go. He did.

The reactions from the Today team to this question from the Radio Times weren't all the same.

Sarah Montague and Mishal Husain both straight leaped in, denying it and protesting their innocence, but John Humphrys immediately conceded that Jeremy Vine had a point:

Where Jeremy is right is that there's a disconnect between the people who run the BBC and a large chunk of the population. 

He put that down to the BBC's recruitment process which draws in too many people from a similar background. Thus:

...they tend to come with a set of liberal values that permeate their thinking, and therefore the thinking of the BBC - and for a while there's no doubt that the BBC had a strong liberal tinge. 

That, of course, implies (as he's said before) that this "strong liberal tinge" is now in the past, but he went on and said something which strongly suggests otherwise:

I noted on the morning of the referendum that in the BBC almost everybody who came in, above all, all the bosses, looked absolutely stunned. And I suspect if you walked into a cafe round the corner frequented by a rather wider mix of the population, there wouldn't have been that same sense of being utterly stunned. They'd have been maybe a bit surprised, but perhaps not even that. I think we sometimes do lose touch with the population. 

Well said John!

Nick Robinson wasn't having any of it though. Nor was Justin Webb. They were with Sarah and Mishal in taking the 'Not me, guv. We did just fine' line.

And then everyone (including John) agreed that they all park their personal politics "at the studio door", and that none of them knows how any of the others vote.

"Extreme"

I missed this (among so many other things recently) but DownBoy at Biased BBC made an interesting comment yesterday:

I wanted to highlight something I heard a couple of weeks ago. It is sometimes the throwaway remarks or the way things are phrased that show bias the most clearly. Sarah Montague (aka Lady Brooke – an old Co. Fermanagh title) was discussing the DUP. She described them as the ‘more extreme’ Unionist party. What the hell is that supposed to mean? In her mind, the DUP are a sort of Ulster version of ISIS whereas the UUP are merely equivalent to Al Nusra Front? Very telling choice of phrase I thought.

Checking it out, this is what Sarah Montague said in reference to the DUP (during an interview with Lord Trimble on 13 June):

But you have the most...one of the most extreme unionist parties who we're talking about here. 

That is a very telling choice of phrase.

A Shropshire Lass

This morning's Today programme found Sarah Montague among those blue remembered hills of Shropshire talking farming, Brexit and the general election. 

The main theme, which Sarah pursued as doggedly as A.E. Housman's Shropshire Lad pursued death, was the effect the loss of EU subsidies will have on UK farming. 

And she kept on talking about it being "EU funding". 

At no point did Sarah remind her listeners that this "EU money", apparently keeping UK farming afloat, ultimately came from UK contributions and that UK contributions to the EU's farming budget have been considerably larger than the amount we get back from the EU. So it's been us funding them, farming-wise, for years - not them funding us. 

The wild side

I read a piece about Facebook in last week’s Sunday Times(£) titled:  “Behind our happy snaps is a sea of Facebook filth” by Sarah Baxter.
The article was about Facebook's cavalier attitude to dodgy content, namely "hosting pornographic images of children", something that was exposed by an undercover reporter from The Times.

 “Facebook actively encourages dissemination of vile material by herding users into friendship groups, where they can find more and more of the stuff they “like”

Facebook’s attitude seems to be “Don’t worry about the filth - if you’re not in a group that likes ‘filth’ you don’t have to see it”. It’s the algorithms, stupid. The Times reporter’s complaint elicited the boilerplate response:

'it doesn't go against any of our specific community standards"

What caught my eye was another complaint about “An objectionable TV clip of a 2013 interview with Kenneth O’Keefe, a former US marine turned self-styled peace campaigner” but this time the complaint was from one of Ms. Baxter’s family members. It too had drawn Facebook’s pro forma response. Sarah Baxter says:

“O’Keefe is a 9/11 “truther” who blames Israeli intelligence for the attacks on the twin towers and publicly burnt his US passport in 2004, but you wouldn’t know that from the Facebook clips, nor that the interview had first appeared on the Iranian propaganda channel PressTV. No, he is presented as a truth-telling, honest-to-goodness ex-marine.

In the interview, carried out at the time of the previous chemical attacks in Syria - when Bashar al-Assad crossed Barack Obama's "red line" - the ranting O'Keefe laid into the US for its "war of deception" over Syria. That, you might say, is just his opinion.

But as soon as he slipped into sly anti-semitism by claiming the Syrian civil war was part of the "greater Israel project" to destabilise the region with "rich and powerful backers" as the puppet-masters. 

Alarmed to see this nonsense proliferating again, my family member reported the clip for "racism" to Facebook last week. It didn't just reject his complaint, however; it politely offered to "help you see less of things like it in the future". That's missing the point. You don't like anti-semitism? You don't have to see it. "

Of course, this irresponsible approach is bad enough coming from Facebook, but I well remember O’Keefe being plastered all over our television screens after the Mavi Marmara affair. 

The BBC devoted two episodes of HardTalk to this person.  We can’t be sure if Sarah Montague is aware of what the ‘blockade’ actually is or why it exists, but her opening line of questioning was framed in accord with the BBC’s ideological bias against Israel.

“Do you think your achievement was worth those nine lives?” is a question that seems to come from the premise that nine martyrs’ lives were squandered -  as it merely resulted in the ‘easing of the blockade’ rather than having the blockade lifted altogether.

Later, although Sarah Montague made good use of the “Israel says’ formula, she did put Israel’s case forcibly enough to rile O’Keefe, and leave his repeated claims that ‘Israel lies” as his best argument.

The hate-filled comments to this video accuse Sarah Montague of being a Zionist. If the BBC uses comments that are so obviously written by hard-line antisemites as evidence of that well-worn “complaints from both sides” meme it exposes the weakness of the BBC’s flawed conclusion that “we must be getting it about right.”

The BBC didn’t give us the full picture of O’Keefe. I don’t know who wrote this, but it’s on the HARDtalk website:

“This is the second interview of Ken O'Keefe by BBC's flagship HardTALK program. His first interview was in February 2003 regarding his TJP Human Shield Action to Iraq. In this 2010 interview O'Keefe discusses the plight of the Palestinian people and the mass-murder of humanitarian aid workers who sailed to Gaza on the Turkish lead ship the Mavi Marmara. 9 people were murdered, all Turkish nationals, one with American citizenship as well. Some of these were provably executed, in international waters no less. This is a classic interview, a true rarity of straight talk on the planets most influential propaganda institution in the BBC.”

I don't know what the final sentence is supposed to mean. Someone enlighten me, please. But the BBC’s rose-tinted description of "Ken" contains nothing remotely like Sarah Baxter’s realistic summary of O’Keefe’s background. Substitute “BBC” for “Facebook” for a clearer understanding of this man’s history. Let me remind you:

“O’Keefe is a 9/11 “truther” who blames Israeli intelligence for the attacks on the twin towers and publicly burnt his US passport in 2004, but you wouldn’t know that from the Facebook clips, nor that the interview had first appeared on the Iranian propaganda channel PressTV. No, he is presented as a truth-telling, honest-to-goodness ex-marine.

Nothing whatsoever from the BBC detailing O’Keefe’s overt antisemitism for viewers not well enough informed to  see it for themselves.
Here's what Sarah Baxter has to say, again, about Facebook, but it applies equally to the BBC, if not more so. 

You don't have to see it [...] but that doesn't mean it isn't out there, corrupting what can often be very young minds. O'Keefe's clip is popular with anti-war teenagers.

Facebook wants you to think the world is full of people who are as sensible and well informed as you. My social media helpfully direct me to all sorts of terrific articles from traditional media. But if you prefer to walk on the wild side, you will encounter bucketloads of hate speech. Such types naturally think they are every bit as sensible and well informed as me and - here's the really scary thing - their posts are the most likely to be shared. Facebook feeds off viral videos by the likes of O'Keefe and other haters and conspiracists. You're just not seeing them.

"You're just not seeing them?" The BBC doesn’t even have that excuse.

That open letter

On that letter to Lord Hall from over 70 MPs, here's the letter in full:

Dear Lord Hall,

RE: BBC Coverage of Brexit

Brexit is the most important political challenge facing our country. Bearing in mind the new Royal Charter’s first ‘Public Purpose’ is to impartial news, as national broadcaster the BBC has a special obligation to ensure that it reflects available evidence and the balance of argument on the subject as fairly as possible.

We believe the BBC has fallen far short of this high standard. No doubt the BBC often nurtures first-class journalism but its position depends on trust. If politicians and the public don’t view it as an impartial broker, then the future of the BBC will be in doubt.

When Sir David Clementi, the incoming Chairman of the BBC, gave evidence to the Culture, Media, and Sport Select Committee in January, he insisted that the Corporation’s treatment of Brexit after the referendum had walked “a good path down the middle” – despite acknowledging that fewer viewers than ever now trust its coverage. We know many Leave-voting constituents have felt their views have been unfairly represented. This phenomenon is weakening the BBC's bond with the 52 per cent who voted Leave and all who wish to make a success of the decision made.

In particular, the Corporation’s focus on ‘regretful’ Leave voters, despite there being no polling shift towards Remain since the referendum, has led some to believe it is putting its preconceptions before the facts. Meanwhile, the posturing and private opinions of EU figures are too often presented as facts, without the vital context that they are talking tough ahead of the exit negotiations.

It particularly pains us to see how so much of the economic good news we’ve had since June has been skewed by BBC coverage which seems unable to break out of pre-referendum pessimism and accept new facts. Some of the signatories of this letter shared many of the concerns about the economic impact of Brexit, but all are delighted to find forecasts of immediate economic harm were at best misplaced. So-called ‘despite Brexit’ reporting may be expected of a partisan press, but licence fee-payers have the right to expect better.

The BBC has a much larger market share than any newspaper – it runs the most-used news website in the country, on top of its television and radio coverage. This, as well as viewers’ belief in its neutrality, means that BBC bias can have a substantial effect on national debate. BBC coverage also shapes international perceptions of the UK: we fear that, by misrepresenting our country either as xenophobic or regretful of the Leave vote, the BBC will undermine our efforts to carve out a new, global role for this country.

We are therefore asking you to take steps to correct these flaws in the BBC’s coverage of our EU exit at the earliest moment.

Yours etc.,

And this is the coverage it received on Today:

Transcript of BBC Radio 4, ‘Today’, 21st March 2016, MPs’ Letter on BBC Post-Referendum Negativity, 7.52am

SARAH MONTAGUE: More than 70 MPs have written to the Director General of the BBC, Tony Hall, complaining about the organisation's Brexit coverage. They say it’s pessimistic and skewed and risks undermining Brexit and damaging the country's reputation. The letter says, ‘It particular pains us to see how so much of the economic good news we've had since June has been skewed by BBC coverage which seems unable to break out of pre-referendum pessimism and accept new facts.’ Well, we did ask somebody from the BBC to, er, er, come forward, come on the programme and be interviewed, they didn’t want to put anybody forward, they do . . . did issue a statement though that says, ‘While we’re always live to our critics and understand passions are running high, it’s the job of the BBC to scrutinise and analyse the issues on behalf of the public, to hold politicians to account - that's what the BBC has been doing, will continue to do and it's precisely because of that the public trusts the BBC.’  Well, we don't have anybody to take the BBC's side as it were, but we do have our media editor Amol Rajan to tell us about this story.  And Amol, what is the beef? What are they particularly so worried about?

AMOL RAJAN: Well, the interesting thing Sarah, is that actually the BBC's coverage of the referendum itself got some plaudits from unlikely quarters, I mean, the Daily Mail wrote in an editorial that they thought the BBC had broadly got the referendum correct, and actually there was a sort of consensus, I think, amongst Fleet Street the BBC had surprised some people in its even-handedness, (fragments of words, unclear) surprised its critics in its even-handedness of the referendum. And what these MPs are saying, 70 MPs, three of them Labour, UKIP’s Douglas Carswell and, as you say Sarah, lots of people who backed the Remain side, including Julian Knight, what they are saying is actually the BBC has, in effect, reverted to type. And Julian Knight is, erm, you know, the, the open letter to a sympathetic newspaper editor is a hardy perennial of public life, Julian Knight himself, the Tory MP for Solihull, a former colleague of mine on the Independent, used to work for the BBC, he knows about how to get headlines, and he’ll be very pleased being on the front of the Mail and the Telegraph today.  And his basic beef and the beef of 70 MPs is that the BBC is, is two things really: one is that it’s excessively sympathetic to the interests of people that live in cities, so a metropolitan or cosmopolitan outlook – people that are more comfortable, perhaps, with globalisation. And the second thing is that, really, as you say, on the economic news that we’ve had since June 23 last year, lots of that economic news on, on jobs, or productivity being surprisingly positive, the BBC's not given sufficient weight or credence to that news because it's so virulently in favour of remaining within the EU.

SARAH MONTAGUE: And is the BBC guilty of that?

AMOL RAJAN: Well, I couldn’t possibly say. And Tony Hall, I’m sure, I’m sure has got strong views on it. I don’t, I don’t, I mean . . . Tony Hall, and I spoke to a senior BBC source last night who said the BBC’s highly vigilant, it’s staying, you know, it’s monitoring its own coverage of this, er, very passionate affair very, very closely. But I think they recognise that letters like these have a couple of different functions: one is to register genuine dissatisfaction and these Tory MPs, and they’re mostly Tory MPs, are, are dissatisfied; the other is to make something of a threat about the future of the BBC, they do, they do say in the letter that the BBC's future will be, quotes, ‘in doubt’ if it doesn’t get its house in order, and it isn’t seen to be a, quotes, ‘impartial broker’. And the third, thing, I think, Sarah, is to create something of an atmosphere, where the BBC feels that it has to operate (fragment of word, unclear) it’s aware of the fact that its opponents are in a sort of mood of watchful scrutiny over it. We are going to have, you know, a very, very tense negotiation with Europe, and I think the 70 MPs led by Julian Knight, and including some Remainers, are saying, you know, if you guys think you're going to be able to get away with stuff that we don’t like, rest assured, we’re not only watching you closely, but we’re happy to mobilise and generate some headlines, if we think you're getting it wrong.

SARAH MONTAGUE:  But Brexit throws up some enormous challenges, which have been covered on this programme and elsewhere in the BBC – they’re not being, from what I understand, critical of the coverage of that, it’s the sort of . . . the everyday, er . . . the economy effectively since the result?

AMOL RAJAN: Yes, and I think, I mean, there’s another story that’s around this morning, which is separate to this letter, which is covered in the Daily Mail, gets a bit of a billing on Page 1, and also top of Page 2, about whether or not Countryfile, which is watched by millions of people, erm, was excessively, or sort of conveyed a pro-EU mindset, when covering the issue of a migrant labour force. And I think the beef that these MPs have with this BBC’s coverage isn’t just restricted to news, it’s a feeling that the Corporation as a whole is infected by an excessively metropolitan outlook. I’m sure that over the course of today, Tony Hall, Director General will respond, but the striking thing about this for me, Sarah, was that David . . . or I should call him Sir David Clementi, who’s the new Chair of the BBC’s new Unitary Board, it’s in effect in, er, in place from the start of April . . . he’s copied on this letter, he’s copied in on this letter. And I think these MPs and the . . . er, the, erm . . . the sort of irate Tories and people like Douglas Carswell and Iain Duncan Smith, who’s another signatory, are basically saying to Sir David Clementi, as he starts his new role, rest assured that throughout your tenure in this job, we’re watching you.

SARAH MONTAGUE:  Indeed, and to have so many MPs, that’s...I mean, it’s...

AMOL RAJAN: (fragment of word, or word unclear)

SARAH MONTAGUE:  . . . there is a significance there.

AMOL RAJAN: It is, I mean, 70 MPs, as you say, they’re, they’re, they’re cross party lines, there’s three Labour MPs, they include Remainers, erm, it’s interesting, I mean there’s over 300 Tory MPs so I suppose the BBC and certainly the senior person at the BBC I spoke to last night would say: the other way of looking at this is they’ve only got a sort of a fifth of the, er, the Tory MPs, or about a quarter. Er, but it’s a significant number, and it’s, it’s unquestionably the case that lots and lots of people in politics, and amongst the public, and amongst the public, (word or words unclear) that the BBC has consistently, er, even if it’s got the referendum correct, it’s got the post-referendum economy wrong. And I think that’s where these MPs are coming from.

SARAH MONTAGUE:  Amol Rajan, thank you very much. 

A tale of two Tzipis

The BBC put out two interviews, one  with Israeli opposition politician Tzipi Livni, the other with deputy foreign minister Tzipi Hotovely In both cases the interviewer was Sarah Montague

The Today Programme broadcast the first one January 23rd, and on February 21st HardTalk  featured  the other. 

HardTalk's raison d’être is adversarial and confrontational, but both interviews were distinctly hostile. Numerous interruptions halted the flow, and Sarah Montague’s disinclination to listen sidelined the answers, throwing all the emphasis on her loaded questions. A bit like current press conferences.

It’s obvious that Sarah Montague takes the BBC’s ‘Arabist’ approach to the Israel / Palestinian conflict. The religious/Islamic element is ignored. All Palestinian claims and accusations are taken at face value, while Israel’s are treated with cynical disbelief. The issue of settlements is of particular interest to Israel’s critics who will cite the UN and International law to support their argument, while all counter argument automatically falls on deaf ears.

That sets the scene. 

BBCWatch has a transcription of the Today Programme interview with Tzipi Hotovely here.

Now there’s a new episode in that particular saga. Before I go into detail, here is the relevant excerpt.

“Montague: “Of course, as I say, the majority of the rest of the world take a very different view but one thing that – clearly you think differently – but do you recognise that the building of these homes makes peace less likely?” 

Hotovely: “Absolutely not. What we saw throughout last year is that every time Israel went through a process of concessions and when Israel committed disengagement from the Gaza [in] 2005, what we saw was more extremists on the other side. We saw Hamas regime taking over; terror regime that the Palestinians chose on a democratic vote. So what we saw is actually the opposite. When settlements were not there, instead of having democratic flourish in the Palestinian side, we just saw extremist radicalism and radical Islam taking over. Unfortunately…” 

Montague [interrupts]: “You’re talking about a flourish…yes…you’re talking about flourishing of a particular one [laughs]…the…the…Israeli Jews in settlements; they are flourishing. Of course the Palestinians are not. I wonder, do you think that the idea of a two-state solution – because this is of course land that would have been Palestinian under the two-state solution – is the idea of that now dead?”

BBCWatch made a complaint about the lack of impartiality - specifically in the latter part of that exchange. They argued that Sarah Montague’s odd remark about ‘flourishing’ was both irrelevant and subjective. 

Initially they received a bungled, slapdash reply which misidentified interviewer, prematurely recognised Palestinian statehood, misunderstood the complaint and delivered a haughty and patronising lecture on the BBC’s infallibility.

BBCWatch made the complaint a second time, and received an apology and a new reply. Again the complaints department misunderstood the complaint. 

Once again, here’s where the word “flourish” first appears in the conversation.

Tzipi Hotovely said: 

When settlements were not there, instead of having democratic flourish in the Palestinian side, we just saw extremist radicalism and radical Islam taking over”

She was explaining, in less than perfect English, that when Israel withdrew from Gaza (and settlements were no longer there) the opportunity to establish a flourishing democracy was not taken up by the Palestinian side; instead, “extremist radicalism and radical Islam” took over. 

Again, this obsession with settlements dominated the debate. Sarah Montague let her emotions steer her response and seized on the word ‘flourish’. 

“The Israeli Jews in settlements are flourishing, of course the Palestinians are not.”

Sarah Montague is emoting that the settlements are ‘crushing’ the Palestinians. She believes this because she treats all Israel’s arguments with disbelief. 

“You would continue building in settlement blocks” she says, provocatively to Livni on HardTalk. Demographic reality and any mention of final status negotiations fall on deaf ears and always will while the BBC takes a hostile and partial approach to Israel. 

“Ms Hotoveley, (sic) however, did not take issue with the suggestion that Palestinians were not flourishing as a result of the settlements.”

concluded the BBC in its second reply to BBCWatch. That is eerily similar to the police caution on arrest:

 “……it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in Court”  

The BBC’s kangaroo court.

The BBC: Devil's advocate and (Her Majesty's) Official Opposition

The following transcription captures the words but not the tone. When I first heard it this morning Sarah Montague sounded more spittle-flecked than she sounded after replaying it for the umpteenth time, which I’m afraid I had to do in order to get it down in writing. 

However, there are a bunch of serious misconceptions within Sarah’s questioning that need challenging. I’m not going to extend the length of this post by going into them in detail here and now; I’ll leave that to others, whom I hope will do so in due course. 

When the BBC confines its most hostile and adversarial Middle East-related interviews to Israeli spokespersons, which they BBC would likely claim is what their listeners would wish them to do, it looks as though the BBC is acting as the official ‘opposition’ (to Israel) and mouthpiece for Mahmoud Abbas and his merry men. 

It has taken on a similar role (that of Official Opposition) with regard to all sorts of issues. In the case of domestic politics this role just might be justifiable in the absence of a credible alternative. 

In the case of the Israel/Palestine conflict, however, Israel has enough opposition already - from the Labour Party and from the entire Islamic world; without any help from the BBC. 

It seems that where Israel is concerned the BBC is not playing devil’s advocate, it IS the devil’s advocate. In other words, the BBC is advocating on behalf of ‘the devil’. 

As long as the BBC continues with this approach, countering every Israeli defence with something said or done by the UN, citing international law and repeating interminable disingenuous Palestinian posturing, this is the only conclusion one can reach. When Sarah Montague goes head to head with this man, ( Hamas MP Marwan Abu Ras) I might change my mind.

 


Transcription from Today Programme overleaf.

More refugees please

I suppose the practice of having a limited number of anchors handling any number of issues inevitably leads to a ‘jack of all trades, master of none’ scenario. 

It seems that, say, Mishal Husain routinely gets the Muslim-related interviews and so on, but mostly it’s down to any given presenter to approach each item as best they can. This can lead to some annoying interviews, when the questions you might want raised, just aren’t.  

A good interviewer is supposed to ask the questions that we, the audience, would like to ask if we had the chance. They’re doing it on our behalf so the story goes. The problem is, of course, that you often get a generalised, one-size-fits-all product at the end of the day. Or at the beginning of the day, as is the case with the Today Programme.

This morning I listened to Sarah Montague talking to Rabbi Julia Neuberger about a letter she’s co-signed with other religious leaders asking the government to take in more refugees, particularly children. 

This is not especially about the letter itself, the minutiae of which I know not.  It’s about Sarah Montague’s line of questioning, which was pretty much confined to trying to get Julia Neuberger to commit to a ‘number’, which she obviously wasn’t prepared to do. She said so, in so many words, so asking her again and again was a bit of a waste of time.

I might not be your typical listener - on this matter at any rate - but if I were given the opportunity to chat with Rabbi Neuberger, I would take issue with her on other, perhaps more awkward aspects of this.

The most obvious problem was her ‘Muslims are the new Jews’ hypothesis. She made the simplistic comparison between the current refugee crisis and Jews fleeing Nazi persecution. 'They had been given sanctuary in the UK in the late 30s,' she reasoned, 'therefore the same privilege must be extended to child refugees from Syria and other war-torn countries now.'  This is not an ideal comparison for a number of reasons, but I understand that many people think it’s a vivid way of making their point, and I accept that. However, I'm still going to argue against it.

I would have been more impressed had Sarah Montague addressed assimilation, integration and general difficulties associated with absorbing large numbers of Muslims into our broadly secular society. None of those problems arose with Jewish refugees as far as I’m aware, for reasons of culture, ideology or quantity. 

Julia Neuberger pleaded that some of the child refugees had relatives already here who would willingly take them in, but I don’t necessarily see that as an advantage in terms of assimilation and integration. Some potential host families might be more integrated than others, though I don’t quite see how Sarah Montague could have raised that without sounding ‘racist’, but as a skilled interviewer she could have found a way. 

For me the biggest flaw in Julia Neuberger’s case was her use of the “AsaJew’ ploy. Or in this case, ’As a descendent of immigrants myself’. This ‘As-a’ business is not something to be played like a trump card. (not Trump, trump) Being a Jew, an immigrant, a member of the Magic Circle or being the actual shadow foreign secretary does not bestow upon one any special insights. 

Yet other aspect of this approach - (the UK took pity on the Jews, therefore they must take pity on the Muslims) that is never addressed, is that - in case anyone hasn’t noticed - antisemitism is rife these days. There is a growing hostility to Jews and a general feeling that they control everything.

There’s already a feeling that somehow the Jews are lobbying hard for unlimited immigration, and are responsible for all the woes of the West.

Pleading for more immigration isn’t going to endear Rabbi Neuberger (or any of the other asaJews) to the antisemites, a large number of whom are Muslims.

Inviting a new influx of antisemitic Muslims “into your home” looks very much like an extreme case of turkeys voting for Christmas, which amounts to an absurd absence of logic. This conundrum is hardly ever aired in public because it’s racist to point out the racism in Islam, so it mustn’t be mentioned.

Just think. The religious leaders might feel smug and good about themselves for writing this letter, while making the rest of us seem hard hearted and callous, but the people who hate all immigrants won’t like it. The antisemites won’t like it. The Muslims won’t even like it. 

To her credit, Sarah Montague did bring up the “political ramifications” of Germany’s generous immigration policy, but did not press the issue when the rabbi said “Just because of Germany’s difficulties, it doesn’t mean the UK could not take more.” “Doesn’t it?” might have been one answer.

I wish Sarah Montague had asked questions appertaining to any or all of the above, rather than the repetitive, superficial “How many?” approach she took, which is merely a version of the misguided ‘killer blow’ manoeuvre. It’s the same old “Yes or no?”…. “Did you or did you not?” strategy, favoured by Jeremy Paxman, and, when a Jew gets her dander up, Mishal Husain.

Agenda? What agenda?

Peter Whittle, UKIP

When the BBC chooses an angle on a story they can stick to it tenaciously. 

Here's another example of something we discussed yesterday, from this morning's Today (just before 7 o'clock):

Sarah Montague: A quick final word please on the tone of the campaign so far. 

Peter Whittle (UKIP London mayoral candidate): Yes? 

Sarah Montague: Here you are, the UKIP candidate...I think you're third in the polls, ahead of the Liberal Democrats.  

Peter Whittle: We are indeed. Yes. 

Sarah Montague: The accusations of racism are between...There have been accusations of racism levelled at...erm...actually at the Prime Minister as a result of comments he made about the Labour candidate. How do...what's your reflections? 

Peter Whittle: Well, I don't think it's a question of racism at all. I think that's a way of shutting down debate. I think the point is that, obviously, Sadiq Khan has got questions to answer about the people he's shared platforms with but, unfortunately, you know, with Zak, there's no point in putting forward accusations and then essentially taking them back. And I think this has been a very important thing to bring up. I'm far more concerned, if you like, when it comes to Sadiq Khan that until very recently he was employing somebody who talked about "the faggots" - and I say that as a gay man - and... 

Sarah Montague (interrupting): Peter Whittle. We must leave it there. 

Peter Whittle: OK. All right. Thank you.  

Sarah Montague: Full list as usual on the website. Thank you very much.

The campaign aide of Sadiq Khan's who Mr. Whittle was referring to was Shueb Salar. 

His tweets (another of which, apparently, said that the right way to “treat a lady” is “buy her a nice iron and extend the kitchen for her”) resulted in his resignation last month.

Nothing to see here. Move along

Sarah Montague's interview with Roger Alton on this morning's Today was an interesting one. As well as being interesting in its own right, it was also interesting because of the bits about the BBC. 

Sarah's introduction showed that Today was concerned about the main headline in the Daily Telegraph:

Here's Sarah Montague's introduction in full:

Why did the BBC disclose that the Culture Secretary John Whittingdale has a six-month relationship with a sex worker that newspapers knew about but were not reporting? The Telegraph quotes a cabinet minister saying the BBC is pursuing an agenda because of the licence fee discussions. But why DID those newspapers NOT publish the story? Were they also pursuing an agenda? Mr Whittingdale was, of course, becoming an increasingly important figure in their regulation.

Well, Roger Alton is a former executive editor of the Times and he used to edit the Observer and the Independent. He's in our radio car in south London. Good morning to you.    

There are so many conspiracy theories surrounding this story. Where are you on what you think happened here?

I think we can take it from that that she was implying that the idea the BBC has been "pursuing an agenda" here "because of the licence fee discussions" is one of those "conspiracy theories".

When they got round to discussing the BBC later, here's how their discussion went:

Sarah Montague: And the reason the BBC, Newsnight, decided to run the story? 

Roger Alton: You'll have to ask the editor of Newsnight there I think. 

Indeed. Maybe Today should get Ian Katz on. 

Candles

The 8.10 spot is the heart of Radio 4's Today programme. 

That spot on Wednesday's programme - the morning after the terrorist atrocities in Brussels - began with Matthew Price in Brussels. 

(As per Sue), Douglas Murray predicted, immediately after the terrorist attacks, that, after the initial shock, next would come "the sentimentalists await(ing) the arrival of this atrocity’s cutesy hashtag or motif and hope it will tide them over until the piano man arrives at the scene of the attack to sing ‘Imagine there’s no countries’". 

His specific prediction was for social media, yet BBC Radio 4's Today leaped straight into doing that very thing too. Matthew Price focused throughout the programme - as well as at the start of the 8.10 spot - on just that:  the candles, the flowers, the chalked messages, the banners proclaiming 'unity against hatred'....

6.08 And in the centre of Brussels where I am at the Place de la Bourse there are still candles burning... 

6.08 Some of the images that you see both here in the centre of Brussels, with those candles... 

6.09 Le Soir carries a photograph of people gathered where I am at the moment in the Place de la Bourse writing message of solidarity in chalk on the pavement. That's something we'll turn to later on in the programme as well. 

6.14 It is light here. It's drizzling as well, but the drizzle isn't putting out the candles. 

6.35 Here in the centre of Brussels there are a handful of people who are gathered contemplating the scene outside the city's Bourse where candles have been lit and people have written messages of commemoration in chalk on the paving stones. 

7.09 I'm outside the magnificent Bourse on the steps of which people stood yesterday evening and where they started a very simple act of commemoration - not just lighting the candles which are still burning here this morning, despite a little drizzle; they started writing in chalk on the paving stones message of unity, messages of support for one another and support for those caught up in the murderous attacks. 

7.35 There's a scene of reflection in the centre of Brussels this morning. Candles have been lit and thoughts written in coloured chalk on the pavement. One here in vibrant blue says "Love is our resistance".  

8.10 It is rather a sorry sight here, just across from me in central Brussels this morning. There's a light drizzle falling on the flowers and the candles....and that drizzle is starting to fade the vibrant colours of the words chalked into the paving stones. Most of those words are messages of hope: "We are united", "Brussels, my beautiful city". and the like, but one that stood out to me - also scratched on the pavement in chalk: "J'ai peur" - "I'm afraid".

8.12 Just walking through to part of the pavement where a couple of Belgian flags - the red, yellow and black - have been lain out and, on top of them, candles have been lit, people putting down bunches of flowers... 

8.13 And now that you're here, how do you feel? All these messages being written onto the pavement in chalk? 

8.59 Well, there are more people gathering here in central Brussels. We're just off the Grand Place, the magnificent medieval square in Brussels, and outside the Bourse. And someone has hung a banner up on it this morning saying 'Unis contre la haine.' More people are stopping on their way to work, contemplating the candles and flowers left on the paving stones in the drizzle here. 

....and his longest interview with a member of the Belgian public during the 8.10 spot was with a woman who repeated "All we need is love...All we need is love" and said "We are angry, but we have no one to be angry at".

That last message led onto the next one, as next came an interview with a headscarf-wearing Muslim woman called Asmah. 

She knew one of the Paris terrorists and recalled him as being "normal" and "kind". He'd got involved in "small criminal acts", she said, and the jails in Brussels had let him down. More generally, she put the problem of "radicalisation" down to "a problem of identity" in Europe, with such "young people" being made "schizophrenic" by the authorities who oblige them to keep their religious beliefs to themselves. Much as she likes Belgium for being multicultural, she blamed the country for "forgetting its history" and said it wants them [Muslims] to stay in the "shadows of society". 

Among Matthew Price's contributions here were:

But what is it about the community? What is going on? 'Community' is probably too big a word. It's not the community, it is individuals within the community... 

Why are some people getting left behind? What is it about this society perhaps that fuels some radicalism?

He next talked to Major Serge Stroobants, a "Belgian security and defence expert and representative for the Institute for Economics and Peace". Major Stroobants, who agreed with Asmah about the causes of "radicalism", pretty much ticked off every box here. He really did blame alienation, Western foreign policy and Israel. 

(Here Today went straight to another of Douglas Murray's predictions: "Meanwhile other people will change the subject over to the question of Belgium’s unacceptably interventionist foreign policy. Others will get onto Israel-Palestine". And indeed they did). 

It's a lot of young people [said Major Stroobants], young men but also young girls, that do not feel a sense of acceptance within our society, that do not feel they fit in the society, and that just creates a sense of frustration. This creates a feeling of emptiness inside them that the recruiters and the radicalisers are really happy to fill. But this is not only the problem of our society, it's also a problem of the situation all over the world. I mean, interventions in some types of conflicts, the situation in the Middle East, the conflict between Israel and Palestine, are also fuels for radicalisation, 

Then Sarah Montague took over, talking to Deputy Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu from the UK Counter Terrorism Policing Network. She was soon asking him about Donald Trump (who he obligingly condemned) and the risk of a backlash against British Muslims. ("Are you nervous, given what's already been said since the attacks in Brussels, of a spike in hate crimes?", she asked)

This interview made a couple of Douglas Murray's other predictions pretty much come true;

(1) Meantime someone will hopefully have said something which a lot of people can condemn as ‘inappropriate’.  [Here Donald Trump].

(2) At around the same time the Corbynite-wing of the Labour party will get onto their favourite subject which is not dead bodies in airports but people who have been looked at meanly on a bus while wearing a headscarf.  By at least tomorrow the story of a savage ‘backlash’ (consisting mainly of stares and horrible things written on social media) will be being talked-up by all mainstream Muslim leaders.  By Thursday no one will be talking about the victims. [Here Sarah Montague and a p.c. PC rather than the Corbynistas].

********

Matthew Price is another of those BBC reporters who uses his Twitter feed (@BBCMatthewPrice) as part of his reporting. After the initial shock, much of his Twitter reporting from Brussels has also focused on images of chalked messages - especially chalked hearts - on pavements. He did, however, also link to an extended article about "the links between the Middle East's wars and terrorism in Europe" from a Canadian journalist which makes many of the familiar points about how Western foreign policy (recent and not-so-recent, from Sykes-Picot to the recent invasions to our support for Israel) is largely to blame for the anger and alienation of young Muslims in Europe and the rest of the world, He then moved on to tweeting (negative stuff) about Israel.

*********

More on these themes can be found here:

Kathy Gyngell: According to the BBC, Brussels outrage is all our fault
Raheem Kassam: Enough With The Teddy Bears And Tears: It’s Time To Take Our Civilization Back

Abhorrent views

My nose measurements are: 4.5 centimetres from root to tip, or if you like, 6 cm from bridge -navigating the nasal tip - to the point where nose joins upper lip. It’s difficult to measure something like a nose, with no hard edges and no precise beginning or end. 

Anyway, I thought you might be interested, because I’m going to talk about antisemitism again. 

It’s exasperating that while even the BBC has started noticing the antisemitism in the Labour party, most people are still tiptoeing round the topic. Still afraid to say out loud what needs to be said.

It’s only when matters come to the surface in a tangible, low hanging fashion that people can grasp it, and satisfy themselves that they’ve dealt with it. Frantic virtue signalling is the order of the day.

So Gerry Downing  was out of order to say - what was it again - that thing he said about Jews? 

Oh yes, he referred to “the Jewish Question”, a chilling phrase borrowed from Hitler’s lot. Then there was Vicky Whassername who said Jews have big noses. Well, that’s demonstrably racist, therefore saying such a thing in on Twitter is undoubtedly deserving of a slap on the wrist.

These remarks are as stupid as they are offensive, and even Jeremy Corbyn couldn’t reasonably let anyone get away with saying them without sacking them from his party. So he suspended them.

Mark Mardell featured this topic on radio 4 

Mark Mardell: Is Jeremy Corbyn doing enough? 

Angela Smith: Well I think Jeremy Corbyn has a role to play here as the leader of the Labour Party. I think the entire leadership of the Labour Party, the Shadow Cabinet, really has to get out there and make it absolutely clear there is no place in the party for this behaviour. 

MM: So they’re not doing that now? 

AS: Well I think Jeremy could do more. I think Jeremy really needs to come out and say publicly that he will not tolerate this in the party. He said it privately at the PLP last night. I think he needs to come out and say it.

The Today Programme featured it, too. 

“Labour have suspended for a second time a member who posted anti-Semitic tweets. This follows days of accusations of anti-Semitism within the party. Speaking on the programme this morning is Jeremy Newmark, chair of the Jewish Labour movement.”

“Are you accepting that Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership has allowed this to happen?” 

“Are you hearing more than we’ve reported on here?” 

“What should Jeremy Corbyn do?” 

“Do you know when Vicky Kirby rejoined the Labour party? Before he became leader!” 

“What should Jeremy Corbyn do?”

Sarah’s questioning all but implied that Jeremy Corbyn was almost powerless to act.

What can you do? she shrugged, bemused. (That’s me, imagining it; not an actual account, since I don’t have visuals on my radio)

It’s all part of the convenient separation of two distinct aspects of this antisemitic virus. Part one is made up of childish, neoNazi tropes like the big-nosed, greedy Jew, hell-bent on world domination. This is the the low-hanging fruit, which Jeremy Corbyn can freely condemn. 

However, part two dwarfs part one. Beside part two, part one almost pales into insignificance. Part two is, of course, the part that hardly anyone dares to articulate - the Islamic-based antisemitism that permeates the entire Middle East, and the very thing that is at the heart of the Israel Palestine conflict. And so many MPs are beholden to the Muslim vote, so they’re effectively muzzled. And so many leftists are sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.

What does it boil down to? Well, maybe it boils down to Michael Foster’s outburst at the Labour Friends of Israel meeting in which Jeremy Corbyn made a speech without saying ‘that word.’

All that stuff about antisemitism in the Labour Party by Owen Jones, Hugo Rifkind, and even John Mann MP, a long-time campaigner against antisemitism, they all agree that antisemitism is worrying, and is increasingly prevalent in the political left. They insist that Jeremy Corbyn is not himself an antisemite, and many of them base their argument on some kind of analogy with Muslims. 

Just as you shouldn’t blame all Muslims for Isis, so you mustn’t blame all Jews for Israel, they reason. Which comes from the premise that Israel is evil. 

The biased reporting of Israel related matters plays an enormous part in fostering this gross misconception. 

Tom Harris covered the low-hanging fruit in the Telegraph, but he also  said:

“Anti-Zionism is not the same as anti-Semitism, these people plead in their defence. And care should be taken not to label every critic of Israel in the same way. We can hardly trumpet Israel’s (rightful) status as a liberal democracy and then try to shut down any criticism of its government by throwing around unpleasant accusations. Yet what is Zionism other than support for the creation and continued existence of the state of Israel? Scratch the surface of these campus revolutionaries and you will find resentment at the decision, in 1948, of the UN, supported by the hated United States, to recognise Israel in the first place. 

Labour must not, cannot tolerate such a view. And yet, among its rank and file it is becoming more commonplace, more accepted. That is surely inevitable when the leadership of the party is willing to tolerate Islamism, of which anti-Semitism is such an inevitable part.”

People Like Owen Jones are as resolutely anti-Zionist as they claim to be against antisemitism . Even Mehdi Hasan  (New Statesman March 2013) wrote about this. 

“It pains me to have to admit this but anti-Semitism isn’t just tolerated in some sections of the British Muslim community; it’s routine and commonplace. Any Muslims reading this article – if they are honest with themselves – will know instantly what I am referring to. It’s our dirty little secret. You could call it the banality of Muslim anti-Semitism.” 

He goes into more detail, but you can see where he is really coming from when he suddenly says: 

“No, the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict hasn’t helped matters”

So, just like everyone else, he’s ignoring the fact that the ‘ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict’ was  entirely and exclusively caused by  the inherent antisemitism within Islam, and he’s asking Muslims to recognise or tone down their own racism, despite Israel’s assumed malevolence. He is asking his fellow Muslims to do this, reasoning that they don’t like the racism (Islamophobia) that’s perpetrated against them. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.  They don’t like it up ‘em.

All these saccharine mea culpas over antisemitism are superficial and quite disingenuous.

They will only be convincing on the day when the MSM, especially the BBC, reports the vile antisemitism that goes on relentlessly, day after day, with the blessing of the Palestinian Authority; the vile antisemitism that is rife within UNRWA, the incitement, the praise and adulation of martyrs within Palestinian society and the appalling indoctrination of children that is standard in Palestinian education.

So, MPs dependent on the Muslim vote, MPs and their followers who support BDS, Journalists and politicians who perceive Muslim migrants as ‘just like us’, they are all responsible for the upsurge in antisemitism. They may be good men who do nothing or no-good men who do a lot.

There was a major conference on antisemitism in Berlin. Did the BBC report it? Michael Gove said:

“There is a duty on all of us in public life to speak out. 

And to watch out for those with whom we might align ourselves 

There is a particular duty on those of us charged with upholding justice to pursue justice in this cause. 

That means asking how those who threaten Jewish lives, Jewish work and the Jewish people’s rights to self-determination - whether in Tehran or Tower Hamlets - can be confronted and held to account.”

Angela Merkel said: 

“It may be that [some refugees] have grown up with certain stereotypes"."It must be absolutely clear," whether to refugees or those born in Germany, "that antisemitism and other prejudices have no place in our society."

How is she ever going to square that circle?

While being interviewed about academies on the Today Programme, Lucy Powell was questioned about antisemitism. “There is a problem in the Labour Party which is not being dealt with effectively”  ventured Sarah, who still seemed surprised to have heard about this puzzling phenomenon.

  “We will not tolerate these abhorrent views”  uttered Ms Powell vehemently.

Haha. We will leave no turn unstoned.

This is where we came in. 

Antisemitism is hard to measure; it has no hard edges and no precise beginning or end.