Once more unto the breach, Sir Keir, once more

It seems quite something that the forensic ex-lawyer and former Director of Public Prosecutions turned Labour leader Sir Keir Rodney Starmer KCB QC managed to breach the MPs' code of conduct no less than eight times. I see the BBC has already relegated it to a 'small print' headline on the BBC News website though.

Update 11.45am: The story has, naturally, now vanished from the headlines on the Home page. Amusingly, that's not stopping it remaining in second place on 'Most Read', so people are still wanting to see it. [Further update - It's gone now from 'Most Read'].

A familiar tale

My Google News feed this afternoon was full of reports from countless UK news sites about Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer being investigated by the parliamentary standards watchdog over potential rule breaches on earnings and gifts. 

Only the BBC didn't appear in my feed. 

I checked and couldn't find it on the BBC News home page, though it was a lead story on both the ITV News and Sky News websites at the time [around 3pm]. 

I did find it on the BBC Politics page though. 

Now, at 5.30pm, I see the story IS now on the BBC News home page, as the next-to-last headline story.

So, in time-honoured BBC style, they will be able to say that they'd reported it on the main page of their news website  - should some accuser charge them with partisan underplaying of the story...

...And now, at 5.50pm, I've refreshed the BBC News home page and it's gone again.

 

Blink and you'll have missed it.

Something tells me the BBC doesn't want to put the spotlight on this story.

Now then, now then

I see the BBC is still making moral judgements rather than merely reporting and letting the public decide:

Boris Johnson says he has "said more than enough about that issue," after being asked if he wants to apologise for Sir Keir Starmer receiving death threats since the PM's false claim about the Labour leader and Jimmy Savile.

But 'ere's an alternative point of view:

Goodness gracious, as it 'appens, Keir Starmer was DPP and head of the guys and gals at the CPS from 2008 to 2013 and under his watch the the guys and gals CPS failed to prosecute the BBC's Jimmy Savile. 

'Ow's about that, then?

St Andrew and the Dragon

It was fascinating watching Andrew Marr don shining armour and go into battle, lance raised, on behalf of damsel-in-distress Labour MP Rosie Duffield this morning. 

It was even more fascinating watching Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer KCB QC looking distinctly uncomfortable throughout his interview today, like a boring, pratfall-prone, flaccid dragon.

Given that he's a barrister and former DPP, it's quite odd just how poor he is at defending himself.

I'd even call it a 'car crash interview'. 

It got so bad that I even wondered if Sir Keir must had had coaching lesson on interviewing techniques by Diane Abbott, the queen of car-crash interviews - though that's pretty unlikely, given that's she's betrothed to another. 

The analogy was made even stronger by Sir Keir's Massive overuse of 'Well, Andrew'. 

It was pure Jan Ravens on Radio 4's Dead Ringers impersonating Diane Abbott being interviewed by the late Andrew Neil. 

Well, Andrew...

Even Andrew Marr managed to pull Sir Keir apart on his contradiction of prior pledges over nationalisation and the contradiction between what he was saying on tax and what Rachel Reeves [his new, as-'boring, snoring'-as-he-is shadow chancellor] has said on tax, and even made him squirm a little over 'Scum'gate. 

The bit about Rosie, damsel of Duffield Towers, besieged in her Canterbury constituency by angry knights who believe they are maidens, was genuinely important - despite my flippancy - because it shows where we are now.

The Leader of the Opposition is a cowardly, self-censoring advocate for the Emperor's new clothes being real.  

--------------

As The Andrew Marr Show recently gave up posting transcripts of all their major interviews, so here's mine. 

Look out for Sir Keir KCB claiming that trans people are ''the most marginalised and abused communities''. 

Are they? Will the BBC fact-check that?

And look out for him calling for a ''tolerant'' debate but then uttering the most extraordinary words, that what Rosie Duffield say - a pure fact about biology - is ''not right'' and ''shouldn't be said''.

Well, what she said is right and should be said. 

Does Sir Keir really believe what he's saying, or is he just scared of saying the unsayable truth for fear of offending trans extremists and their aggressive supporters and the weirdest and least tolerant parts of the present Labour Party?

For the leader of one of the two main UK parties to say that views like those of Rosie Duffield - the factual truth - ''shouldn't be said'' and that only ''proper views'' expressed ''in a proper way'' ought to be allowed in the national debate shows that we aren't in a good place as a country, politically-speaking. 

To put it mildly.

That said, he has form, He largely bit his tongue and shifted and slid about and manoeuvred to keep himself onside with the Corbynistas over antisemitism when serving Jeremy Corbyn. 

He should have resigned. 

And I don't agree with how Andrew Marr far too generously characterised Sir Keir today. 

If you talk to...if one talks to a wide range of your colleagues, a similar picture seems to come through. They almost all say, Sir Keir Starmer, honest as the day is long, punctilious, hard-working, thoroughly decent, but in the end he's not really a politician, he doesn't have the oomph and the edge to cut through in those big seats - but in the end he is not really a politician, and these are the days when you need someone who's a bit of a showman, who can really let rip and show who they are emotionally, and you're not that man.

Is he ''thoroughly decent'' and ''honest as the day is long''. Well, Andrew, there's quite a bit of evidence to the contrary. 

Anyhow, here's the transcript.

 

Andrew Marr: Does someone who thinks only women have a cervix is [sic] welcome in the Labour Party?

Sir Keir Starmer: Now, look, Andrew. we need to have a mature, respectful debate about trans rights...

Andrew Marr: Yeah.

Sir Keir Starmer: ...and we need to, I think, bear in mind that the trans community are amongst, you know, the most marginalised and abused communities, and wherever we've gone to with the law, we need to go further - and we want to go further on that - but whatever the debate is it needs to be a tolerant debate, and I am absolutely sure that our conference will be a place which is safe for that debate to take place, and it is.

Andrew Marr: Is it transphobic to say that only women have a cervix?

Sir Keir Starmer: Well, it is something that shouldn't be said. It is not right. But, Andrew, I don't think that...

Andrew Marr: So Rosie Duffield should not have said that? Can you explain to people watching why she should not have said that?

Sir Keir Starmer: Well, Andrew, I don't think that we can just go through various things that people had said. Rosie Duffield...I spoke to Rosie earlier this week and told her that Conference was a safe place for her to come, and it is a safe place for her to come. And I spoke to others to make exactly the same principle. We do everybody a disservice when we reduce what is a really important issue to these exchanges on particular things that are said. But the trans community are, as I say, the most marginalised and abused of many, many communities and we need to make progress on the Gender Recognition Act.

Andrew Marr: You could say that 'exchanges' is how people communicate and resolve these things.

Sir Keir Starmer: Yeah but, Andrew, this debate...I am concerned that this debate needs to be conducted in a proper way in which proper views are expressed in a way that is respectful.

Andrew Marr: Sure. You've spoken to Rosie Duffield. We've spoken to Rosie Duffield. After your conversation, she still doesn't feel comfortable about coming to this Labour Party conference. What does that say about the Labour Party?

Sir Keir Starmer: Well, Andrew, I spoke to Rosie just earlier this week and made it absolutely clear to her that this is a safe Conference for her to come to.

Andrew Marr: She doesn't agree with that.

Sir Keir Starmer: Well, Andrew, I spoke to her, and what she said...

Andrew Marr: As did we.

Sir Keir Starmer: What she said to me was that she didn't want to come because it would cause a distraction from the ideas that we are putting forward at this Conference, and i asked her when I spoke to her whether that was something I could say on her behalf and she said yes. So that's what Rosie says about this, and I'll take that from Rosie.

Andrew Marr: OK. She said to us that she didn't feel comfortable.

Wonder what that Rosie/Sir Keir phone call actually said? I'm not sure I quite believe Sir Keir's gloss on it.

Sooner, tougher, longer

 

This time last week Andrew Neil was criticising Andrew Marr for his Boris Johnson interview, saying "Another interview with the Government in which the broadcaster’s sole theme is — why didn’t you/don’t you lockdown, sooner, tougher, longer?".

Well, this week's Andrew Marr interview with Sir Keir Starmer was a close variation on that and AN might well have tweeted this week, "Another interview with the Opposition in which the broadcaster’s sole theme is — why didn’t you/don’t you call for lockdown, sooner, tougher, longer?".

It began:

Andrew Marr: Last week I spoke to the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, in the first of our Leaders interviews this year. This morning I’m joined here in the studio by the Leader of the Labour Party, Sir Keir Starmer. Sir Keir, welcome. Are these new rules tough enough?

What's in a name?

Talking of Labour...

I read this morning someone marvelling at the sheer number of people who can't spell Sir Keir Starmer's name correctly and then switched on The Andrew Marr Show to see the BBC misspelling it name too:

The new leaf is just like the old one

Luckily for Sir Keir Starmer, Boris’s activities misfortunes and a happy event have overshadowed the tribulations of the Labour Party. At the moment, the main criticisms of Sir Keir are directed at his wooden, charisma-free personality. However, it’s Sir Keir’s deeds (or lack of) rather than his words that people are beginning to notice.

Starmer under pressure from Jewish Groups! The BBC reports his failure to act after Diane Abbott and another weirdly-named Labour woman, Bell Ribeiro-Addy, were caught hosting a Zoom meeting in which two activists who had been expelled for antisemitism were allowed to participate. 

As if to distance itself from accidentally making a ‘value-judgement’ the BBC was careful to point out that ‘Jewish Groups’ are the ones who happen to be concerned.  The bold is actually the BBC’s 'allegedly.'

“The Jewish Chronicle reported that Tony Greenstein, who was thrown out of Labour in 2018 for offensive comments, and Jackie Walker, who was expelled over allegedly anti-Semitic comments, had attended the meeting.”

Gideon Falter, the Chief Executive of Campaign Against Antisemitism, said: 

“The participation of Diane Abbott and Bell Ribeiro-Addy in an online conference with Jackie Walker and Tony Greenstein, is a brazen challenge to Sir Keir Starmer. During his leadership campaign, Sir Keir pledged that any MP who provides a platform for Labour members expelled in connection with antisemitism will themselves be suspended from Labour. Instead of keeping his promise and immediately suspending both Diane Abbott and Bell Ribeiro-Addy from the Party, Labour has merely ‘reminded them of their responsibilities’. 

“After half a decade of the Labour antisemitism crisis, no MP should need ‘reminding’ not to engage with those expelled from the Party over antisemitism. Instead of ‘tearing antisemitism out by its roots’, Sir Keir has welched. Through his inaction he is telling Britain’s Jews loud and clear that his apologies are meaningless, his promises will be broken, and MPs who consort with even the most notorious expelled activists still have a place on the Labour benches.” 

On 27th November 2019 while Corbyn was still Labour leader Allister Heath wrote in the Telegraph:

“If one studies the litany of disgusting anti-Semitic incidents involving Labour members and far-Left activists these past few years, they span almost every possible strand of Jew-hate, virtually every demented conspiracy theory. It would take an immense effort for any party to cure itself of an infection of such virulence, even were it truly committed to doing so (and Labour isn’t): no wonder the Chief Rabbi felt compelled to speak out, warning of Corbyn’s unfitness for high office and that the “very soul of our country is at stake”[…]

"All of which takes us to Israel, a country with which Britain’s Jews are more culturally and personally connected than ever before. Many Corbynites see it as a “white” colonial state, an oppressor nation: in their deranged loathing, they don’t criticise or seek to boycott any other country. They refuse to accept that most Israeli Jews are descended from refugees from the Middle East, Asia and Africa, and the rest escaped the Holocaust.

The only baddies are Israel and the US, the two nations with the biggest Jewish populations. Israel is the only country they want to abolish; the Jews the only people they don’t believe deserve a national homeland." 

Also in the Telegraph, but just the other day, Tom Harwood wrote about the recent Panorama Programme that was stuffed with aggrieved persons who turned out to be Labour party activists in the guise of NHS workers. No label. No mention of any affiliation. Even worse -

‘Nor were BBC viewers informed about the political background of the ‘A&E Nurse’ who turned out to be a Unite activist who “fights the Tories hard”, or Professor John Ashton (also featured in the Panorama disaster), who proudly described himself as a Labour Party member “for 53 years” 

- and Guido has unearthed more on John Ashton, a regular BBC ‘go-to’ expert who happens to be a pretty rabid antisemite. We used to say these people were ‘on the BBC's speed dial’.

The Jewish Chronicle says:

“But aside from offering his advice over health issues, Professor Ashton, who has been a long-time member of the Labour Party, regularly posts on social media on issues involving Israel and Zionism. In one tweet he suggested it was, "Time to isolate Zionists and all religious fundamentalists whatever colour of black." 

An analysis of social media posts made by the former President of the Faculty of Public Health from 2012 until 2018 shows that he has frequently equated Zionism with Nazism.
Writing in November 2012 in response to Israeli military actions in Gaza, he stated: "Sickening to see Zionists behave like Nazis.”

Melanie Phillips highlights the spat between Robert Halfon MP, whom I rather like, and the Jewish community’s left-wing officials and spokespersons who don’t appear able to see past some of Sir Keir’s new appointments, at least not enough to realise that they belie his vow to turn over a new leaf and eradicate antisemitism in the Labour Party.

There’s Naz Shah. When outed for antisemitism Shah made a suitably grovelling apology and promised to learn from the incontinent and ‘inadvertently’ racist Tweets and remarks she’d accidentally made; then promptly forgot the apology and made a few more.  

More troubling is Sir Keir's choice for Labour’s foreign-affairs spokesman, Lisa Nandy. Why on earth did he give Nandy ‘foreign affairs', when the one foreign affair she’s been deeply involved in is Labour Friends of Palestine? While 'chair' (is she still or not?) she actually pledged to campaign for the Palestinians' Right of Return.

“This places her among the opponents of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. For the “Palestinians” have no such legal, moral or historical right; the so-called “right of return,” which would flood Israel with Arab immigrants, is merely a device to destroy the State of Israel.”

How she reconciles that with her support of ‘Zionism’ is a mystery, but perhaps the good residents of “my constituency" Wigan, are as obsessed with Palestine as she is. For some reason.

The Board of Deputies are a shocking lot. Like Andrew Doyle said (of lefty Remainers) "they’re not just like turkeys who voted for Christmas, they’re like turkeys who’ve plucked themselves and climbed into the oven as well."  Not to mention the stuffing.