Questions

If William and Kate's Caribbean tour was “a PR disaster”, as the BBC's royal correspondent Jonny Dymond claims, there's a question to be asked about how much the BBC and its royal correspondent contributed to making one, especially with largely negative reports like this:

Another question might be whether the following tweet, in reaction, is true:

Only in this country would the ‘national’ broadcaster lead with such a negative headline on a overall successful royal tour!

A third question might be whether the bad blood between Prince William and the BBC is getting out of hand and / or bringing out the BBC's anti-monarchism. 

Tropes

 

In response to claims that Amol Rajan's republicanism might contaminate his controversial Royal Family documentary, the BBC repeated their mantra that journalists like Amol leave their personal views at the door when they join the BBC. 

If Anita Singh's review in The Telegraph is anything to go by though, he appears to have let at least some of those views slip through the door, take their shoes off and plonk their feet on his desk:

That’s not to say that Rajan didn’t share his own opinions. It is clear, he concluded, that “in some tabloid quarters, racially charged tropes were evoked and gave a xenophobic whiff” to coverage of Meghan.

And also on the 'racism' theme: 

...he allowed Meghan’s cheerleader-in-chief Omid Scobie to paint himself as the “only” mixed-race royal correspondent. Technically true, but it ignores the fact that a non-white royal correspondent appeared in this very programme (Roya Nikkhah of the Sunday Times), while the Press Association’s royal correspondent is black. A small fact but - as Prince Harry would say in his fight against fake news - truth matters.

Ms Singh makes a reasonable point, surely? 

Nick Robinson tweets

I've no desire whatsoever to write about Meghan & Harry, but I think Nick Robinson's editorial on Twitter needs recording for posterity:

Nick Robinson: Some dismiss it as a trivial Royal soap opera unworthy of the attention on serious news programmes. Yet Meghan & Harry have given young & diverse Britain all they need to see the Royal Family (tho’ not the Queen) as at best old fashioned & at worst bigoted. That really matters. 

It is, of course, only one side of a story which is, first and foremost, about family tensions. The Royal Family must now decide whether the traditional response - getting on with their duties which defy the caricature whilst saying nothing in public - is enough.

One of the upsides of Twitter is that people get to reply and this is, by some way, the highest rated response so far:

David Robertson: Such impartiality....such empathy...such understanding! You forgot to mention that they also let us see just how intolerant, self-obsessed, narcissistic, wealthy and entitled they are....I guess it just slipped your mind...?!

Is Justin Webb beyond reproach?

Here's another gem from the BBC's Corrections and Clarifications page:

Wednesday 20th November 2019: Today, BBC Radio 4, 20 November 2019 

In a discussion about the impact of the Leadership election debate, we said Boris Johnson had said the Royal Family is beyond reproach. 

To be precise Boris Johnson had said: 'The institution of the monarchy is beyond reproach.'

That, of course, was in the light of the Prince Andrew debacle. 

Looking it up, the "we" who said that turns out to have been Justin Webb. His exact words were: 

Boris Johnson said the Royal Family's beyond reproach.

It's not been Justin's week.

It was horrible

The BBC's Royal Correspondent Jonny Dymond is probably not going to get a Christmas card from Prince Andrew and his family after his Broadcasting House review of that Newsnight perfomance:

Jonny Dymond: Well, he got the message out. You know, he got the denial, the acknowledgement of having made a mistake vis a vis seeing Epstein, he sowed a bit of doubt about the photo. But, I thought, at nearly every turn that was undercut by the tone. It was a sort of mix of 'Je ne regrette rien' and 'Do you know who I am?'. The lack of regret over the friendship was breathtaking, I think, for most people. The question of whether he'd testify if he was asked to, he said, 'Well, I'd take legal advice and if they told me I would have to, if push came to shove, I would'. And then there was this horrible tone-deaf description of how this predator, Jeffrey Epstein, behaved:

Prince Andrew: Do I regret the fact that he has quite obviously conducted himself in a manner unbecoming? Yes. 

Emily Maitlis: 'Unbecoming'? He was a sex offender.

Prince Andrew: Yep. I'm sorry. I'm being polite. In the sense that he was a sex offender.

I mean, who's he being polite to? The dead friend? I mean, 'manner unbecoming'! It was horrible. So much of it felt as if he simply could not apologise, and I think if he had gone in with a different tone the messages that he got out would have been that much more successful. But it was, as I say...it was undercut, I thought, by this tone of having nothing to apologise for.

Whataboutery

I was curious to see what Jeremy Paxman has made of the Royal Family after reading a review of the programmes he’s been making for channel 5.

The first episode of the series featured poor unhappy Prince Charles, whose childhood, seen from the perspective of the present day, didn’t look exactly like a bed of roses. Where were social services?

Paxman was a wee bit sneery, but perhaps not all that much more than your average narrator on your standard retrospective documentary; a bit nostalgic, a bit “look how weird we all were back then”.  

Next, I watched the 3rd episode of “The real Tommy Robinson” which included a clip of the Newsnight interview between Paxman and Tommy Robinson. The topic was grooming gangs, and it showed Jeremy Paxman ineptly trying (failing) to (metaphorically) destroy Tommy Robinson. You might call it “The Original Unsuccessful Tommy Robinson Takedown.’’ Paxman’s only strategy was to sneer Tommy Robinson into submission. His counter-argument relied completely on whataboutery “So you’ve never heard of white paedophile gangs?“ was about the best he could muster. 

It would be fun to arrange a nostalgic, “look how dumb we were back then” viewing of Paxman’s shambolic interview and run it past Jeremy Paxman himself, just to see if he has changed his tune in any way at all now that Pakistani rape gangs are, unfortunately, an established ‘thing’. 

Another parallel with the BBC’s current Great Sweeney Takedown exercise is that Paxman, like Sweeney, had written off Tommy Robinson before the cameras even started rolling. Because Paxman regarded Tommy as inferior and far too inarticulate to defend himself, he hadn’t bothered to research the topic or prepare any kind of argument  - he just assumed he could sneer it all away. But he was mistaken. And, unlike Sweeney and his mates, he hadn’t even taken the precaution of recruiting reinforcements from Antifa 'in for the kill.' (metaphorically)  

Paxman says he used to be a Republican but is now a Monarchist. Wouldn’t it be sweet if he reflected bashfully that he used to think Tommy Robinson’s campaign was beyond the pale but now he’s not so sure?

******

This is weird. I clicked on a link in our sidebar.

Guido Fawkes: Luciana Berger’s CLP Chair Loses Job After Appearing on David Icke’s Show.

There it was. 

“The Chair of Liverpool Wavertree Labour Party, Dr. Alex Scott-Samuel, has lost his job over his appearance on a show broadcast by anti-Semitic conspiracist David Icke. He remains in the Labour Party, attempting to deselect his CLP’s Jewish MP Luciana Berger…”

However, about ten minutes later I clicked again and - there it was, gone! Error 404. 

Conspiracy! I thought. “Guido’s been Silenced!” After all, I’d just seen Politics Live, where Labour’s latest antisemitism shenanigans were mentioned briefly, equated with “other forms of racism” and ‘whatabouted’ dismissively, as in: “what about the Islamophobia in the Tory Party?” 

Sky, on the other hand, featured a long interview with Louise Ellman MP. Why was Guido’s antisemitism-related article pulled? Sinister thoughts. Then I clicked again, and it was back. 

As you were.