"Fallen among fundamentalists"

The transcript in the post below, from last night's Newsnight, is of a report by the Prince of BBC political profilers, Michael Cockerell. It came with elegiac strings and plainchant (Pange lingua gloriosi corporis mysterium - 'Tell, tongue, the mystery of the glorious Body'). Its closing lines might prove controversial. Who exactly are the "fundamentalists" who did for the "dutiful woman"?

Theresa May will very soon join the pantheon of former British prime ministers. Mrs May was a dutiful woman who had fallen among fundamentalists. Her legacy is to leave a country as divided as at any time since Cromwell.

Transcript: Michael Cockerill's 'Newsnight' piece on Theresa May, 24 May 2019

Emily Maitlis: In the end, then, a bloody, brutal decapitation. A woman forced to metaphorically walk the plank and brought to the brink of tears. It was Theresa May herself who used that phrase - the Nasty Party. Ironic to see her fate played out by a ballot box of votes she never even saw opened. The grey suits of the men and women in shadows long plotting to bring her down. Few feel they knew this Prime Minister well. Perhaps that was the problem. Her friends were a tight bond - but there were many more left outside. So what do we know of her? And how will this extraordinary patch of British history be remembered? Michael Cockerell looks back at her time. 

Michael Cockerell: Being Prime Minister is always a lonely job. But few have been lonelier at the top than Theresa May. And today, Mrs May finally surrendered to the inevitable. But it was all meant to be so different. 

CLIP Theresa May: My pitch is very simple, I'm Theresa May and I think I'm the best person to be Prime Minister of this country. CHEERING AND APPLAUSE.

She won the Tory leadership on a walkover and became an immediate target for the satirists. 

Jan Ravens (actress and impressionist): When she became Prime Minister, and she went out on the steps and made that speech about, you know, people who are just about managing, and, you know, people who are born poor, and all those, you know, and suddenly, she sort of revealed herself to me, and it was partly the voice and partly the sort of physicality. Because she was so held, you know, she was so tense. 

So, who was this enigmatic figure who climbed to the top of the political greasy pole? She grew up an only child in Oxfordshire, her father a vicar. She went to Oxford, where one of her friends was Alan Duncan, who became one of her ministers. 

Sir Alan Duncan MP: She was straitlaced, undemonstrative. Cautious. She was always... I always sensed she was a bit sort of... "I dare not say this in case I go slightly of line." 

She met Philip, her husband, at Oxford, where she told friends that she wanted to be the Tories' first woman Prime Minister - but was profoundly miffed when Margaret Thatcher beat her to it. And then, she lost her parents in her 20s. Her father in a car accident, her mother shortly after from multiple sclerosis. 

Chris Wilkins (former Downing Street Director of Stategy): She was in many ways potentially quite a lonely person, obviously losing her parents in the way that she did and being an only child. And I think, given that background, she has never been somebody to really sort of open up massively, or reveal much about herself. And I think that sort of impacts the way she operates quite a lot. 

After Oxford, she came up against the young Philip Hammond as they both sought selection for the plum Tory seat of Maidenhead in Berkshire. 

CLIP Theresa May: I think what the people here in Maidenhead were looking for was the person that they believed would be the best constituency Member of Parliament, and obviously, I think they've made the right choice tonight. 

But that safe seat gave her little experience for the tough campaigns to come. David Cameron appointed her Home Secretary - traditionally the graveyard slot for aspiring prime ministers. Yet she thrived, taking a hard line on immigration and the police. But May often felt that she was being upstaged by her charismatic rival, Boris Johnson, the London Mayor. When they both went to the scene of the London riots in 2011, Mrs May, the Government's senior law and order minister, could scarcely get a word in edgeways. She left Boris to play to the crowd. And politically, she kept her head so far beneath the parapet that David Cameron would refer to her as "the Submarine". 

Chris Wilkins: She will sit in a room longer than anyone else, she'll know more detail than anyone else, she will literally wait for other people to talk themselves out, and she will still be sitting there and you still won't know quite what she thinks.  

Jan Ravens: We were doing Dead Ringers on the radio, and I said, we've got to do Theresa May, she is the Home Secretary, you know, there are few enough powerful women, let's do her. But of course, the trouble was, she never said anything! You know, she sort of... I think she had this policy of sort of, you know, saying nothing and waiting for the posh boys to screw it up.  

CLIP David Cameron: I expect to go to the Palace and offer my resignation. We will have a new Prime Minister in that building behind me by Wednesday evening. 

When the Prince of the posh boys resigned after his calamitous referendum decision, Mrs May, who had campaigned as a Remainer, was first off the mark to put her kitten heels into Cameron's shoes. At her leadership launch, she was determined to differentiate herself from the Bullingdon Boys like Boris and Dave. 

CLIP Theresa May: I know I'm not a showy politician. I don't tour the television studios. I don't gossip about people over lunch. I don't go drinking in Parliament's bars. I don't often wear my heart on my sleeve. I just get on with the job in front of me. APPLAUSE 

That pitch helped win her the keys to Number Ten - after the favourite, Boris Johnson, was stabbed in the back by his own campaign manager, Michael Gove. A clear omen of bloodstained troubles ahead. 

Michael Cockerell: And how difficult a task or was it that she inherited, in terms of getting a withdrawal deal and getting us moving in an orderly exit? Sir Alan Duncan: It was a sort of... turbo-charged hospital pass! I mean, it is the worst set of circumstances to inherit, on coming into Number Ten. 

The job in front of her was the most daunting challenge in Britain's peacetime history - to unravel 40 years of integration with Europe. It would require supreme levels of diplomacy, charm and persuasion, that were not necessarily her strongest suits. 

Katie Perrior (former Downing Street Director of Communications): Half the time, these conversations take place in the corridors, and it's a quick, you know, grab them and say, "I need you on my side, don't let me down, you promised me this..." And of course, Theresa May doesn't do any of that. And so, they find a person really difficult to communicate with, they don't know where she's at, they don't really know what she wants, and they haven't seen enough of an effort to win them over.  

CLIP Theresa May: During the Conservative Party leadership campaign, I was described by one of my colleagues as a "bloody difficult woman". And I said at the time, the next person to find that out will be Jean-Claude Juncker. 

The President of the European Commission was less than impressed by Mrs May's approach to Brexit negotiations. Faced with deadlock, and 20% ahead of Jeremy Corbyn in the polls, she called a snap election. 

CLIP Theresa May: I have only recently and reluctantly come to this conclusion. 

This uncharacteristically bold decision turned out to be the biggest mistake of her career, as the campaign each day vividly displayed her shortcomings. 

CLIP Theresa May: Nothing has changed. Nothing has changed. 

Michael Cockerell: Why do you think that campaign went so wrong for Theresa May? Katie Perrior: Gosh, we haven't got enough hours in the day to talk about why that campaign went really wrong! But in a nutshell, we had a candidate that was not used to having the spotlight on her, that had never been the star of the show - she was made the star of the show.  

Chris Wilkins: I remember one moment, midway through the campaign, in a meeting, where she said, "I just hate this campaign. I'm being told where to stand, what to say, I'm even being told what to wear."  

Sir Alan Duncan: I think she made two or three mistakes. One was to think that you can have a cult of personality when you don't really have much of a personality. 

She lost her majority, and her authority... 

CLIP Theresa May: I will repeat what I said before. 

...and even her voice. 

Jan Ravens: It's her worst enemy, her voice, really. It's always giving up on her. And I think that's because she's got this voice that's diplophonic. Michael Cockerell: Diplophonic? Jan Ravens: Diplophonic. It's two voices at the same time. So it's kind of going "urgh", so if you try and do that voice, you're on your throat the whole time. 

She was ritually dismembered by the EU, but insisted, like the Black Knight in Monty Python, "It's just a flesh wound." And at home, where it used to be claimed that loyalty was the party's secret weapon, now disloyalty was its default setting. 

Sir Alan Duncan: The thing to remember about politics is it's 90% luck. Michael Cockerell: And how much of a lucky general do you think she's been?
Sir Alan Duncan: She's been a very unlucky general. But I don't think anybody could necessarily have done that much better. I think if any of the candidates who stood against her had won, I think it could have been far more of a helter-skelter, chaotic, disastrous journey. So, although every day has been painful, at least she's been rational. 

The candidates will now get another chance. The vicar's daughter faced sexism and misogyny, but she fell short as Prime Minister not because she was a woman, but because of the woman she was. 

Katie Perrior: When I criticise Theresa May, it's not because she's horrible or she's evil or she doesn't care. On the contrary, she does care. She is a caring person, she wants to do the very best by people in Britain. But she's failed to communicate that over the time.  

Sir Alan Duncan: I suppose when she said, you know, to, "What's the worst thing you've ever done?" "I ran through the cornfield..." Michael Cockerell: "Through a field of wheat." Sir Alan Duncan: "I ran through a field of wheat."If you had just added the word "naked" at the end, I think we'd have all thought so much more of her. 

Theresa May will very soon join the pantheon of former British prime ministers. Mrs May was a dutiful woman who had fallen among fundamentalists. Her legacy is to leave a country as divided as at any time since Cromwell.

Questions to the Prime Minister

Those of you who think a 'no-deal Brexit' isn't necessarily a bad thing, and that fears about it are being overstated, probably won't have appreciated Andrew Marr's questions about it to Theresa May this morning: 

Andrew Marr: Let me explain why I have been going through the alternatives, which is: You have a deal on the table. It's almost certain - we may all be wrong - but it looks very like you don't at the moment have the numbers to get through the House of Commons on that deal. If that deal falls, and all the alternatives we've talked about also fall, because you won't implement them, then we are heading, you know, day by day, week by week, towards no-deal, something you yourself have described as 'chaotic', and your ministers are clearly very worried about. Surely it would be utterly irresponsible to take this country to no-deal, and many people who know you quite well will say, you know what, Theresa May, deep down, will not take us to no-deal; she will find a way to avoid that.  

Theresa May: I've always said that no-deal is better than a bad deal. What we have on the table is a good deal. 

Andrew Marr: You're not quite answering my question. You are taking us towards no-deal. Of course you want to win your vote but if you don't win your vote and you've ruled out the other alternatives, you are taking us towards no-deal, something that could be really, really damaging to an awful lot of people in this country.

 I'm guessing he's not a great fan of a 'no-deal' Brexit.

What matters

The Mail on Sunday claims an exclusive today: that it was Theresa May herself, acting in opposition to both her Home Secretary (Sajid Javid) and Foreign Secretary (Jeremy Hunt), who actually blocked the asylum application from Pakistani Christian Asia Bibi "despite (the) UK playing host to hijackers, extremists and rapists". They say, via government "sources" (including "a senior Government source"), that Mrs May "is afraid allowing Mrs Bibi into the UK could annoy British Muslims ". 

The MoS's story is being called "credible" by Sunder Katwala of British Future. and yet, it isn't being taken up by the BBC, as far as I can see. Strikingly, for example, Andrew Marr didn't raise it with Jeremy Hunt this morning. 

As many across the political spectrum are saying, blocking asylum for a genuine refugee in order to avoid ‘stoking tensions’ among British Muslims would be a truly disgraceful act. ("Pure evil", some are calling it). 

Again then, we face the question of what matters to media outlets - i.e. that some things matter more than others.

Andrew Marr v Theresa May

An awkward moment

Well, well, well! With the exception of a few irreconcilable still talking about Mr Marr being "a Tory shill", the vast bulk of Left and the #FBPE crowd on Twitter have been positively brimming with praise for Andrew Marr this morning - though many of their comments have been caveat-laden variations on the theme of "For a change Marr did a good job. Surprised". 

They obviously really enjoyed Mr Marr's Paxmanesque questioning, Theresa May's car crash performance and the very awkward icy silence between her and Andrew as the credits rolled. 

I have no objections to any of that but I do object to the way Andrew Marr brought the interview to a close by making a loaded point of his own about a no-deal Brexit:

Andrew Marr: But per-pupil funding has fallen over the last two years. It's now been frozen. And that's why they're so upset. Lots of your MPs think this country has had enough of the lean years and it's time to change direction radically.
Theresa May: Well, if we look back at what's happened over the last few years, of course when we came into government in 2010 it was necessary for us to take some tough decisions to deal with the public finances because of the mess that he Labour Party had left them in and people have made sacrifices as a result of that. Now...
Andrew Marr: (interrupting) And they may have to make a lot more if we go for no-deal, but I'm afraid we are out of time, Prime Minister. 

Why did he say that? Not very impartial was it?

Brexit dividend (3)

Alastair Campbell

I suppose we could just assert that all those wild claims of 'pro-government BBC bias' from the likes of arch-spinner Alastair Campbell (and myriads more on Twitter) over the corporation's reporting today of Mrs May's NHS funding/Brexit dividend pledge as simply the result of the partisan stupidity and utter mendacity of far too many people on Twitter (including Big Bad Al), but I think that blogs like this ought to at least try to do better than that. 

So here's a snapshot of this afternoon's coverage of the story...

You'll find below six lovingly-prepared transcripts of this afternoon's hourly BBC Radio 4 news bulletins. 

Do they prove pro-government bias from the BBC? 

I know I shouldn't ruin it for you with spoilers, but the answer is emphatically 'no'. 

When you see it laid out before you, in print, six hours of BBC Radio 4 reporting becomes sharper in focus. 

Every one of those six bulletins began by framing the story with criticism of Mrs May's Brexit dividend claim. 

All of them gave the the lion's share of the bulletin to reporting the views of critics of Mrs May and her Brexit dividend claim. 

And as for the clips from interviewees chosen, two were from Labour critics of Mrs May and one was from Paul Johnson of the IFS, also being unhelpful to Mrs May. The other (Helen Stokes-Lampard) fell closer to criticism than to praise. None was from someone defending/supporting Mrs May. 

Plus, the only Tory quoted (other than Mrs May) was Sarah Wollaston, who called Mrs May's comments "tosh". 

So there's no reasonable case to be drawn from this whatsoever that the BBC demonstrated a pro-government bias here. They most certainly weren't backing Mrs May and her Brexit dividend.

So does that prove then, as per 'complaints from both sides', that the BBC got it about right?

Well, no. In fact, far from proving that the BBC behaved impartially, I think these transcripts provide compelling evidence that the BBC was actually biased against the government (however right you or I might think they were to be so in this instance). 

The framing of the story and the choice of voices were so starkly 'one-directional' here as to leave a massive question mark hanging over Radio 4's impartiality this afternoon. 

Please read them for yourselves and see if you agree...

Update: Though it's aesthetically unpleasing, I've now coloured the transcript to more clearly show the balance (or imbalance) in the BBC's reporting. Blue is for bits that 'help' the Government. Red for bits that 'don't help' the Government. Uncoloured are the bits that are either obviously neutral or which can't easily be ascribed. As you'll see there's much more red than there is blue.

Midday

The head of the Institute for Fiscal Studies Paul Johnson has said there is no Brexit dividend to provide more money for the NHS. He was responding to Theresa May's announcement that NHS England will receive an extra £20 billion a year by 2023 in part because of money saved when Britain stops paying into the EU budget. Mr. Johnson said the exit bill and commitments to fund farmers meant that there was arithmetic no money. Labour also dismissed Mrs May's promise as a "hypothetical". The shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry has said it left too many questions unanswered.

Emily Thornberry: How are they going to pay for it? They say that they're going to increase taxes but we've yet to hear who's going to get their taxes increased and how. They say they going to increase borrowing but they haven't told us by how much, and they haven't told us what the effect will be. They've told us they're going to pay for from a Brexit dividend. We don't really know what that means because we don't know what the deal is going to be and what the overall effect on the economy is going to be and, actually, whether Brexit is going to end up costing us a great deal of money.

But the chair of the Royal College of GPs Helen Stokes-Lampard gave the announcement a cautious welcome.

Helen Stokes-Lampard: It's not quite as much as most health leaders have been asking for. The Institute for Fiscal Studies had been pushing for nearer 4% so that we can not just sustain the NHS but really push forward. But nobody's going to be turning their noses up at the 3.4% a year in real terms. So it's how we spend it that will matter.

Separately, the shadow health secretary Jon Ashworth said Labour would match the government's funding promise, which he described as "baseline".

1 o'clock

The economic thinktank the Institute for Fiscal Studies has questioned the idea of a Brexit dividend, raised by the Prime Minister when she promised an extra £20 billion a year for the NHS in England by 2023. Theresa May told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show that the country would be contributing a bit more, but she said it would also benefit from no longer sending vast amounts of money to the EU. The director of the IFS Paul Johnson said an extra £20 billion meant higher taxes and/or borrowing. Labour says it will match the government's pledge and go further. Here's our political correspondent Jonathan Blake.

Jonathan Blake, BBC: Making a link between increased funding for the NHS and savings as a result of leaving the EU allows Theresa May to say to Brexit supporters in her own party and beyond that the much-criticised promise on the side of the campaign bus has been met and that the government has gone further. But economists have rushed to point out that once the broader economic picture is taken into account the Government will have less money to spend in the short term after Brexit not more. The Conservative MP Dr Sarah Wollaston called the Brexit dividend claim "tosh" and accused Theresa May of taking the public for fools. Mrs May's suggestion that taxes will also have to rise to pay for this increased spending on the NHS is a significant statement for a Conservative Prime Minister.

Health bosses have welcomed the promise of extra funding, though a number have said more is needed. Concern has also been expressed about the absence of a commitment to provide more money for social care. Here's our health correspondent Dominic Hughes.

Dominic Hughes, BBC: Since the NHS was established 70 years ago its budget has risen by an average of 3.7% a year, but since 2010 that figure has been about 1.2%. At the same time demand for healthcare has been growing, so across the NHS there's a feeling that this settlement is just enough to stand still but it falls short of the 4% budget increase that most analysts felt would be needed to make up lost ground and bring about real change. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will also get extra funds but the devolved administrations will decide how they're spent. This announcement leaves some big questions unanswered, not least the funding of social care, which has such a profound impact on the Health Service. Without those details there are no guarantees even this extra money will significantly ease the long-term pressures on the NHS.

2 o'clock

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has questioned the 'Brexit dividend' quoted by the Prime Minister in her promise of an extra £20 billion a year for the NHS in England by 2023. Theresa May said the country would be contributing a bit more but it would also benefit from no longer sending vast amounts of money to the EU. The director of the IFS, Paul Johnson, said the extra funding meant higher taxes and more borrowing.

Paul Johnson, IFS: If you look at the arrangement we come to with the European Union in terms of paying our exit bill or and if you add to that the commitments that the Government's already made to keep funding farmers and so on there is literally, arithmetically, no money. And, in addition, we know, because the Government's accepted this, that the public finances will be worse as a result of the Brexit vote, the OBR has said by £15 billion a year. It could be a bit more. It could be a bit less. 

Labour said its tax plans meant it would spend more on the NHS and social care.

3 o'clock

The director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies has questioned Theresa May's claim that an increase in NHS funding in England could be paid for with a post-Brexit windfall. Mrs May told the BBC that money saved by Britain leaving the EU would help to provide an extra £20 billion a year by 2023, but Paul Johnson told the BBC the UK's exit bill and a commitment to keep funding farmers meant there was arithmetically no money. The shadow health secretary Jon Ashworth said Labour would still spend more on the NHS than the government.

Jonathan Ashworth, Labour: Now the government have announced these new baselines for the NHS we'll match that. That is the baseline that will become accepted, but we're saying you can go further and if the government made the taxation changes we're prepared to make it could be giving even more to the NHS. So Labour will be spending more on the NHS the Tories even after these announcements today.

4 o'clock

There's been criticism of Theresa May's announcement that a Brexit dividend will help pay for an increase in NHS funding in England. Mrs May said an extra £20 billion a year by 2023 could be found partly because the UK would no longer be paying into the EU budget, but the Institute for Fiscal Studies insisted there would be no Brexit windfall because the UK faces a steep exit bill, and the shadow chancellor John McDonnell described the pledge as a publicity stunt. 

5 o'clock

A senior Conservative MP has dismissed as "tosh" Theresa May's claim that a Brexit dividend will help to boost funding for the NHS in England by £20 billion a year by 2023. Sarah Wollaston, who chairs the Health Select Committee, said people were being treated like fools. Mrs May said the country would benefit from no longer sending vast amounts of money to the EU, but the Institute for Fiscal Studies said the Government has accepted that the public finances would be worse as a result of Brexit. 

Missed opportunity

One of the joys of working for oneself is that one can watch The Daily Politics and PMQs live, if one should feel the need.

Yesterdays PMQs was particularly acrimonious. Jeremy Corbyn gave an impassioned speech about the Windrush debacle, calling on Amber Rudd, or possibly Theresa May (some people aren’t quite sure which) to resign. 

The theme was that the Tories had deliberately created ‘A Hostile Environment’ for immigrants and that both legal and illegal immigrants were ‘caught up in the fallout’. It suited the Labour Party to conflate the two whilst angrily accusing the Tories of doing the very same thing. See how Dawn Butler MP operates on The Daily Politics (arguing with David Jones MP.) 

It’s impossible to get a straight answer out of her. She knows what she wants to say and she isn’t budging from the script. I’d like to know what Jo Coburn really makes of this performance.

Isabel Hardman describes PMQs here “The Maybot returns…” but fails to mention the potential elephant trap that the Labour leader set for himself when he chose to refer to the Stephen Lawrence affair and screeches in that old-man-Steptoe voice of his:  “we must stamp out institutional racism”.

You’d think, under the circumstances, that mentioning institutional racism was treading on dangerous ground. Unforgivably, Theresa May missed her open-goal-level of an opportunity to hit the back of the net. 

The most striking contribution, towards the end, came from Yvette Cooper. Looking a bit like a very indignant chipmunk, she blurted out a bombshell that could prove to be a big embarrassment for the government.

When I listened to Andrew Neil and Laura Kuenssberg giving their customary summary of what had just gone before (in case we lesser beings needed to have it spelled out it in big print for the hard-of-comprehending) they described something I barely recognised. More interested in Yvette Cooper’s intervention than anything else, harshly critical of Theresa May, it was apparent that they accepted Corbyn’s histrionics as par for the course, as they ignored them altogether; it’s as if they hold the current Labour Party to a different set of standards than all the rest. As if, like the Palestinians, Jeremy Corbyn and his followers have little or no agency.

As far as a gentler, kinder politics, this was not it. Jeremy Corbyn was rattled; near hysterical, while May’s manner was exaggeratedly condescending and painstaking as if explaining a simple principle to a very thick child (!) and the child was just not getting it. Both sides made a pig’s ear out of the whole thing, and everyone, not least the BBC, missed their respective opportunities, dragging the tone from poor to abysmal.

A wonderful occasion

If you haven’t followed the latest link in our sidebar to Daphne Anson's blog, here for your edification is Theresa May’s Eid message. I think we posted Jeremy Corbyn’s last year. 

This is even worse, mainly (but not only) because of who’s delivering it. We know why Jeremy Corbyn would do it, aside from the obvious vote-gathering potential, he probably actually meant it. 

Maybe all Prime Ministers have to do it these days, but do we really want or need our Prime Minister to aim such fawning, grovelling obsequiousness at what is still a minority community? Perhaps she’s trying to ‘set a good example’ to any uncommitted Islamophobes, hoping to head off the disquiet that she can probably hear faintly rumbling in the background. Community cohesion and so on.

Perhaps her advisers have advised her to wrest the Muslim vote from Labour. 

Whatever’s behind it, Theresa May looks as though she’s doing it at the point of a loaded gun. How else to explain the tortured delivery? Have you ever seen such prissy enunciation? As for the content of the message, does she really mean it? I truly despair.

Silly Season

Should ITBB have a celebrity sidebar to attract more readers?

When you’re looking at the Daily Mail online to read Peter Hitchens or a bold expose of something disturbing to do with Islam, your eyes slide sideways all by themselves and you absent-mindedly click on something just to see what some scantily dressed celeb has gone and done now. 

Trivia about reality TV personalities you’ve never heard of is of zero interest but stuff about Victoria Beckham or Mariah Carey, 47, who is allegedly starting to look like a whale has a certain pull. 

ITBB’s sidebar would consist of pictures of Theresa May in some of her more ghastly clothes, and instead of saying “Theresa flaunts her eye-popping assets as she sets off on holiday with entourage” we’d say something rude about her knees, not for the first time. 

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If you’re still interested in Kevin Myers, here’s that clip of his Radio 5 interview with the ubiquitous Emma Barnett.

(I note that Alan on Biased-BBC has taken a view on this affair. I hope Alan will forgive me for pointing out that in his quest to denounce the BBC he has lost sight of the fact that Kevin Myers himself, in a somewhat Naz Shah moment,  has admitted that his unwise, thoughtless  innuendo amounted to casual racism. Myers certainly may not be your common or garden antisemite, or any kind of antisemite at all, but he made an offensive remark and apologised. 

That is not to say that the BBC and the Guardian have anything to crow about in that regard.

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Is the BBC’s gay jamboree is beginning to get too “in-yer-face?

Footage with social history content, such as film about the Peter Wildeblood / Lord Montagu of Beaulieu legal case is fascinating, but when blanket coverage of gay issues starts making heterosexuality look uncool it’s a bit  elgy beety queue & I too far.

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This is the silly season, but the subject itself is far from silly. What is silly is the fact that the BBC, as a broadcaster with a massive number of employees who are supposed to be on the lookout for material, missed the story completely. Especially as it concerns a ‘broadcasting’ controversy for once not related to the BBC itself.

This piece by Stefan Frank for Gatestone Institute reminded me again of the story.  (The film about antisemitism that was too sensitive for the Franco-German culture channel, ARTE. )

Frank’s article was originally written in German, and I hope it reminds Germany’s good people what a devious lot broadcasters can be. 

Well, they were eventually pressurised into a one-off showing of the film, but with “health warnings”:

“The way WDR broadcast it, however, was unique: at the beginning of the film and in brief intervals throughout, warning signs were inserted again and again, indirectly urging viewers not to believe what they saw in the film.”

The film is to be shown in US United States for one night only, on August 9. 

“The Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles announced that it would screen the film after the German and French networks tried "to bury the documentary, before it could contaminate the viewing public with the truth," according to the Center's Associate Dean, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, in an interview with Gatestone Institute. "It is a film that needs to be viewed by anyone concerned about anti-Semitism and anyone concerned about the democratic future of Europe. It is a truth-telling, and 'PC'-busting documentary", he said. 

The truth is that in today's Europe, it is becoming more and more difficult to tell the truth.”

Douglas Murray’s lecture about ‘freedom of speech’ is apposite here, and I commend Biased-BBC for bringing it to out attention.

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I binge watched Top of the Lake: China Girl. I have no idea why you can catch all 12 episodes on iPlayer, but you can. It was gripping till the last episode, which in the usual tradition of TV drama was not the best one. I thought it was a good series. The Telegraph’s critic didn’t think much of the first episode but he probably would have changed his mind had he stuck with it.  I’m not one of Elizabeth Moss’s biggest fans, but her performances in this, Mad Men and The Handmaid’s Tale were fine and dandy.  However, in my opinion the best performances were by the minor characters. The ‘madam’ in the brothel and all the ‘girls’ were terrific. As for all those complaints that it was pretentious, I must like pretentious.

Thoughts and Prayers

Craig will tell you that I never did have very much faith in Theresa May. As for Brexit, I like the principle that we can take back control but - ‘That’s all very well’ I’d say, ‘but who is gonna be the ‘we’ that takes it?

It could be Jeremy Corbyn, propelled into P.M-ship by the upcoming post-Brexit dip in the  economy. If Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell were the ‘we’, it would be even worse than the dreaded bad-deal, but by the same token if Theresa May made a pig’s ear of the negotiations we could be lumbered with a deal that could be a good deal worse than a bad deal..

Her first cabinet reshuffle was hardly confidence-inspiring, and her disastrous election campaign with its clumsily presented, ill-judged, and if I may say so, arrogant manifesto, together with Jeremy Corbyn’s fairy-godmother manifesto, not to mention those furious rallies and all the bullying by his antisemitic, politically illiterate Momentumists; between them they created a perfect storm.

For want of a better alternative many people were prepared to settle for Theresa May.

But, and it’s a big but (as Jeremy Corbyn probably said to the Shadow Home Secretary) if there’s one thing I certainly don’t think Theresa May should be criticised for, it’s the absence of that public show of emotion that everyone is clamouring for. I don’t want to see Theresa May or any other politician blinking back tears and I’m fed up of listening to anyone prefacing their political opinion with a sad-faced statement concerning their thoughts and prayers.  What prayers? Does everyone say prayers now?*

After Grenfell surely Theresa May should have been doing exactly what she says she has been doing. Setting up the public enquiry. Putting emergency funding in place. Doing Prime Minister stuff.

Yet we had a veritable stream  of identical-looking women parading through the TV studios (BBC and Sky) reviewing the Sunday papers. They all said the same thing, directly or indirectly, that Theresa May hasn’t shown sufficient emotional incontinence in public.

There’s a theory that economics influences fashion. Something in the current climate - hair straighteners ? - has produced armies of clones with the same infantilising hair-style and the same infantile opinions. They all want everything delivered in the form of a soap opera. To earn their approval Theresa May must be seen in public fanning her red-rimmed eyes and hugging a poor person.

Perhaps Theresa May can take heart from the turnaround within Her Majesty’s opposition.

Jeremy Corbyn outwitted the critics and rebels in his own party whose desire to unseat him evaporated with his electioneering triumph; so if he can ride out the storm, maybe she can too.

All she needs is a good Breakfast Breggsit Brexit.

*****

I was too busy to blog yesterday. Now I’ve got Theresa May’s emotional inadequacy off my chest there's the latest car-ramming incident to respond to. More tear-filled thoughts and prayers. 

The BBC already speaks fluent Muslamic. Announcers pronounce “Muslim’ with the double ‘ss’. ‘Moosslim’, and enunciate the term ‘Friday prayers’ with a familiarity that subliminally incorporates Friday Prayers* into standard British culture, which I suppose, these days it just about has been. Mosque-goers are referred to as ‘worshippers’ in a reverential manner I’ve yet to hear applied to any other religion.

Unlike Theresa May, Jeremy Corbyn has done the right thing. He’s blubbed. He’s just soo  honest.

Most of the Today Programme was devoted to this incident.  John Humphrys consulted Brendan Cox to ask if this was an act of hatred or an act of insanity?

BC.
“There is an increasingly strong group of people who are actively inciting hatred against others, and that has certainly been true from bits of the extremist Islamist community in the past and we’e spoken about what we can do to crack down on those hate preachers, but I think it’s also something, in the case of Islamophobia, people, there are extremists again who are driving hatred, who are using language about cleansing Britain of Islam, who are talking about a final solution for Muslims and I think we have to treat this  act of terrorism, if that’s what it ends up being, in the same as any other act of terrorism”

“Final solution” now where have I heard that before? Apart from your actual Hitler, wasn't it his modern incarnation, hate preacher and thought criminal Katie Hopkins? 

BC.
“Extremist voices feel more emboldened to act on these views and that’s all about the climate. You know, for example when there is the US president talking about Muslims in a disparaging way and failing to break down the difference between extremists and people that just happen to belong to a community, it changes the entire tenet of the debate. The person that did this is the person that has the responsibility. I said that in the context of the Manchester attack and the London attacks and the murder of my wife; the person that did it is the person that’s responsible, but we do have to look at the context in which these events happen and I don’t think we take that seriously enough.

JH.
Is there any evidence at all of any coherent organisation behind this far right extremism?

BC.
You’ll see online, and it’s very clear that there are a series of organisations who are actively inciting hatred, not against extremists, but against Muslims as a whole and I think those people are very organised, they’re well funded they’re well financed, and again I think we have to have a dual approach to this cos it’s partly about those extremist organisations, but I also think we all have to have a look at ourselves and actually more mainstream organisations and organisations who probably don’t tip over into that incitement to violence, but I think sometimes we do blur the distinction and talk in a way where people think that Muslims as a whole are represented by the people that committed the attacks in Manchester or London. They don’t, in the same way that this attack doesn’t represent the vast majority of people.
 You know yesterday and over the weekend we had this huge coming together of communities in celebration of the things that unite us across the UK.
That’s what represents our country, but we have to get much better at tackling hatred in whatever community that comes from.”

Who or what is this well organised, well-funded and well financed group? I’d be interested to know.

I didn’t join any of those ‘Get-Together’ celebrations yesterday but I did find time to watch some of the live-streamed footage of the Al Quds march through central London. 

People, including Sadiq Khan, who were talking about coming together were probably too busy to notice the bile that was megaphoned over the streets of London to the insistent beating of a drum. 

If Brendan Cox doesn’t acknowledge that it’s not just the violence of the few that needs to be dealt with, but the extremism of the many, then all his posturing is hypocritical and hollow.

Mazel Tov to Jeremy Corbyn

I can’t get LBC. Well, I could, but I never bother to tune in. You wouldn’t hear this on the BBC, but if you want to hear  9 entertaining minutes of pure joy click here. (And, “you know what?” for once I even don’t mind those.)

“I have to say to Jeremy Corbyn, absolute Mazel Tov to Jeremy Corbyn - he’s done an amazing job. You lied your backside off beyond belief.

“You promised sweets for everybody, you promised sweets for the doctors, you promised sweets for the policemen, you promised sweets for the railway workers, you promised sweets for the nurses - you promised sweets for the whole world.”

He went on: “I knew it was all spin, they even stuck a rose on Jeremy Corbyn’s lapel in the past few days to make it look like New Labour.

“They kept Momentum quiet, which is a militant organisation, I always voted for New Labour, I always voted for Tony Blair, I couldn’t vote for Jeremy Corbyn. 

“I knew it was spin - but what did Theresa May do? I tell you what she done, she said to the electorate: ‘I’ve got such a lead, I can say what I want and I can do what I want’. 

“And what did she do? The silly woman went after the old age pensioners for no reason whatsoever… she didn’t need to put that in their manifesto.”

Martin continued: “That lady treated the entire working class of this nation with utter contempt. 

“She thought we’d like Jeremy Corbyn so much that she would sweep to power and she’s made the biggest political error in my lifetime.”

Being honest

You know what? I do hate people who keep punctuating their spiel with “You know what?”

To be honest I have far more pressing things to worry about right now than BBC bias.

I rarely use ‘to be honest’ as it implies one’s honesty is confined to the one exceptional statement (rather than one's norm.) 

One might be cynical and assume the callers who rang in to the extended Any Answers were all activists. I believe someone said or Tweeted as much. 

I really hope they were all activists, because if they are indeed representative of the public, you know what? We’re in for that unthinkable chaotic coalition.

Theresa May blew it good and proper. Why on earth she decided to present us with a manifesto that seemed meaner than ever, when it’s obvious that everyone is weary of unadulterated austerity. She gave us nothing to look forward to, which was big mistake. Did she think her predicted landslide would provide cover for those harsh policies? A good time to bury bad news? A mother of miscalculations.

Who on earth thought it was preferable to provide primary pupils with free breakfasts instead of lunches? Why resurrect the minority interest issue of fox hunting completely out of the blue, when the issue seemed to have settled down? 

Why threaten to stop winter fuel payments without giving details of who will lose? 

However, what worries me a lot more than Theresa May’s determination to self-destruct is the widely held perception that Jeremy Corbyn, who also peppers his speeches with ‘You know what?” is a nice person. That in their blinkered search for a spiritual leader all those youthful, middle-aged and elderly adolescents are ready, willing and able to deny or ignore Corbyn’s long-standing political record, i.e., his association with violent terrorists.
People mistake his refusal to indulge in retaliatory personal attacks as a characteristic of someone ‘nice’. ‘I don’t do personal’ he says. Doing personal is human. It might be admirable and self-disciplined to rise above such a thing, but not ‘doing personal’ doesn’t necessarily indicate ‘nice’. It equally suggests coldness and lack of empathy. Any empathy he does have is reserved for the most un-empathetic, intolerant and violent groups on the planet. 

  

@NazShahBfd reiterating her belief in Israel's right to exist followed by audience member shouting 'Jew Jew Jew' at her #BFDWestHustings pic.twitter.com/iDDM8tt75H

— aisha ali-khan (@aak1880) June 1, 2017

The other odd thing that I’ve noticed is that the police are investigating a new hate crime, namely the outburst: “Jew, Jew, Jew,” aimed at Naz Shah who happened to be defending Israel’s right to exist at hustings organised by Bradford community group JUST Yorkshire.

What amuses me - if one can derive amusement from such a horrible thing - is the fact that the rabid antisemitism which seems to be the norm within Naz Shah’s Bradford constituency goes un-investigated. It takes some antisemitic person ‘being honest’ to arouse interest from the people who investigate hate incidents.

You know what? If Jeremy Corbyn achieves the unthinkable, we’re in for a bumpy ride.

BBC's Own Brand National Treasure gets stuffed

Own Brand National Treasure

You’ll have already read the abundant criticism of Jeremy Paxman’s disappointing performance on Channel 4’s much anticipated Great Political Event. I haven’t got much to add, but I felt that Paxo deserved a mention purely because of his status as the BBC’s Own Brand National Treasure.  

After all, Channel 4 and Sky had gathered together a politically balanced audience and bagged The Great Paxo to eviscerate the leaders of the two main parties. What’s not to like.

Personally I’m not a fan of Paxo’s stock-in-trade repetitive-questioning technique, which proved to be such a hit with Michael Howard’s enemies. Cornering interviewees into making panicky and convoluted attempts to avoid incriminating themselves merely for your (and the audience’s) amusement is a tactic of the bully. Especially if the admission you’re trying to force out is about as deceitful as getting an interviewee to confess to cutting the flesh of his fellow man but not letting him say he’s a surgeon. If you see what I’m getting at. 

I particularly dislike it when other interviewers emulate this unfair tactic; making a spectacle of an interviewee who is already at a disadvantage because you’re ‘at home’ and he’s ‘away’. 

Viz. Mishal Husain’s notorious, “How many Israelis?” question, repeated over and over. Hoping to score a devastating point against ‘Zionists’ by trying to force Gil Hoffman to utter the word “none”, having asked, over and over again “how many Israelis have been killed by Hamas’s harmless home-made contraptions?” But she came off looking biased and cruel, and I’m not the only one who thought this reflected badly on her.

I suppose Channel 4 and Sky thought they were hiring a titan, but Paxo’s failure to deliver proved universally disappointing. Everyone was so looking forward to it as well. 

First of all people were disappointed by his rudeness, which backfired spectacularly, diverting sympathy from interviewer to  interviewee. 

Secondly people were appalled by his ineffectual lines of questioning. He seemed so out of touch. He persisted in a line of attack  that was obviously going nowhere, something that should have been evident as soon as Jeremy Corbyn produced the first answer. 

Q: “Why haven’t you managed to get your radical, hard left policies into the Labour manifesto? “ A: “Simples. We’re a democracy, not a dictatorship. Next! “ 

But cloth-eared Paxo wasn’t for moving on. 

  

In today’s Times (£) Matthew Parris explains why he believes Corbyn’s affiliation with the IRA hasn’t dented his popularity.

“Why Corbyn isn’t being hurt by the IRA issue”. 


Apathy? Yes. Ignorance of, and boredom with recent history? yes. But crucially:

We hate and fear terrorists, of course, but the English have never warmed to Ulster's orangemen, I have the feeling that though in England knowledge of the Irish Question is hazy to the point of ignorance, there's a deep if vague collective recognition that, over centuries, England screwed the whole thing up horribly: that it was us who started this"

The very same phenomenon applies to Israel and antisemitism. If the Labour Party plans to officially recognise Palestine first thing sharp on the morning of June 9th, or if Emma Barnett receives a few antisemitic tweets after exposing Corbyn's ineptitude, so what? As for Israel, "Britain screwed the whole thing up horribly: that it was us who started this"

We don't know history and we don't like Zionists anyway. Antisemitism in the Labour Party?
We. Ain't. Bovvered.

The BBC's veteran presenter used a similar approach in his questioning of Theresa May. Of course she was at a disadvantage, being part of the sitting government. A P.M. has a lot of policies to defend; Policies with records.
Instead of choosing the government's failure to deal with immigration or the chronic underfunding of everything but overseas aid, Paxman decided to attack May's ability to negotiate a 'good' Brexit on the grounds that prior to the referendum she had campaigned for Remain. "Simples. I'm acting on behalf of the people. Next!"  But Jeremy wasn't listening.

Faisal islam didn't do much better, but the audience managed to get some important points across. Particularly notable was the Irishman who criticised Corbyn for attending a commemoration for an IRA terrorist. Corbyn's well-trodden claim that he wasn't honouring a terrorist but commemorating "all who died" wasn't allowed to stand unchallenged. One point to the member of the audience, nil points to Jeremy Corbyn. There was also the small business owner and disillusioned labour voter who questioned the Labour party's plans for increasing corporation tax and raising the minimum wage. Why, he wondered, should he vote Labour when such policies would damage or destroy his business?

The unsustainable policy of "hammering the industrious to fund the idle" is the fundamental weakness of the Labour party's 'vision', but the birthday boy didn't give the businessman the opportunity to protest at his question being side-stepped, when it so very plainly had been.
I'm sure a lot of small, and not so small, businesspeople wanted to hear the answer to that one.

Question Time from Salford

I am averagely squeamish and I certainly don’t get a kick out of self-inflicted pain, but I felt compelled to watch the special Question Time last night from Salford. You had to do it. 

I can’t be sure if the ISIS magazine ‘Dabiq’ is a fabrication, like a souped-up version of the ‘Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion’, but if you listened to Sam Harris’s Podcast, (as per my previous post)  (make the effort) you’d have a better grasp of the fundamental allure of ISIS than the panel on last night’s Question Time, with the exception of Sara Khan, who was accused of knowing less about Islam than Manchester’s new Mayor. Yes, I mean Andy Burnham, who has reputedly said that the ‘Manchester Concert Bomber’ Salman Abedi was “a criminal, not a Muslim”. 

Are we in a fool’s paradise or a living nightmare?

Jeremy Corbyn is about to resume campaigning with a speech that advertises his ignorance of Islamic State’s ‘vision’,  and appears to be basing his entire campaign on his own stupidity, while Theresa May’s suicidal manifesto and shifty denial that a U-turn is a U-turn has effectively scuppered her landslide.

Meanwhile the BBC is dumbing down. 

They invite that idiot Ceri Bullivant of CAGE on to Newsnight to opine on ‘the Prevent’ scheme. 

Rizwaan Sabir “Counterterrorism researcher’ was given airtime on BBC news.

The charming fellow standing on the right of this film and conspicuously shaking his head popped up again in the audience of Question Time. His main concern was for the Muslims.

(The symbols spelling out ‘LOVE’ on the front of the lady in the bag’s bag, if you didn’t notice, are: “gun, grenade, knife & AK47”.)

On Channel 4, he said:

“Muslims are the ones who suffer collateral damage from this kind of attack. I don’t think the Muslim community can do more than they’re already doing. This is nothing that we have to be apologetic for. We have done nothing wrong. Individuals are responsible for their own actions. My message is that part of who you are as a Muslim, the gift that Allah (!) has bestowed upon you mercy from him, use it wisely and don’t be afraid. If you get attacked - Islamophobia - then you report it. But do not come to Muslims and say we  need to do more. We’re doing everything we can Krishna. Muslim charities have already given money to the victims’ families.”

A QT audience member says the problem comes from the mosques. He reads from a leaflet he was given on Didsbury Mosque’s open day:

“Living in a society in which people have accepted Western lifestyle and their way of life brings immorality at every step. Modesty shame and honour have no place in Western civilisation.”

The man in the QT audience (and in the Channel 4 video) put his had up and delivered a revised version of his speech, which I assume he’d been practising ever since he had spoken to Krishnan. Maybe he realised his  victimhood schtick was too raw or maybe someone reminded him about the actual victims. 

“I want people to listen to me very carefully. I am Manchester. I was born in Manchester and raised in Manchester. I am a proud man and a proud Muslim. And when Manchester hurt, I hurt, and I am hurting after what happened on Monday, and what happened on Monday night was an evil act, an abhorrent act that should be condemned with the strongest condemnation and to think that somebody could target small girls, and that anybody could target small girls in particular to carry out evil, should be said by anyone as evil. But let me make a plea. 

Who, me?

“I’m sitting next to a reverend here, a friend, (spot the Reverend’s reaction) who I’ve known and worked with in Manchester and it seems that Muslims are to be the target of collateral damage when these things happen. 

Islam is not the reason that people do bad things. People do bad things because they’re evil and they’re bad people, and I think that after these things happen that Islamophobia increases and attacks increase, and let us please not let people who hate and who want to divide us, divide us. Let’s be united together and Manchester will be united and we should work together stand shoulder to shoulder and say we will not accept hate and we stand against Islamophobia and all sorts of evil in all its forms.

The BBC is indeed giving a platform to  ‘all sides’, according to the obligations embedded in its charter, but the appropriate amount of intelligent criticism would be helpful. It’s almost as though I’m asking for BIAS. Bias towards “British values.”