When Tony Met James and Katty

I was just going to post the questions here, but why not post the whole interview? (I can guess an answer to that, it's Tony Blair!)

The questions are very BBC. 

There's James Reynolds going straight for the negative and suggesting that Israel's agreements with Arab nations might be putting the region "on the road to open conflict", then pursuing the "sidelining" of the Palestinians angle, and then interrupting to point out that "many" more than just the Palestinians don't want peace with Israel yet. 

And there's Katty Kay (naturally) going for the Trumps - as she did even more emphatically in her follow-up question about Trump and climate change. 

Enjoy!

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James Reynolds: Let's look at the reasons for this alliance coming about. The Iraq War, which you co-led, got rid of Saddam Hussein but it also gave much freer rein to Iran to expand as a regional power. In order to counter that Israel and some of the Gulf States are getting together potentially putting the region on the road to open conflict. How is the Middle East a safer place after this deal?

Tony Blair: James, I think you can tell the history a little bit differently. The fact is, this is now just about security and about Iran. It's about the belief in the Middle East that if you want to establish a peaceful Middle East, then you have got to establish relationships between the State of Israel and the Arab nations. That is entirely sensible, not just for reasons of security, Yes, it's true, Israel and the Arab nations are very worried about what Iran does to destabilise the region, but they're also worried about the various extreme groups on the Sunni side who also want to destabilise the region. And what these agreements symbolise are people coming together in pursuit of a different Middle East, one that is based on religiously tolerant societies and modern economies. And that's what is really behind this. And I think what you will find with the agreement signed today is that this is not going to be a cold peace, and it's not going to be about security. It will be about a warm peace and it will be about actual engagement in the economy, in culture and, of course, in  the resolution of the Palestinian issue. 

James Reynolds: When you visited Israel and also the Palestinians as prime minister after 9/11...I remember those visits. I was a Jerusalem correspondent at the time...here was a common belief that you couldn't solve any of the problems until you had tackled and solved the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But doesn't this 2020 agreement show something completely different, that you can solve parts of the Israeli-Arab conflict by sidelining the Palestinians instead of resolving their fate? 

Tony Blair: You're not sidelining the Palestinians. Look, you're not going to get a...I've studied this now for the best part of 20 years, I was heavily involved as Prime Minister. I was involved afterwards as the quartet envoy, I've spent the last five or six  years working on the Arab-Israeli relationship. You're not going to solve it unless two things happen. You've got to get a Palestinian politics that is unified and in favour of peace, and you've got to bring the Arab nations alongside the Palestinians in that peace effort. And so, when people say - and there are, of course, people on the Palestinian side who say - no, you should have nothing to do with Israel....

James Reynolds: (interupting) Many are saying that.

Tony Blair: ...until the Palestinian issue has been resolved. They do say that. but the strategy they've had up to now has not worked, and it won't work in the future. The right strategy is to encourage the relationship between Israel and the Arab nations and then say to the Arab nations. 'We need your support. A unified Palestinian politics in favour of peace needs your support. That is a strategy that can succeed. If we carry on doing what we have been doing for the last half-century, we'll carry on with the same result'. 

Katty Kay; You've just came from the White House, Mr Blair. I remember speaking to Jared Kushner at the beginning of this administration, and he said that Donald Trump was the person to bring about the Palestinians and the Israelis, nobody else could do it, but he was the guy that's going to do it, but effectively they've given up on that, haven't they? I mean, they're now saying, well, if the Palestinians want to come along but I'm not seeing much outreach from the White House to the Palestinians to get that agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

Tony Blair: Katty, the White House, to be fair, have been reaching out the entire time. It's the Palestinians that won't engage with the Americans at the moment. Now, I understand all the reasons for that, moving the embassy to Jerusalem and so on. But the fact of the matter is, the intervention of the UAE was what prevented the annexation plans going ahead, and if the Jordan valley were to be annexed that would make a Palestinian state very difficult. So that intervention has actually preserved the possibility of a future Palestinian state. And, you know, the best thing for the Palestinians to do would be to engage with the Americans, engage with them by the way not saying that we agree with your plan, but saying let us sit down and discuss the detail of it. Because otherwise, and this is why...I understand completely why...people like me, when we encourage this relationship between the Israelis and the Arabs, they say. oh, you're an Israeli stooge, you don't care about the Palestinians. If the Palestinians don't get a different political strategy they will never get a state. What they've got at the moment is a strategy for sympathy. They need a strategy for statehood, and a strategy for statehood has to begin with making sure you engage with the Americans because they are powerful, making sure you bring the Arab nations on side because they can help, and making sure the Israelis feel secure with a Palestinian state because at the present time they don't. So if you want the strategy to succeed, that's how to do it. 

Too much Tony?

Never enough David

A Twitter exchange involving my favourite financial pundit David Buik about Thursday morning's Today programme, which featured a certain Mr. Tony Blair:

David Buik: Surely there are other people worth talking to about their antagonism towards BREXIT and what to do about it than Tony BLAIR, who has been invited back AGAIN by the BBC TODAY PROGRAMME! Doesn't the audience deserve a bit of variety?
Richard Kakaso: He hasn’t been on in months and is an extremely well informed voice on the matter.
David Buik: Think you will find he was on much more recently than that. Tony Blair is very well informed but variety is the spice of life!

That reminded me of the old Rob Burley maxim that people you disagree with will sometimes be on TV, or the radio. 

But who's right here? Is David correct about Tony Blair being on a lot, or Richard that he hasn't been on in months? Well, the former PM was last on Today just over a month ago (so Richard was mistaken about in being "months" since his last appearance, and this is a list of his eight appearances on the programme last year: 

14 December 2018

7 September 2018

27 June 2018

22 May 2018

10 April 2018

29 March 2018

1 March 2018

4 January 2018

Is that excessive? 

Mayday (2)

He's back: sincere face, 'trust me' hand gesture

Two more exchanges from this morning's Andrew Marr, starring everyone's favourite living former UK prime minister, accompanied by a couple of heckles:

Tony Blair: The curious thing is people say, well, look, if you have another referendum you are going to divide the country. It's the opposite, and I'll tell you why...
Andrew Marr: I want to come directly onto that, because the first referendum was an incredibly divisive moment for the country. Everyone got very,very angry. One MP was killed as a result. People got incredibly inflamed. And if you go back and you run it all again for month after month after month, don't you look at the prospect of that with some horror, what it would do, dividing families, dividing communities, dividing the country?

Andrew Marr: You are one, I think, of four living people who have done Theresa May's job. I just wonder, putting the politics to one side, what you make of her at the moment? Every day she gets up and is assailed again by criticisms from every single side, it may feel slightly familiar, goes into the House of Commons for a crucial vote, there's cabinet revolts back behind her. What do you make of her performance, as a practising politician looking at another?
Tony Blair: As a person I have a lot of respect for it. I think she has shown resilience, I think she's shown a degree of courage in standing up and getting on, and she's a decent person frankly surrounded by a lot of pretty unreasonable ones. The trouble is, the problem is, having said all of that, the deal's dodo. So this is the difficulty that she has. But in personal terms, you know, I've done the job, I know how difficult it is, I really respect the fact that she manages to stand up and get on with it. I think that's a great capability, a great characteristic...
Andrew Marr: A stand-up woman, yeah.
Tony Blair: Yes, I think she is. This is not a personal thing. Personally, actually, I can see a lot to admire in the way she handles herself. It is that literally this is the destiny of our country, and it is the wrong decision for our country. This is why we have to resolve it finally through the people.

Mark Mardell gets the same scoop he got a few months ago

A familiar face

Jings! Crivens! Help ma boab! Mark Mardell and his The World This Weekend weren't exactly going our of their way today to dispel the impression some people have (namely me) that this is the most consistently anti-Brexit current affairs staple on the BBC. Mark's introduction today was pure The World This Weekend:

Welcome to The World this Weekend. This is Mark Mardell. "Brexit has undermined the Government's commitment to a fairer Britain", claims Alan Milburn as he resigns as their social mobility commissioner. In a wide-ranging interview Tony Blair tells me about his plans to undermine the Brexit coalition, the dangers of leaving the European Union for Northern Ireland and why he thinks the whole thing is doomed.

Incidentally, this is Mark Mardell's second "wide-ranging interview" with Tony Blair on The World This Weekend this year. The last one was in late April. 

Last time Mr. Blair was on, Mark previewed it on Paddy's Broadcasting House by describing him as "a very special guest". Today, Mark and Paddy said that TWTW has "scooped" by getting Mr. Blair. Some will groan, some will cheer, said Mark, but "he is very interesting". 

Advanced warning

I felt the Little Finger of the Hand of History prodding itself rather intrusively into my left ear this morning as the people's former prime minister Tony Blair appeared on Radio 4's Today. In honour of the great man the next few posts most definitely won't be soundbites....

Sampling

You know who

Should the BBC have made so much of Tony Blair's latest intervention in the Brexit debate? 

From what I can make out, Mr Blair wrote a piece for his Institute for Global Change think tank, published overnight, and the BBC decided to follow it up by interviewing the former PM at 8.10 on Today this morning.

His intervention has led the BBC News website all day and was the main story on PM this evening. It also led this evening's main BBC One news bulletin.

Leave-supporting Labour MP Kate Hoey tweeted, "Why is it headline @BBC news that Tony Blair wants us to stay in the EU ? #Brexitbias" 

Well, Sky and ITV also made it their main story today, following the BBC's lead, so it's not just the BBC that considers the story newsworthy, and Mr Blair's claim that the EU might relax its rule on freedom of movement for the UK if the UK chose to stay in a reformed EU is something new - if true.

But the BBC does seem to me to have taken the lead in making this story as big as it's become. If the BBC hadn't led, would ITV and Sky (and the like) have made anything like as much of it?

As for how the BBC has handled it specifically, well, I've sampled a bit of their coverage. Being ITBB, it will be as scrupulously fair as I can possibly make it.

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Today 'balanced' Mr Blair's interview at 8.10 with a shorter interview with Leave-supporting Labour MP Frank Field at around 7.15. Both were conducted by Nick Robinson. 

Nick's interview with Mr Field was a tetchy affair with Mr Field complaining that he'd been invited on to say what he thought about Mr Blair's intervention. (Nick Robinson had begun interrupting him and trying to move away from the subject of Tony Blair).

I don't agree that Nick's interview with Mr Blair was sycophantic but it was certainly a much less tetchy affair and much more helpful to Tony Blair than it had been to Frank Field.

Mr Blair, unlike Mr Field, got to say what he wanted to say, and Nick was quite jolly throughout, asking a fair number of 'useful' questions...

...though, that said, he did also (in a short burst of contrariness) tell Mr Blair that the EU "never, ever" changes, that the EU has regularly overruled democratic votes and carries on regardless, that the EU referendum was "the biggest vote in British history", that voters in the general election chose by an 80% margin parties that pledged in their manifestos to leave the Single Market.

So, all in all, Today advanced the pro-EU cause this morning but made enough nods to impartiality to cover the programme's back.

That said, of course - and it's a big 'of course', of course - all of the above does rather depend on whether you think that having Tony Blair on your side, advancing your cause (however the media outlet in question handles him), can actually ever help the cause he's advocating. Many might very well think that any cause that Tony Blair is involved with is more likely to be damaged than helped by having his 'toxic' name associated with it.

Emma Vardy

Monitoring the BBC News Channel's coverage - specifically the regular updates from BBC reporter Emma Vardy this morning - I found that Mr Blair's Brexit-related arguments were first laid out, then the BBC reporter said that some say that Mr Blair is "irrelevant" now while others say that he's "still a big player" and that his arguments "may carry some weight". Emma did also add that the "evidence" for Mr Blair's claim on EU willingness to countenance concessions on freedom of movement was something "we are not really seeing", which struck me as being fair enough - though she didn't present actual counter-arguments to his arguments.

Tonight's PM on Radio 4 interviewed a reporter from the pro-EU FT (Alex Barker), who put the EU side, and a passionate pro-Remain-voting Labour MP (Paul Bromfield), who criticised the UK government. Jane Hill conducted both interviews in a fairly hands-off way. This was the most heavily 'tilted' bit of BBC coverage so far (tilted in the usual pro-EU direction).

Tonight's BBC One news bulletin, though leading with the story and putting Mr Blair's claims in the spotlight, swung things back somewhat in the other direction. Eleanor Garnier's report talked of Tony Blair's claims as being "claims", adding that they "directly contradict what those in Brussels are saying". She then cited Leaver criticism that there's "no evidence to back up Mr Blair's claim" - and then featured Conservative MEP David Campbell Bannerman saying just that -, and noted that Jeremy Corbyn "rejected" Mr Blair's position "insisting his party respects the result of the referendum" - and then featured Mr Corbyn saying just that -, and then featured the Government's response saying that Tony Blair is again demonstrating that he's "out of touch with voters". Eleanor's pay-off line was, "Once he helped determine Britain's place in the world. Now this former Prime Minister must settle with commenting from the sidelines." All in all, I don't think this was the most helpful of reports for Mr Blair, though it did get his central message out there. I'm going to give that another 'Fair enough!' I think.

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This has been a very ITBB post, hasn't it? What I've seen of the BBC's coverage today hasn't been entirely monolithic, despite all BBC outlets firing in the same general direction.

As ever, please feel free to disagree with any of my takes on all of this. 

Mark Mardell's "very special guest"

Guess who?

Radio 4's Broadcasting House always features a plug for The World This Weekend and, as usual, Mark Mardell turned up midway to do the plugging. A huge thrill, however, was generated by Mark mysteriously announcing:

And we're hoping for a very special guest, but I can't tell you too much. It's a work in progress. so you'll have to tune in at One o'clock.

If you didn't listen to The World This Weekend, can you guess who this "very special guest" would turn out to be? The PM? Donald Trump? Vladimir Putin? Justin Bieber? Kim Jong-un? Me? Sue? The Pope? Ellie Harrison from Countryfile? God?  Henry, the mild-mannered janitor? The Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)? HM the Queen? Larry the Cat? 

The nation was absolutely gagging to know. 

And who did it turn out to be, waxing anti-Brexit for a quarter of a hour with very little harassment from Mark Mardell?

Here's a clue: His name is an anagram of 'Ton By Liar'.

I will admit to having been a wee bit disappointed...

...especially given that he's hardly been a rarity on the BBC in recent months. 

Now, in fairness to Mark Mardell, his election report from the Rhondda, South Wales was fascinating. 

This, of course, is Labour if-it-has-a-red-rosette-we'll-even-vote-for-that-sheep territory. 

Or was. Some have gone UKIP, others moved from the Socialist Workers Party to voting Conservative (yes, really). Some like Jeremy Corbyn, others don't trust him. And some will still be voting for that sheep with the red rosette. 

And at least one Corbynista wasn't happy on Twitter afterwards - and Mark wasn't happy right back at him: 

Opinion and confusion

Agree with what they say or not, it's surely hard to disagree that BBC reporters are becoming ever readier to give their 'expert' opinion on all sorts of political matters. 

I'm presuming that's because they've been allowed/encouraged to do so from above.

Here's an example that very much runs counter to the grain (which makes it even more interesting, perhaps):

The BBC has made Tony Blair's latest anti-Brexit intervention their lead story for most of the day. 

On tonight's BBC One News at Ten, however, the BBC's Carole Walker gave her view that Mr Blair's intervention would probably have a "pretty limited" impact, given how "hugely divisive" he is.

I'm sure she's entirely right about that, but should she be saying it (i.e. passing judgement)? 

If it's true though, why shouldn't she say it? Mr Blair, and those who welcomed his intervention today, may not like it, but, if it's true, why should that matter?

If she'd dismissed the impact of an intervention from someone like, say, Nigel Farage because he's "hugely divisive", would that matter either?

I have to say I don't know the answer to the question of how far BBC reporters should go with 'fair comment', especially if some people won't consider it 'fair comment' at all.

Anyhow, while I'm making up my confused mind, here's a transcript:

Sophie Raworth: And Carole's in Westminster now. What impact is his intervention likely to have then?  

Carole Walker: What he's hoping to do is to change the terms of the debate, to convince us all that Brexit is not inevitable. Now he's not founding a new party, but he does want to try to build a movement. He's going to found an institute to further his cause, but, of course, leading Brexit campaigners have been lining up to try to stop him in his tracks, accusing him of being out of touch, arrogant, undemocratic, treating the British people as fools. He won't get much support from the Labour leadership. Jeremy Corbyn is hardly a Tony Blair fan at the best of times and has made it clear he believes that the Labour Party should accept the vote in that referendum, except the will of the people and support the Government in beginning their Brexit negotiations. And even some people who share Tony Blair's concerns about Brexit and the whole approach of the Government are wary of Tony Blair's involvement. The former Prime Minister, of course, was a redoubtable campaigner in his day. He won three general elections, but the legacy of the Iraq War means he is a hugely divisive figure. For that reason, it would be very difficult indeed for him to build the sort of coalition he needs, and so, I think the overall impact on the march to Brexit will probably be pretty limited.  

Sophie Raworth: Thank you.

Thought for the day

Don’t you just hate it when otherwise respectable people punctuate their conversation with “D’you know what?” I realise they do this for dramatic effect, but in my opinion it just makes them look a bit of a prat. 

But it’s a contagion so no doubt I’ll do it myself sometime. Whatever. 

The News is like news-on-steroids at the minute. I’ve been binge-watching politics all morning, and d’you know what?  I can’t think of anything interesting to say about it. It’s so mad that even the normal norms are abnormal, if that’s not too Rumsfieldian for a Sunday lunchtime.

Oh yes, and by the way, I’ve been thinking about Andrea Leadsom and motherhood and apple pie, and although I’ve been thinking about it - as a mother myself - I haven’t come down on one side or another in that binary way we often talk about. 

Andrea wasn’t the only one who kept saying “as a mother” during the run-up to the referendum. Gisela said it too. I thought they were saying it so as to appear human, rather than robotic and self-serving  “as a politician”. But now it seems that the experts are interpreting it as some kind of weird gloating. If that’s the case maybe I should be peppering my conversation with As a mothers and D’you know whats,  to lend credibility to myself.

What do I want with credibility anyway. Who needs it? Who would even want to be a politician? More important, who would want to be Prime Minister, after Tony Blair and Chilcot. I’m sure most of the people who say ‘After Chilcot’ haven’t read it, including me. I promise I haven’t read it, but I have read about it, if that’s of any significance.

Think back. Tony Blair must have been popular once. He was elected, anyway, and was the Labour Party’s longest serving Prime Minister.

What put me off him was the synthetic and disturbingly emotional speech he made when Princess Diana died. (People use ‘emotional’ as a euphemism for ‘tearful’.) That speech confirmed my suspicion that he was crap. Apart from that, much of his and Alistair Campbell’s spin was effective.

Tony Blair and Jack Straw epitomise spin. Tony’s cronies and so on. It was the era of peak spin, but we kind of knew all along that we were being manipulated but we couldn’t resist. 

I think they managed to make the case for going to war with Iraq seem reasonable. The pacifists were against it, but they would be, wouldn’t they? Their job was to go on protest marches and chant slogans about oil.

Back then no-one apart from experts on the Middle East knew much about the clash of civilisations, though the public vaguely knew that somewhere there were some primitive and unsophisticated religious people who could resign themselves to the most devastating personal tragedies because of their belief that everything was ‘the will of Allah.’ 

We were told about a pattern of violent atrocities and we believed the solution was to topple the tyrant. The Iraqis, whoever they are, must be “people”  ‘just like us‘,  so as soon as Saddam was removed, we assumed they would establish a Western style democracy and live happily ever after. 

Remember the previous Gulf war? (Desert Storm) It arose after Saddam’s aggressive invasion of  Kuwait. It was the first time the practice of using ‘human shields’ came to the world’s attention. Although Saddam appeared to be visibly evil ’we’ left him in power, claiming the war ‘wasn’t about regime change’. Nobody fully understood why we couldn’t simply finish him off there and then. 

Why, then, did ‘we’ suddenly decide the opposite in the second Gulf war?

Was it because Saddam had murdered hundreds of his own people? 

Was it because of Saddam’s ruthless brutality and the murderous escapades of his sadistic sons Uday and Qusay?

Was it because of the regime’s constant obstruction of Hans Blix’s team of weapons inspectors? 

Did Saddam have a stash of WMDs, or was it a charade? Why was he acting as if he had something to hide?

I don’t believe we went into Iraq solely because of the sexed-up dossier and the unsubstantiated claim that we could all be nuked within hours, though Saddam did seem like the kind of guy who would do something so reckless on a mere whim. 

  

All of those things contributed to the decision to go ahead with the war, and with hindsight it was the aftermath that was our biggest failure. I’m sure there were people who could have foreseen the disastrous consequences of simply removing Saddam Hussein and his henchmen. Why didn’t they warn the government and why were our Prime Minister and the POTUS so unprepared?

On the other hand,  we’re very, very sorry that no WMDs were found. 

(And what was Saddam supposed to have used, other than weapons of mass destruction, when he gassed thousands of Kurds?)

What if they had found WMDs? What if we had not only found, but destroyed them? Would we, in that case, have been very relieved, and very pleased with ourselves?

Would we, in that case, have left Saddam in situ, without WMDs but making preparations to re-stock? 

Or, as is likely, would we still have ferreted him out from his rabbit hole and dispatched him to meet his maker, whilst thoughtlessly leaving the very same power vacuum - the situation that, with hindsight, we now regret?

It seems obvious that the same disastrous aftermath would surely have unfolded either way, WMDs or no, but would the invasion of Iraq still seem so futile and worthless if the justification had actually been tangible and substantive?

I mean, if the war had verifiably prevented a possible Saddam-inflicted nuclear armageddon, would the disastrous aftermath, the power vacuum, the Muslim on Muslim slaughter and the religiously motivated barbarity still make the invasion of Iraq seem futile and worthless? Weigh it up.

I watched David Davis on the Andrew Marr show. My initial response to him was why waste your time on retrospective revenge. If you’re going to punish Tony Blair, why not also go for Tony’s cronies, who I notice are all furiously trying to dissociate themselves from the whole business.   Impeach them all, why don’t you, instead of getting to grips with urgent matters in hand, like trying to deal with Brexit in a competent manner.

Anyway. D’you know what? I  think the choice between Theresa May and Andrea Leadsom is between the worst and the least worst. Or the other way round. Who cares? If you ask me the Tories are starting to make Labour look good. 

Here endeth the sermon.

Annihilation for the nation

The BBC is heading this morning’s news bulletins with Tony Blair’s somewhat alarmist comments about what will happen if Jeremy Corbyn wins the Labour Party’s leadership contest.

“Over the cliff’s edge!” and I don’t think he was talking about Cliff Richard.

“Please understand the danger we are in. The party is walking eyes shut arms outstretched over the cliff’s edge to the rocks below”

However, as it has been stated on more than one occasion, anything that emanates from Tony “Bliar” has the opposite effect to that intended. He’s seen as toxic.  

The BBC is running several articles on Jeremy Corbyn’s unexpected popularity.

 The piece about Yvette Cooper concentrates on Corbyn’s economic policies - “not credible” 

BBC Political Correspondent Ross Hawkins says:

“Criticise Corbyn and you make him stronger. That's been the fear of so many who believe he'd spell disaster for Labour.When Tony Blair - arch-enemy of the party's left - says a Corbyn victory could mean annihilation, they wince.If you love Corbyn and hate Blair, they argue, that won't change your mind.”

If that’s really the case, might not the BBC consider holding back on the criticisms? That’s a classic no-win scenario.

This morning we heard Jack Straw explaining that Corbyn’s quantitative easing idea was rubbish.  Everyone but Dianne Abbott and Ken Livingstone says Corbyn’s ideas are old hat. They’re retrograde principles that have proven disastrous whenever and wherever  they’ve been tested. 

The BBC’s Mobeen Azhar asks ”Where is Labour’s ‘Jeremy Corbyn mania’ coming from?” in a kind of reverse echo of Gillian Duffy’s infamous “Where are they flocking from?”

"All over the country we are getting these huge gatherings of people. The young, the old, black and white and many people that haven't been involved in politics before."

Mobeen Azhar

For more on Mobeen I turned to Twitter. 

I gather his current area of expertise is ‘chemsex’ (gay). There’s a fetching photo of Mobeen intertwined with Jon Snow at the One World awards. I don’t know anything about chemsex (gay) or the One World awards therefore I only know a tiny bit about Mobeen Azhar, but did spot that on April 1st he Tweeted “Palestine joins the ICC at last!”, so I think we can safely assume that he’s going to find nothing disturbing in the fact that all these Corbyn enthusiasts, political virgins that they are, seem perfectly content to ignore Corbyn’s affiliation with Hamas and Hezbollah, his friendship with Stephen Sizer and so on. 

The combination of idealism and political illiteracy that have always afflicted the young and immature inevitably produce confused passion and turbulence. We all go through an anti-capitalist and anti-corporate phase when we’re young till we become resigned to the fact that it’s a by-product of not being totalitarian.     

No wonder there are people who hate ‘the rich’ even if some of them are not short of a bob or two themselves. 

What is most disturbing of all is that the BBC has always shied away from challenging Corbyn over his antisemitic affiliations. Whether they are ideologically pro or anti the prospect of a  Corbyn led Labour Party, they avoid dwelling on it because they regard it as irrelevant. Why stir up an unnecessary hornet’s nest, when no-one but the capitalist moguls of the Zionist lobby gives a toss? 

This is why they steer clear. It’s because these days there’s such a climate of Israel-hate in the world, that exposing its existence in a politician is neither here nor there. In fact the opposite is true. If there was no evidence of Israel-hate, it would be a hindrance to that politician’s electability. In terms of voter appeal, absence of antisemitism makes the heart grow fonder.   

Look at this Open Letter to Jeremy Corbyn by Alan Johnson, a pro-Israel advocate, and therefore speaking with a voice marginalised by the swell of public opinion. The letter was published in June, before the mania really took hold, so it was effectively pissing in the wind.

“But you won’t get my vote.
You won’t get it because Labour’s best traditions also include anti-fascism and internationalism while your support – to me, inexplicable and shameful –  for the fascistic and antisemitic forces of Hezbollah and Hamas flies in the face of those traditions. In particular, your full-throated cheer-leading for the vicious antisemitic Islamist Raed Salah is a deal-breaker.Why did you lend your support to Raed Salah? No, he is not a ‘critic of Israel’, but a straight-up Jew hater.”You said ‘Salah is a very honoured citizen’, even though Salah was found guilty of spreading the blood libel – the classic antisemitic slander that Jews use the blood of gentile children to make their bread.”

I gather Alan Johnson is a lefty. If the Left Foot Forward readership won’t be influenced by him, what hope is there that the Daily Mail will have any effect? 

Their lavishly illustrated revelations are greeted below the line with a load of derogatory comments about the Daily mail.

Here’s an indication of what’s happening in Europe, and it’s not far from what’s happening here. This is not 1930s, remember.

The BBC has belatedly reported this: “Paris Plages: Tel Aviv invite prompts Palestinian protests.” 

“Every summer, the French capital turns the banks of the Seine into a makeshift beach known as Paris Plages and has this year devoted each day to a famous beach around the world.” 

Well, the Mayor, Anne Hidalgo has designated Thursday (today) Tel Aviv day. Needless to say the pro-Palestinian lobby are up in arms! 

Perhaps as a gesture to France’s beleaguered and dwindling Jews, the Mayor and her deputy have “courageously” stuck to their guns. The left wingers have plenty to say, citing the obvious to justify their outrage.

“Critics said the timing of the tribute to Tel Aviv was particularly ill-advised, coming after a Palestinian toddler burned to death in a 31 July arson attack in a West Bank village, suspected to be the work of Jewish extremists.” 

“Mayor Anne Hidalgo’s deputy, Bruno Julliard, said Israel’s critics should distinguish between “the brutal politics of the Israeli government and Tel Aviv, a progressive city”

Defending Israel is not what this is about. Not at all.  “I could never regard a city as responsible for the policies of a government” says the mayor.  “To do so would be to show contempt for ...democracy”

It’s solely about Tel Aviv, because it’s gay-friendly and everyone likes falafels.

I would contend that over the years the BBC has systematically helped create a kind of united hatred of the Israeli government. The BBC's ‘half a story’ policy has been irreparably damaging. In fact fatal.

It no longer matters whether reality is pointed out or not. The BBC ignores its critics and behaves as if it’s infallible.

 Jeremy Corbyn can be hand in glove with virulent antisemites and his supporters don’t turn a hair. 

It’s hardly surprising that Israelis have given up any hope of a sympathetic hearing. The demonisation has gone too far. There’s no turning back.

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Listen to Mobeen's piece The Corbyn Effect at 22:00 on Thursday on BBC Radio 4's The Report.

The rock of western civilisation

Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of Great Britain, the man who tops everybody’s ‘most hated’ list, is to figurehead the fight against antisemitism. 

Good idea, eh?

“Tony Blair is a joke”. “Middle East ‘Peace Envoy!” “Israel’s mouthpiece!”  “Tony Bliar.”  “Toxic”  “£££££”  

 I’ve been reading the Guardian, obviously. That’s the first place one would look if one wished to see actual antisemitism.

The Guardian’s long-term editorial policy of Israel-bashing has collided with the news of Mr. Blair’s unexpected appointment like a kind of antisemitic Hadron Collider. The elementary particle, which is Jew hatred, is the Higgs Boson that we knew was there all along.  

The BBC’s only-one-half-of-the-story approach to reporting on the Israel / Palestinian situation has spawned a ground-sea of heartfelt, passionate ignorance. 

We might think of ignorant antisemitic hatred as a parasitic beastie, permanently lingering and lurking, ready to jump on any passing bandwagon and strut its stuff. Screech, raise gaudy tail feathers and display. Peacock style. That’s how I see it today.

Plucked  from the Guardian a couple of days ago:

”land, colonisation, illegal settlement and brutal occupation....(much as I abhorre (sic) anti-semitism).” 

That is someone’s view of Israel.

“hidden agenda and that shadowy people pulling the strings, are the actual ones in control.......” 

and that is someone else’s perception of Jews.

On this occasion, ‘stolen land, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, war crimes and racism’, are eclipsed by the pithy ad hominem,  aimed at Tony Blair. 

Some commenters expressed faux sympathy with ‘The Jews’ for having 'war-mongering, money-grubbing' Bliar’ foisted upon them, which, they claim, will exacerbate not diminish the ‘understandable anger at Israel because of what it is doing to the Palestinians’ which, by the way, is not antisemitism, but legitimate criticism.

And look. Here’s Sky. (Does anyone edit the Sky News webpage?) 

“It campaigns for European (sic) to make Holocaust denial a criminal offence ....”

The below the line comments accuse Mr.Bliar of creating IS, and /or importing thousands of antisemites during the last Labour government. “Bad news for Jews” says someone.

The most blatantly antisemitic comments beneath press reports of this news by far emanate from the Independent and RT. I don’t even want to link.

Are Guardian readers losing their passion? No, they’re as full of righteous indignation as ever, and possibly a tad feeble-minded.

The BBC doesn’t think it’s biased by the way. It thinks it’s impartial.  

Oliver Kamm has a piece in the Times (£) called “Blair is dangerously wrong to try to ban Holocaust denial”[...] “It should be met with evidence, not suppression.”

On the face of it, this is a convincing theory. Kamm believes that because Holocaust denial is “flat-out false” it can be properly countered with evidence. He concludes:

“An empirical claim that is false and fraudulent is properly countered with evidence not suppression. Once we accept that people have a right to protection from bad ideas we concede that criticism and scientific method are inadequate intellectual defences. They are in reality the rock of western civilisation.”

The flaw in the theoretical argument is the actuality. People believe what they want to and they don’t believe what they don’t want to. Never mind evidence. 

If the historiographical evidence is reinterpreted or rearranged by racists and fakers, that is good enough for the haters thank you very much. Its historiographical value may be zero, as Kamm says, but as far as reinforcing prejudice goes - in terms of  social psychology - it is invaluable. Confirmation bias is “a tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions”.

Passing another unenforceable law is not the answer. It is the same old argument that says making a “thought” illegal is fascistic and  counter-productive. It will drive it under the radar and all that. I believe this is correct; it is and it will. 

What’s the answer? A concerted effort to recalibrate public perception of Jews and Israel is probably the only way. But first the BBC would need to be persuaded, not only  to take the lead, but to believe they were doing the right thing. 

Not more Holocaust documentaries, but a complete rethink. The BBC needs to acquaint itself, and then its audience, with the antisemitic rhetoric that is pouring out of the Arab world. Prejudice gets reinforced by negative stereotypes and lack of exposure to positive ones. The BBC needs to begin normalising its relationship, and the public’s, with Israel. Even some Egyptians are beginning to realise that this is a mutually beneficial plan. The BBC must stop infantilising the Palestinians and glorifying their unique brand of self-perpetuating grievance-mongering and victimhood. The BBC must learn to value western civilisation, and reestablish it, rock and all, in their own eyes, and in the eyes of the public.

That I doubt even Mr. Tony Blair possesses the wit and wiles to do. 

Trojan Elephant.

There are several pieces on the web about Robert Fisk’s disgraceful report in the Independent, a newspaper that has acquired a reputation for being even more antisemitic than the Guardian. Fisk himself couldn’t have Fisked it any more Fiskishly than Cif Watch has here.

Hamas…handed Israel a gift by bombarding Sderot from Gaza with thousands of inaccurate rockets, most of them home-made. It allowed Israel to kill hundreds of Palestinian civilians as it sought revenge, and deprived the Israeli left (that which still existed) of their support for the original Israeli withdrawal from Gaza;

Amongst a sack of disingenuous chaff in that paragraph there is one grain of truth. 

Of course anything that harms your enemy hands them a potential propaganda gift at the same time.  It’s when only the gift is seized upon and any injury or harm is all but forgotten that things become more complex. For example, when the Fogel family were butchered by Palestinian youths, some of us used that  (and still do) to illustrate the sadistic nature of individual acts of Palestinian “resistance”. But there would be something deeply wrong if we relished its impact as a weapon more than we anguished over the stark brutality of the act and its impact on the survivors. Not to mention the very idea that this deed had handed anyone a gift.

Similarly, when the Israeli army (arguably legitimately) rashly used white phosphorus near civilians, they too could be said to have handed a ghastly gift to their enemies. The fact that this has been interpreted as a deliberate attack on civilians and is now embedded into the narrative as such was so predictable that the mind boggles as to why its use was ever authorised. As we would all know, if the BBC hadn’t systematically avoided reporting it, the Israelis take great pains to avoid harming civilians even when responding to deliberate and outrageous provocation, often to the detriment of their own safety. No wonder it’s so easy to seize upon such things when there is little or no interest from the BBC in countering them.

The BBC’s habit of allowing a litany of embellished falsehoods to be repeated on air, unchallenged, was demonstrated in Sunday’s The Big Questions. “Is Islamism the biggest threat to the modern world?”

This was supposed to be a debate about Tony Blair’s infamous warning about the threat from Islamism. 

Anne Marie Waters (Sharia Watch) and Sam Westrop (Gatestone institute) were pitted against a gaggle of the BBC’s favourite Muslims, ranging from Usama Hasan (Quilliam)  through Bangladeshi-born British Imam Ajmal Masroor to Abdel Bari Atwan (from multiple BBC appearances as ‘expert on the Middle East’, the most inappropriate description that there ever in this world could be, as well as a regular on the panel of the BBC’s Dateline.)

 “It’s an exaggerated threat” opines Atwan, and “Tony Blair is responsible”  before launching into an  illogical diatribe of exquisite stupidity, ending “we-in-the-West *created* Islamism.”  Predictable Blair-bashing ensued.

“Mr Atwan, you famously said ‘Were nuclear missiles ever to strike Israel I would dance in Trafalgar Square’  so I don’t think...”
“This is misquotation. This is not true..”
“It’s not true? You never said that?”
“no no no no. It was out of context”
“What does that mean?”
“I was talking an hour programme, they took few seconds and anyway who is bomb-bing? Who is bomb-bing the Arabs now? The Israelis. Who is committing massacres against Arabs? The Israelis!”

You cannot call this a debate. The Muslims seem incapable of listening to anything but their own voices. Once they start, they cannot be stopped.

Sam Westrop promises to post, on the Stand for Peace website, conclusive proof that Ajmal Masroor did claim that American security forces orchestrated the Mumbai attacks, and also that the Westgate shopping mall attack by Boko Haram was  the work of shadowy forces. Which he denies.

“Hamas leader is honest and great man as opposed to Benjamin Netanyahu anytime” announces Masroor, to loud applause.

Nasr Emam (Muslim Chaplain in Scarborough) is wearing an distinctly unIslamic tie. He splutters:

“I don’t support Hamas. Hamas isn’t even an Islamic ideology.”

“What is it then?”

“Waffle waffle. They want their country back. Waffle waffle inanity splutter. Who is funding you (Anne Marie) to pay for Sharia Watch?”

UnIslamic tie

Uh oh. Palestinian Musher el-Farra of Sheffield PSC is on the programme. On the front row.

Why? Obviously to tell us that Hamas is the outcome of Israeli Zionist aggression and repeat the lies that have embedded themselves into the narrative. “Phosphoric bombs” “Ethnic cleansing of Palestinians” “Massacres” Lies that are accepted as the truth; so embedded that they can be uttered unchallenged.

“... ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians which started in 1948 when they destroyed five hundred thirty two villages.” 

Musher el-Farra wants Tony Blair to be prosecuted for war crimes against the Iraqi people. Thunderous applause.

 “The killin’ of fishermen... just for fishin’ in the waters. The killin' of farmers, the pollutin’ of Palestinian waters..” ”Killin’ of people wavin’ white flags, all this.. don’t talk to me about threat radicalism and threat to global... Islamism........Zionism is....... Israel is big power....” 

No more Mrs. nice-guy; I use dialect in a denigrating manner because I’m fed up with half-wits being afforded credibility by the BBC in their relentless unprincipled pursuit of ratings. 

This man cannot be stopped. He’s in full flow, eyes blazing. Nicky Campbell  has to put a hand on his arm to get him to stop.

In my opinion the BBC introduced this person and Abdel Bari Atwan into the mix solely because the BBC knew they would automatically launch themselves off into anti-Israel tirades, thereby tidily diverting the topic away from facing the undeniable truth. That Islam is incompatible with the West and it is indeed the biggest threat to the modern world.

In my opinion, no Imam, no spokesperson for Islam, no community leader, no Islamic authority I've ever seen or heard is sure about what exactly Islam is. They cannot agree on what Islam is as a religion, they are evasive about what Islamism is as an ideology and no-one can agree upon the legitimacy of much of the weighty paraphernalia that surrounds the whole doom-ridden palaver. 

The one motivating, unifying element, the only thing that they’ll readily agree upon, the glue that holds them together, is their hatred of Israel and the Jews. That is what sets them on fire. Their eyes glow, their hands flail and their tongues lash. 

Why do I think the bulk of the audience is so ready to clap at any anti-Israel utterance, and boo and hiss at the slightest mention of the Israeli Prime Minister? 

Because of the BBC’s anti-Israel bias by omission, its susceptibility to pro-Palestinian emoting and its politically correct kow-towing to half-wits. 

Look at this document (H/T Biased BBC) download from here  setting out rules for Muslim education. What a load of restrictive, repressive, cruel orders.

My husband’s “Rules Concerning Toast” make more sense. And they were (half) tongue-in-cheek.

One minute The MCB issues a 72 page document detailing a list of intrusive demands that schools adapt to 72 pages-worth of Islamic superstitions, the next this statement:  'Education and Muslims: End this Witch-Hunt of British Muslims' denying that state schools are the target of a 'Muslim takeover', where supposedly conservative Muslim views and mores are imposed, and where non-compliant teachers are forced out.

Never mind the Trojan Elephant. It’s Islam itself that is ‘in the room’, and this room ain’t big enough for both of us.

I knew it!

I knew it! 

As soon as I heard the headlines this morning on the radio (BBC radio 4) I knew what would happen.  Tony Blair says something that needs saying - the very thing that our current bunch of politicians, journalists, movers, shakers and Uncle Tom Cobley ‘n’ all are too deaf, dumb and blind to say. But because Tony Blair, the most reviled figure in the western hemisphere and beyond is the one who’s saying it, the message goes down the plughole with the rest of the bathwater.

No sooner did I click on the Guardian, as directed by the BBC website, than zillions of comments confirmed what I already knew. Most of the great British public have turned into zombies and antisemites. 

  I’ll just spell it out. Tony Blair has become known as, in no particular order:

•  The person responsible for an illegal war,
•  A war criminal, 
• Tony B Liar. 

So when he says something we need to hear, it will be drowned in a sea of denial.

Brace yourself and look at the comments below all the Guardian’s reports related to his speech.  It seems that because Tony Blair is now a pariah,  a mouthpiece of Netanyahu, spawn of the devil, everything he says is tainted. His speech, made with the intention of trying to waken us up, has had the opposite effect. We’ve descended into a deeper slumber. If only he’d persuaded someone popular to make his speech.  

But who? I know. Russell Brand. Too immature. Alan Titchmarsh? No. Too mumsy. How about Mary Berry? Hmm.

Suggestions on a postcard please.