Belated Observations

When this blog was a mere twinkle in the eye, Craig and I got stuck over what to call it. We wanted to have the words “BBC” and “bias” in there, but as someone once said somewhere online, the “Biased-BBC” blog had already bagged the best name ever. Also, we wanted the title to sound less strident than “Biased-BBC” to imply that there was at least some room for doubt. We decided on a question rather than a statement, hoping it would encourage debate rather than produce a straightforward litany of anti-BBC ‘gotchas’. 

However, that was then and this is now. It’s now more or less a given that the BBC is biased, so we are lagging behind with our redundant ‘question’. I suppose we could reposition the ‘IS’ past “the BBC”, but that would be a boring statement of the bleeding obvious - and it would make us even more “Biased-BBC-lite” than we already are. So, for now, we’ll just leave the “is” and the “?” where they are. The status quo rules ok. 

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There is only one topic dominating the discourse - imagine what life will be like in the post-Brexit era (will there still be life?) and we’ll be able to settle back in and address the ishoos that occupied us in the olden days. Meanwhile, here’s Charles Moore (£)

Behind the incident of Anna Soubry being called a Nazi by a small group of Leave yobs beside College Green lies a classic Brexit sequence of events. For many months now, Remain protestors have infested that area. Their numbers are small, but they are well trained to insert themselves and their banners into relevant live television interviews, and have been praised by the Guardian for doing so. Never have I seen the BBC trying to exclude them from its shots, even when the protestors’ interventions have made it quite difficult for those being interviewed.
Sometimes BBC interviewers have gestured on air towards the protestors as evidence of strong pro-Remain public feeling. Often BBC cameras have used cutaways of them to punctuate news items, to make the same point. Not surprisingly, the BBC’s behaviour has in turn provoked Leave protests, because the indulgence of the Remain stunts has helped skew the news. As soon as this one looked nasty, the BBC turned it into a major story about hate crime, involving the police, fanned by Mr Speaker Bercow. It is certainly unpleasant and stupid to call almost anyone a Nazi, but the rudeness to Ms Soubry does not reach the threshold of a threat to public order or incitement to violence — not as bad, for example, as John McDonnell’s famous encouragement of those who said they wanted to lynch Esther McVey, or what happens in demonstrations by the Socialist Workers Party.
The wider truth is that College Green interviews are a circus invented by television 30 years ago to make its broadcasts from Westminster seem less boring. Circuses need performing seals, clowns etc. The cause of Remain — via the BBC — is the ring-master.

Excellent points, but one of the btl commenters took issue with the word ‘yobs’, and I do think it was quite naughty of the writer to use that term here as it smacks of the lazy stereotyping that’s routinely bandied about willy-nilly to save the bother of engaging with the actuality.

I must say the BBC’s obsession with Anna Soubry-gate was typical mountain-out-of-a-molehill reporting. That particular incident might have represented a kind of last straw where raucous heckling is concerned, but let’s face it, Anna did not look at all perturbed throughout. She was smiling. As many people have pointed out, this kind of stunt is commonplace these days, and it comes from (the extreme fringes of) all directions. And as Mr Moore says, the media eggs it on something rotten. 

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Since when has it become the norm to use the term ‘right-wing” as an insult, let alone "far-right"? Well, not so long ago the term might have conjured up an image of your actual Nazi, mistakenly, since actual Nazism emanated from the opposite direction. But I do see what they mean. They’re picturing your old fashioned misogynist, homophobic, hang-‘em and flog-‘em, sexually repressed, self-righteous, heard-hearted chauvinist pig. Illiberal, intolerant and racist. 

Of course, hardly any of the figures to whom that epithet is addressed are anything like that. The opposite. It’s usually the harshest opponents of a belief system that espouses those particular qualities at which the terms ‘right-wing, far-right and fascist” are hurled. Ironic, eh?

In fact, even dismissing something as ‘right-wing’ is understood to be almost (but not quite) as insulting and damning as being a ‘Zionist’.  You can shut down debate with these terms. Simple as. 

The BBC is bigging up the threat from the far-right for all it’s worth. Did anyone see Wyre Davies do a hilarious report about the couple who named their baby Adolf? Please tell me it was a spoof. Surely. I know it was aired a while back, but I’ve been busy.

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A friend came round for lunch a couple of weeks ago. We don’t usually talk about politics, but it had just been announced that the responsibility for investigating the persecution of Christians had been handed to the Bishop of Truro, (our patch) and so the topic came up.

“So, who do you think is doing all this persecuting?”  asked someone. (me) 

“Well,” said Mr friend, thoughtfully. “In the Middle East? Hmm, probably Israel.” 

“Oh,” said I, “and you know this, how?” 

“Well,” said he, “In the papers and on the BBC?”

“I think you’ll find,” said I, “that this is not quite the case. Israel is about the safest place that the Christian community can be anywhere in the Middle East” 

His expression revealed the finality and obduracy of his belief  - “I heard it on the BBC” - so I knew I had to let it go.

At the time I was thinking that although I wouldn’t put it past the Guardian, I rather doubted that the BBC has said, explicitly and in so many words, that Israel, in particular, is one of the countries where Christians are being persecuted. After all, facts and figures are available.  (Who needs them?)

No. In my opinion, the Beeb’s relentless demonisation of Israel in general corrals people into the opinion that Israel is inherently racist and malevolent and therefore conclude that Israel must be guilty of persecuting Christians. Say no more. “We’ll lay the foundations; your imagination will do the rest.” In other words, I assumed that accusations of that kind are implicit, not explicit.

But that was before I saw this on BBC Watch, and as one of the btl commenters asserts: “…Christians in Israel are about the safest that the Christian community can be anywhere in the Middle East…” I hadn’t known about Jonny Diamond on TWATO then, but I know now. 

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I’ll just mention another item, again very belatedly.  Before Christmas - (around 17th December) I thought I heard Frankie Boyle reporting from Lebanon. Of course, it was actually Martin Patience describing some mysterious digger activity that he could see taking place in the distance, over in Israel. 

It was Hezbollah’s tunnels of course, being de-activated by the IDF. You know, the tunnels? Hezbollah’s attack tunnels that the whole wide world, apart from Martin Patience in Lebanon, are aware of? 

“Israel says,” began Martin Patience - as if not quite sure of the veracity of anything Israel says, or, for that matter, the existence of the tunnels.  Ok, so maybe being physically in Lebanon, one wouldn’t get the full picture. But he’s a reporter. He’s supposed to know what’s going on. Oh well, it must be easy to go to Lebanon and see only the good things like our smiley friend Ade Adeptan of The Travel Show who went there and didn’t notice Hezbollah at all. He must have missed The Hezbollah Museum, a well-known Lebanese tourist attraction. You know, the place where Simon Reeve went the other day. Instead, Ade spent some considerable time admiring a tourist attraction called Moussa Castle. 

 “How long did it take your favah to build this hideous castle?“ Ade Adepitan enquired of Ziad al Maamari, son of Moussa al Maamari who built it all himself. A lifetime’s achievement. 

(I did paraphrase, obvs.)

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Talking of venerable Scottish comedians, I liked Billy Connolly’s programme Made in Scotland.

He has mellowed and, I don’t know, matured and gone all philosophical.  Sorry that he’s ill. I have to admit, I used to find his gratuitous swearing a massive turn-off. Also, I’m not that keen on ‘stand-up” where ‘standing up’ is literally off the agenda, and furious pacing up and down the stage is the order of the day. It gets on my nerves and it’s often not pretty. Please be still! 

Anyway, at a certain stage, Billy Connolly discovered that he didn’t need to say anything amusing other than “fuck” to get a laugh out of the audience, and he got lazy. Strutting around swearing is not worthy. Not creative. However - there was a section in his Made in Scotland programme where he said something perceptive about swearing, which I really do get. Swearing can be witty, creative and uniquely expressive. ‘Jesus suffering fuck’ was an example. It’s the word ‘suffering’ that brings the expression to life and lights it up somehow. I appreciate the subtlety of that; the difference between an almost poetic verbal ejaculation and merely startling the audience with an expletive for a cheap laugh.  Poetic swearing is the kind of swearing I applaud.

Sorry I’ve lumped all these topics under the same roof., but I’m in a hurry.

Who's telling the truth: the BBC or social media?

This morning's Today opened to the following main headline from Justin Webb:

Donald Trump says he intends to keep parts of Obamacare, the health reforms that led to millions of Americans getting health insurance for the first time - a policy he had said he wanted to abolish. 

The following news bulletin continued the theme:

The President-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, who campaigned vigorously on a pledge to scrap Barack Obama's signature healthcare reforms, has said he may now keep elements of the policy. Mr Trump had repeatedly vowed to repeal the legislation, which has allowed millions of poorer Americans to obtain health insurance, on the first day of his presidency.

Wyre Davies's report began:

For Donald Trump on the pre-election campaign trail scrapping President Obama's Affordable Care Bill, or Obamacare, was a key policy priority. It was a programme that, at his packed rallies, Mr Trump repeatedly called a "disaster".

Donald Trump: Real change begins with immediately repealing and replacing Obamacare. 

With too much government interference in the healthcare industry, argued Trump supporters and Republican leaders in Congress, they agreed Obamacare should be repealed. But in his first post-election interview for the CBS 60 Minutes programme there were signs that Mr Trump's stance on Obamacare may already be softening.

CBS interviewer: Are you going to make sure that people with pre-[existing] conditions are still covered?

Donald Trump: Yes, because it happens to be one of the strongest assets...

CBS interviewer (interrupting): You're going to keep that?

Donald Trump: ...also, the children living with their parents for an extended period, we're going to...

CBS interviewer (interrupting): You're going to keep that?

Donald Trump: ...very much try and keep that. It adds costs but it's very much something we're going to try and keep.

Then John Humphrys and Matthew Price went through the same thing again, with John H. beginning by saying:

One of Donald Trump's many promises - threats, if you prefer - was to get rid of President Obama's healthcare plan. Now he seems to be suggesting he won't - at least not entirely.

Matthew P. echoed this saying Obamacare is: 

...something Donald Trump said throughout the campaign he would repeal and replace if he became president. He called Obamacare a "disaster". Well now, in his first interview since we know he will be the next president, he has said actually perhaps he won't completely repeal and replace it.

All of this, of course, makes it look as if Donald Trump had duped his supporters over Obamacare and was performing a cynical post-election U-turn. When I heard the news this morning I thought, "Well, that didn't take long!"

Then, reading other sites and tweets about this morning's Today, I kept spotting comments saying that the media (including the BBC) were lying about the story and spinning it to make Mr Trump look bad ("Trump agreeing that some parts of his health plan will be similar to some parts of Obama's makes him a liar, apparently"). Others said that the CBS interview actually showed Mr Trump being consistent.

So who to trust: the BBC or some commenters on social media?

Well, if you watch the CBS interview you'll see it continue like this:

CBS interviewer: And there's going to be a period, if you repeal it and before you replace it, when millions of people are going to lose...
Donald Trump (interrupting): We're going to do it simultaneously. It will be just fine. That's what I do. I do a good job. You know, I mean, I know how to do this stuff. We're going to repeal it and replace it. And we're not going to have, like, a two-day period and we're not going to have a two-year period where there's nothing. It will be repealed and replaced, and we'll know. And it will be great healthcare for much less money.

That does sound as if he's still saying what he said during the campaign, but it's the earlier bit that suggests he might have duped his voters - as least from the way it's being reported. 

According to the BBC (and the US media), Mr Trump appeared to be doing a U-turn here by saying he will "now keep elements of the policy" [as Today put it] - namely over pre-[existing] conditions and children living with their parents for an extended period. So, by keeping those two elements of Obamacare, the BBC told us, maybe he "actually perhaps won't completely repeal and replace it" [as Matthew Price put it].

The snag here is that if you Google 'Trump health pre-existing conditions' and 'Trump health children living with their parents' you discover that these are things Mr Trump had said before, months ago.

Take this hostile report from the Huffington Post in May:

Clovis said, however, a Trump administration would consider keeping the portion of the law that allows children under the age of 26 to stay on their parents’ insurance. 

He said they would also consider keeping the provision that prohibits insurance companies from rejecting applicants simply because they have pre-existing conditions.

Or this CNN report from March:

On the campaign trail, Donald Trump proudly said he supports health care policies that Republicans don't usually embrace. 

Over the past few months, he said he wants to protect people with pre-existing conditions and likes the individual mandate requiring everyone to get health insurance.

So what are the BBC and the US media up to here? Why are they suggesting that President-elect Trump has changed his policy when he actually seems to be sticking with with his pre-election policy? 

I can't see what Donald Trump is saying in that CBS interview that's any different to what he was saying before the election. Can you?

Am I missing something here? Or are the BBC either (a) so biased against Trump or (b) so ridiculously bad at doing proper journalism these days that they have completely misreported this story? And, if so, why are no other BBC journalists pointing it out?

Wyre Davies reprimanded by the BBC Trust

The BBC Trust has censured their Middle East correspondent Wyre Davies for a tweet he made last November, during Operation Pillar of Defence. They found that he breached accuracy guidelines in this tweet:

 "In this 'limited operation' at least 13 Palestinians and 3 Israelis have been killed - nearly all civilians. #Gaza". 

As a report in the Independent puts it, "Four of the 13 Palestinians were later identified as civilians, with the others being militants."

The BBC Trust has now called on the BBC to have a good, hard look at the use of Twitter by BBC staff and, among other recommendations, to think about deleting past inaccurate tweets. (What about tweets that seem to breach impartiality though?)

The BBC's reporting on Twitter during Operation Pillar of Defence left much to be desired, and several other tweets by senior BBC reporters struck BBC Watch and others as having breached the BBC's accuracy guidelines too. Only this one got censured by the BBC Trust though. 

Still, it's a step forward. 

The Two Faces of Tunisia

Douglas Murray has written a thought-provoking post about the 'Arab Winter' over at The Spectator. Its starting point is the man Sue and I have been keeping a careful eye on for some two years now, ever since we both heard his daughter being courted by Paddy O'Connell's Broadcasting House back in January 2011. He's Sheikh Rachid al-Ghannouchi, the guiding light behind post-revolutionary Tunisia's election-winning Islamist party, Ennahda. 

Mr. Murray is scathing about Britain's role in helping his rise to power and goes on to describe the sheikh's influence on the North African country in this way:

Since returning to Tunisia this Brotherhood leader and leading Hamas fan, has – through his leadership of the major Brotherhood party in the coalition – helped to lead Tunisia down the road of Islamic fascism.

Douglas Murray reports that Mr. Ghannouchi has recently taken part in a Tunisia-based ‘International Conference in Support of Palestinian Prisoners in the Jails of the Zionist Occupation' - a conference so closely tied to Hamas that the Palestinian Authority (Mahmoud Abbas's lot) were only invited as ‘observers’, provoking them to boycott the event in response to this snub. Having sat alongside a convicted Hamas terrorist who helped orchestrate the murder of eight Israeli children in a suicide bombing on a pizza restaurant, Sheikh Rachid went on to make the following statements:

‘Every day, the ummah is getting closer to the liberation of Jerusalem and Palestine…’

'Allah, permit me to pray at the Al-Aqsa mosque, or [grant] me martyrdom at Jerusalem’s doorstep.’

Not very moderate remarks, are they? And yet 'moderate' is the word that keeps getting applied to Rachid al-Ghannouchi and his Ennahda party - not least by the BBC. And that's been going on for some time.

Shamelessly plugging an old comment of mine from a Biased BBC Open Thread from the early days of the 'Arab Spring', he's how I heard the afore-mentioned appearance by Mr. al-Ghannouchi's daughter at the time:

Craig has commented 16 January 2011,19:54:40

George R's predicted likely Islamist takeover of Tunisia may be about the get the BBC's blessing if this morning's Broadcasting House (Radio 4) is anything to go by.     

The programme put in a call to the daughter of one of the exiled opposition leaders and, almost inevitably, it was an Islamist politician: "Yusra Khreeji is the daughter of Rached Ghannouchi, the chairman of the Tunisian moderate Islamist En Nahda movement".     

    

When the likes of Paddy O'Connell call an Islamist movement "moderate", we know from experience that this probably needs taking with a large pinch of salt.  Does a "moderate" man really believe that Zionists are plotting to take over the world? Sheikh Ghannouchi does:       

"The Zionist project wants to inherit our Ummah and inherit the West itself. It wants to lead the world. After (the natural shift of) the center of civilization from London to Washington, it wants to move it to Orshalim (Jerusalem) and destroy all other civilizational and religious projects we have today."     

http://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast/ghanush.htm     

Paddy O'Connell asked Ms Khreeji nothing about her father's ideology.    

 Sue was soon on the case too:

Toppling Tyrants

  By Sue | January 29, 2011

Throughout the uprisings in Tunisia, Jordan, Yemen, and of course Egypt, the BBC has avoided raising the alarm over the danger, some say inevitability, that when repressive dictatorships topple, there’s a vacuum, and in Muslim lands, Islamists are waiting in the wings, poised and raring to go. The BBC aint bovvered.

Political turmoil in Lebanon poses a serious threat to the stability of the region, but in an erratic tribute to impartiality, the BBC reports the utterances of Hassan Nasrallah, being scrupulously careful to avoid taking sides.

Kevin Connolly thinks the appointment of a pro-Hezbollah PM is a way out of Lebanon’s immediate political crisis, with the caveat: “It is an uncomfortable outcome for the US, which denounces Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation and reflects the growing regional influence of the movement’s sponsors, Iran and Syria.”

The Syria/Iran infiltration of Lebanon may not worry the BBC, but then they wouldn’t be worried by the content of this article by Michael J Totten.

“Hezbollah had 10,000 rockets before the war in 2006. Now it has between 40,000 and 50,000. Some are stored in warehouses. Others are hidden away a few at a time in private homes.”

Hezbollah positions itself amongst houses and mosques because they know the Israelis cannot retaliate without killing civilians.

“Its fighters and officers wear no uniforms. Only rarely do they carry guns out in the open.”

The BBC should be very alarmed at what is happening in Lebanon, not complacently telling us that the political crisis is over.

The Foreign Office is reported as stating that they have no objection to dictators being overthrown, but they’d prefer it if they were replaced by secular rather than religious governments. For example, “democratically,” as in Lebanon. What? Are my ears deceiving me?

Does this mean that the Foreign Office thinks that Hezbollah, having murdered the Lebanese Prime Minister, refused to accept responsibility for the murder, promised to cut off the hand of any accuser, embedded a massive stockpile of arms within civilian areas and in mosques, not to mention being dedicated to the destruction of Israel – does the foreign office or a spokesperson thereof, really hold Hezbollah’s roughshod trampling over the Lebanese government as an example of democracy, desirable for Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen et al ? And to add insult to that salty wound William Hague has gone off to suck up to Syria.

I wrote here about the BBC’s decisive action over a film produced by Christopher Mitchell. They abandoned it.