Big Cat Diary

Sir Bill Cash (centre). Kate Hoey (bottom left). And the rest.

When it comes to parliamentary select committees BBC high-ups must fear Bill Cash's European Scrutiny Committee most of all. 

In the last parliamentary session it contained many a Leave-backing lion, ready and willing to sink both teeth and claws into any passing BBC editor hoping to graze peacefully on the Westminster savanna.

Well, the committee's new post-election complexion is now known and I'm guessing that BBC bigwigs will be even more loath to appear before it than before, simply because there are even more lions this time around. 

As 'panels' go this is like a mirror image (or a photographic negative if you prefer) of the stereotypical BBC Remain-biased 'panel'. It's 10-6 for Brexiteers:

Sir William Cash - Leave
Douglas Chapman - Remain
Geraint Davies - Remain
Steve Double - Leave
Richard Drax - Leave
Marcus Fysh - Leave
Kate Green - Remain
Kate Hoey - Leave
Kelvin Hopkins - Leave
Darren Jones - Remain
David Jones - Leave
Stephen Kinnock - Remain
Andrew Lewer - Leave
Michael Tomlinson - Leave
David Warburton - Leave
Dr Philippa Whitford - Remain

Admittedly many of the lions - and the zebra - aren't well know to the public, and I must admit to having only heard of seven of them, but they seem, from Googling around, to be passionate types (from both sides), so it could well be quite a feisty committee.

If, after my big build-up, BBC executives actually end up escaping with a gumming then these are the very people we should hold responsible for failing to hold the BBC to account over their Brexit coverage.

Committees and Panels

For those who are hoping that Parliament might closely scrutinise the BBC's output for bias over their Brexit coverage then the new composition of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee will probably prove a deep disappointment. 

It's eleven members all opposed Brexit in the EU referendum (though one of its members, Julian Knight, has subsequently taken up cudgels against the BBC's negative reporting of Brexit).

That almost makes BBC panels look balanced. 

Julia in the Remainers' Den

Talking of which, Julia Hartley-Brewer raised that very point about BBC panels on this week's edition of Question Time. The famous David Dimbleby naturally leaped in instantly (in the manner of all BBC presenters whenever the BBC is criticised):

Julia Hartley-Brewer: The reality is, that's not what the British people want, that's why people like me...and I note, once again, that I'm the sole Leaver on the BBC panel...
David Dimbleby: (interrupting) How often are you the sole Leaver on a BBC panel?
Julia Hartley-Brewer: Most of the time...
David Dimbleby: (interrupting) Every time you've been on this programme you've been with Nigel Farage as far as I can see. (Laughter from audience).
Julia Hartley-Brewer: I've never been on the panel with Nigel Farage.
David Dimbleby: Have you not? Have you not?
Julia Hartley-Brewer: Never. Never.

Checking back, Julia has been on Question Time ten times, first appearing in 2004, and, yes, David Dimbleby was wrong. She has never been on the panel with Nigel Farage.

That said, in the past ten years she's only once before been the sole Leaver on the QT panel (8 May 2015) and in the run-up to the referendum (25 February 2016) was actually on a panel where Leavers outnumbered Remainers.

But there are plenty of other BBC panels she's been on besides QT panels. She could be right about those.

Impressionistic view of The Day After

These are just personal impressions.They’re offered in the true spirit of ‘views my own’ .

When all you hear from our MPs is: “we won’t let the terrorists win. We’ll carry on our daily business as usual” you might not expect torrents of cliches belched out in churchy, reverential tones by MPs of all shapes and sizes to totally occupy parliamentary business for a whole morning. Get on with parliamentary business then, why don’t you?

Theresa May set an (almost) appropriate tone, which was quite enough. Hearing MP after MP reciting a speech that is virtually identical to the previous speeches of right honourable friend after right honourable friend, one loses hope. Even those that desperately tried (and failed) to add an original thought to the recipe managed to trip themselves up.

When Jeremy Corbyn tried to commiserate with the injured French schoolchildren he couldn’t pronounce Concarneau. Then he announced that we wouldn’t be ‘cowered’, as if he was studiously avoiding the word ‘cowed’ with its unfortunate cattle resonances. (Not that he actually was doing anything quite so clever. He just thought ‘cowered’ was the right word.)

Everyone insisted they wouldn’t be divided and that terrorists wouldn’t make us change our ways of life. Keep calm and carry on and don’t mention the war.

Theresa May spoke about the shared values of free people, but she made it sound like ‘three people”, which made me wonder whether I was dreaming or whether it had actually turned into a full-blown farce.

Michael Fallon said something about the pointlessness or fruitlessness  of murdering “completely innocent people”, apparently forgetting that one of ISIS’s pet objectives is putting the kibosh on tourism. Remember Tunisia?

I wondered if Andrew Mitchell felt any pangs. Surely he might think it puts the whole policemen-gates-bike pantomime into perspective.

Laura K was reprimanded by a former security services expert on the Daily Politics for making prematurely disparaging remarks about the police. Her scoop about NICs must have gone to her head. 

The last thing I want to hear is Harriet Harman yakking on about Islamophobia.

There’s a virtue-signal graphic doing the rounds, which I wholeheartedly approve of - but with reservations about  No 4. where the image from Tel Aviv ‘lit up in solidarity’ is concerned.

 I found it quite moving. Particularly because here in the UK we obviously aren’t ready to reciprocate that sentiment.

Why the BBC doesn't monitor itself for bias

One of the less-reported things about the European Scrutiny Committee's encounter with the three top BBC bosses was that it discussed something close to our hearts: monitoring bias. 

What I took away from it was that after the Wilson Report into the BBC's (pro-) EU coverage, the BBC had pledged to put some form of monitoring into place but that, having tried doing so, has now abandoned monitoring again and won't be re-introducing it in the run-up to the EU referendum.

Sir Bill Cash, repeatedly citing News-watch's close monitoring of the BBC's EU coverage, argued that the BBC ought to be carrying out such monitoring and making its finding publicly available for people to check. He wants a Hansard-style logging system, comparable to News-watch's extensive archive of transcriptions, and, given its huge budget and sheer size, wanted to know why the BBC isn't doing so?  

The most concise statement of the BBC's position came from David Jordan, the BBC's head of editorial policy and standards:

I think we gave up the monitoring that the chairman is talking about at the time because we found it to be actually very unhelpful and not helpful at all in even deciding and defining whether we were impartial. 

And I think in the context of other appearances and elections we've discovered the same thing. For example, if you're covering an election how do you define somebody who's on a particular party but it opposing something that party is doing at the time they were appearing on the radio? Are they, as it were, in that party's column or are they in another column that tells you what they were doing? It becomes very, very confusing and doesn't necessarily sum up the nuances and differences that exist in election campaigns in our experience. 

So that was the reason I think why we gave it up. 

It was also very, very expensive and time-consuming too. 

And we thought that allowing editors to be essentially responsible for impartiality in their output and having an overall view which we get through a series of meetings and discussions which take place in the BBC, were a better way to ensure we achieved impartiality that through simple number-counting.

I have to say I laughed when he said that such monitoring had proved to be "actually very unhelpful and not helpful at all". Cynically, I thought, "I bet it wasn't - especially if it came up with the 'wrong' results" (a bit like the Balen report?)

I didn't buy his example either. For me, it's hardly rocket science to, say, note in one column that Kate Hoey is a Labour Party representative and in another column to note that she's anti-EU. I can't see why that would be "very, very confusing". 

Also, I don't buy the it's "very, very expensive and time-consuming too" argument either. If a small number of people at News-watch can monitor and transcribe every EU-related interview on major BBC programmes over many, many years then surely an organisation of the size and resources of the BBC can run something similar for its major news bulletins and flagship programmes too. It's not that difficult. I work full-time and still managed to monitor every political interview on all the BBC's main current affairs programmes for nine months (in 2009-10) - and at no expense whatsoever! 

Also, if you simply rely on editorial judgement - on both the small and large scales (in individual programmes and at senior editorial meetings) - then many individual biases could result and multiply. In an organisation containing so many like-minded people as the BBC, those biases would doubtless head in the same direction and become self-reinforcing. Therefore, they probably won't be spotted as biases at all - merely sensible, impartial BBC thinking. Who then would be able to point out that it isn't being impartial after all?

Given that many people think that this kind of groupthink the problem and that, as a result, the BBC are blind to their own biases, asking us to trust the judgements of BBC editors en masse isn't likely to reassure us....

....which is where what David Jordan derisively calls "number-crunching" comes in. 

If over a year of, say, Newsnight there are 60 editions that deal with the UK-EU relationship in some way. Say 55 of those editions featured a pro-Stay guest but only 35 featured a pro-Leave guest, then number-crunching surely would surely raise a serious question about the programme's impartiality? 

If, say, 9 of those pro-Leave guests came from UKIP and the other 26 came from the Conservatives but no pro-Leave Labour or Green guests appeared then that would also surely indicate a serious bias?

Is it really beyond the ability of programme editors to count and record such figures - and to then make them publicly available?

If their figures show exceptional impartiality (45 pro-Stay, 45 pro-Leave guests), then they will surely win more people over, wouldn't they? 

What would they have to lose?


Update: The full transcript of the committee meeting is now available (h/t David Keighley).

Scrutiny

Apologies for the lack of posts in recent days. Sue's away and I've been otherwise engaged. (Some of the perils of blogging!)

One of the big BBC-related stories of the past week has been the appearance of Lord Hall, James Harding and David Jordan at parliament's European Scrutiny Committee discussing the BBC's policies in the light of the upcoming EU referendum.

Two parts of the discussion have dominated the media's reporting of it:

The first was that "all BBC journalists" will be sent for "mandatory training" so that they become "as well-informed as possible of the issues around the workings of the institutions of the EU and its relationship to the UK". 

(So that's John Humphrys, James Naughtie, Evan Davis, Kirsty Wark, Katya Adler, Jeremy Bowen, etc?)

The second concerned the meeting's most heated moment - when Jacob Rees-Mogg confronted David Jordan (director of editorial policy and standards) over EU funding for the BBC - the reporting about which has been somewhat confusing (to my mind).

Mr Jordan began by replying that the BBC "doesn't take money from the EU" and that the organisation that does take money from the EU (£35 million), Media Action, is "owned by the BBC" but "independent". 

On being pushed further (over a FoI request by The Spectator into EU funding for the BBC), however, things got murker and Mr Jordan and Mr Rees-Mogg began to fall out:

David Jordan: There are two things you were referring to - the question that you asked last time, which was in relation to Media Action, so I answered...

Jacob Rees-Mogg: Well, I wasn't actually. Last time I was asking about EU funds broadly, not Media Action.   

David Jordan: Well, it's that £35 million figure which you quoted which relates to the Media Action... 

Jacob Rees-Mogg: But you replied about Media Action when I was asking about all EU funding....

Having watched their earlier exchange again, Mr Rees-Mogg is correct. He didn't ask about Media Action or "quote" that £35 million figure earlier. Here's how their discussion started:

Jacob Rees-Mogg: I just want to go back to a question we came to the last time you came to the committee, on the money that the BBC receives from the EU, which I know isn't huge in your overall budget but which is still some tens of millions. One of the standard contractual terms when the EU hands out money is that those receiving money won't say or do anything damaging to the interests of the EU. Does the BBC agree to those standard contractual terms and will they take money from the EU between now and the referendum? 

David Jordan: The BBC as a public service broadcaster doesn't take money from the EU. The organisation to which you're referring that take money from the EU is an organisation called Media Action and that's an independent part of the BBC with independent trustees........

The committee's chairman, however, only added to the confusion here by wrongly ascribing that "quote" about the £35 million to Mr Rees-Mogg himself shortly after, so maybe Mr Jordan's apparent confusion on that point is more understandable:

William Cash: Why do you need to receive the £30 million I think that Jacob referred to...?

The disagreements continued, however, and David Jordan, in answer to pushing on that Spectator FoI request, said that independent companies who make programmes for the BBC also receive some EU funding and that the EU also funds some other things, such as translating programmes made in English into other EU languages (as seemed to have been the case with the highly controversial pro-EU mockumentary The Great European Disaster Movie). 

Jacob Rees-Mogg was not happy:

Jacob Rees-Mogg: Look, you are now giving me a really different answer from the one you gave before. I never mentioned Media Action. I only mentioned EU funding. You gave an answer about overseas aid and now you're saying the BBC does receive money to help with some of its programming and does receive money to translate some of its programming and you are therefore signed up to the contractual agreements from the EU that require you not to damage its interests. Why didn't you give the full answer the first time.

David Jordan: I gave a very full answer about Media Action and now I'm giving a very full answer about how other funds are occasionally available for other programmes to make use of... 

Jacob Rees-Mogg:...which you denied in response to my first question. 

William Cash then told them to calm down and moved the discussion on - which is unfortunate, I think, as many issues were still left dangling in the air over the EU money that isn't spent on Media Action. Mr Rees-Mogg still seemed unclear about that. I'm certainly unclear about it. 

And does the BBC sign up to that contractual agreement with the EU when it accepts the funding for innocuous-sounding tasks like translations and those other aspects of programming (whatever they may be exactly), apparently always involving independent companies? 

And what if those independent companies only produce pro-EU programmes for the BBC (like The Great European Disaster Movie?) How would that free the BBC from charges of pro-EU bias? Does their independence' and the apparent fact that the EU money they get goes on things like translations really get the BBC off the hook here?

Such questions need a lot more scrutiny.

Ground rules

(h/t the ever-vigilant David Keighley of News-watch and Conservative Woman)...

Parliament held a debate this week on matters European referendum related, and issues relating to BBC bias (naturally) arose. 

'Shouldn't the BBC be obliged to be independently monitored during the forthcoming election?' some asked (including Bill Cash and John Redwood). 

Indeed, they then pushed for legislation to 'make it so' (as Captain Jean-Luc Dehaene of the Starship European Enterprise might have said). 

You can read the whole thing on Hansard (and it's surprisingly fascinating), but I'd just like to focus on one paragraph from Bill Cash's speech: 

It is rather strange that the BBC was somewhat dismissive of News-watch, an organisation that runs a comprehensive analysis of all news programmes - who goes on, what questions are asked and the whole conduct of the BBC output. I am afraid that it seems to me that the BBC was somewhat dismissive of that, to say the least. I believe from what I have heard that the BBC does not in fact have its own monitoring system. If it does not have its own monitoring system, how is anybody to know whether or not it has been impartial, because that is like looking for a needle in a haystack? We do not have the facilities to be able to conduct the analysis for ourselves, but the BBC has £5 billion and I would have thought that was the least it could do.

That's always seemed to me to be a vital point, and one that the BBC keeps being allowed to slither away from.

Being publicly-funded, the BBC ought to have a system in place to monitor its 'impartiality' and that monitoring should be transparent. 

It doesn't have such a system in place though, it seems (or if it does the BBC is so opaque that no one knows about it!)

Why?

I think it's safe to say that the BBC's 'impartiality' will be monitored more closely than ever before in the run-up to the EU referendum, which is all for the good. 

The more people do such monitoring (thoroughly and fairly) the better, because the BBC has such a huge output that a small number of people watching it simply won't be enough.

Though I don't intend to keep banging on about BBC bias forever (or even beyond the next few years), I intend to stick around long enough to play my part, but things will need arranging so that we aren't all looking in the same places. 

And rules about scrupulous honesty must be accepted by all. If any set of results show no bias (or, unlikely as it is, bias in the opposite direction) we must say so. 

The BBC Scrutiny Committee

The Guardian and the Telegraph disagree about the House of Commons' European Scrutiny Committee's report on the European debate - especially over the committee's criticism of the BBC's coverage of Europe. 

For the Telegraph it's about the "scathing" criticisms and "deep concerns" of the MPs about the BBC's impartiality (or lack of it) over the issue. For the Guardian it's about the BBC "pushing back" against the MPs' encroachment on its "independence". 

As for the BBC's own online report on the MPs' findings, well, it chooses to make the report's general findings about "the lack of an EU debate" its focus. The section on the BBC begins a considerable way down the report, presents the BBC top managers' statements first, then gives the committee's view before ending with a statement from a BBC spokesman. It uses (without quotations marks) the sub-headline 'Independence'. 

For those who want to read the report for itself (and the BBC article fails to link to it) you can find it here. 

For those who don't here are some extracts from it: 

78. We remain concerned following that session that Lord Hall did not seem, in our view, to appreciate fully the limitations on the BBC editorial independence imposed by Article of the Charter, the Framework Agreement and the general law. We were glad to note that Lord Hall stated that on “impartiality, I think that is just fundamental. I really do.” However, we were not satisfied with his responses as to the balance to be struck in delivering that impartiality in respect of different views on the EU issue, and we challenged him that few voices were heard from those with strong views criticising the EU among backbenchers, including from the Labour Party.

80. Overall, following our questioning, we were not satisfied that Lord Hall was sufficiently clear about the structure of the oversight he exercised over those who worked under him as Editor-in-Chief. We were also concerned that neither he nor James Harding sufficiently appreciated that the issue of the EU is not only a party-political, but a cross-party issue for backbenchers.

82. We are gravely concerned that despite our clear message in the session that we would have expected that the BBC would give full coverage to the proceedings attended by Lord Hall and James Harding, apart from a broadcast on BBC Parliament after the session and a short summary of the proceedings on the BBC website, there was to our knowledge no news commentary, analysis or interviews on any of the mainstream programmes of the BBC of the proceedings. We note in this context our continued concerns that there was similarly little coverage of our seminal report on European Scrutiny Reform of November 2013. We regard these failures as inexplicable, and in our view they could be construed as a breach of the BBC’s duties under its Charter and Framework Agreement, and particularly in respect of its public purposes. Furthermore, we find them difficult to understand given Lord Hall’s repeated statements of how seriously he took the issue of impartiality, and the steps he referred to in his oral evidence of how attention is paid to the “flow of information” and a “common response”, with many including daily) meetings between editors and senior managers.

86. We are not yet convinced that the BBC’s training adequately equips BBC editors, correspondents, producers and interviewers to devise the questions and coverage to reflect all sides of the EU equation, in accordance with the BBC Charter and its obligations. We were told by Lord Hall that the organisation is “very reflective. It thinks very hard about what it is doing … The culture, I think, is one of questioning”, and on the question of the complexity of the issues in question, we were told that “the challenge is to say ‘this is complex; it matters. Now we, as journalists, must try to get to grips with it”. In our view a good deal more analysis is required.

90. In summary, we still remain deeply concerned about the manner in which the BBC treats EU issues. Our witnesses seemed to be more intent on defending and asserting their own opinions, mindset and interpretation of the obligations under the Charter and Framework Agreement than in whether they had in fact discharged them or whether they had the mindset to carry through their post-Wilson aims. In the interest of the licence fee payers, and the public in general, and in the context of the approaching General Election and a prospective referendum on the EU, and given the fact that the BBC themselves state that 58% of the public look to the BBC for news they trust, we believe that the BBC has a duty under its Charter, Framework Agreement and the general law, and following the Wilson report in particular, to improve substantially the manner in which it treats EU issues.

93. We deeply regret the fact that Lord Hall’s repeated refusals to give oral evidence delayed the session to such an extent that it has not been possible to conduct further work on these issues before the dissolution of Parliament. Our central tenet, regarding the BBC’s coverage of the EU scrutiny process in the House, and EU issues more generally, is that the country’s public service broadcaster must command wide confidence in its coverage of such a sensitive and complex issue. We do not believe that this has been achieved.

Lord Hall doesn't seem to have gone down too well with them, does he?

All-Party Parliamentary inquiry into Antisemitism

(h/t BBC Watch)

The results of an All-Party Parliamentary inquiry  into Antisemitism, commissioned by Labour MP John Mann, were published last week. Parts of it pertain to the media, including the BBC.

Here are some extracts:

On the particular role of the BBC in whipping up anger against Israel:

Despite only two articles [one in The Daily Mirror and one in The Lancet]  having been highlighted as problematic, there was an overwhelming consensus amongst those that submitted evidence or gave personal testimony at the regional meetings we held, that the media, and in particular the BBC, had a role to play in whipping up anger through emotive content in the news and analysis that was broadcast. There was certainly a significant focus on the conflict. Using various analytical tools, Dr Ben Gidley found that there had been particularly intense coverage of protests and demonstrations against Israel and the conflict in general when compared to other countries and conflicts. He argued that the excessive focus on Israel in the media allows for inappropriate language to be used.

On references to the 'Jewish lobby':

References to and interest in the ‘Jewish lobby’ was not only a feature of political debate. One article in the Independent [by the paper's Whitehall correspondent Oliver Wright] referenced, in respect of its policies on Israel and Palestine, the behaviour of Jewish voters for and donors to the Labour party. This “extended the frame” said Professor Feldman [Professor David Feldman of the Pears Institute for the study of Antisemitism, Birkbeck, University of London], beyond the influence of formally constituted lobby groups. Whilst there were unattributed quotes in the article, the treatment of Jews as an undifferentiated body, united in their support for Israel and collectively determined to punish the Labour party” said Feldman is a caricature which could be labelled antisemitic for evoking a stereotype of Jewish people being politically active “but taking account of Jewish interests only”. Professor Feldman does however argue that this would be a harsh judgement given it is “one example of the widespread tendency to generalise when discussing ethnic or national voting patterns”. We were warned however of “the capacity of this sort of article to generate troubling stereotypes” given a reference to ‘the Jewish lobby’ [by Tim Willcox] was made when the article was discussed on the BBC News Channel. We note that the language used to collectively describe Jews [again by Tim Willcox] was raised again in this regard in early 2015.

Of course lobbying for Israel is performed by groups both inside and outside parliament in the same way many groups operate lobbies for any number of countries. That they seek to influence policy is a legitimate part of our democratic system. So too, the Jewish community has a wide range of opinions about the conflict as we have set out earlier. Leading figures and commentators in public life must be clear that it is inaccurate to use the term ‘Jewish lobby’ which used in this context is antisemitic and that there is nothing disreputable about the existence of an Israel lobby. Sadly, antisemitic stereotypes of Jewish influence and dual loyalty, albeit not as prolific as in other periods of modern British history, were used during Operation Protective Edge and afterwards and as Professor Feldman put it, emerged “from all points of the political spectrum”. 

On Jon Snow's personal report about Gaza:

Whilst it was certainly heartfelt and in no way antisemitic, we cannot ignore the frustration, upset and shock that was registered with us in particular about Jon Snow’s personal report about Gaza that was shared so widely online. Mr. Snow has a right to share his feelings and to blog in whatever personal capacity he wishes. It is however cynical at best for Channel 4 to have filmed an emotive piece in the studio and to distribute it online in what appears to have been an attempt to avoid regulatory oversight by Ofcom. This sets a worrying precedent with wide implications beyond the Israel-Gaza war and should further such incidents occur, we recommend that Ofcom look at the structures in place to properly regulate such content.

Bad day at the HoC

I’ve just spent the best part of the late afternoon and evening watching the debate in the HoC. Obviously, they voted in favour of recognising a Palestinian state. 

Why some MPs thought they had the right to opine on something they clearly knew next to nothing about let alone vote on it, is unclear. Several of them declared that they had been bombarded with e-mails from their constituents begging them to vote for the motion.

Why these constituents thought it was their business to opine on something they knew next to nothing about, let alone write e-mails imploring their MP to vote for it, is unclear. Well, let’s rephrase that. They didn’t know they knew nothing about it. It was an unknown unknown. In fact they thought they knew very much about it indeed, because they’d seen the pictures on the BBC. Seen the pictures, read the book and got the T shirt.

Your BBC has diligently brought them the information they were so keen to share with their MP, the pictures from Gaza. That’s all they  needed to know. Of course the BBC has also brought them several other Pollyanna-ish ideas, in particular, that Mahmoud Abbas is a moderate and a true partner for peace.  

The incursions into Gaza, the separation wall, the checkpoints, the bulldozing of innocent Palestinian homes, the brutality of Israel are all factors that these MPs, (though all ardent supporters of Israel’s right to exist) are some of the reasons why this vote is a no brainer.

Will it make any difference, they wondered, since it was not much more than a symbolic gesture?  Would it aid the peace process? Yes, they insisted. It would be honourable and it would make us proud.   

So, the atmosphere in the house was 'sanctimonious bear-pit'. An overwhelming number of the usual Palestinian activists were there, plus a number of new faces. New to me.

The architect of the motion, Labour MP Grahame Morris  and several other north-eastern and regional  MPs spoke of their support for Israel in the good old-fashioned ‘some of my best friends’ tradition, before hammering home their romantic, idealised, Disney-like empathy with the suffering of the Palestinians and their desire for a state, and their desire for peace, and Mahmoud Abbas’s desire for a statehood, and his desire for peace. 

Several self-declared actual Friends of Israel spent time outlining their long-standing Friends of Israel credentials before declaring that Israel has gone too far, lost their support,  built too many settlements, acted disproportionately, killed too many children, bombed too many schools, too may hospitals. 

People kept intervening with daft remarks. One old duffer stood up and said angrily that some Palestinians still had the keys to the front doors of homes they were savagely kicked out of in 48! 

Another stood up and said he’d watched The Gatekeepers on BBC 2 last night, proving that The Gatekeepers really did give succour to suckers. 

Two or three people demonstrated that they ‘got it’. Robert Halfon, Louise Ellman and Ian Paisley Jr.

Louise Ellman is not an effective speaker. Actually, very few MPs are these days. 

Robert Halfon was good, but while he was speaking there was some unsettling bleating going on in the background. 

Ian Paisley jr. began by thanking people for the kind condolences he’d received after the recent death of his father, which lent him a bit of respect. He also had the NI credentials of having ‘been there and done that.’ He spoke against the motion.

The above three and one other were fighting a losing battle. Misconceptions, untruths, historical inaccuracies myths and outright lies slipped smoothly by, one after another. 

Allusions were made to the Jewish Lobby, Sweden’s recent decision, 25 other countries had recognised a Palestinian state; all sorts of potential justifications for voting for the motion were put before the nation. 

But there was an elephant in the House, which no one spotted. Well, one man did, towards the end of the debate. Mike Gapes, a Labour MP who has recently voted in favour of ‘action against the Caliphate cult’  - he mentioned  the Islamist factor, the similarity between Isis, Hamas, Islamic Jihad etc. But guess what, it didn’t matter, he too would be voting for parliament to recognise Palestinian statehood.

The thing was, though, that  most of the people who spoke insisted that they had taken an even-handed, purely logical approach. They were in favour of an peaceful solution, in which the Palestinians get self determination (their inalienable right) and Israel gets security. That’s all they want! - “We granted Israel statehood in 1950, so why shouldn’t we do the same for the Palestinians who have suffered for so long?

Why then, if they were purely motivated by a desire for fairplay and cricket, did most of them pepper their speeches with quite vitriolic outpourings against Israel?  

I’d like to give a special mention to Diane Abbot. Even though she said things I found deeply obnoxious, she was hilarious. Her hand-gestures -  sometimes whirling round and round, some times just flapping, were pure burlesque. Those rolling eyes. She’s so funny, but she’s starting to look like a guy in drag. She’d be a fab clown-o-gram; you could hire her for a party. Oh, she’s already at the Labour party.   

A few MPs recognised that Hamas are terrorists, but the consensus was that this symbolic gesture would ‘send a message’ to the cuddly Abbas, the moderate Palestinian leader whose only desire was for statehood alongside Israel, and that this recognition would take the wind out of Hamas’s sails, and everyone would live happily ever after. 

How, one might wonder, did they get it so wrong? 

BBC?

Update:

How did the BBC report yesterday’s debate this morning? 

“MPs voted 274 for the motion and 12 against, but so many MPs stayed away that the result is unlikely to change government policy.”

A more detailed review of these parliamentary antics came a bit later on, when listeners might have assumed that there had been an even-handed discussion. By singling out an equal number of quotes from each ‘side’, listeners who hadn’t watched the actual debate might have been puzzled to hear that there had been such a resounding yes vote.

Having watched it myself I had been wondering who the 12 naughty nay-sayers were, and I was reminded that early on in the debate, a notable speech against the motion was delivered by Sir Malcolm Rifkind. (How could I forget?) (That’s what comes of not taking notes.)

Another omission on my part. I forgot to say that several of the MPs who wished to drive home the point that they were doing this at the behest of their impassioned constituents brought up the well-attended anti-Israel demonstrations as evidence that the whole country is behind them. Not one of them had noticed, obviously, the chants of “Jews to the gas” etc.

I noticed that the BBC included a bizarre quote from the ever-weirder Gerald Kaufman, who was in favour of the motion because he didn’t want to see more antisemitism. “what Israel is doing is unJewish” he said. 

I won’t even start on that concept, its influences an implications.