New Normal

I gather Jeremy Bowen has been snatched from Ukraine to cover Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia. 

I rarely listen to the BBC. I’m finding it increasingly unbearable. I have Radio 4 as the default wake-up alarm, but always have to turn it off in dismay. It’s beyond repair. What is Tim Davie doing? Nothing has changed. People are still calling for the Balen Report to be revealed. As if!

The Jewish Chronicle asks:

Why did BBC ignore 99% of attacks on Israelis?

Meanwhile, the corporation reported 89% of Israel’s responding counter-terror operations

"I’ve been reading a fascinating report from the Israel Security Agency on terror attacks, which took place last month and how these were reported. Or, more accurately, not reported.

There were 189 terror incidents against Israelis in June — which was more than six per day. These included 117 attacks with petrol bombs, 42 with pipe bombs, 16 arson attacks, 11 shootings and two stabbings. There was also a rocket attack directed at the southern city of Ashkelon."

The Muslim narrative has irreversibly taken hold. It’s too late to bring the BBC back to something resembling reasonableness, fairness, and normality.  Antisemitism is the new normal.

Newsbeat disrespects Birmingham, Sopes exits the US, the BBC calls someone 'far-right', actual antisemitism rages, Big Ted and Little Ted criticise the Government and 'Genetically Impartial' former BBC bigwig Helen Boaden resurfaces - Various subjects

I

Oddly, except for passing through Birmingham New Street, I've never been to Birmingham, England's second city [after Lancaster]. 

Having read the Guardian today with their headline 'Three-quarters of BBC Newsbeat staff decline to relocate to Birmingham. Vast majority of youth news service’s 40 employees indicate they will not move to new base in Midlands' [the poor lambs want to stay in London] I'm now tempted to go there sporting a 'The BBC Doesn't Want to Live in Birmingham' t-shirt.

II

Meanwhile, and moving on...

Dame Jon Sopel, the BBC's North America Editor, has some breaking news, tweeting today, ''Some personal news: I’m off.. After 7+ fab years in DC, 3 books, 3 presidents (one kept me busier than others) it’s time to return to the UK and BBC mothership.'' 

This present US president should have been keeping him busy too, but I'm sensing that the loss of the thrill of the hunt and the fun of the easy applause for his endless sarcasm about Donald Trump has sapped the energy of his reporting recently and that the many, manifest failings of the increasingly unpopular and calamitous Biden-Harris administration aren't something he wants to chronicle, especially given Joe Biden's increasingly apparent personal difficulties. 

III

Staying in foreign parts...

Sometimes BBC bias makes life a lot simpler. The Wikipedia article on French presidential hopeful Eric Zemmour goes into agonies over how to label him. Is he 'on the right' or 'conservative right' or 'right-wing' or 'far-right' or 'radical right' or 'Gaullist' or 'Bonapartist'? Academics and media outlets disagree about how to describe him but the BBC has no doubts whatsoever. A single BBC News (UK) tweet last night contained the phrase 'far-right' three times. Anyone like him is always 'far-right' as far as the BBC goes. It's so simple.

IV

M. Zemmour has an Algerian Jewish background, so I'm not sure if the BBC would cast him in the next series of Ridley Road. The non-Jewish main actor who did appear in Ridley Road as a Jew, Eddie Marsan, has been targeted by antisemites thinking that he is Jewish. To quote The Kinks, it's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world.

V

Meanwhile, The Times reports that Baroness Benjamin [Floella from Playschool] isn't happy about some publicly-funded schemes being at risk and wants the Government/tax payers to step in and cough up. She wants to protect BBC funding too. 

What caught my eye is that one of the schemes, the Audio Content Fund, is run by our old friend Helen Boaden, a former director of BBC News. 

Ah yes, 'genetically impartial' Helen! 

Reading the Wikipedia article about her brought back so many memories. including:

Boaden received criticism following the July 7 terror attacks in London when she issued a memo instructing BBC staff not to refer to the perpetrators as terrorists, arguing that the term "can be a barrier rather than aid to understanding". Former BBC reporter Martin Bell was one of those who condemned the memo, accusing the BBC of being "overcautious" and noting that the attackers seemed to meet the definition of terrorists. Writing in The Spectator, Michael Vestey suggested "it's almost as if the BBC is afraid of offending suicide bombers in the Muslim world".

Despite being explicitly criticised in the Pollard Report for handling the Jimmy Savile affair so casually, she continued to thrive at the BBC before leaving and moving on to the likes of the aforementioned scheme and - for some reason - the board of the UK Statistics Authority. You obviously can't keep an ex-BBC high-up down. There are clearly no barriers to her advancement.

Mark his words

Computer problems prevented me posting this a couple of days ago, but there's no time like the present, so...

Charlie, on the Open Thread, noted that BBC Home Editor Mark Easton "does not like the emergency Jihadi legislation one little bit".

As I've said before, I personally think that Mark Easton is the BBC's most seriously biased reporter. He has a propagandist's gift for cleverly loading the language of his reports in such as way as to steer viewers and listeners in the direction he desires. 

In his report on last night's BBC One News at Ten [Craig - well, it was 'last night' when I first wrote this] he could have said this:

This evening, the Government announced emergency legislation to keep new and existing terrorism offenders in prison for longer and with tougher controls on release.

But, being Mark Easton, a loaded word was added:

This evening, the government announced controversial emergency legislation to keep new and existing terrorism offenders in prison for longer and with tougher controls on release.

With Mark Easton something is "controversial" if he doesn't agree with it.

The worst was yet to come though. Mark Easton employs every trick in the book here to steer the argument his own way:

The trouble is we've been over this ground before: searching for a way to balance the rights of the public to be kept safe against the human rights of those dealt with by the courts. The government may well find even today's proposals come under legal challenge. The Government will most certainly get its emergency legislation through the Commons but will it get through the courts? For ministers to retrospectively basically increase the prison terms of people already convicted by court and change the terms of their release is certainly I think open to legal challenge. But perhaps the bigger problem with the Government's approach is that it won't necessarily stop actually extremely dangerous terrorist offenders being released from prison without anything in their way. It just delays that process. No, the Government could have gone for indeterminate sentences but, as we know, that idea is expensive and difficult to manage and some would argue it goes against the principles of fair justice. Many people, I think, would challenge that idea. And it just goes to show that governments, whenever they deal with this problem of radical extremism, discover there really are no easy answers. 

Despite this, the BBC's 'degrees of separation', once again, fell down. In the BBC newsreader's introduction, the News at Ten said:

Critics say the new plans would merely defer the problem of what happens on release.

Later, as we've seen above, Mark Easton didn't even bother to pretend it was 'critics' saying it. He said it himself:

But perhaps the bigger problem with the Government's approach is that it won't necessarily stop actually extremely dangerous terrorist offenders being released from prison without anything in their way. It just delays that process.

So, ergo, Mark Easton is himself a "critic" of the Government's plans here out of the BBC's own mouth and, thus, took a side. QED.

A continuing story

An attempted stabbing spree in Paris, resulting it the murder of one man and the fatal shooting by police of the perpetrator, produces typical BBC reporting.

Contrast the BBC's online report with that of Reuters UK:

Reuters reports that the killer is said to have had a history of mental illness, and that he carried a Koran in his bag and that a witness reports hearing him cry "Allahu akbar". 

The BBC reports the claims of a history of mental illness but avoids all hints of an Islamic connection, cryptically talking of "some religious items" being found in his bag and only reporting witnesses hearing him say that he was "out of medication".

This is such a familiar 'half the story' pattern that it almost goes without saying these days.

A one-off

I read a discussion this morning on Twitter re the London Bridge terrorist attack:

Ben Cobley: I wonder how the Guardian's columnists are going to deal with this. Almost everything about it fails to fit their daily narrative. My prediction - they will focus on attacking the right for how it reacts. Also they will no doubt start ordering us to not use language that might help describe events accurately - notably linking 'Islamic' with 'terrorism' as Newsnight did last night. Anyone who does this will be accused of fomenting hate against Muslims and aiding the far right.

Dr Paul Stott: We will see what I call the pivot response to terrorism. After reporting, blandly, what has happened, they will pivot coverage to what they will really want to talk about - the right's reaction, 'Islamophobia,' Tommy Robinson etc etc

That reference to Newsnight linking 'Islamic' with 'terrorism' sounded so unlikely that I checked, and (as I should guessed) it came from Newsnight's excellent Richard Watson - probably the only BBC journalist who dares to use the phrase 'Islamic terrorism' without surrounding it with audible quotation marks:

In the last hour, the press Association has reported the suspect was known to the authorities and had connections to Islamic terrorism. 

Yesterday in London

"Genuinely proud to live in a nation where a member of the public can heroically take out a terrorist with a narwhal tusk grabbed from a listed building" - 𝖆𝖗𝖈𝖍𝖎𝖉𝖆𝖛𝖊

So, yesterday on London Bridge...

Two innocent people - a man and a woman - were stabbed to death in a terrorist attack. Three others were injured. The attacker, Usman Khan, was a convicted terrorist on a tag who had been invited to a conference on rehabilitation. He was wearing a fake suicide belt. One of the brave members of the public who tackled him and helped bring his stabbing spree to an end was a convicted murderer on day release who used a fire extinguisher and another used a narwhal tusk grabbed from a nearby wall. People stopped their cars to help, and the police responded swiftly, did their job and shot the terrorist.

Only a factual Tweet

I know, I know. Some topics (and people) are a real turn-off. For example, I saw Barry Gardiner on the Sophy Ridge programme for a nano-second and had to turn the TV off. 

Actually, I was grateful for the impetus, as I usually waste too much time on a Sunday morning watching politics when I should be out in the open air (as my mother used to say) enjoying nature and stuff. 

My reaction to Barry Gardener is a lot nearer to an actual phobia than most of the other so-called phobias bandied about these days. So, doctor, I’m pretty sure I have Barry Gardinerophobia, and please don’t suggest the therapy that acclimatises you to your irrational fear because I. Ain’t. Doing it.

The thing about turn-offs, though, is that there is a difference between heartfelt, near physical revulsion and the plain and simple “Oh, no, not another one’, Brenda-from-Bristol type aversion, a mixture of boredom, tedium and ennui. So I hope it’s the latter that is about to affect you now as I’m about to revert to type and re-mount my one-trick pony. Look away now if you’re experiencing Brenda-like feelings of exasperation.

Yep, we all know the BBC is institutionally pro EU and it’s having a hard time trying to look impartial in accord with its charter and its editorial standards.  I think that battle has been lost. 

However, the other institutional ‘pro’ that the BBC is having better luck in hiding or concealing is the pro-Palestinian prism through which all its Middle East reporting is filtered, with the possible exception of some of its more obscure science-related items. But they’re rare. The BBC has been able to get away with it by relying on the audience’s lack of historical literacy; in fact, it helpfully supplies us with some historical inaccuracies itself, because it can.

Why though? What is it about the BBC that compels it, as an institution, to embrace the profoundly unChristian basics within Islam while rejecting Christian principles themselves? Love thy neighbour? Do as you would be done by? 

BBC Watch and Jewish News both address the reporting of the recent death of the 17-year-old Israeli girl Rina Shnerb who was killed by a bomb. Her brother Dvir and father Eitan were seriously injured as well. 

The BBC reported it in such a way that the reader would be reminded that there was some ‘justification’ for this bomb. Simple as that.

"Israeli teenage girl killed in bomb attack near Jewish settlement in the occupied West bank” Yet when Jewish News reported: 

“The Board of Deputies has demanded an apology over a BBC World tweet about the death of an Israeli teenager killed in a bomb blast.”

  A spokesperson for the BBC said

 “this is a factual tweet which includes the location of the girl’s killing”.

A few “innocent face” comments below the line illustrate the difficulty of divining bias without a rod.

“Where is the tweet factually incorrect? asks someone.

'The occupied West Bank' explains where it is.” says another.

Hmm, but there are other ways of describing the location of this incident. For example: 

“Dolev, which is about 15km (9 miles) north of Jerusalem and near the Palestinian village of Deir Ibzi” 

(From within the body of the BBC’s own report.)

Describing the location as “near Jewish settlement in the occupied West bank” might well serve to quickly identify it in the mind of an average reader unfamiliar with the geography, but it also sends a signal which all but diffuses the outrage with which most people would react to the willful killing of any 17-year-old girl. It emotes: The ‘militant’ Palestinians who placed this bomb were ‘driven to it’.

The BBC’s report included

”the leader of the militant Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas praised the attack but did not say that it was behind it. 

without specifically mentioning that:

Haniyeh called the murder of a seventeen-year-old girl “a heroic attack”.

or that Hamas in a statement said the bomb attack was “proof of the vitality and bravery of the Palestinian people, and of the fact that it will not surrender to the crimes and terrorism of the occupation.

I can see that identifying a location in a politicised manner might be defended with the claim that  this bomb, too, could be interpreted as a ‘political act’, but once you go down that path you’re halfway to confusing terrorism (the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims) with political militancy (the use of confrontational or violent methods in support of a political or social cause)  Oh wait, you’re already there. 

With rare exceptions, the BBC will only use the term ‘terrorism’ in reported speech if and when it occurs, but something they will include each and every time they have to report another act of ‘militancy’ is their ever-present ‘mantra’ on ‘settlements’ and ‘International law'. See BBC Watch for more on that. 

However, when the BBC begrudgingly states, as it’s obliged to do, that “Israel disputes this” it rarely (never) sets out the legal argument behind Israel’s ‘dispute’. Hiding the complex legalities behind a trite, subjective mantra deliberately shelters ‘the case for Israel’  from objective scrutiny, which reveals the BBC’s not so hidden agenda.

If you have been, thanks for listening.


Update

You might assume that the BBC sources its news from the Palestinian Authority. See PMW (Palestinian Media Watch )


 Official PA TV News, Aug. 23, 2019

"The occupation forces closed the main roads to the villages west of Ramallah and increased their military presence at the entrances to the Ramallah and El-Bireh district. This took place on the pretext of the killing of a female Israeli soldier and the wounding of others near the settlement named Dolev, which is located on the [Arab] residents' lands of west of Ramallah.”

Palestinian Media Watch:

"Needless to say, 17-year-old Rina was not a soldier and no Israeli authority ever claimed she was a soldier.

WAFA, English edition, Official PA news agency, Aug. 24, 2019

"The explosion near Ramallah that killed an Israeli settler and injured two others as well as revenge acts by the settlers against the civilian Palestinian population in the occupied territory were highlighted on the front page of the three Palestinian Arabic dailies today.”

Palestinian Media Watch Aug 25th 2019

"If the terrorist/s who murdered Rina are caught alive, the PA will pay them a salary in prison and even after their release. If they are killed during an attempt to arrest them, the PA will pay their families a monthly allowance for the rest of their lives. The PA will pay these salaries/allowances simply because the terrorist/s carried out a terrorist attack, and regardless of whether the terrorists belong to Fatah, Hamas, or acted alone. 

What do they have in common?

As posted by Anon on the open thread earlier today, here's a funny skit from 2007 (though not, of course, from the BBC). 

Less funnily, it suggests that what was satire then is reality now:

Vans and lorries

As Sue noted on Wednesday, it looks as if we'll be seeing and hearing even more about "van attacks" and "lorry attackers" from the BBC in the wake of their latest editorial guidelines (to be published later this month).

The Daily Mail says that BBC reporters will be told to avoid using the word "terror" to describe any terror attack, "unless they are quoting someone else".

The paper goes on, "Instead, they will refer to terror attacks by naming specific details, such as the location and the method of slaughter used":

The controversial edict means that the BBC will no longer use the phrase 'terror attack' to describe the massacres at London Bridge or Manchester Arena, as the corporation did when the atrocities occurred. 

Reporters would describe them as the London Bridge van attack or the Manchester Arena bomb attack instead. 

Now, of course, this is nothing new. It's merely a ratcheting-up of something the BBC has been doing already with increasing frequency. 

What is particularly striking here though is the bizarre thinking behind it:

According to well-placed BBC sources, bosses are eager to report terror attacks consistently, regardless of the terrorists' political ideology. But instead of branding them all as terror attacks and risk accusations of bias, it wants to avoid the word altogether. 

A senior news source said: 'It boils down to that phrase, 'One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter'.  

'Our question is, 'Is Darren Osborne [who was behind the Finsbury Park terror attack] a terrorist?' He is being motivated by far-Right thinking, in the same way as the guys in the attack on London Bridge. Consistency will be the key.'

It will be interesting to see the exact wording when the new editorial guidelines are published.

“You saw it here first”

Allow me to point you in the direction of a couple or three topics we’ve covered on ITBB, which have subsequently been expanded upon at much more length and in much more depth on other blogs and websites.

If we had the time and the expertise to flesh out pieces we’ve barely scraped the surface of, we’d do so. (if appropriate) Of course, if we did they’d likely end up “tl;dr”. It’s a fine line.

Search for ‘gotcha’ on this site and several posts show up, amongst which are those infamous ‘wasted opportunity’ interviews by the two Andrews - the Andrews Sisters I’ll call them - where the ‘gotcha’ strategy backfired.

Anyway, this piece is on CAPX. It's by Douglas Carswell, and he addresses the “Gotcha’ phenomenon concisely. 

“Is more gotcha journalism really what people want?” 

If most ordinary people had a chance to put a question to Farage, I reckon it might be to do with the government’s handling of the Brexit negotiations or the state of our democracy. What did Marr decide to challenge Farage on instead? Things he might or might not believe about president Putin or gun control. 

UK audiences might be unfamiliar with Shapiro, so one might have expected a series of questions that would enable him to inform the viewers a little about his world view – with follow up questions to challenge it. Instead, he was confronted with a tweet he had sent out in 2011. 

Yes, Shapiro was guilty of losing his temper.  But what does it say about his interlocutor that he set out to goad him? 

Perhaps Marr and Neil thought that they were being clever and cunning by not asking the obvious. But what they did lead with sounded to me like one long effort to insinuate and smear. 

That either man might have some opinions that aren’t mainstream among UK media circles is hardly interesting or surprising. It requires extraordinary self-absorption on the part of the BBC production team to imagine otherwise.

He’s making sense.

I’m not the only one who’s blogged that nasty interview on the Today Programme, in which Dr Rosena Allin-Khan got away with some blatantly anti-Israel propaganda, uncontested and egged on by Mishal Husain.  In fact, I had a couple of goes at it. 

BBC Watch also deconstructed this story, producing a forensic and detailed two-parter on the website,  here and here, and Honest Reporting took it a step further and included similarly exaggerated claims made in the Independent by Dr Allin Khan.

That Hamas regularly diverts international aid money to its own leaders over-inflated bank accounts is undisputed. Instead of investing in homes, schools and medical clinics, Hamas has taken away desperately needed funds and poured them into terror infrastructure, wasting countless millions of assault and kidnap tunnels built dug deep into Israeli territory. Hamas has also taken over Gaza’s medical services, with the Washington Post describing Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital in 2014 as the “de facto headquarters for Hamas leaders, who can be seen in the hallways and offices.” 

The article also fails to mention that the Palestinian Authority recently declared its refusal to pay for medical expenses in Israeli hospitals. The move came in protest over Israel deducting the amount of money the PA pays in salaries to imprisoned terrorists and families of “martyrs” and withholding the equivalent sums from tax money Israel collects on behalf of the PA. As a result, hundreds of Palestinian medical patients are currently left in the lurch regarding their treatment.

Now for something completely the same.

I wrote about the casual  - nay, affectionate references to Hezbollah and its bizarre theme park that I heard on the BBS’s radio 4 programme “Loose Ends”. Anecdotes from a nostalgic Dom Joly about his childhood in Lebanon left the impression that Hezbollah are merely cheeky rogues, rather than Iran’s proxy and brutal murdering terrorists. Again, BBC Watch has addressed the story about Hezbollah’s terrorist plot intended for London and the BBC’s lack of interest in it.

“The story has led to questions as to why details of the raid were kept secret, why Members of Parliament were not informed and why the incident was never mentioned during extensive debates about whether all of Hezbollah should be banned as a terrorist organisation.”

Finally, the question of the BBC’s instructions on the use of the word ‘terrorism’. I thought this matter had been wrapped up in 2005. Done and dusted, as they say. 

My understanding was that the use of the word was discouraged by the powers that be because it involved making a value-judgement. Staff were only allowed to use it in reported speech or in other exceptional circumstances - apparently one was that it was ok to call it terror if the offence was committed by Jews. That’s hearsay  - but I’ve heard it so I might as well say it.

Now it seems that there’s a new edict from on high. I can’t quite tell if it differs from the old edict, but it’s based on the principle that “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” In other words, the BBC is scared to offend Islam-fuelled terrorists by showing disrespect for the cause, which could be deemed judgmental. 

I thought terrorism had a definition. Google says: "a person who uses unlawful violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims."

In other words, it’s not really anything to do with whether Isis, Hezbollah, Hamas and the IRA fancy themselves as freedom fighters. 

In the case of those ‘lone wolves’ it’s a toss-up between being a ‘qualified’ terrorist, or an insane, psychotic madman, (or woman) but cloaking it all in euphemistic language makes the BBC look less impartial, not more.

He Has a Little List

Not from the BBC, but again from the Imam of Peace, Imam Mohamad Tawhidi - and this is even before we get to Sri Lanka:


A FEW Islamist Terrorist Organizations that want Christians and Jews dead.

1. Al-Shabab (Africa)
2. Al Murabitun (Africa)
3. Al-Qeada (Afghanistan)
4. Al-Qaeda (Islamic Maghreb)
5. Al-Qaeda (Indian Subcontinent)
6. Al-Qaeda (Arab Peninsula)
7. Hamas (Gaza)
8.Palestinian Islamic Jihad (Palestine),
9.Popular Front for the Liberation of (Palestine),
10.Hezbola (Lebanon),
11.Ansar al-Sharia-Benghazi (Lebanon),
12.Asbat Al-Ansar (Lebanon),
13.ISIS (Iraq),
14.ISIS (Syria),
15.ISIS (Cauacus)
16.ISIS (Libya)
17.ISIS (Yemen)
18.ISIS (Algeria),
19.ISIS (Philippines)
20.Jund al-Sham (Syria/Afganistan),
21. Al-Mourabitoun (Lebanon),
22.Abdullah Azzam Brigades (Lebanon),
23. Al-Itihaad al-Islamiya (Somalia),
24. Al-Haramain Foundation (Saudi Arabia),
25.Ansar-Al-Sharia (Moroccon),
26.Moroccon Mudjadine (Morocco),
27.Salafia Jihadia (Morocco),
28.Boko Haram (Afrika),
29.Islamic movement of (Uzbekistan),
30.Islamic Jihad Union (Uzbekistan),
31.Islamic Jihad Union (Germany),
32.DRW True-Religion (Germany)
33.Fajar Nusantara Movement (Germany)
34.DIK Hildesheim (Germany)
35.Jaish-e-Mohammed (Kashmir),
36.Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar (Syria),
37.Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (Syria),
38.Jamaat al Dawa al Quran (Afghanistan),
39.Jundallah (Iran)
40.Quds Force (Iran)
41.Kata'ib Hezbollah (Iraq),
42. Al-Itihaad al-Islamiya (Somalia),
43.Egyptian Islamic Jihad (Egypt),
44.Jund al-Sham (Jordan)
45.Fajar Nusantara Movement (Australia)
46.Society of the Revival of Islamic 47.Heritage (Terror funding, WorldWide offices)
48.Taliban (Afghanistan),
49.Taliban (Pakistan),
50.Tehrik-i-Taliban (Pakistan),
51. Army of Islam (Syria),
52.Islamic Movement (Israel)
53.Ansar Al Sharia (Tunisia),
54.Mujahideen Shura Council in the Environs of (Jerusalem),
55.Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (Libya)
55 (2): Oneness and Jihad in (West Africa),
56.Palestinian Islamic Jihad (Palestine)
57.Tevhid-Selam (Al-Quds Army)
58.Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (Morroco),
59.Caucasus Emirate (Russia),
60.Dukhtaran-e-Millat Feminist Islamists (India),
61.Indian Mujahideen (India),
62.Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen (India)
63.Ansar al-Islam (India)
64.Students Islamic Movement of (India),
65.Harakat Mujahideen (India),
66.Hizbul Mujhaideen(India)
67.Lashkar e Islam(India)
68.Jund al-Khilafah (Algeria),
69.Turkistan Islamic Party,
70.Egyptian Islamic Jihad (Egypt),
71.Great Eastern Islamic Raiders' Front (Turkey),
72.Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami (Pakistan),
73.Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (Pakistan),
74.Lashkar e Toyiba(Pakistan)
75.Lashkar e Jhangvi(Pakistan)
Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (Pakistan),
76.Jamaat ul-Ahrar (Pakistan),
77.Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (Pakistan),
78.Jamaat Ul-Furquan (Pakistan),
79.Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (Syria),
80.Ansar al-Din Front (Syria),
81.Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (Syria),
82.Jamaah Anshorut Daulah (Syria),
83.Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement (Syria)
84.Liwa al-Haqq (Syria),
85. Al-Tawhid Brigade (Syria),
86.Jund al-Aqsa (Syria),
87. Al-Tawhid Brigade (Syria),
88.Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade (Syria),
89.Khalid ibn al-Walid Army (Syria),
90.Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin (Afganistan),
91.Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (Afghanistan)
92.Hizb ut-Tahrir (Worldwide Caliphate),
93.Hizbul Mujahideen (Kasmir),
94.Ansar Allah (Yemen),
95.Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (USA),
96.Jamaat Mujahideen (India),
97.Jamaah Ansharut Tauhid (Indonesia),
98.Hizbut Tahrir (Indonesia),
99.Fajar Nusantara Movement (Indonesia),
100.Jemaah Islamiyah (Indonesia),
101.Jemaah Islamiyah (Philippines),
102.Jemaah Islamiyah (Singapore),
103.Jemaah Islamiyah (Thailand),
104.Jemaah Islamiyah (Malaysia),
105.Ansar Dine (Africa),
106.Osbat al-Ansar (Palestine),
107.Hizb ut-Tahrir (Group connecting 108.Islamic Caliphates across the world into one world Islamic Caliphate)
109. Army of the Men of the Naqshbandi Order (Iraq)
110. Al Nusra Front (Syria),
111. Al-Badr (Pakistan),
112.Islam4UK (UK),
113. Al Ghurabaa (UK),
114. Call to Submission (UK),
115.Islamic Path (UK),
116. London School of Sharia (UK),
117.Muslims Against Crusades (UK),
118.Need4Khilafah (UK),
119.The Shariah Project (UK),
120.The Islamic Dawah Association (UK),
121.The Saviour Sect (UK) x2
123.Jamaat Ul-Furquan (UK)
124.Minbar Ansar Deen (UK),
125. Al-Muhajiroun (UK) (Lee Rigby, London 2017 members),
126.Islamic Council of Britain (UK) (Not to be confused with Offical Muslim Council of Britain),
127.Ahlus Sunnah wal Jamaah (UK),
128. Al-Gama'a (Egypt),
129. Al-Islamiyya (Egypt)
130.Armed Islamic men of (Algeria),
131Salafist Group for Call and Combat (Algeria),
132.Ansaru (Algeria),
133.Ansar-Al-Sharia (Libya),
134. Al Ittihad Al Islamia (Somalia),
135.Ansar al-Sharia (Tunisia),
136. Al-Shabab (Africa),
137. al-Aqsa Foundation (Germany)
138. al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades (Palestine),
139. Abu Sayyaf (Philippines),
140.Aden-Abyan Islamic Army (Yemen),
141.Ajnad Misr (Egypt),
142. Abu Nidal Organization (Palestine),
143.Jamaah Ansharut Tauhid (Indonesia)

Easter

I've never been to the British Museum, oddly. But I learn today, Easter Sunday, that it contains a series of ivory plaques from a casket which comprise the earliest surviving narrative depiction of the Easter story. Here's the one showing the scene of the empty tomb, with two snoozing soldiers and two rapt women:

It's believed to come from a Roman workshop and was made in around 420-30 AD and is rather lovely.

Alas, as I was reading this first thing today, I saw the horrific news from Sri Lanka. 

Easter does seem to have been become a particular target for Islamic terrorists in recent years, from Egypt to Nigeria, from Pakistan to Kenya, etc. And here we are again on the most joyous day of the year for Christians, with Christian worshippers being specifically targeted for massacre. 

When will this end?

Huge news

Well, whatever else you might say about the Guido Fawkes website it can still do some decent digging. 

Today's Guido exclusive lays out the evidence that Jeremy Corbyn faked the figures to avoid declaring his wreath-laying trip to Tunisia.

Guido also notes that his trip was funded by the Council for European Palestinian Relations. 

What Guido doesn't mention though is who the CEPR are. They are Hamas's representative in Europe. 

This strikes me as a huge story. Wonder if the BBC will think so too?

The NZ massacre: an appeal for calm and moderation

The appallingly cruel anti-Muslim terrorist atrocity in Christchurch, New Zealand proves - if proof were needed - that far-right, white supremacist terrorism is now a serious menace and that the ideology behind it as vile as its mirror image, Islamism. 

Both need crushing.

Of course, no terrorist atrocity these days would be complete without armchair warriors on various sides of our many culture wars vying viciously to score points off each other. 

The wilder shores I'll ignore, but within mere hours one 'respectable' side was trying to smear prominent critics of Islamism - from Melanie Phillips to Boris Johnson, from Maajid Nawaz to Julia Hartley-Brewer, from Sajid Javid to David Aaronovitch - with the Christchurch killer's murderous evil, while the other 'respectable' side was furiously countering that this was obscene opportunism. 

(You might notice a certain bias on my part in the way I phrased that).

And, of course, no terrorist atrocity these days would be complete without the authorities thinking that the first thing needed is to crack down on social media.

On these points, here's an appeal posted yesterday (as events were unfolding) from North Northwester at the They're Joking. Aren't They? blog:

The NZ massacre: an appeal for calm and moderation

In light of the unconscionable and apparently anti-Muslim attacks in New Zealand that may have been inspired by anti-Islamic sentiment and which all decent folk everywhere will condemn without demur or qualification (as do I ), now might be an appropriate time to point out that not all anti-Islamism activists and commentators are inspired to or approve of illegal violence.  

As our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims and the bereaved, it is important that just condemnation of these criminals should not be used as an excuse for counter-attacks and blaming the innocent. 

Indeed, the overwhelming majority of Islam sceptics are simply decent, law abiding people who wish to go about their lives at peace with their neighbours while reserving to their consciences the basic human right of expressing condemnation of the 34,725 documented deadly Islamic terror attacks since 9/11, 7/7, the horrors of Rotherham, Rochdale, Oxford, Telford and the rest of such events and who harbour – for whatever reasons - deeply held convictions critical of the motivations behind the Ariana Grande concert massacre and the ISIS-led attempted genocide against (amongst others) the Yazidi people. 

Please try not to make this sad situation worse by blaming, quite without evidence, any or all of Islam’s present day critics and detractors for fear your intemperate words might inspire violence or legal persecution against this much-maligned and diverse group of individuals: no matter how much you might personally disagree with their opinions and obsessions. 

Thank you.

Guilty Frenchman

A comment from the Open Thread:

And the BBC News website home page headline in question:

What's right?

The early morning news (Radio 4) gave a serious warning. What about? You ask.

“The "febrile" atmosphere around Brexit could be exploited by far-right extremists, the UK's most senior counter-terrorism officer has warned.”

Who is this most senior counter-terrorism ocifer? one wonders.

Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu is he. “It’s something to do with a ‘no deal Brexit’” he claims, enigmatically. How so? We’ll have to take his word for it for now.

“while extreme right-wing activity was still a "relatively small threat", it was also "something we've got to pay very close attention to in this country - that we don't let that kind of far-right drift into extreme right-wing terrorism and we're working very hard to stop that”.

Ah, here comes the Brexit connection:

"We saw a spike in hate crime after the referendum, that's never really receded.”[…]”So there's always a possibility people are being radicalised by the kind of febrile atmosphere we've got at the moment.”

What, you mean “Poles go home?” that sort of thing? I thought that had been debunked. But perhaps not.

I clicked on a linked-to web page. At first, it appeared to be just the BBC's customary virtue signalling. I was completely taken in!  I really thought it was meant to be sinister and ominous….. unless (it suddenly occurred to me) it’s a parody. Yes, that must be it.  How gullible am I, thinking it was a simple tale of “Bad goes ‘Good’ And Learns Error of Ways”. Silly me. I’m a silly son of a gun. I work eight hours I sleep eight hours I that leaves eight hours for blogging.

A fine example of deadpan comedy that video is too. Unfortunately, Blogger won't let me embed it.

“ ‘John' joined far-right groups aged 15, but now works to prevent extremism,” 

announces the strapline.

”At the time I shared a lot of material on social media.” 

says “John”, affecting one of those exaggerated, northern-esque, comedy accents. Victoria Wood used to do that a lot; remember “test tube baby”?. And “sectional intecost”? Very funny.

“ I did say Islam was a plague, and much like the plague, we have to get rid of it” 

he continued. Of course, you don’t get to see John’s face, or you’d twig it was Paul Whitehouse or someone, but you do get to see the interviewee nodding sympathetically and hamming it up with a somewhat overstated ‘worried’ expression; very like Victoria Derbyshire and quite amusing.

Listening face

Anyway, “John” has learned his lesson after being kicked out of a classroom for answering a trick question in an offensive, right-wing manner.

The teacher, very likely an undercover agent from the Prevent squad, (as teachers are, these days) had asked: “Why do people emigrate (sic) to Britain?”  “Because of the benefits”, he replied, falling into her trap and, inadvertently revealing the true extent of his deluded, far-right mindset.

By now I was getting into the spirit of it,  and it somehow reminded me of Blackadder and Baldric. 

By the end, everyone had learned their lesson and lived happily ever after. (unlike Baldric who turned into the un-amusing Tony Robinson)

So I think it’s time we had a clear definition of the term "far-right", BBC style.  By Jove, I think it’s anyone who is worried about the rise of Islam. That includes me!

I wonder when the terms far-right, and to a lesser extent 'right-wing' morphed from the traditional meaning: antisemitic, homophobic, sexually repressed, hard-hearted, intolerant, short-back-and-sides, ‘get yer haircut!' men who never cry, and think a woman’s pace is in the kitchen, and transformed into 'anyone to the right of Jeremy Corbyn who happens to worry about the rise of Islam'.

 The following question occurred  to me while I was in the bath:

How come a huge organisation largely staffed by atheist or lapsed Christian, gay, liberal, pacifist-inclined, university educated, progressives and would-be creatives, strives so very hard to normalise the customs, rituals and practices of the followers of a medieval, homophobic, antisemitic, warmonger whose pseudo-biblical salad of contradictory religious dogma is believed to be the direct word of God, from which any part can be cherry-picked to ratify a cornucopia of homophobic, antisemitic, illiberal and murderous activities? Long sentence, but there you are. 

I tried to imagine a kind of Venn diagram, where things like antisemitism and homophobia overlap. Right, Left, Religion, BBC, etc., but by then I’d turned into a prune. Not a good look. I don’t think I’m likely to drift into extreme far-right terrorism at the moment.

Surrey teenager

Surrey

As noted by Guest Who at Biased BBC, the comments most certainly could be going better in response to this 'Breaking News' tweet from BBC South East:

Here's just a brief sample of some of those comments:

• Seriously @BBCSouthEast what do you think you are doing? He is not a Surrey teenager. Not in any serious manner of speaking. He is an Iraqi, and a terrorist, an Islamist terrorist at that.
• @BBCNews doesn't do facts anymore, it does spin &propaganda, you know it, I know it, even BBC knows it. It's utterly corrupted &cannot be relied upon to report news honestly. A few more ppl will understand this today when they see #ParsonsGreen bomber described as Surrey teenager.
• Surrey teenager my arse. He was an Iraqi asylum seeker who committed a terrorist attack in the name of Islam.
• Iraqi migrant from Calais suddenly becomes a “Surrey teenager” @bbcsoutheast pushing fake news.
• Surrey Teenager. Must update his Wikipedia page.
• This is appalling. I wonder why people don’t trust the BBC anymore.....
• You know that fake news advert that you have running on the TV at the moment. Show this to the kids. Then they’ll understand what fake news is.
• I have two Surrey teenagers. That terrorist is not a Surrey teenager.
• Why do the BBC write this misleading nonsense.  Every news outlet prints the truth.  They come up with this devious nonsense.
• BBC = #fakenews.

Wake up!

There’s truth and there’s alternative facts. That’s what they say. I keep finding things that make me wonder if I’m the only one who sees the world through alternative specs. 

Only the other day I was asking myself if the BBC’s almost obsessive interest in the Darren Osborne trial was just a little bit more all-consuming than, say the coverage of the individuals responsible for last year’s spate of Islamic terrorism.

We heard all about Osborne’s fixation with alt-right internet sites - why, he may even have glanced at this one -  and we listened to a multitude of theories about how he became radicalised.  Speculations took in the BBC’s own “Three Girls” drama, the Manchester and London terrorist attacks, Britain First, and ended up at the doorstep of Tommy Robinson. (Some people still like to cite Melanie Phillips when deconstructing Anders Breivik’s motivation.)

I may be all wrong, please say so if you think I am, but I don’t recall anyone in the BBC or any of the other MSM holding back from calling the “Finsbury Park Terrorist Attack” a terrorist attack.

One thing I certainly don’t recall the BBC doing, is putting that particular vehicular attack down to mental health issues. It was always unequivocally described as far-right terrorism, and the matters of Darren Osborne’s criminal record and mental instability were played down to such an extent that many people seem to be unaware of them. Such issues only appeared on the news bulletins as an afterthought.

Compare that with the media's reflexive response to Islamist terrorism. Mental health issues are often the first port of call for analysts who are reluctant to point the finger at Islam. 

So I wondered if I was really reading this, or dreaming it. It’s the Guardian, so what did I expect, but still. Someone by the name of Kamran Ahmed sees the world through a prism that is the exact polar opposite of my own prism. (I am quite happy to consider that I probably do see things through a prism)

Anyway, the author believes that the media has gone to considerable lengths to explain away Darren Osborne’s intended killing spree as the act of a jobless lone wolf rather than an act of terrorism. While the author recognises that there is a mental health factor in all violent acts, and who could disagree, he  (or she) concludes:

“The issue here is not the presence or absence of mental illness, but the way that these soul-destroying crimes are differently reported. We know that lone actors committing terrorist atrocities are more likely to have a mental illness than those acting in groups. Omar Mateen who carried out the horrendous attack in Orlando had the profile of an unstable “lone wolf” with a history of domestic abuse and probable narcissistic traits, but was swiftly labelled a terrorist. These discrepancies only fuel Islamophobia further, insidiously promoting division.”

This seems to be rather far-fetched. Alternative facts, or what?

This leads me onto another piece which made me wonder whether I was having a bad dream. This  article is on a related topic, Islam of course. It's by Arzu Merali , and it’s in Middle East Eye. The views expressed are the polar opposite to my own. “Why I think Amanda Spielman should resign her Ofsted post” It’s such a pity that  the author declined the invitation to appear on Newsnight, in the Tommy Robinson / Amanda Spielman episode, if only so we might see which ‘tone’ Kirsty Wark adopted when questioning her.

She boasts of attending al-Quds day with her family “almost every year”, and undoubtedly supports the  “political wing” of Hezbollah if not the terrorist wing. It’s hard to sympathise with her opinions given that we live in the UK rather than Islamabad.  Look at this sample:

“Whereas thirty years ago, a rogue headteacher such as Ray Honeyford could cause a media furore with overtly racist comments, today, the very body that should be checking those abuses of power, is committing them and embedding them across the education system with the largely confused or compliant in tow. "

Has the world turned upside down?  In an inverted world, she may have a point. The 'abuses of power, committing them and embedding them across the education system' is precisely what we’re worried about, but of course in exactly the opposite way. 

The article is a negative of a positive. In an inside-out world where yes means no and good means bad her words are worth considering. She uses the very same terms as the opposition would use, but the meaning is reversed. It works only if you treat it as a game of opposites.  She says Britain is hypocritical for its intolerance of Islam, and you can’t call yourself ‘liberal’ till you’re prepared to tolerate Islamic intolerance.

“Dressing up racism in the garb of tolerance isn't just disingenuous (…) it forms the basis of dehumanisation and delegitimisation required to enact both psychological and actual violence against out-groups.”


Woah!  Exactly what sort of racist insists on dressing up in garb that overtly advertises its intolerance? Physician! Take a look at yourself, please do. We were originally defending the hijab here, were we not? For eight-year old primary schoolchildren?

And as for “out-groups”, hijab-wearing and burkha-wearing Muslims are automatically self identifying as an  “out-group” unless they go and live somewhere where it’s the norm. And even those that do live there don’t think much of it.

“Arzu Merali is a writer and researcher based in London. [..] She is currently working on the multi-partner project ‘Counter-narratives to Islamophobia Toolkit’ with the University of Leeds.”

This is the UK, and people are now openly advocating importing parts of Sharia.  Wake me up!  

Is 'enough' enough?

A new Gatestone Institute article by Douglas Murray  popped into my inbox. It’s one of those pieces that immediately make you go ‘that’s just what I was thinking’.

UK Terrorism: ‘Enough’ is not ‘Enough’. 

When Theresa May said ”Enough is Enough” many of us were relieved. ‘Things are looking up!', we thought. But such optimism is apt to perish like a shrivelled balloon still tied to the gate long after the party. 

After the recent spate of terrorism, one might wonder, ‘where exactly is all this long awaited clamping down?’ Where is the action? 

Unless something stringent and punitive is being cooked up undercover, in the hidden world of Spy v Spy, it would appear to be non existent. 

Instead, the government presents us with more weak and feeble stuff about ‘perversion of Islam’ and the media reminds us that ‘extremism comes from the far right as well, you know.’

As Murray points out, two recent events that fly in the face of ‘Enough is Enough’ have recently gone ahead without let or hindrance. 

Despite calls for it to be stopped, the al-Quds Day march, which takes place annually in central London, went ahead again this year as usual.  The speeches in this year’s march were particularly inflammatory and antisemitic. Yet nothing was done.  'Does Mrs May regard this as ‘enough’?' asks Murray.

Evidently not. Another openly antisemitic event was held in the heart of Westminster. 

“On the weekend of July 8-9, the Queen Elizabeth II Centre (right opposite Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament) was host to a "Palestine Expo" event. This occasion was advertised as "the biggest social, cultural and entertainment event on Palestine to ever take place in Europe”.

There, similar speeches and anti-Israel rhetoric took place as several observers can attest.

Of course, the BBC wasn’t interested.  The BBC does not view Palestinians who murder Jewish families as terrorists. 

Before setting off to murder Israelis in their own home, 19-year- old Omar al Abed from the West Bank village of Khobar wrote what he presumed would be his final words on Facebook.

“I am writing my last testament and these are my last words,” wrote al Abed.
“I am young, not even twenty-years old, I had many dreams and many aspirations. But what life is this in which our women and our young are murdered without any justification? They are desecrating the al-Aksa mosque and we are sleeping, it’s an embarrassment that we are idly sitting by. 

“You, those who have a gun and who are worn out, you who only bring out your gun at weddings and celebrations, are you not ashamed of yourselves? Why are you not declaring war for God? Here they are closing the al-Aksa mosque and your gun is silent.
“All that I have is a sharpened knife, and it is answering the call of al-Aksa. Shame on you, you who preach hatred. God will take revenge on you and will make it count. All of us are the sons of Palestine and the sons of al-Aksa. You, sons of monkeys and pigs, if you do not open the gates of al-Aksa, I am sure that men will follow me and will hit you with an iron fist, I am warning you.”

On this occasion the particular grievance was the imaginary threat to the al-Aqsa mosque that Palestinians and their leaders dreamt up to ignite and excuse another of their customary waves of ‘rage’. 

This religious rant is fairly typical of 'Allahu Akbar' style religious fanaticism, and no different from the religiously-motivated terrorism that continually erupts from East to West with ever-increasing visibility. 

Yet the BBC refuses to connect terrorist violence perpetrated by a Palestinian with the same thing when carried out by your common or garden jihadi. Thus, BBC has decreed that the use of the emotive word ‘terrorist’ applies to the latter but not the former. This, says the BBC, is because it contains a value judgement.  

What message can be taken away from this puzzling inconsistency?  Either they see Israelis as so ‘other’ that the news that some of them have been slaughtered in their beds is, to them, neither here nor there.  Worse, it could be that they actually feel that the murder of Jews is all in a good cause.

It puts one in mind of the case in 2010 where activists who broke into a Brighton weapons factory and caused £200,000 of damage were found ‘not guilty of conspiracy to commit criminal damage’. Why not? Oh, because they were acting with “lawful excuse”.

Could it be that the general level of understanding of the Israeli / Palestinian conflict at the BBC, from the highest level to the lowest, is so poor that they seriously believe that Palestinian murderers are acting with ‘lawful excuse?’

Perhaps they apply the same principle  to al-Quds and Palestine Expo, too, but they’re skating on thin ice if they half-believe British victims of terror had it coming, and that our ‘foreign policy’ gives Islamic terrorists ‘lawful excuse’ to self-detonate outside a pop concert. 

In The Conservative Woman a post by Niall McCrae demonstrates where  our famous tolerance extends far beyond the call of duty. "British values' are being weaponised against Britons." 

“Last Friday’s front page of The Guardian featured a Muslim woman who is suing a school for its allegedly discriminatory dress code. After her daughter gained a place at the prestigious Holland Park comprehensive, Rachida Serroukh attended a talk by headteacher Colin Hall. Both she and her daughter were wearing full Islamic dress. A teacher asked Serroukh for a word in private, and advised her of school policy against masking of children’s faces. Serroukh told the Guardian reporter: ‘As the teacher was female I lifted my veil when we were talking’. How nice of her.

Holland Park is known as the ‘socialist Eton’. Children from disadvantaged backgrounds struggle to get in, but the culture of the school is emancipatory and secularist. Nurturing local Muslim girls’ potential would be regarded as central to the school’s mission. Yet this leftward institute is now threatened by Wahhibi entryism. In a completely one-sided report, The Guardian presents the school as a pariah, and Serroukh as a cause celebre.

Why was this case given such prominence, and such obvious support, by a ‘progressive’ newspaper? A large photograph of Serroukh on page 2 of The Guardian has her sitting on a sofa, shrouded in black except for her hands and eyes. The newspaper appears to be boosting its diversity credentials, but we must consider the powerful socio-political forces of globalised media and rapidly shifting Western demography. The Guardian is not only virtue-signalling, but also market-signalling.

Islam is Islam.  Enough is Enough. 

Thoughts and Prayers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All she needs is a good Breakfast Breggsit Brexit.

*****

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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