What's the verdict?

"Six of the worst bits"


With Jeremy Corbyn's damage limitation press conference still ringing in my ears, well, now we've seen it, what's the verdict?

Teaching English

English teachers, what are they like? Having highlighted a rant from one letterbox-clad English teacher, whose half-formed, reductive accusations against Boris Johnson were vociferously endorsed by the QT panel, the BBC expects us to listen to the disturbing opinions of another member of that profession with a record of hard-left activism and swallow them whole.

I had several articles about the hard-left activist Holly Rigby pending but I wasn't quite sure how to react to this, other than to express profound sadness.

What does the BBC think it’s committing itself to by having Rigby on Politics Live? 

One could point out that the BBC has unashamedly exploited the ‘click-bait’ value of exposing ‘extreme views’ and pitting one against the other. In other words, perhaps the belief is that nothing is beyond the pale if it boosts the ratings. 

But how can that be so, when say, Tommy Robinson is considered simply too toxic for the BBC despite the potential boost to the ratings? No, it must be that somehow the BBC’s commissioning editors think she’s onto something. (Rob Burley?)

Facebook is full of similarly depressing stuff. Posts by friends from a different/ former life, one of whom has simply posted Rabbi Marvin’s congratulatory letter to the new PM. For her, that boilerplate congratulatory letter is enough to damn everything Rabbi Mirvis wrote about antisemitism and, without further comment, rebrand it as ‘malicious Corbyn-bashing.’  

Corbyn supporters being encouraged to drown out "truly horrific" interview with @afneil pic.twitter.com/pHW1tDa7XA

— John Stevens (@johnestevens) November 26, 2019

Having seen Guido Fawkes’s pieces and even  ploughed through the comments, some of which question the ethos of “School 21”, (and the above ‘heart of stone not to laugh’ exposé) and having read this

and this

Holly Rigby, ladies and gentlemen https://t.co/ehy2gDEjUz pic.twitter.com/RmUPkpAFy4

— Christian Calgie (@christiancalgie) November 26, 2019

and several similar articles, I have to ask, what was the BBC thinking (not to mention the teaching profession) by giving this nasty individual credibility.

Front page news

You will need to click on the image to enlarge it here, but this is jaw-dropping.

It's the BBC News website's home page right now:

Yes, the main headline is:

No place for anti-Semitism within Labour - Corbyn Jeremy Corbyn urges Jewish community to "engage" with him following the chief rabbi's outspoken ["outspoken?"] criticism.

And right underneath that piece is a video link to a report headlined Corbyn: Anti-Semitism 'has no place in my party'.

Seriously, BBC? Leading with the Corbynite defence against charges of antisemitism by the Chief Rabbi, not once but twice?

And then come two further links respectively headlined Teach British Empire injustice in schools - Labour and A simple guide to the Labour Party.

Wonder what Ash, Aaron, Simon 'Mad' Maginn, Owen Jones & Co. have to say about that 'promotion' of the Labour cause?

And then just look at the photo of Jeremy Corbyn that the BBC have made the main image on their News website - that of a benignly-smiling leader in front of his party's main election slogan. Seriously, BBC?

And, to cap it all, the BBC's second story is

Muslim Council criticises Tories over Islamophobia - The Muslim Council of Britain accuses the Conservatives of a "blind spot for this type of racism". 

Labour antisemites and Muslim hardliners alike love to push the moral equivalence angle as regards antisemitism and 'Islamophobia' (note, as ever, no quotation marks around the BBC's use of the word in that headline). And the 'woke' BBC, as so often, is all to ready to indulge them by doing the same. 

This is beyond a joke. This is seriously dangerous. Please BBC, stop pandering to extremists.

Meanwhile, over at ITV...

ITV's political editor Robert Peston speaks (on Twitter):

The Chief Rabbi’s intervention in the general election is without precedent. I find it heartbreaking, as a Jew, that the rabbi who by convention is seen as the figurehead of the Jewish community, feels compelled to write this about Labour and its leader. I am not making any kind of political statement here. What I am saying is our democracy has traditionally been a beacon of tolerance and understanding. The Chief Rabbi says our democracy has been poisoned. I hope his intervention is a catharsis that heals but I fear the worst. There is an enormous amount of predictable “whataboutery” in response the Chief Rabbi - “what about Islamaphobia in Tory party?” etc. Which is as if to say we don’t need to worry about alleged racism in one of the main parties if there is alleged racism in the other one...Really? If that is your argument, we really are in the handcart to hell.

Tolerance, understanding, catharsis and healing aren't much in evidence in the Corbynista-dominated replies. And they do think it's a political statement.

An appeal

Here's a curious thing that neither I nor Sue can work out. Can you, dear reader? 

As per Newssniffer, the BBC's Chief rabbi attacks Labour anti-Semitism record article underwent a startling sea-change around 10.30 this morning.

Someone at the BBC went through the report and changed all eleven mentions of 'Chief Rabbi' to 'chief rabbi'. 

Neither Sue nor I can account for this abrupt but very thoroughgoing change from upper case to lower case. Can you?

A snapshot

As Sue mentioned in the previous post, I sent her a rushed email this morning before heading off to work after reading both the BBC and Sky website's  takes on the news that Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis had strongly denounced Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party for spreading the poison of antisemitism. I wrote:

Comparing the BBC website report to Sky's, the BBC gives over more space to Labour than the Chief Rabbi while Sky's report is largely the views of the Chief Rabbi plus lots and lots of damning context - which the BBC avoids. Plus the BBC twice uses the word "claims" as a verb to describe the Chief Rabbi's criticism of Corbyn and Labour. Two very different reports. 

I didn't mention to Sue that I'd also done a quick, early morning count. 

At the time of writing (around 7 am), the BBC piece featured 11 paragraphs of direct or indirect quotes from Labour as against 10 such paragraphs from Rabbi Mirvis and others criticising Labour - i.e. more paragraphs for those supporting Labour against the Chief Rabbi than for those criticising Labour. There were surprisingly few extended quotes from Rabbi Mirvis. 

In stark contrast, Sky featured a mere 6 paragraphs of direct or indirect quotes from Labour compared to 20 paragraphs given to Rabbi Mirvis and those criticising Labour. There were plenty of extended quotes from Rabbi Mirvis.

Whatever else this shows, it certainly shows a marked difference in attitude between the two broadcasters.

BBC; enabler.

Various alerts and spoilers pinged into my devices last evening (probably generated by ‘cookies’ and algorithms I’ve inadvertently racked up), so by the time I saw Rabbi Mirvis’s actual letter in the actual Times I already knew what was in it.

Let’s liken the fallout from the Enough is Enough demo to the mini-eruption of a volcano that has been rumbling away for years.

The letter from one mild-mannered grandpa to a different kind of grandpa at such a sensitive time has caused another eruption, the fallout from which is yet to unfold.

The fact that such a mild-mannered grandpa (Chief Rabbis traditionally steer clear of political interventions) felt compelled to speak out in this way has certainly caused a stir.

Craig has spotted a difference between the BBC’s and Sky’s reporting, but I couldn’t face picking either one apart this morning. There might be more on this topic later.

I glimpsed a snippet of Victoria Derbyshire sitting beside a female representative of the Muslim Council of Britain. On the studio monitor, a large talking-head shot of the editor of the Jewish Telegraph, Paul Harris, was ‘explaining’ the Chief rabbi’s concerns. When he’d finished, Ms Derbyshire questioned the headscarf sympathetically about Islamophobia in the Conservative Party.

That more or less sums it up.

The BBC is a kind of enabler.  It’s all very well getting Nick Robinson to grill poor old Alf Dubs, but all that will do is hand (unsound) ammunition to the Labour Party’s many apologists and the ignoramuses in Momentum. This merely skirts around the problem and pays lip service to a bit of gossipy news that they see as ‘nowt to do with us’.

As well as the disingenuous conflation of antisemitism (racism) with a rational (non-phobic) anxiety about a disturbingly hostile religious ideology, we have the willful misrepresentation of all things to do with Israel. The giant woolly mammoth in the room.

Antisemitism is a poison. (So is Islamophobia)

Unfortunately, Blogger wouldn't let me embed the clip above from the BBC's report.  (They offer the code, but it doesn't work!)

If the BBC could somehow magic away all the errors and omission of the past 70 years that would clear up much of the mess. Failing that impossible and completely unachievable ask, a more realistic demand would be - at least to try, somehow - to mitigate the damage. I have no idea how. Maybe start modestly by showing some gripping Israeli-made drama on the scandi noir channel. 

Yes, there are still pockets of traditional right-wing antisemitism around - the foreign office is riddled with it so I’m told, but it’s high time everyone acknowledged the hatred of Jews within the Islamic world, including Britain’s Muslim communities. Instead of airbrushing it out in its painful, politically correct, subservient, Islamophillic fashion, the BBC could promote “Muslims against antisemitism” groups. 

Has the Muslim woman who stood up to the man on the tube been on the VD show yet? Isn’t that’s the kind of story VD usually wallows in? I can picture her with her head tilted, sympathetically ‘listening’. I'm not knocking it by the way. The opposite. Asma Shuweikh was brave and she acted honourably. 

A masterclass from Mr Neil

Andrew Neil's interview tonight with Nicola Sturgeon was gripping stuff:

The best 43 seconds of TV I have ever seen. #andrewneil pic.twitter.com/OB7pbylzb1

— Jack Glendinning (@jackgIendinning) November 25, 2019

Roll on Magic Grandpa tomorrow!

Redux

August 2009

I’m aware that many of our readers are a lot less obsessed with the BBC’s anti-Israel bias than I am, but I wanted to post this video, which you don’t need to watch if you don’t fancy it. 

The reason I chose to show it to you here is that I well remember introducing CifWatch's launch on the Biased-BBC site in the form of a Press Release back in August 2009. 

Entering ‘CiFWatch’ into the B-BBC search facility brings up a considerable stash of pre-2012 material, written by me. I remember thinking, at the time (around 2008/9) that it was a good idea for me to join a general blog rather than a dedicated pro-Zionist one, knowing, (as any fule already nose) that pro-Zionist blogs and websites are no-go areas for the steadfast Israel-bashing brigade (whom I fondly hoped to influence) I actually imagined my critical take on the BBC’s anti-Israel reporting might ‘make a difference’. Embarrassingly naive, okay?

Recently the BBC’s left-wing bias has become (more or less) generally accepted, and there’s even some recognition that embedded within the heads and hearts of most of its staff is a default empathy with Israel’s detractors.  I take no credit for any of that gradual sea change if that’s what it is.  At all. I realise I am preaching to the converted and always was.

Interestingly, my original Press Release post attracted some flak from B-BBC purists who disapproved of advertising in all its forms and accused me of abusing my position. (Like, my privileged position of blogging on a controversial website constantly conscious of my responsibility to scrupulously fact-check for fear of shooting myself in the foot + scoring an own goal for “my cause” unpaid and in my own time.)  I’m a lucky son-of-a-gun.

Anyway, I didn’t know Adam Levick from (any other) Adam back then, but now we know what he’s like we can decide whether or not we like the cut of his jib. A nautical term. I think he’s good. Take it or leave it.

Bite on bum?

Look what Guido Fawkes has posted this morning. Michael Crick is ‘literally’ salivating at capturing this awkward ‘open mic’  blunder, but before gloating over a relatively minor ‘gotcha’, which no doubt will be made a massive banquet out of by the left-wing media, he might ask the master of the ‘set-up’,  a certain Mr Sweeney, whether catching out a 'set-up' is something to be quite so triumphant about.
Maybe Crick should consider exactly what it was he’d unearthed, and you never know, it might eventually come back to bite him on the bum.

This is superb. https://t.co/NCj9WtMgBO

— Joel Hills (@ITVJoel) November 25, 2019

Caught in the act! Meet Lee Anderson, Conservative candidate for Ashfield, who forgets his MailPlus mic is on. Click here to see our film and his ruse to set MailPlus up with unusually friendly voter. https://t.co/0gFSdXnFLk

— Michael Crick (@MichaelLCrick) November 25, 2019

"SHOCKED & NAUSEATED"

The World This Weekend today featured a turn by comedian Simon Evans that mocked all sides, but among the 'all sides' being mocked was one Jeremy Corbyn. 

Here's Simon's joke:

The only visual clue to character that jarred on the ITV debate was the odd angle at which he wore his glasses, suggesting he had taken the stage immediately after a brief tussle. Many viewers also noticed that one of the lenses of his glasses appeared to have a special coating, perhaps to enable him to see into the future - though, if so, it appears to have been in stalled back-to-front.

Yes, it's a wonky glasses joke and not exactly the kind of joke that's going to cause sides to split and result in laughter's ambulance being called, but wbo could complain about it?

Well, some people did.  

Enter, on Twitter, one of the platform's most regular (far-left) critics of the BBC, Clare Hepworth OBE:

SHOCKED & NAUSEATED at Simon Evans on Radio 4's The World This Weekend mocking Jeremy Corbyn's slight problem with his left eye & the special lens in his spectacles.

This folks - is the level to which the BBC Commentariat have descended.

It wasn't even *satire* - it was cruel & malicious.

Among Clare OBE's 36,000 followers the consensus can be easily summed up with one random tweet:

Simon Evans at the BBC's World This Weekend is the lowest of the low & should be sacked for mocking Jeremy in this manner. This is a form of disability discrimination & he should be ashamed & sacked!

Lots of talk of BBC bias and the BBC being corrupted followed.

Complaints from both sides!

Unloading

I just thought I’d get these off my chest.

Lily Allen is a bit miffed that people thought her ‘crying’ video was genuine when it was actually enhanced, using an Augmented Reality Filter. What was even funnier was that, given her notorious emotional incontinence, it seemed entirely credible.

pic.twitter.com/IktS6MHrFb

— LILYALLEN2.0 (@lilyallen) November 21, 2019

And, for afters, Jo Coburn questions Ken Loach.

a solid two minutes here of Ken Loach erasing the experiences of Jewish people in the Labour Party & arguing that the Holocaust should be up for discussion pic.twitter.com/mT3HR852xb

— Hannah Jane Parkinson (@ladyhaja) November 24, 2019

Word salad.

We’ve had a lot to say about Fiyaz Mughal over the years, not always in complimentary terms. We saw his role as chief of “Tell Mama” as almost laughable. But, a bit like Trevor Phillips, he seems to have redeemed himself. Have they both turned over a new leaf or did we get it wrong all along?

For Fiyaz Mughal put his name to that letter to the Guardian, explaining why he and the other 23 signatories could no longer vote Labour. Not under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, anyway. 

“if Corbyn comes to power, my time working with any Labour minister will come to an end.
I cannot work to prop up or deliver any work under his leadership. This is particularly depressing since I am a social liberal – values that should naturally resonate with any Labour administration.
So why did I sign the letter openly voicing the fact that Corbyn would be a disaster for our country?
Firstly, Corbyn has been a lightning rod to attract people to Labour whose world view strongly hinges on the Israel and Palestine conflict. That is not a problem, but it has become a problem since some of these activists are openly antisemitic and see all Jews as being "the other"; as the cover-all term, many of these activists liberally use the term ‘Zionists’ to smear British Jews who simply disagree with them.”

*****

The other day a Corbynite economist appeared on Politics Live. Not your average millennial, but a mature lady called Ann Pettifor. No fool like an old fool. 

She defended the Labour Party’s policy on taxation by likening it to the Scandinavian model. Now, our Danish friends, middle-class rather than wealthy, have been long complaining about the huge amount of tax they have to pay for the socialist utopia. This dates back several years, long before the Islamic invasion. Goodness knows how the situation has unfolded, tax-wise. 

I was gratified to hear Ms Pettifor making this particular comparison, even though she viewed it as a positive, and was using it as a defence against assorted comparisons with Venezuela. I was surprised no-one on the panel took it up.

******

Can someone enlighten me as to the difference between poetry and ‘word-artistry’? Rapper, innit?

There’s a trailer featurin’  George the Poet that I find so grating that it’s even more “off-switch” than the Archers' signature tune. 

I don’t know what exactly I’m allergic to - the absence of scansion and the self-indulgent approach to rhyme, but I do wonder if George the Poet is to ‘poet’ like Rupert the bear is to ‘bear’.

******

I haven’t commented on the BBC’s continuous bias against Israel for a while, but I haven’t forgotten it. It’s piling up - the stuff I’ve read on EoZ and BBC Watch is enough to make one weep. 

Of course, the fact that this country (Britain) is being Islamified at a rate of knots explains the media’s refusal to link the Palestinians’ religious fuelled anti-Jewish principles with their determination to eradicate the ‘Jewishness’ of Israel. 

The widely held theory that Mike Pompeo’s statement about the legality of settlements is another obstacle to peace is entirely mistaken. It’s the opposite. The sooner the non-Islamic world stops encouraging a belief system based in hatred the better. They are only perpetuating the conflict for the sake of an ill-conceived sense of righteousness. 

Not that Boris Johnson’s Tories are any better than the BBC on that score, but at least Matt Hancock once attended a presentation by PMW. (Not that he was particularly impressed)

You can’t win. Here’s why.

Putting the words “Here’s why” in a title is usually click-bait.  People instinctively want to know ‘why’ something. Human curiosity plus the potential bonus of learning something new, and I’m trying to learn something new myself as I go - “if that makes sense” - a phrase one often hears these days, at a time when nothing makes much sense to me.

If you look at Craig’s post a couple of doors down, you’ll see a series of tweets about BBC bias. Peter Oborne’s ludicrous theory is that the BBC edited the audience’s jeering at Boris to minimise it  - because - wait for it - the BBC shills for the Tories. 

To back this up, he cites a thread with the emotive title “Tory Fibs”. Click on it if you want to see a further avalanche of allegations that the BBC is the mouthpiece of the government,  and dishonest to boot.

On behalf of the BBC, Rob Burley is right. He / they / “we” can’t win. 

Well, let me take that back. In one sense he can win - in the battle of the Beeb’s ploy that ‘complaints from both sides’ definitively proves “we must be getting it about right”. When the BBC says it gets complaints from both sides it’s obviously telling the truth. However, this binary factoid alone (if it is really a fact) doesn’t amount to proof that “we must be getting it right. 

(Here's why) Because it depends on the premise from which you start. It hinges on your median. If your median’s out of kilter, so’s everything else.

For example, if your starting point is your own inviolable certainty that the BBC is indeed “getting things right”, then the “complaints from both sides” argument might have reasonable validity. But, on the other hand, if the BBC sees everything through a left-wing prism, which the general consensus is that it clearly does, then no. It’s false. All wrong.

Take Peter Oborne for a start. The BBC sees him as a credible pundit and opinion provider. They have him on programmes like The Week in Westminster, where his booming voice screams “authority.”  But he’s a raging antisemite, an Islamophile and conspiracy theorist.  His hatred for Israel is at the level of  ‘unhinged’. 

Sorry, but when Peter Oborne emotes right-wing conspiracy theory, it is truly bizarre. Search “Tory Fibs”, on Twitter, not only to see all those allegations that the BBC tampered with Boris’s jeering but also for a ‘pile-on’ avalanche of allegations that the man who confronted Jeremy Corbyn with the Ruth Smeeth  / Marc Wadsworth affair was a plant and a serial Q.T. agitator. 

The Twitter mob took an obscenely obvious level of comfort from the fact that they had exposed this man for appearing on Q.T. before in order to ‘smear’ magic grandpa, and although the specific incident he cited took place (if I remember correctly) at the launch of Shami Chakrabarti’s autobiographical, quid pro quo account of the non-existent antisemitism problem in the Labour Party, this event occurred some time ago and there are several more recent incidents he could have cited, this was nevertheless a valid criticism and not a mere smear. 

Next, the BBC is using an ex BBC “Beeboid” called Tom Barton to opine about various election-related matters.  On the ill-fated debate he was of the opinion that “the Audience Won”. Seeing that the audience was stuffed with an increasingly apparent number of left-wing activists, the reality of the audience’s triumph was a matter of opinion. 

*******

Back to the matter of “you can’t win”. You can’t win when your starting point is way off the median.

Sunday morning’s output has a religious bent, which is fine. Whatever floats your boat. But I’m bound to ask, is this country (Britain) no longer considered to be a Christian country? 

I only ask because I think it’s now an Islamo-Christian country. Like Judaeo-Christian, but with Islam instead of Judaeo. Something I heard on the Sunday Programme, Radio 4 this morning tells me this is so. 

The religious programme on BBC One trailed an upcoming item about the full-face veil. 

“What do you think it will say?” asked someone chez Sue. “It will be from the premise that critics of the niqab are racist” I suggested. And so it came to pass.

A walkabout experiment (the equivalent of the infamous kippah experiment) was proposed. A letterbox outfit was duly donned, the premise being that normalising this outlandish uniform was by default “good”.  At no time was this questioned. 

The public, several of whom were already wearing headscarves, barely flinched, apart from one or two people who chose not to respond when approached on the pretext of asking for directions to the station. At least they didn’t say they were pleased she was getting the train to somewhere else. 

When the premise is skewed, you can’t win. The starting point is clear, but where oh where is the finish?

Something's happening on Twitter

Oh. Not BBC-related, as I doubt the BBC will make hay anything of this, but here's the sainted Brendan Cox (widower of Jo) going after Jeremy Corbyn over (antisemitism) Brexit:

Just went for a curry. Looked at the menu but in the end I decided to stay neutral on the choices in front of me. Waiter currently misunderstanding my maturity for indecisiveness and getting a bit annoyed.

The Corbynistas aren't happy. Being kinder, gentler folk, a lot of them are sending him tweets like this:

Just went for a curry. Looked at the menu but in the end I decided to walk out of the restaurant after being publicly accused of sexual assault.

Is this what Jo would have wanted?

"You do realise you sound crackers, Peter?"

Peter Oborne appears to have riled Huw Edwards:

Ah right! You get an entire workforce of stroppy @BBCNews journos to follow an order to support X and dump on Y. Easy! You do realise you sound crackers, Peter? 🤷🏻‍♂️ https://t.co/CQikTJrpzv

— Huw Edwards (@huwbbc) November 24, 2019

UPDATE. The Big O responded:

BBC newsreader resorts to cheap insult rather than explain why BBC edited out audience laughing at Boris Johnson when he was questioned on trust. https://t.co/DA45Uz6TyD

— Peter Oborne (@OborneTweets) November 24, 2019

"A message of hope?"

Talking of rum decisions...

I can see why - in the wake of the British government's decision to take in orphaned Islamic State children and Paddy's mention that charities are calling for "everybody's child to be brought back home" - Broadcasting House chose to interview a woman who took in refugees (from the likes of Eritrea and Chad) and one of the young refugees she took in. It helps the cause. 

The rum thing is that, as Paddy (properly) pointed out, she's a Liberal Democrat candidate in the general election. She's standing in Luton North. 

Isn't it a bit unfair to the candidates standing against her to have her selflessness paraded before the public? Wouldn't it have been better to tell her story after the election? 

Fairness at 'Broadcasting House'

In a post last Sunday, we discussed the decision by Radio 4's Broadcasting House to choose a former advisor to Boris Johnson, the second a former advisor to Jeremy Corbyn and the third a former advisor to Nick Clegg - i.e. a Conservative, a Labour supporter and a Liberal Democrat supporter - to be their 'special advisors' throughout the general election. and wondered how fair that was (i.e. did it overpromote the Lib Dems?). 

There's another problem. It turns out, as revealed this morning (out of her own mouth), that the former advisor to Boris Johnson (Jo Tanner) is not a Conservative at all. She said she'd never been in the party and tended to take a "neutral" position on things like manifestos. She then poured a huge bucket cold water over the manifesto of "the Tories", and Paddy then noted her as describing herself as "not a natural Conservative".  The former advisor to Jeremy Corbyn (Simon Fletcher), in contrast, is a Labour Party member on the far-left of the party and close to Mr Corbyn, so guess what? Yes, he pronounced his party's manifesto "a big success" and praised Jeremy Corbyn. Is that fair?

Is Broadcasting House going to keep Jo Tanner for the duration of the election, knowing what they now know (if they didn't already know)? Shouldn't they replace her with a Conservative supporter?

Rapid reaction

Peter Oborne demands an answer (to a conspiracy theory). The BBC gives him one:

Did the BBC really do this? So shocking if true. https://t.co/NlxMfNE30Z

— Peter Oborne (@OborneTweets) November 23, 2019

It seems they did. This kind of thing was normal on state TV in Soviet Russia. Should not happen in a democracy like Britain. The BBC urgently needs to explain itself. https://t.co/WamBfZjuta

— Peter Oborne (@OborneTweets) November 23, 2019

This clip, which was played in full on the 10 o’clock news last night, was shortened for timing reasons in today’s lunchtime bulletin. We’ve fully covered Boris Johnson’s appearance on the BBC QT special, and the reaction to it, across our outlets.

— BBC News Press Team (@BBCNewsPR) November 23, 2019

A familiar point

Oh Rob! 'Complaints from both sides', eh?

Twitter life in two tweets #marr pic.twitter.com/1aRCOZCIeV

— Rob Burley (@RobBurl) November 24, 2019

Errata

This morning's Sunday featured an interview with Rose Hudson-Wilson, the former Chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons who has become Bishop of Dover. Presenter Emily Buchanan asked her about race:

Do you think in terms of your own position in the Church that the Church is getting any better at the way it treats people from ethnic minorities? I mean, you are still pretty exceptional, aren't you? There's only the Archbishop of York John Sentamu and the Bishop of Woolwich who are also from ethnic minorities.

This brought a rebuke from a Christian gentleman on Twitter:

Bishops of Dover, York and Woolwich only Ethnic minority bishops in the Church of England? Really? What about + Bradwell and + Loughborough? Please check facts!!

And he's correct.  Guli Francis-Dehqani, Bishop of Loughborough, and John Perumbalath, Bishop of Bradwell, are both from ethnic minorities.

Guess who's back?

The Sunday Times has a headline today that really caught my eye:

BBC whistleblower: bosses suppressing Russia stories: 
A top investigative reporter says politically sensitive programmes are buried

How disappointing that the "BBC whistleblower" turns out to be John Sweeney!

He's still obviously bitter after his departure from the corporation and resentful that his Panorama on Tommy Robinson was dropped:

BBC bosses have been accused of pulling the plug on politically sensitive reports into the close links between leading politicians and Russia. 

John Sweeney, a BBC investigative reporter, has turned whistleblower and filed a complaint against the corporation with Ofcom, the broadcasting watchdog. He alleges investigations into Labour’s Lord Mandelson, the former Tory cabinet minister John Whittingdale, the Brexit funder Arron Banks, the oligarch Roman Abramovich and the far-right activist Tommy Robinson were all dropped. 

He claims that other potential reports into “the pro-Russian sympathies of Labour spin doctor Seumas Milne” were never even commissioned by BBC editors and raises more concerns about Boris Johnson’s links with Russian oligarchs.

Wonder if there's any substance to his claims? If not, then he isn't 'a whistleblower'.

(Question: Can you be 'a whistleblower' after you've left your job?)

Anyhow, John Sweeney has his own article in The Sunday Times under the headline:

BBC’s ‘jellyfish’ bosses sting investigative reporting to death. They must go. 

He writes:

I found film of Robinson saying “for too long the German people have lived under the guilt of Adolf Hitler” in a bierkeller in Bavaria. We hoped to let the public see Robinson as the sock-puppet for neo-Nazis that he is. But our Panorama was never broadcast. Instead, the BBC threw the book at me, “jellyfish” charge and all. 

Being attacked by a far-right cult while undefended by the BBC was maddening, literally. I felt bewildered and betrayed and, eventually, I cracked up. 

I am back to my old self but have left the BBC. However, I love it too much to just walk away in silent dismay. 

So, I have complained to Ofcom about our Panorama on Tommy Robinson: not broadcast. Our Newsnight investigation into Peter Mandelson’s undeclared money from a mob-connected Russian firm: not broadcast.

As he's still spinning that yarn about Tommy Robinson in the Bavarian bierkeller, I think we can be forgiven for approaching his other claims with some scepticism.

A ship wreck on Loch Ness

A ship wreck on Loch Ness (Photo: Mikadun/Shutterstock) pic.twitter.com/IXElfDhPPa

— Scottish Field (@ScottishField) November 24, 2019

She who dares

Further to Sue's Off its rocker post, here's Sarah Baxter in The Sunday Times:

A woman with very decided opinions appeared on BBC1’s Question Time in Bolton last week. This member of the audience was no shrinking violet; indeed she offered her views with great force and at high volume. She was an English teacher, she said: “I teach my pupils about politics, about mutual respect, about tolerance, about all the brilliant, fundamental British values.” 

But here’s the thing. Her face was concealed by the niqab — or burqa, as she called it. Only her eyes, flashing angrily, were visible. And, boy, was she furious about “Islamophobia” and specifically with Boris Johnson for comparing “women like her” to letterboxes, even though he had also defended their inalienable right to wear whatever they chose. 

For the first time in my life, I understood what being “triggered” feels like. Because the niqab is a garment that makes me feel afraid and threatened as a woman.

Fact-checking

As BBC Watch points out, the BBC's Barbara Plett Usher - recently relocated from the UN to Jerusalem - isn't wholly in command of the facts. 

Her 22 November article for the BBC News website reads:

A lot will depend on senior members of Mr Netanyahu's Likud party. Until now they have maintained their tribal loyalty to the prime minister, but he is facing a possible challenge from within. 

The education minister, Gideon Saar, has called for party primaries to replace him. There may well yet be others.

As BBC Watch says, 

Gideon Sa’ar has not been the Minister of Education for over six years. He held that post between March 31st 2009 and March 18th 2013 and since then there have been three other ministers.

Indeed, Mr Sa'ar hasn't been a minister for five years.

Where's Chris Morris when you need him?

Another day, another antisemite

We can make real change happen with fair pay for young workers.

Your vote in Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire can make a world of difference. On December 12th, make your vote count, #MakeitMarc #VoteLabour19 pic.twitter.com/haArTJCVYl

— Marc Tierney Labour Carms W & S Pembs (@MarcTierneyLab) November 6, 2019

Until reading Rod Liddle's latest Sunday Times piece (very good, as ever) I wasn't aware that the Labour Party had been compelled to remove an election leaflet ('Real Change for Young Workers') from circulation this week. 

And why did they withdraw the flyer? Because the young activist featured prominently on it, one Kierin Offlands, has been found to have made antisemitic slurs and suspended. 

It's a grim thing that this eye-popping story feels like a sign of the times. 

Rod wonders:

Did the Labour Party choose an anti-semite as its poster boy because it couldn’t give a toss about anti-semitism? Or was it because it couldn’t find anyone in the approved section of the party — that is, the far left — who hadn’t expressed anti-semitic views? Maybe a bit of both.

I see that that the story was reported widely in the papers, but not by the BBC.

Comeback

The great Chris Mason (t/m Andrew Marr) responds:

Alex Balfour: Have you watched the BBC recently? It’s almost as if RP is no longer allowed. Great to have nice regional accents but then you get Chris Mason who sounds like a train conductor, Beth Rigby who turns ‘ings’ into ‘in’s’ and Steph McGovern who makes the Tetley ads sound highbrow! 

Chris Mason: Mercifully, the word ‘eejit’ means the same how ever you say it.

Another question

Can you imagine how many blood vessels would have burst on twitter if this had been a Conservative Comms Officer asking Boris a question? pic.twitter.com/GaVgC9h7cb

— Zac Goldsmith (@ZacGoldsmith) November 23, 2019

Mid-November Open Thread

Hello. Here's a new open thread to warm yourselves in front throughout this dark mid-November. Thank you for your continued backing and comments. 

Question time

Questions, questions. And time to answer them:

Christopher Hope, Chief Political Correspondent of the Daily Telegraph: Why is Nicola Sturgeon in the BBC Question Time election debate when the vast majority of the viewers cannot vote for her party?

Kate Hoey, retiring Labour MP: And if Nicola was invited why was the DUP leader Arlene Foster not there too?