Escalating bias

I think I’ve heard just about the most biased edition of the Today Programme in a long time. First, the news headlines, which I described in my earlier post. 

Next, we heard Yolande (pronounced Roland but with a Y) Knell’s breathless account of the affair. Then we were treated to the bizarre opinion of Professor Marandi, whom I assume is the author of a piece explaining why ”US President Donald Trump has a problem with 'Death to America' slogans” if such a thing requires an explanation. The professor signed off with a reminder of the so-called ‘open mic” incident which caught “Pres. Obama and his French counterpart complaining about Israel's leader."

Sarkozy was heard to say “I cannot bear Netanyahu, he’s a liar”  to which Obama replied: “You’re fed up with him but I have to deal with him even more often than you!” So, there you have it! The killer blow!

Following this, we were treated to another beauty. Tom Bateman visiting a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon to commemorate the Palestinian Nakba. (Their catastrophe.) I haven't got time this morning to go into detail about the omissions and emoting that poured out of poor Tom Bateman's mouth. Maybe someone will transcribe it somewhere. I'm sure many listeners were reduced to tears. Not to mention the increasing hostility to Jews and Israel, which this report undoubtedly exacerbated.

The real catastrophe, of course, was the Arabs’ refusal to accept a tiny Jewish majority state in their midst and their disastrous decision to try to eradicate it, motivated purely by their virulently antisemitic religious beliefs. Bateman’s report amounted to unadulterated, one-sided antisemitic propaganda with zero counterbalancing content. Therefore I am forced to supply it myself. 

A history lesson. People will argue that this is a one-sided account. That’s as may be. I include it here because it’s the side that you’ll never hear on the BBC. 

"Israel at 70. Time to Retire the False Palestinian Narrative"  by Aviv Ezra.  

I shouldn't reproduce this piece here in full without obtaining prior permission, so I have abridged it slightly.  Please follow the link and read it all. 

“In  November 1947 the United Nations voted to approve a partition plan that would have created a Jewish-majority state and an Arab-majority state in historic Palestine, and shared Jerusalem between the two parties. The Jews accepted the partition plan, and the results of the UN vote, though it provided insecure borders in a fragmented new state.  [...] The Arabs had never accepted the idea of a Jewish-majority state in any part of historic Palestine, and began a campaign of violence against the Zionists the very night the resolution was passed.  

Israel says

Israel attacks Iranian military positions in Syria! 

Did you wake up this morning to John Humphrys announcing excitedly that Israel has struck Iranian military bases in Syria?……………… after an Iranian attack on the Golan?

Is this an example of the BBC’s special  “last/first” formulation?

However, despite the Today Programme's dramatic headline, the BBC did indeed report the  “last” incident (which came first)  on the BBC website, so they were aware of it. As usual, it comes under the category “Israel says”.

Iran attacks Israel. (Israel says)

“Israel's military says Iranian forces have fired rockets at its positions in the occupied Golan Heights.

It said around 20 rockets were fired by Iran's Revolutionary Guards early on Thursday and some were intercepted, adding that there were no casualties.”

“Earlier this week, Israel said it had noted "irregular activity" by Iranian forces in the region.” 

(Did the BBC report this at the time?)

“It placed its troops in the Golan Heights on high alert and urged civilians to take shelter.”

The Times of Israel reported the “first” incident, which occurred just after midnight.  

“Some 20 rockets were fired at Israeli military bases by Iranian forces in southern Syria just after midnight on Thursday, with some of the incoming missiles being intercepted by the Iron Dome defense system, the army said, amid sky-high tensions on the northern border. 

There were no reports of Israeli casualties in the attack. An army spok 

The Israeli army said the missile barrage was carried out by members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Forces. This appeared to be one of the few instances of a direct attack on Israel by Iran, which generally operates through proxies. 

Tehran vowed revenge after the T-4 army base in Syria was struck in an air raid — widely attributed to Israel — on April 9, which killed at least seven IRGC members, including the senior officer responsible for its drone program. 

Syrian state media reported that Israeli artillery fire targeted a military post near the city of Baath in the Quneitra border region, where Syrian regime forces were stationed.

The Israel Defense Forces spokesperson confirmed that the army had retaliated to the alleged Iranian attack, but would not comment on the specific details.

Footage allegedly taken in recent hours of Syrian MLRS 

firing at IDF position on the Golan Heights. Israeli media is confirming that several rockets were fired from Syria's of the border. No word yet on retaliation by Israeli forces or Western powers

Will listeners to the Today Programme get the full picture, (in chronological order?)  We'll have to wait and see how it pans out. 

More later, personal circumstances permitting.

Violating the terms?

Interestingly, on the Today Programme, Justin was rather pleasant to Emily Thornberry, despite some fairly rigorous probing. (It can be done.)

Addressing Boris Johnson’s bid to persuade Donald Trump not to abandon the Iran deal, the Shadow Foreign Secretary said she was sad to see Boris on Fox News instead of ‘face to face’ with the POTUS, like Macron with the dandruff.

“Might that have had anything to do with your party being contemptuous of Trump?” asked Justin amenably.

“No”, said the Shadow Foreign Secretary. She was more concerned with the Iranian nuclear programme, which she pronounced “NucULAR”, and giggled at her inability to articulate ‘I A E A’.

“What’s the alternatuv?” she asked. (Has Dead Ringers got an Emily Thornberry?) “I mean the worry is is that if we don’t continue…… […] I’m not here to defend Iran but I’m here to defend the deal.” 

These trivial observations may not add up to much, but the question is is the Shadow F.S. up to the job? The only purpose of mentioning such trifling things is to highlight the difference between this amiable chat with Justin and Mishal Husain’s flagship, post-eight o’clock interview with Israel’s Ambassador, Mark Regev.

Mishal Husain has two personas; a charming, syrupy, empathetic one and the contemptuous one reserved for Israelis.

Husain’s use of the Paxman technique, most notably in that interview with Gil Hoffman, commonly known as the “How many Israelis?” interview, where she corners her victim by repeating the question “how many Israelis have died?” to force from him an admission that none had. No Israelis had been killed by Hamas’s “home-made contraptions”, ergo no retaliation was justified. 

The technique is designed to ridicule the victim and to make their argument look weak. Paxman famously employed it to humiliate Michael Howard, and the interview became legendary simply because of the number of times the question was put, and the inevitable binary answer avoided. 

Of course, it was disingenuous and unfair, as the engineered question could never be fully answered with a simple ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.

After hastily and selectively (not verbatim) transcribing the following, I listened to Matthew Amroliwala put a similar line of questioning to another interviewee, so I can only assume it wasn’t Mishal Husain’s own idea to focus on the matter of Iran’s violation or non-violation of the terms of the deal.  It must be official BBC strategy to approach it that way. (Impartiality? What impartiality?) However, Husain’s inability to listen to Mark Regev’s answers and adapt her questioning accordingly is all her own work.

Husain

“Would you like to see this deal collapse?”[…] “Has Iran violated its terms?”

(She wants Regev to admit that Iran hasn’t violated the terms and cannot justify pulling out of the deal)

Regev

“the deal is “good for Iran” therefore it has no interest violating it, furthermore Iran lied to the IAEA from the start." (By originally denying they were pursuing a military nuclear programme.)

Husain

“But that assumption is what led to the deal being reached,” says Husain, dismissing Iran’s lying as irrelevant. 

Husain persists.

“I’m going to ask you again, has Iran violated the terms of the deal?”

Regev

“The deal itself had an element that called upon Iran to come clean regarding its prior nuclear activity. The deal is based on Iran coming clean, which it did not.”

Husain

“In terms of what they have done since 2013, have they violated the deal? she asked, again.”In the terms of the deal, in terms of their activities”

Regev

"Well first of all, not coming clean was a violation, but it’s in their interest to stick within the narrow confines of the deal because it allows them in a few short years to create unlimited amounts of uranium…”

Husain

"I think its clear from what you’re saying that your issue is about Iran’s truthfulness about its past activities and some may raise the question about Israel’s openness about its nuclear activities, given that you’re widely regarded to have a nuclear programme which you have never been open about, but international nuclear inspectors have said, again and again, eleven times in total, that the commitments in Iran, that it has signed up to, have all been fulfilled. Now, do you have evidence that that is not the case?" 

(Has Husain ignored everything Regev has been saying? It looks so. She insists that as long as Iran hasn’t violated the terms of the deal there’s no justification for pulling out.)

Regev

“The inspections at the moment are very limited. You have to notify the Iranians ahead of time and no inspector can go to any site that is declared by the Iranian regime as a military site. Now if you were the Ayatollah, and you were the Iranian government, and if you wanted to conceal your programme, where would you put it? […] You have just confirmed what I said, that you have to notify the Iranians in advance and get permission, secondly, any military site is off limits to the inspectors…"

Husain

"And do you have suspicions that things are going on right now that shouldn’t be and if so have you put these to the international nuclear agency?"

Regev

“We believe we have conclusive proof that the Iranian nuclear ambition is not benign and that they continue to want their nuclear weapons."

Husain

“You say it’s a very limited inspection regime. The IAEA say they have 2,000 tamper-proof seals in place on nuclear material and equipment, that there are hundreds of thousands of images captured daily by their surveillance cameras in Iran, that is about half the total number of images that they collect in the world. In what way is that a limited inspection?"

Regev

"They are only there at agreed sites. The Iranians have never come clean before, never voluntarily said where they’ve got equipment. [..] Iran is a huge country and every military site - that Iran declares is a military site, is off limits."

Husain

"You suspect, do you, that things are happening right now at those sites that shouldn’t be. is that what you’re saying?"

Regev

"None of us know, and we haven’t even mentioned the ballistic missile programme, which is going on as we speak. The Iranians have a very, very aggressive ballistic missile process. Over the last few years, they’ve already doubled the range of their rockets. They want a nuclear weapon and we have to stop them from getting it."

Husain

"And the ballistic missiles are outside the terms of the deal."

Regev

"Correct. that’s a problem."

Husain

"Alright. if this deal collapses, what is the alternative? Benjamin Netanyahu said we don’t want confrontation. If there needs to be one  it’s better now than later, does that mean a military confrontation."

Regev

"I think there are alternatives. I’d like to see a deal that actually does what this deal says it does. That does stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon., and the way to do that is to deal with the ballistic missile programme, to deal seriously with the issue of inspections and to deal seriously with he issue of the ‘sunset clause’ that automatically in the next few years the restriction on uranium enrichment will be lifted."

Husian

"But let’s just think about the most sensible ways to get to what you call those other alternatives. You want a more stringent deal. Now is the most effective way to get to that, to tear up what you have at present and to supposedly start to negotiate again on that basis, or to try and strengthen what is already there?"

Regev

"For us whether there’s a deal or not it’s a minor consideration. The only important point is do we have a mechanism that prevents Iran from achieving a capability to build nuclear weapons. the current deal does not do that."

Husain

"In your view."

Regev

"Not just in our view."

Husain

"Wh.. w… well, y…but okay, again, if you were to start from scratch, what makes you, what makes you think that tearing this up would lead to a more u…u..a more stringent mechanism of some kind?"

Regev

"There’s no point in keeping a deal just for the sake of keeping a deal. There was a deal with North Korea in 1994 that was heralded as a great breakthrough for nuclear non-proliferation and we know that North Koreans developed nuclear weapons so a deal for the sake of a deal gets no-one anything. It’s crucial that if we are going to talk about a deal we deal with the serious issues, Once

again, the sunset clause, the ballistic missiles, and the inspections."

Husain

"And have you put the serious issues that you believe are in place, if you do believe that there are  er activities in violation of the deal happening now, have you put those to the IAEA?"

Regev

"We have close relations with the IAEA, we have with Americans with the EU3 my PM is going to raise these issues with the Russians. Obviously, we’re making our case and we believe that evidence that we can bring to the table shows a consistent pattern of Iranian duplicity. They have lied and continue to lie to the international community about the true nature of their nuclear programme. And let’s be clear this is not Israel speaking alone, the Arab states endorse, support our position. we are as one with the Arab countries on seeing the dangerous nature of the Iranian nuclear programme."

Husain

"Well, we’ll hear from President Trump on this topic later on today. Let’s talk about Gaza and what’s been happening along its border with Israel. Since protests began on the 30th March Israeli soldiers have killed forty Palestinians including five children on the Gaza side of the border fence, more than 3,000 Palestinians have been hospitalised with injuries from live ammunition. Why are your soldiers using live ammunition to shoot people on the other side of the fence?"

Regev

"We don’t want to see anyone get hurt, We don’t want to see any violence. Unfortunately, the Hamas regime in Gaza has orchestrated continuous attempts to storm the border fence to damage the face to penetrate into Israel and to hurt out people."

Husain

"Yes, five people have been killed crossing the fence, I’m talking about those who were shot with live ammunition by Israeli soldiers inside Gaza. Why are you using live ammunition to shoot those who were inside Gaza?"

Regev

"We are only using live ammunition as a last resort after we’ve used other non-lethal mechanisms. We can’y allow people to storm the fence, break the fence and come into Israel to try to kill our people."

Husain

"Why do you need a last resort for those who haven’t crossed the fence?"

Regev

"You used the word protests before. Demonstrations. We have no problem with demonstrations.If people in Gaza want to demonstrate against PM Netanyahu or the Israeli government they are free to do so. Of course, they are not free to demonstrate against Hamas. That would never be allowed. But if you storm the fence with wire-cutters, with petrol bombs, with explosives when the goal is to damage the fence so you can infiltrate into Israel and hurt our people we will act to protect our civilian population."

Husain

"I am asking you about this who’ve been shot with live ammunition on the Gaza side of the fence, the Israeli rights group Adalah which is part of the legal challenge against the use of live ammunition says the great majority of those shot were at a distance from the fence, that there has bee a systematic use of live fire with no justification."

Regev

"If I’m not mistaken some 80% of those fatally shot in the violent confrontations were signed up members of Hamas and Islamic jihad, they were activists, not innocent civilians."

Husain

"Finally, after allegations of antisemitism in the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn has said in recent weeks, in fac,t he told Jewish news in march that he intends to visit Israel and to meet Benjamin Netanyahu at some point, will the PM meet him?"

Regev

"I can’t pre judge. I’m not even sure a visit has been finalise at this stage."

Husain

"But if it happened, that Jeremy Corbyn hopes it happens at some point, with PM Netanyahu meet him?"


Regev

"I am very happy to meet with Jeremy Corbyn and discuss a possible programme for him to visit Israel. Anything else at this stage would be premature."

Husain

"Mark Regev, Israeli Ambassador to the UK thank you very much, listening to that is Jeremy Bowen our Middle East editor, there’s no doubt Jeremy, that the Israelis feel extremely angry about what has been agreed in terms of this deal do you think they have evidence of violations happening now?"

Bowen’s pedestrian wisdoms ensue. (Why didn’t they bring in an expert to evaluate Emily Thornberry’s observations?)

I don’t know how interviews are allocated between the presenters of the day, but it often seems to fall upon Mishal Husain to do the Israel-related ones.

On second listening I didn’t feel that the disdainful tone of voice she used for Regev was as obvious as it seemed on first hearing, this morning, but that was before President Trump made his speech explaining why he has decided to do what he’s decided to do. That was then and this is now.

I see the BBC has substituted Sarah Montague’s image for Martha Kearney’s on the website. (It looks a bit big) Also, I find it pretty exasperating that they’ve dumped the ‘running order’ so one has to trawl through the whole thing to locate the bits you’re interested in. Just think, when I first started blogging, they even supplied us with hyperlinks to individual sections of the programme. It’s almost as if they’ve done it deliberately to frustrate bloggers who criticise the BBC.

Free Speech

It seems ironic that none of the mainstream press reported Tommy Robinson’s march yesterday (Sunday, May 6th). 

I err. One did, and you’ll never guess which one. The actual Guardian. 

Not the BBC, Sky, ITV, the Times - in fact, it would be much easier to just say the only other paper that mentioned it was the Evening Standard. (I say this only after a somewhat perfunctory search so do please correct me, etc.)

Why is that ironic? Because the protest was all about “Free Speech,” which the protesters (mainly critics of Islam) see as currently under threat from the increasingly totalitarian ‘hostile atmosphere’ they sense. Twitter accounts closed down, scary knocks on the door by representatives of the law and suchlike. Well, we all sense it.  And the fact that a considerable number of people were moved to rally in central London wasn’t reported by the BBC seems kinda careless of the most respected news organ in the world.

One particular feature of this event attracted my attention because it showed me how easily one’s sensibilities can turn one into a massive hypocrite. (That’s me.) 

By a strange coincidence, this matter is also related to a dog. It concerns the man who was recently fined £800 for training his dog, a pug, to raise its paw in the gesture of a Nazi salute on the command: “Gas the Jews”. 

He undertook this training, into which, I imagine, must have taken considerable time and effort, in order to annoy his girlfriend. (Why, was she Jewish or something? ) Sorry. Facetious thought.

Again, he made the unwise decision to put this feat of canine obedience into the public domain. On Youtube, I understand. Bad decision.

The ensuing pursuit by the police, the courts, and the press appear to be quite horrendous. Now, let’s look at the offence itself.  Was it a joke? Supposedly. Not a very good one in terms of wit. Was it a hate crime? Hmm. Perhaps posting it on Youtube amounted to inspiring similar Nazi-related ‘jokes’ and therefore could be said, potentially to be at risk of inciting hate. 

Now I couldn’t see any humour at all in using the phrase “Gas the Jews” as a command. It showed crass insensitivity. However, the speech made by this man at the rally went beyond the issue of the dog to make some significant points on the danger of the “totalitarian” threat to freedom of speech. What if the power was in the hands of a different political ideology? 

So my own hypocrisy is exposed. I’m all for free speech but I don’t like people training their dogs to behave like Nazis and I certainly don’t find “Gas the Jews’ remotely excusable as a command to a dog. Neither do I think this stunt had wit on its side. But I do see his point and I do understand now, having listened to his speech, why Tommy Robinson supported the principles he cites and uses to defend his actions. (Before I heard it I did think Tommy Robinson had made a big mistake aligning himself with this individual)

Now, there are lots of Hitler-related ‘jokes’ out there. There are cats that look like Hitler. There’s even a house that looks remarkably like Hitler. They’re not exactly funny, but it is a bit weird that these images resonate so vividly. It verges on ‘the piece of toast that looks like Jesus’ territory.

So I’m more offended by Hitler-saluting-dog-gate than by the racist joke I wrote about yesterday, (and by the way it disappoints me to reiterate that I said in that post: I'm not justifying the tweet, the joke or the lady, by the way. Just pointing out the way it has been, to use a fashionable term, ‘weaponised', which I fear might have been overlooked) So, if that makes me a hypocrite, so be it.

We hypocrites must stick together, especially when we’re forced to hang our coats on shoogly pegs.

It’s always risky to try to make a nuanced point, which can all too easily be misconstrued, but I have to trust (hope) that most readers out there have sophisticated comprehension abilities, which they engage to the full whenever I do risk it.  Very interesting thread on Harry’s Place  (H/T for the vid) do catch it before the comments evaporate.

Must go, someone’s knocking at the door.

Pendlegate

The Sunday Morning politics shows were dominated by one particular theme. Can you imagine Seumas Milne and the gang devising their post-local-election strategy? Brainstorming, you might say. “Let’s go with Pendlegate! That should stop people whining about antisemitism.” 

So we had John McDonnell and Barry Gardiner acting as if they had been gravely affronted, with a similar amount of outrage from Andrew Marr, Robert Peston, and Sarah Smith.

The offending tweet was too, too awful to describe, horribly racist, unrepeatable and pass the smelling salts, Mildred.  Not terrible enough to be redacted or permanently banished to room 101 though. You could see it in its full glory on Guido. 

Several precious moments of air-time were devoted to the implications of this despicable tweet, which everyone found too obnoxious to describe but insisted that the nature of it totally discredits the Conservatives who are now (thankfully) just as toxic as Labour. 

The level of this discourse typifies the superficiality we’re supposed to accept as journalistic scrutiny.

The racist joke is no longer just a racist joke. Now, according to the pundits, it represents the “views” of the lady who was dumb enough to tweet the joke rather than simply recounting it while pissed, in the pub. People come back from pubs with ten-a-penny jokes like that all the time, (so I hear) and despite being (or maybe because) they’re racist, they’re deemed worth repeating because they are funny, in an absurdist way. 

Let’s look at the joke. (It was a JOKE).

The dog fits the supposed criteria for dole, and for that 'unarguable' reason, he’s given it. There you have a racist and absurdist joke. I'm not justifying the tweet, the joke or the lady, by the way. Just pointing out the way it has been, to use a fashionable term, 'weaponised'.

The undeniably racist element of the joke is that brown people, (impliedly immigrants) are workshy, unwilling to learn the language and smelly, and the perception is that “they” are unworthy of the hand-outs they’re supposedly being given, willy-nilly; the theme is society’s underlying resentment thereof.

However, the way the joke is constructed, the humour is principally absurdist, which is why it is amusing. 

The antisemitism in Labour doesn’t even have the saving grace of being in the form of a joke. It’s straightforward, unadulterated Jew hate, and it’s not even mildly funny. 

Picking bones

Ellie Reeves MP

Finally on today's The World This Weekend came a section with this introduction by Mark Mardell:

The bones of the English local election results have been picked clean by now but here's one under-reported result: Nearly 4,000 people who wanted to vote were stopped from doing so, according to the Electoral Reform Society.

Quite how 'under-reported' it was I'm not sure because I've read lots of people on sites like this objecting to how the BBC reported this story, particularly for presenting the Electoral Reform Society as if it were an official body rather than a campaign group and for seeming to take the ERS's "4,000 people" figure on trust.

In fact, that "4,000 people" figure from the ERS has been widely disputed with many saying that their figure was based on "extrapolations" from "observations" with no statistical validity and that two councils involved put their figures at fewer than 100.

If that's the case, why did Mark Mardell take the ERS's figure at face value and not probe it?

He interviewed Ellie Reeves, Labour MP for Lewisham West and Penge, who opposes the ID scheme. She downplayed the issue of voter fraud and Mark didn't challenge her for doing so. Instead, he asked her, given what she says she's seen, if the Government should expand the scheme (she said no) and what she thinks is behind the government's thinking (she wasn't complimentary). He ended by saying they'd asked the government to respond but they'd declined. 

Hmm.

UPDATE: Official figures from two of the five pilot areas (Gosport and Swindon) are showing that very few people were actually turned away. It was 44 people at one, 60 people at the other. As Rob Ford of Manchester University says, "These official figures on voters turned away due to ID requirements seem hard to square with the far larger 4,000 estimate that was circulating far and wide on Twitter on Friday". It looks as if the claims of "fake news" might be correct.

Raining on Ayn's Parade?

Mark Mardell admirer, former Labour MP and arch Europhile Denis MacShane, is full of praise for the World This Weekend presenter again today:

As soon as I heard Mark announce the item about Ayn Rand I guessed she wouldn't be his cup of tea, and I wasn't exactly surprised when Mark talked to two people who aren't fans of Ayn Rand and one person who was but now isn't any longer! 

Looking on the Dark Side

Today's The World This Weekend,...

....which twice featured Mark Mardell calling DUP leader Arlene Foster "Eileen Foster",...

...also featured an interview with former EU commissioner Danuta Hübner.

She was predictably negative about Brexit and the consequences for the UK of leaving the Customs Union. 

During the interview Ms Hübner said that non-tariff barriers "are not existing within the Customs Union". 

Well, apparently that's not true. According to Full Fact: 

There are no tariff barriers to trade with other members of the single market, but there are non-tariff barriers. These can be things like product standards and regulations that make trade harder. 

This sort of barrier is a particular issue in the services sector. 

Why didn't Mark Mardell pick her up on that?

Anyhow, if Ms Hübner was downbeat about our prospects if we leave the EU Customs Union then the BBC's John Pienaar, who preceded her, sounded even gloomier!:

That leaves aside the question that these trade deals that are being discussed. They're not there yet. Many people are deeply sceptical about the fact that they might be, that the European trade deal would take years to negotiate, that other parts of the world global economy - you look at America, you look at South Korea, China again -you're talking about years before they come on stream. So gaps and holes and barriers absolutely all over the place.

Can anyone think of a reason why that isn't biased reporting?

A burst of Eric Idle singing 'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life' is probably needed now.

Andrew Marr

Best wishes to Andrew Marr, who is about to undergo treatment for kidney cancer. Hope he's back at work very soon. 

"Yeah, well just answer the question!"

Twit/Tw*t/Twitter

If you still wishfully think that Twitter doesn't matter, here's a recent exchange on that benighted social medium between a 19 year old female tweeter and a Tory MP:

Michael Fabricant: So far, despite forecasts that #Labour would gain 200 council seats, the BBC puts them up just 58. And while the #Conservatives were forecast to lose 75 seats, they are currently level pegging. A disappointing day for the #OldLabour Party.

Darcy: Not as disappointing as Burntwood since you neglected it. WEAK AND WOBBLY!

Michael Fabricant: Says a complete twat who seems unaware that there is no vote this year in Burntwood! And I neglect no part of my lovely constituency. That’s why I’m loved!!

Darcy: I never used any foul language towards you? That’s not very professional?

The famously blond Mr Fabricant has landed himself in a whole lot of (Twitter) trouble for using the t-word there and young Darcy has demanded satisfaction, as duellers say, waving her Twitter glove in Mr Fabricant's face. 

And guess what? Yes, the BBC is right on Mr F's case. 

And (another yes), believe it or not, this 'scandal' really is on the BBC News website Home page and among its headlines.

Mr. F says he thought she might be a troll for all he knew...

...[and looking at her Twitter image and the fact that she's been silent on Twitter for four years before this - from 2014 to 2018 - I can well imagine why he thought she might not be a real constituent]...

...and added that he used the t-word in the way he says he thought it was meant: 'twit' (which, I have to say, sounds plausible as far as Michael Fabricant is concerned! - even before we come to the actual context of the exchange, quoted above).

The BBC report is going big with Darcy's anger. It's her outrage that is leading the story. Mr Fabricant's defence only arrives in the fourth paragraph:

A teenager has demanded an apology from her MP after he called her an offensive name on Twitter. 

Darcy Norgate, 19, said she was shocked when Michael Fabricant replied to her with a slang word for female genitalia. 

She said he launched a "personal attack" after she questioned his commitment to Burntwood, Staffordshire. 

The Lichfield MP tweeted that Ms Darcy (sic) had not said she was his constituent and he thought of the word as a synonym for "twit".

And Miss Norgate's complaints continue to dominate the article.

And to make things look worse, according to this BBC report, Mr F has declined an interview with the BBC about it. 

Quite why the BBC keeps referring to Darcy Norgate as "Ms Darcy" throughout their report is anyone's guess. (Very Confederate-gentlemanly of them!) . 

It later continued: 

The row began when Ms Darcy (sic) responded to his comment that Labour's performance in the local elections had been disappointing". 

Intriguingly for us who follow the snaky, Satanic medium of Twitter we can read the whole exchange (quoted above) and see that the dashing Mr Fabricant's main point - that the young lady was talking male genitalia (so to speak) about Burntwood, a part of his constituency - completely failed to make this sic-filled BBC report. (Mr Fabricant was correct and Miss Norgate was incorrect). 

In the interests of disinterested blogging, I read this and thought "Good grief!". And, thus, I share it with you here. 

I'll be watching Newssniffer to see if this hapless article is edited. 

Why the BBC "secretly enjoys" Owen Jones's attacks on Andrew Neil

Roger Mosey, in BBC days gone by

Former head of BBC Television News Roger Mosey has written a piece for The New Statesman headlined Why Owen Jones’s attack on Andrew Neil secretly delighted the BBC. 

It's full of interesting points, and I suspect that you'll enjoy it.

It's his take on why BBC reporters' Twitter comments matter and how they seriously compromise 'BBC impartiality'...

...however much some people might discount such things as trivia not worth bothering about by blogs about BBC bias. After all, for many BBC reporters, it's now a key part of their reporting role and it's fully BBC-branded.

Roger singles out Laura Bicker for emoting in a dumbed-down way ("totes emosh") over the Kim-Moon "bromance", and regular anti-Trump sneerer Anthony Zurcher....

Zurcher often retweets Trump with caustic comments

(Very true!)

...and business correspondent Joe Lynam for being pro-EU ("on Twitter it’s clear he cares a lot about the EU"). 

All are absolutely fair comments from Mr Mosey - though I believe him to be seriously mistaken in thinking that their TV, radio and online reporting is "straight", impartiality-wise. It is no such thing. [Evidence from this blog of all three reporters behaving less than impartially? Well, please click here for Laura, here for Anthony and here for Joe].  

He then goes on, just as fairly, to criticise John Simpson for (despite himself) "revealing this thinking" on Brexit on Twitter.

And then he brings in Andrew Neil, long the BBC presenter those who deny that the BBC has a left-liberal bias like to cite. 

As I've said before, I agree that Andrew Neil - the fairest of all BBC interviewers - behaves as badly as these others on Twitter. He too thinks he can behave "without impunity" on social media. Unlike all of the above, however, his Twitter feed comes from 'the other side'.

And that's where Owen Jones leaps in, accusing Andrew Neil (quite correctly) of behaving in a less-than-impartial way on Twitter and, thus, "promoting right-wing causes" - hence 'proving' the BBC to be biased in 'the other direction'.

Roger Mosey says the BBC "secretly enjoys assaults like that" from Owen Jones, as it "undermines the usual claim that it is controlled by liberal lefties"

He concludes by posing a dilemma for the BBC:

All this points to a choice that broadcasters still have: to engage or not. One presenter who shuns social media told me: “I’m genuinely not persuaded that tweeting serves any useful purpose for broadcasters who must be seen as impartial. Maybe it raises the tweeter’s profile – but with whom? The people who matter are the audience and I suspect they reach their judgement on how we perform when we’re doing our jobs.” Some European public service broadcasters take the hard line of simply not allowing their presenters to vent on social media, and they don’t seem the poorer for it.

Please read it all (if you have time).

Questions of Balance

Owen and Ian, after last night's discussion

Last night's Newsnight review of the local election results had a curious panel - two Labour-supporting panellists from opposite poles of the party (Owen Jones and Philip Collins), a Liberal Democrat supporter (Miranda Green) and a lone right-of-centre guest who said he'd voted Liberal Democrat in this election in protest at his Conservative council, Tunbridge Wells (Iain Dale).

Newsnight probably couldn't have guessed that Iain Dale voted Liberal Democrat (as a protest vote), even though he'd tweeted the fact before his appearance on Newsnight, so we'll let them off, but the overall balance of the panel was harder to understand.

Of course, 'complaints from both sides' are to be found:

@BBCNewsnight 3 Tories v 1 Labour, and you say your not bias,@UKLabour are well served with @OwenJones84 though.

Does this mean that both this chap from St. Paul's Cathedral and myself are both guilty of confirmation bias?

Obviously, the tweeter from St. Paul's Cathedral is defining everybody to the right of Owen Jones as "Tories", so he isn't being entirely reasonable there.

But am I?

What are the ways of seeing this panel (other than as 'three Tories versus Owen Jones!')?:

• Two Labour, one Lib Dem, one Conservative? 
• Two Labour, one Lib Dem, and one Conservative who told Emily he's not been a Conservative member for eight years and voted Lib Dem this time? 
• Two Labour (one a Corbynista, one a Blairite), one Lib Dem, one right-of-centre?
• Three left-leaning, one right-leaning?
• Two left-leaning, one centre, one right-leaning?
• One government supporter, three government critics?
• One Corbyn supporter, three Corbyn critics?
• Three anti-Brexit people versus one pro-Brexit person?
• Two 'soggy centre-left' people against a mild right-winger and a hard leftist?
• A panel of Newsnight regulars?

Personally, if I were Newsnight's editor, I'd have had three people who supported their respective parties/party leaderships here: a pro-Mrs May Conservative, a pro-Sir Vince Lib Dem and a pro-Mr Corbyn Labour supporter. I wouldn't have included Philip Collins (excellent as he is to watch and as lively as he is in sparring with Owen Jones).

*******

Lib Dem Miranda and Blaritie Philip

Oddly though (well, for me anyhow), on reflection, maybe the Corbyn-supporting verger from St. Paul's Cathedral had a point after all. Having a Blairite critic of Mr Corbyn alongside a "noisy" cheerleader for Mr Corbyn wasn't helpful to Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters, and Labour was the only party to receive that 'splits' treatment here.

*******

[Obviously, the BBC - if anyone complained - would start by pointing out this was only one panel on one edition of one programme and that we should judge the BBC over time].

*******

Weirder still, this night's Newsnight had two reports. One was a general report on the election results from Nick Watt, the other a report on one particular council result from David Grossman. 

As a seasoned BBC watcher, I'm very attuned to which council results BBC programmes focus on and was surprised that this one made the Conservative gain in Barnet its particular focus. 

I was personally very pleased that they did (thus highlighting the antisemitism issue), but - donning my 'fair-minded blogger' hat -, I can see why that would have infuriated the Corbynistas.

Continuing to try to be fair-minded, what can be said in Newsnight's defence here? 

Well, given that Labour antisemitism has been one of the massive stories of recent weeks and months, this particularly dramatic result is the most newsworthy result of the local elections and Newsnight was right to place it in particular under the spotlight. (As they say on exam papers: Discuss.)

*******

The two political interviews that night were with the Conservatives' Jo Johnson (brother of Boris) and Labour's Lords leader Baroness Smith.

Emily and JoJo

Emily's questions/comments to Jo Johnson were:

• ...and I began by asking him if he was worried by vote share projections that show Labour and the Tories neck and neck. 
• Do you think then that Corbyn has stopped being a threat to the Conservatives? 
• So he's not really a threat anymore to your party? 
• So when you look at the UKIP vote which has now collapsed, that's mainly gone to you. John Curtice predicts that 70% of your voters are now Leavers. Essentially the harder wing of your party is now emboldened by these results. Jacob Rees-Mogg was quoting the John Curtice figure and saying, finally we can deliver the kind of Brexit that we, ie he, envisages. 
• The Jacob Rees-Mogg's path for Brexit now is what he feels can happen. 
• Yeah, but what does that mean? Because we saw talks break down last week over the Customs Union direction. We know that Brussels doesn't even like any of the things on the table. So once you've got this UKIP vote and you've got people like Jacob Rees-Mogg saying, "Yep, that's going to be a hard Brexit" and "We can do that now". Is that what we can expect? 
• Jo Johnson, you are kidding yourself. Nobody came out of that polling booth saying, "I'm really pleased with the way Brexit negotiations are going". You cannot look yourself in the mirror and say what your government is doing now is absolutely great. Can you? They haven't got anything done. 
• This is a result, this is an election that has told you there is stasis - that Corbyn isn't moving forward, that the Tories aren't moving forward. It is not an endorsement of anyone. It's a suggestion, if anything, that people are sick and don't know where to go to now. 

Emily and BaSm

And her questions/comments to Baroness Smith of Basildon were:

• Remembering Sadiq Khan's words, there's no corner of London where labour can't win. Chris Williamson also said "the easiest period to campaign for Labour in my entire life". What went wrong? 
• But ultimately it didn't. 
• Jeremy Corbyn visited Grimsby, he visited Barnet,  he visited Thurrock, "This is a seat we can and will win". He didn't win any of them.
• I don't understand whether you're saying don't extrapolate or we have made real gains and it is a sign that we are moving forward. You can't have it both ways. 
• OK. But you're the opposition party. This should have been the easiest time ever. You have had a Windrush scandal, you have had Cabinet resignations, you've got Brexit chaos. She, the Prime Minister is in crisis.
• No, but she has emerged completely unscathed. 
• Because they don't know what Labour thinks about the customs union.
• Momentum has been Labour's grass roots way of really reaching voters that other political parties or political methods couldn't reach. Do you feel that Momentum has now tipped into something that makes it harder for the party? They control the NEC, they talk of deselection, many centrist Labour MPs are quite scared of them. Are you worried that the hard left is now costing you a bigger vote? 
• And Haringey, where there is a big Momentum presence, went backwards. You lost seats. 
• So what do those areas tell you?
• The point is though it's about direction of travel, isn't it? It is about whether people are playing to their own bandwidth. Jeremy Corbyn has never bent to the centre, that has been one of his great strengths, he seems to know what he stands for. But maybe this is, as has been asked of him today, peak Corbyn, maybe he can't reach the centre ground? 
• He's had three lots of elections, maybe even four lots of election, to do that reaching out. 
• But you're saying it's not high enough. 
• You would agree, wouldn't you, that Barnet was a self-inflicted wound?

Particularly nteresting (from my point of view) to note here are Emily saying the following:

1. ...people like Jacob Rees-Mogg saying, "Yep, that's going to be a hard Brexit"
2. Nobody came out of that polling booth saying, "I'm really pleased with the way Brexit negotiations are going".
3. ...you've got Brexit chaos...

As anyone who looks at the question of BBC bias must consider: Do interviewer's questions express things in ways that sound biased because the interviewer is, dispassionately, asking devil's advocate questions contrary to her interviewee and posing things in provocative ways so as to solicit an interesting (or newsworthy) answer, or do such questions constitute hidden, biased statements of belief on the part of the interviewer?

Obviously, many of the questions listed were devil's advocate-style questions, but looking at my 3 highlighted comments, I'd say that there was something more:

(1) that Jacob Rees-Mogg would never say "hard Brexit", as that's a term mainly favoured by those unsympathetic towards Brexit (and Iain Dale picked up Emily later for using the term in a point to him - "Well, tell that to Boris Johnson, tell that to the Daily Mail. You saw the front cover, and you're very close to David Davis. He can push back for a very hard Brexit now. You're a good friend of his". He replied, "This is preposterous, what on earth has a so-called hard Brexit, which is actually just Brexit, got to do with any of the results from yesterday? These were local elections, I don't think they have any impact on the Brexit debate.")
(2) that Emily is wrong that "nobody" thinks the Brexit negotiations are going well, and
(3) that the term "Brexit chaos" (as put to a Remain-voting baroness) is a heavily negatively loaded (anti-Brexit) way of characterising the present situation. 

So, yes, I do detect bias - and on the Brexit issue here it's all coming from one direction..

What do you say?

"Conservatives should probably stop congratulating themselves"

Emily Maitlis's framing of the local election results on last night's Newsnight was striking. Please see what you make of it:

Good evening. Expectation management is an ingenious thing. Were Conservatives really worried Labour was going to paint London red? Did Labour themselves really think it possible? In the end it didn't happen, and Labour failed to make the breakthrough it had been hoping for; now the blame game about who really started the rumour it ever would. Certainly Labour did gain ground in the capital, just not enough to create big headlines. They also lost control of Derby and Nuneaton and Bedworth but gained Plymouth. Conservatives should probably stop congratulating themselves on holding onto their bastions of blue - Kensington, Wandsworth and Westminster. They lost Trafford in the North West but did pick up Barnet - the anti-antisemitism vote. Arguably the night was won by the Lib Dems and also by the Greens who had their best local result in history. And it was definitely lost by UKIP. Their voters, let's just say, went back to where they came from in terms of party allegiance. Tonight we aim to battle through the weeds and work out who is genuinely up and who is down. The projected national share, which extrapolates from local into a national picture, shows the two main parties on 35% - Labour marginally ahead there. So perhaps the fairest picture is of a country in stasis. 'No overall control' seems the most fitting description for Britain itself. 

The two things that particularly stood out for me there were:

Conservatives should probably stop congratulating themselves on holding onto their bastions of blue - Kensington, Wandsworth and Westminster. 

(Is that really for a BBC presenter to say?)

and

The projected national share, which extrapolates from local into a national picture, shows the two main parties on 35% - Labour marginally ahead there.  

Am I missing something? How can Labour be said to be "marginally ahead" on the projected national share if they are shown as neck and neck on 35% with the Conservatives?  

Is this proof that it's not just politicians who spin election results?

PERFECT HARMONY - The Coverage of Politically Motivated Art by The BBC

A guest post by Loondon Calling...

A Fashionable Marriage, 1986

Accompanied by fanfares of publicity the 2017 Turner Prize was awarded last month in Hull, the 2017 UK City of Culture. The winner of the 2017 prize was Lubaina Himid based in Preston. 

The BBC report of the award ceremony echoed with the resonance between them and the Tate Gallery over the true nature of the Turner Prize. 

From Wikipedia … 

The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award)… 

From Analysis by Will Gompertz, BBC arts editor: 

… Lubaina Himid's Turner win is being put down to the well-documented rule change that did away with its 50-or-younger age restriction, which had been in place since 1991. Clearly, the 63-year-old artist wouldn't - couldn't - have won without the removal of the age cap. But there was another, less publicised rule change this year that also benefited her. For the first time the jurors were allowed to take into account the work each artist displayed in the Turner Prize exhibition. 

"What?" you may ask. "Hasn't that always been the case? Why wouldn't they take the exhibition the public see - and therefore judge by - into account?" 

Goodness knows why, but they didn't. Which might help explain some of the previous winners, and certainly makes sense of Himid receiving the contemporary art award for an exhibition packed with work she made some time ago.* 

Her tableau A Fashionable Marriage, a satirical and political 1980s take on a scene from Hogarth's 18th Century series Marriage A-la Mode, was the single best work of art in the entire Turner Prize exhibition. 

It would have been a worthy winner when she made it in 1986 and - thanks to the rule change - it was a worthy winner last night… 

From Himid’s own website, an extract: 

… The star of the piece for Hogarth is, of course, the Countess, who has recently had a baby, so lounges casually at her dressing table, having spent the previous afternoon at the auction rooms, while her husband, the earl, is away. She is having her hair done. She is Margaret Thatcher, the first and therefore the last woman prime minister of Britain, leader of the Conservative party, champion of business, destroyer of the unions, the welfare state and staunch supporter of apartheid…. 

The vilification of Margaret Thatcher is a familiar theme from the BBC, but this art piece from Himid gives an opportunity to reinforce their bias against Thatcher and the Conservative Party. 

In previous posts, we have seen how the BBC likes to absorb events such as the Turner Prize, the Stirling Prize and the RA Summer Exhibition into their narrative. The 2017 Turner Prize must have been a gift, offering a free hit at Thatcher’s memory, Himid receiving publicity for her political views and being the first black female winner to score points for inclusivity etc etc. 

From the Tate Modern Home Page: … 

Tate Modern is Britain’s new national museum of modern art. As class compositions change, each new economic force takes over the mantle of British taste. Each succeeding social elite must have its art, its brand which secret codes and systems of value can be exchanged. This is usually in the form of what is to be tolerated and what is not, what’s in and what’s out, who’s in and who’s out. New money needs to be a part of history. With money you can buy your way into art history. With even more money you can shape that future history…. 

*From Wikipedia again: 

…. Artists are chosen based upon a showing of their work that they have staged in the preceding year….

*************

The trend is set to continue with this early signal from the BBC Arts and Entertainment pages of the BBC News website with reference to 2018: 

‘Turner Prize 2018 rewards art activists tackling crime, rights and race’

The piece draws our attention to the work of a group known as Forensic Architecture, based at Goldsmiths, University of London, which creates "3D models of sites of conflict" to help prove wrongdoing. 

‘Naeem Mohaiemen, Charlotte Prodger and Luke Willis Thompson complete the list.’  

Naeem Mohaiemen: … ‘Born in London and raised in Bangladesh, Mohaiemen makes films that use turbulent periods in world history to focus on the legacies of colonialism, national identity, left-wing politics and migration….  

Charlotte Prodger: … ‘Glasgow-based Prodger is nominated for two videos. One was shot on iPhones and named Bridgit after the Neolithic deity. The other traces a history of recent video formats and the artist's personal history. The jury praised her for "the nuanced way in which she deals with identity politics, particularly from a queer perspective”….  

Luke Willis Thompson: … ‘The 30-year-old New Zealander makes silent black-and-white 16mm and 35mm films inspired by stop-and-search policies and killings. His films include one made with Diamond Reynolds, who used Facebook to broadcast the aftermath of the fatal shooting of her partner Philando Castile by a police officer in 2016…. 

Born Dead, 2016

Further searching reveals more about Luke Willis Thompson and a piece Born Dead 2016: …. 

LUKE WILLIS THOMPSON 1988, AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND. LIVES IN AUCKLAND  

Sucu Mate – Born Dead (2016) is the result of an extended investigative process into the Old Balawa Estate Cemetery, a cemetery with a history of slavery in the Pacific island nation of Fiji. Luke Willis Thompson applied for custodial rights to a small selection of gravestones within the racially zoned site. In 2015, official approval was given to the artist from Fiji’s governing institutions to excavate anonymous material from the worker’s section, itself a former sugarcane plantation. The concrete markers were permitted to travel out of Fiji for a period of 24 months to be exhibited as art objects, and are presented here after being shown in Auckland and Brisbane. The work is, in this way, a mobile cemetery, and one that questions how human lives and dead bodies are inscribed in the order of power. The project will continue with the grave-markers’ repatriation to Fiji and resituated within the same field from which they came. In such a way the project simultaneously prototypes both a historical continuity and the performance of dislocation; two cultural operations with national relevance as the islands within Fiji face ecological change and the continuing submergence of their lowlands. 

Back to the BBC piece about the 2018 shortlist: …. 

Shortlist is right on the money - BBC arts editor Will Gompertz…  

…. If there are two themes that bring them all together, they are that they all work in film and they're all deeply politically engaged.  

We're going to get four films at least and maybe a bit of installation, which are going to look at the world in which we're living and all its complexities and blurred lines, with a very sharp political edge criticising the establishment's view of fact.  

The art world is becoming a very politically engaged forum and I think this Turner Prize is right on the money in showcasing three artists and one collective who are questioning the world we live in, in a way perhaps artists haven't done in the recent past…. 

I have been careful not to comment upon the quality of the artwork exhibited. Instead, it is in the looseness of rule-making that allows these political messages to be at the forefront of British art that should be of concern. 

Here are the rule changes: 

Artists are chosen based upon a showing of their work that they have staged in the preceding year - not any longer. 

Rule change that did away with its 50-or-younger age restriction, which had been in place since 1991. This helped the 2017 winner and has remained in place (as far as I know). 

Jurors were allowed to take into account the work each artist displayed in the Turner Prize exhibition - a change in 2017 which has stayed in place for 2018. 

The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. How does ‘LUKE WILLIS THOMPSON 1988, AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND. LIVES IN AUCKLAND’ work in this case? 

It appears that The Turner Prize has been changed from its original form, first and foremost to engage a closely drawn group of activist/artists who promote a political message. The BBC, if not instrumental in the rule changes themselves, are clearly in full agreement with them - especially Will. 

Oops

Mahmoud Abbas, Israel’s so-called partner for peace has made a grossly offensive speech at the opening the 23rd session of the Palestinian National Council. It must have been pretty bad because even the BBC has reported it, and so has the Independent, though they don’t seem quite so sure whether to be offended or not. 

"Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas accused of antisemitism over Holocaust comments" 

They did report, however, that Emily Thornberry was in attendance, and that she condemned his comments, adding:

"I hope President Abbas will immediately apologise for them," 

They didn’t report, however, that the UK's shadow Foreign Secretary was somewhat late in the day with those remarks, as according to Guido, her first response was:

“While we of course want to see the resumption of meaningful peace talks, I said President Abbas had been quite right to argue that the Trump administration cannot act as a mediator for peace when they themselves are sowing the seeds of discord, and making a negotiated peace ever harder to achieve…”

and only later put out the following statement:

“It is deeply regrettable that, during a lengthy speech whose main and successful purpose was to urge the Palestinian National Council to remain committed to the Middle East peace process and the objective of a two-state solution, President Abbas made these anti-Semitic remarks about the history of the Jewish community in Europe which were not just grossly offensive, but utterly ignorant. His comments were out of keeping with the tone of the Council as a whole, and of my discussions with other delegates, and I hope President Abbas will immediately apologise for them, so that the message to come out of this important Council meeting can remain positive and progressive, and focused on re-establishing peaceful and constructive dialogue.”

The BBC did not mention Emily Thornberry at all in the report linked to above.