Farce of the day

The latest scandal to hit ‘electioneering’ is even more like something from “The Thick of It” than the Ukip debacle. (I mean everyone is tempted to inflate an invoice or two... if the EU is picking up the tab..... are they not?) No? Maybe not.

I mean, did Afzal Amin really dream up that farcical plot? (Brian Rix eat your heart out. )

Did he, as he now claims, do all this for the ultimate betterment of mankind?

Who made the recording? Some say it was the EDL; Mark Mardell said the Daily Mail.

The Celebrity Restaurant? You couldn’t make it up. Well, you could, but no-one would believe you.

By the way, what was Afzal’s actual policy on the mega-mosque? Or was he so hell-bent on getting elected that he didn’t give a damn one way or the other? 

From the transcript of the conversation it really looked as though Tommy Robinson was all set to go along with the plan, but it now seems it was all a bluff. Surprisingly, the media believes him.

The whole thing begs several questions, who did what and why? 

Personally, from my own position (a combination of total ignorance and guesswork based on various media reports of the incident) I’ll guess that Afzal Amin was pretty miffed about his failure to stop the original EDL march, and fantasized, as one does, about how he could re-run the whole thing and emerge triumphant.  Only he took it a bit too far. It should have remained a fantasy, obviously.

What astounded me more than the fiasco itself was that the BBC seems most outraged at the very idea that a would-be M.P. could stoop so low as to hob-nob with such a disgustingly far-right-wing bunch of thugs as the EDL. The fact that as a would-be MP Afzal concocted an elaborate farce to make himself look good didn’t seem to bother them at all.

Now call me a right-wing defender of the EDL if you must, but I seem to remember that the EDL are vilified for objecting to the Islamification or Islamisation of the UK, which they express vociferously and sometimes drunkenly, through the medium of the protest march.

Both ladies on Marr’s paper review seemed to be taking this EDL-bashing line, specially the labour MP Gloria De Piero.  “The idea that anybody would contemplate doing a deal with the English Defence League” was the thing that appalled her. “They’ve marched through my constituency, they intimidate people, they frighten people....”  Wow. 

“The EDL is the most appalling organisation” said Anna Soubry MP. 

Nothing was said about the intimidation emanating from massed Muslim marches we’ve seen over the last couple of years, least of all the one against depicting the prophet Mo. that winded outside the PM’s residence.

Meanwhile, scandals surrounding the corrupt councillors of Tower Hamlets, the hate preachers that seem to be protected by chancellors and governing bodies of our universities, the communities that demand separate Islam-style education for their children, the racist sexual exploitation that was swept under the carpet by the police, social services and the media for years - have enjoyed kid glove treatment for fear of stirring up social unrest, and worst of all fear of being called racist.

It would have been admirable if Afzal had really been what the Conservatives wanted him to be, disadvantaged background, Muslim, aspirational, successful, multicultural; diversity with a cherry on top. But alas, no.

Tim Montgomerie was interviewed on the Sunday Politics. (I think) He also adopted the anti-EDL approach.     

Andrew Neil eventually got Tommy Robinson on the blower. 

“Hello, Mr Robinson, can you hear me?” 

“Yes. Hello”

“Are you there?” 

“Yes, I can hear you. Hello.”

“I can’t hear him.”

That palaver at the beginning of the conversation gave the whole thing a surreal aura, and although Andrew Neil appeared prepared to hear Tommy Robinson out, alas and alack, they ran out of time. 

The story continues....

As I am subtle, false and treacherous as the BBC...

Richard III, acting the part of Laurence Olivier

The BBC News Channel is devoting a lot of time this afternoon to the slightly-belated funeral procession of Yorkist king Richard III. 

It's all a little bit surreal.

As a Lancastrian, I'm appalled. 

The bias is astonishing. That comely wench Martine Croxall is actually wearing a Yorkist white rose in a truly outrageous display of BBC bias. 

She's also quoting the Richard III Society - as if they're as worthy of the BBC's respect as, say, CAGE or the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. 

Never mind the BBC being the broadcast wing of the Guardian, the corporation has now become the broadcast wing of the Richard III Society. I will be writing to Andrew Bridgen MP.

And, come to think of it, she even failed to label the Richard III Society as a "pressure group". 

And now she's parroting their pro-Yorkist propaganda, saying that all the bad stuff we think we know about him is merely "according to the (Tories) Tudors": "The Tudors insist that Richard murdered the two princes in the tower, but most experts reject this, saying that the evidence points more towards the involvement of Mossad. Reporting from Gloucester, here's our Middle Ages editor, Jeremy Bowen"...

Plus, she says, "many" historians feel he has great achievements to his name. He opposed the bedroom tax for starters and laid the groundwork for instituting the BBC licence fee.

Today, in the "diverse" city of Leicester [as the BBC put it earlier today], Richard III (pbuh) is being buried. The hideously white crowd is applauding. Ring out the bells! My hearse, my hearse, my kingdom for a hearse! 

Like Richard himself, I've got a hunch...that the BBC is enjoying this. And why not?

Marcus Brigstocke, are you interested?

Here are some entirely-on-topic jokes for a sunny, Spring-time, English Sunday afternoon (slightly adapted from a certain website which always makes me laugh):

Following the BBC's advice, Jeremy Bowen tried using a colander to view the eclipse. He thinks he may have strained his eyes.

I saw Jon Donnison looking directly at the solar eclipse.

"Didn't you read any of the warnings?" I said, "You could go blind looking at the sun like that!"

"I'm not that stupid," he replied, squinting. "I'm looking at the moon." 

A terrorist attack has blown away two local houses - one made of straw and the other made of wood. The BBC reports that it's probably a lone wolf.

BBC Breaking News: The families of three British teenage girls thought to have run away to Syria have come together and pleaded with their daughters to come home. "We are losing child tax credits and family allowance," claimed the girls' fathers. 

"I don't think they were aware of what they were doing"

Oh my! Fergal Keane was 'fergal keaning' splendidly on this morning's Broadcasting House. 

Reporting from Tunisia, he clearly felt the hand of history on his shoulder:

If you ever wanted an example of how the past can lay claim to the present, it's here and now.

Sad voice. "The problems of unemployment, of lingering police repression, continue to cause alienation among many young men". There are "people looking purposeless" in poor districts - the kind of people drawn to the call of jihad.

Of course, it's easy to be cynical. Fergal also found some interesting responses: He spoke to a campaigner against jihadism who was angry at the Tunisian government for failing to take notice of the ongoing warnings of anti-jihadi protestors about the terrorist threat; and a crowd rushed towards him, having seen he was a Westerner, to offer their condolences. One man said, with deep passion, that Tunisia should be a place for everyone, "even the Jews". 

However...

One of the ways that bias in any kind of reporting could be monitored (it's recently struck me) is to check out how the report ends. What message does it choose to end with? What final thoughts are left lingering in the listener's ear? 

Well, this is the message that Fergal chose to end on. It came from the imam of the local mosque:

I don't think there are any religious reasons behind the act. I think those young men were lured by money and tempted by money more than by anything else. They were brainwashed and I don't think they were aware of what they were doing. 

Well, I do think there might have been religious reasons behind the act. Knowing that they would almost certainly be killed after carrying out their atrocity, I'm not convinced by the imam's "lured by money" excuse. And I very much doubt they weren't aware of what they were doing in going to Tunisia's national museum, fully-armed, and slaughtering every white face they could see. 

I suspect Fergal Keane chose to end his piece with that absurd statement from the imam because it puts across a couple of messages that he, Fergal Keane, also wishes to put across: (a) that such terrorist atrocities have nothing to do with Islam, and (b) that there are reasons (unemployment, poverty, police repression - the examples he cited earlier in the report) which might explain why these alienated, purposeless young men go off beheading, shooting tourists, slaughtering shoppers, raping women, persecuting followers of other religions, chucking gays off buildings, etc - which is a very 'nice', liberal way of looking at things but probably a long way away from being anything like the whole story.

Experiencing a more Islamic culture

Here we go again, it seems: 

Fears UK medics crossed into Syria

Nine British medical students and doctors are feared to have travelled to Syria to work in areas controlled by Islamic State militants.

Go down to the penultimate (14th) paragraph in the BBC website article and you'll see the following:

The medics are said to have been born in England but were sent to Sudan to study and experience "a more Islamic culture".

Sky News, however, is more explicit about exactly who "sent" them to Sudan to experience "a more Islamic culture", telling us as early as their 4th paragraph:

The students had been studying in Sudan because their parents wanted them to experience a more Islamic culture, but they were born and raised in Britain.

Turkish politician Mehmet Ali Ediboglu is quoted later in the Sky article saying, 

"I've asked the families why they sent their children to study there, and as I understood it, they wanted them to experience a more Islamic culture and not to forget their roots." 

This needs remembering, just in case the usual suspects attempt to pretend it's all the fault (somehow) of the British authorities, and that families bear no responsibility for helping to encourage their children to value Islamic culture and their non-British roots more than British culture and 'their British roots'. 

Groundhog Day

It's almost a year to the day since I wrote this about Radio 4's Sunday: 

It's rare that you get a Conservative MP on Sunday - it's usually Labour or Liberal Democrat MPs who appear on the programme - but Conor Burns MP was invited on today to criticise his own Catholic bishop for excommunicating him over his vote for gay marriage. (This is a classic Sunday story.)

I may not be a Catholic but I've become slightly more clued-up on Catholic matters over the past couple of years or so, and if there's one English 'bogey-Bishop' for the likes of Edward Stourton and his fellow liberal Catholic Tabletistas, it's the new(ish), conservative-traditionalist Bishop of Portsmouth, Philip Egan. And, lo and behold, here he was being slated on Sunday - just as he's been slated in recent days in The Tablet. 

In fact, although I've never heard about  the story before, as soon as an unnamed bishop was mentioned as being the 'villain of the piece' I guessed it might be Bishop Egan. 

After the Bishop was well-and-truly bashed, Edward Stourton said, curtly, that they'd asked Philip Egan to come onto the programme to respond, and he'd said "No." I wonder why.

Well, this morning's Sunday began with the following:

Edward Stourton: Welcome to Sunday. The Bishop of Portsmouth has told his priests that they must review the charities they deal with to make sure their aims are compatible with Church teaching. A Catholic MP for the diocese tells us what he thinks is wrong with Bishop Egan's list of guidelines:

Catholic MP: I think it's very legalistic. It's very rigid. And my worry about it? It will cause people worry and anxiety and perhaps have them step back from involving themselves in things that could otherwise be very good for them and very good for their communities.

Edward Stourton: We'll also have the Bishop's response. 

That Catholic MP turned out to be Conor Burns MP again.

(And, needless to say, The Tablet have been covering the story too - and noticeably less favourably to the Bishop than The Catholic Herald). 

It's déjà vu time again!

This time, however, Bishop Egan did appear for interview - and we'll see how that turned out later.

The sort of Church teaching that Bishop Egan has in mind is that concerning matters like contraception. As he's a Catholic social conservative, he disapproves of  such things. 

Edward Stourton: As an example he cites the case of a domestic dispute resolution charity which has been endorsed by the gay rights organisation, Stonewall. The Bishop argues that becoming involved with such a charity could be seen, and I'm quoting here, "to constitute formal cooperation in gravely immoral acts" [and listen to Ed tone of voice. It changes when it comes to that quote from a straight tone of voice to a loud and somewhat incredulous one - as if he's telling us all that he doesn't believe such things].

After Mr. Burns had slated the bishop in an interview - with Ed Stourton's help ["And you think this will be actively damaging to the people it's sent to?", "You're a Catholic yourself. What do you think the Pope would make of it?"] - Bishop Egan duly appeared [in a pre-recorded interview]. 

It was pretty much inevitable what was going to to happen next - and it most certainly did happen. Ed Stourton went for him - repeatedly interrupting him, asking much longer questions that usual and sounding (especially for Ed) unnecessarily fired-up. 'Unfriendly' and 'hostile' were the words for it. 

Now, if that isn't Ed's liberal Catholic bias coming out into the open again, I'm not quite sure what is. 

This may not be the kind of bias that matters to you but it's pretty clearly bias nonetheless, and a BBC presenter shouldn't be showing it.


P.S. For any passing visitors from the Spectator (h/t Damian Thompson), please click on the link below (to this self-same blog) for the full context:

http://isthebbcbiased.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/take-one-tablet-three-times-day.html

'The BBC understands...'

The BBC, Sky and ITV websites are all leading with the same story this morning: the Mail on Sunday's dramatic scoop concerning the Conservative candidate Afzal Amin, who - the paper claims - conspired with the EDL [Update: "far-right extremists", according to Paddy O'Connell and the newsreader on Broadcasting House] to take credit for stopping a protest against a mega-mosque.

It's an astonishing story, especially given Mr Amin's past record of military service and his outspokenness against Muslim extremism. No wonder it's leading the headlines.

Sky's account is, typically, much more detailed than the BBC's - complete with extensive quotes. It also reports a racial aspect to the story which the BBC opts to exclude:

In a recorded phone call with Mr [Tommy] Robinson, Mr Amin also says he needs two "white" canvassers to help his campaign for election. 

"I need two white, working class lads to go round those areas to say to people, 'You support the Army, if you support the troops then vote for this guy'. That's what I need," he said.

Plus, Sky describes Mr Amin as a "Muslim candidate"; the BBC doesn't.

Incidentally, it was only yesterday that I was reading a discussion about how the BBC likes to insert itself into someone else's scoop (those many "the BBC has learned" and "the BBC understands" stories where, critics say, the BBC has simply been handed a press release or read another newspaper), so my eyebrows raised at two such examples in the BBC's article about this story:

Mr Amin told the paper the allegations were "completely untrue". He has not returned a call from the BBC.

A full disciplinary hearing is expected to be held on Tuesday, when Mr Amin will be able to explain his actions and a decision on his future will be taken, the BBC understands.'

Is this one of those cases when "the BBC understands" simply through reading it in/hearing it from a rival media outfit?

Statswatch

Ah, happy memories! Ullswater. 

Just as an aside..

Here are are some statistics I saw on Mark Easton's Twitter feed which I thought I'd pass on simply because I found them interesting. They come courtesy of the Office for National Statistics:

The value of the UK’s lakes, reservoirs, marshes, bogs, canals & rivers UP 26% in 5 yrs to £37bn says first ever @ONS analysis.

In Iceland 1/3 of over-65s are working. In UK it's 1/10. In Spain it's 1/59.

In 2012 Brits took 36.2m overseas holidays. In 2013 it was 37.6m.  Last year 39m+

To add to those, here are some more:

UK residents made 3.9 million visits abroad in January 2015 and spent £2.3 billion during these visits.

In 2013 more than one in three adults (36%) reported having a long-standing illness or disability (LSI) and one in five (20%) reported having a limiting LSI. People living in Wales (27%) were more likely to report having a limiting LSI than those living in either England (19%) or Scotland (20%).

The last one is one, I'm guessing, that 'sensitive BBC type' Mark would have hesitated about ever reporting.

'fergal keaning'

And while I'm 'borrowing' stuff from Alan at Biased BBC, I'd also like to recommend another of his 'spots': a fine, insightful piece from Mark Lawson in the Guardian. 

Mark Lawson compares the two News at Tens - the one on BBC One and the other on ITV - and finds that the BBC wasn't the serious, straight, analytic one. The BBC programme was more populist in feel, full of simplistic gimmicks and 'operatic' turns from its star reporters (Fergal Keane and Robert Peston), and contained 'news items' which then turned out to be little more than plugs for upcoming BBC programmes. 

I'll quote a different section to Alan, as it struck me as particularly good and introduced me to the splendid term 'fergal keaning': 

Thursday night anchors Mark Austin and Mary Nightingale at the ITN desk and Sophie Raworth alone in the BBC studio had the same lead story – the terrorist attack on the museum in Tunis – with identical UK-based spin: the killing in the incident of a British tourist. Each had also got a journalistic big gun there in time to report live: Rageh Omaar for ITV and Fergal Keane for the BBC.

Omaar employed the standard sombre tones and vocabulary of tragedy reporting – “the peace of a Tunisian museum shattered by gunfire” – but his rival showed why the term “fergal keaning” is now used by some to refer to the sound of Irish lamentation. “Today the fearful aftermath,” Keane noted, of “the new age of international terrorism”. He made priests at gravesides sound cheerful in comparison.

ITV used two bits of Omaar to “doughnut”, as the jargon has it, a London-made package about the methods of Islamic State terrorists. The BBC wrapped two chunks of Keane around an interview with a local man who claimed to have known one of the gunmen and observed his turn towards extremism.

As a viewer, I wondered how the crew in Tunis could be completely certain that a stranger found so rapidly and speaking in translation phrases of a generalised kind – the guy used to “drink and gamble” with them before being “radicalised” – really had known the terrorist well. But presumably the BBC’s news managers were happy with the guarantees given.

One presumes indeed.

Is the BBC deliberately undermining a critical MP?

(h/t Alan at Biased BBC)

The BBC now has an enemy in parliament: Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen MP. 

He writes in the Telegraph that he is "going to war" with the corporation because he's "sick of its bias and misrepresentations".

Mr. Bridgen is the MP who led the charge for the decriminalisation of non-payment of the licence fee because it amounts to some 12% of all magistrates cases in this country. The BBC publicly disagreed with him and, according to Mr Bridgen, its ex-employees in the House of Lords have been successful in delaying his bill for another two years. He's not impressed, to put it mildly.

Some of his arguments about bias and the need for radical reform at the BBC will probably be familiar to you. What was new to me, however, was his description of the BBC's actions against him personally. If true, they are truly astonishing:

By leading the debate and setting the political agenda on the decriminalisation of the licence fee, I have set myself on a collision course with the might and influence of a £5 billion worldwide media organisation, which has attacked my family business, falsely reporting “facts” and attributing comments to me which I did not make.

I am fearful of retribution from the BBC after having been picked last week, out of a possible 46 East Midlands Seats, as a focus for the regional news programme in the upcoming election, effectively granting my opponents a disproportionate amount of prime BBC airtime to attack me.

Did the BBC intentionally smear Andrew Bridgen? Is it deliberately seeking to unseat him?  

If either of those charges holds water, then it's absolutely scandalous, isn't it? 

Poor analogy

Jonathan Freedland has written a vitriolic analysis of Netanyahu’s victory in the recent Israeli elections. It is headed:  “Netanyahu sank into the moral gutter - and there will be consequences.”

(one of which is inflammatory rhetoric like Freedland’s.) That’s his privilege, and as they say, no-one is forced to buy the Guardian. But was it wise of the BBC to single out this article in their paper review (Today 18:20) this morning, and in particular to use this silly, inappropriate, off-key analogy to quote from, verbatim?

“Imagine if a US president broadcast such a message, warning the white electorate that black voters were heading to the polls in “large numbers”. Or if a European prime minister said: “Quick, the Jews are voting!”  This is the moral gutter into which Netanyahu plunged just to get elected.”

What sort of comparison was that supposed to imply? What sort of imaginary moral equivalence was Freedland dreaming of? Freedland was, of course, referring to Netanyahu’s warning that “Arab voters are advancing in large numbers towards voting places”. 

Perhaps Freedland’s superficial interpretation of that remark might be his way of rehabilitating himself with Guardian readers who were disappointed with his spat about antisemitism on Q.T. with George Galloway, but even so, to venture into that kind of  disingenuous analogy territory is revealing.  

I’d just quote from a couple of comments about this on Harry’s Place to put it in context. The whole thread is interesting because it tackles both of two statements that Netanyahu-haters will love to pick up and run with, ( “No Palestinian state on my watch” is the other) but for the moment let’s stick with the 'Arab voters' theme.  Here’s a comment that echoes Freedland’s take on the subject:

sg77.

“Dude. The President of the US says it's time to reassess our relationship to Israel, based on Bibi's statements about Arab voters and also the lack of support for a two-state solution.

That isn't a little silly nitpicking. That's a very serious, very big deal.

Bibi has hurt Israel and he's hurt the perception Americans have of Israel, which up until now has been pretty positive.

I hope this blows over, this is the most serious anti-Israel commentary I've heard in America, from the most powerful people, in my life - and I am 65.”

Here’s the counter argument, which highlights the points Freedland fails to address: 

Hafuch_Al_Hafuch  sg77• a day ago

"...Bibi's statements about Arab voters..."

If I were him and I understood that a certain segment of society was being aided and encouraged by non-members of that segment to vote, in order to change significantly the outcome of an important election, I would have said the same thing, and I would have added that those outsiders weren't free from a charge of racism too.

"...lack of support for a two-state solution."

In the euphoria of the years after the Oslo agreements, candidates for Prime Minister used to say, before and after elections, that peace would be achieved through painful compromise.

This is no longer true because Palestinian statements and behavior have destroyed the hope that they were ready for peace on any terms.

That's more or less what Netanyahu said at the time, and it's what he explained later.

It's nitpicking and Obama would have found something else to harp on.

"...this is the most serious anti-Israel commentary..."

Perhaps, but don't forget the promise of a previous president which Johnson reneged on,

the Nixon/Kissinger "reassesment" after the 1973 war, and the anti-Semitism of Carter.

BTW I’m 71”

Jonathan Freedland is doing what Trevor Phillips has just made it less obligatory for leftists to do, namely, “Play the racist card.” You don’t have to do that any more, ‘dudes’.

Sometimes things are necessarily and justifiably ‘racist’. Traits with statistically racial propensities. I have a bone to pick with Trevor, but that’s for another day. 

By singling out this Guardian item, and giving it to Mishal Husain of all people to read out as part of the paper review, the BBC is playing the race card - lazily implying that Netanyahu’s warning about the “Arab list” is unjustifiably racist. It ignores the racism that emanates from Israeli Arabs as well as political manoeuvering from outside Israel that influences their vote.

The BBC pretends, as usual, that the Palestinians and Muslim Arabs are ‘just like us’. The BBC airbrushes away all the unpleasantness of Hamas and Islam, and by general consensus identifies with them wholeheartedly. That’s not only racist in its own sweet way, but it’s very biased.  

"You don't say!"

"You don't say!"

That was my reaction to Kate Adie saying, "The Palestinian territory of Gaza is no stranger to this programme" on today's From Our Own Correspondent. 

She added that Gaza is

...no stranger to conflict either. In recent years, devastating conflicts with Israel have left much of the Strip in ruins, while blockades of its borders have meant shortages of many basic goods, as well as anger, resentment and a sense of isolation. 

Yet another Gaza story followed. Tim Whewell went in pursuit of the only grand piano in (what he called) that "besieged concrete warren on the Mediterranean".

[Except that, in using that analogy, he didn't mention that the tunnels in the warren don't contain rabbits. They contain Hamas terrorists and - until Israel took action against them - a vast horde of rockets].

Sue’s addendum:

Oh Kate. 

“Israel’s blockade of its borders has meant shortages of many basic goods as well as anger, resentment and a sense of isolation.” 

No Kate; I don’t think that is the case. Basics are regularly trucked in by Israel, which, under the circumstances, is generous. The anger and resentment were there all along, and the isolation is the self-inflicted consequence of the Hamas’s rejectionist politics.

Tim Whewell ‘set off” to investigate. I like the sound of that, Tim Whewell setting off to “Investigate.”  Intrepid reporter, fearless and determined, sets forth, on a mission to find a moving story of the pathos -  and the triumph of true grit over adversity.

Whewell’s moving story is unintentionally injected with humour because it  involves a character named Fatty Arafat.  He’s probably called ‘Fati’ but Fatty Arafat has a Fatty Arbuckleness about it, which I like better.  Keep a straight face Tim lad.

A former Russian concert pianist married a Palestinian Doctor and suddenly ‘her music’ was whipped away from her. That’s what you get for marrying a Palestinian and settling down in Gaza. She misses her music.

The musicians of Gaza. Who are they? We’re not told why the music school has to be hidden in an ambulance station. Is music a bit unIslamic?

A charity has paid for a French piano restorer to bring the piano “slowly, lovingly, back to life.” So many ‘l’s for someone with an l-related speech impediment.

“We don’t have shelters underground in Gaza” says the earnest 15 year old piano student. “We just have to run for our lives” Whose fault is that? asks Tim. Only joking. (He didn’t )

Well, there are underground passages in Gaza, but they ain’t for shelter. Does Tim Whewell not know this?

Yes; Chopin and Beethoven fought a lot, and went through a lot too. The noble people of Gaza are like classical composers. Their struggles are exactly the same. Not.

Applying the BBC's 'compassion pill'

There was an interesting closing discussion on one of the BBC's favoured topics (at the moment), the housing crisis, on this morning's Today.

It featured the famous left-leaning economic commentator Will Hutton from the Work Foundation and (the somewhat-less-famous) Naomi Clayton from the Centre for Cities (an offshoot of the left-leaning IPPR think tank). 

Naomi, by sheer coincidence, used to work for Will at the Work Foundation, so that was nice. And they pretty much agreed about everything too, which was also nice. Plus no one mentioned immigration, which was nicest of all. 

A lovely Today-induced glow of socially aware niceness resulted. So there was no need then for anyone to swallow that 'compassion pill' which Newsnight discussed last night.

There's a pill now, apparently, that promotes 'compassion'. And 'compassion', if you were wondering, apparently equates to believing in social justice and opposing social inequality. [The Newsnight-following Twitterati were quick to advocate force-feeding such pills to Cameron, Osborne and Farage].

We're in he area of neuroscience here, of course. Being a typical BBC current affairs presenter, though, Evan Davis, interviewing one of the scientists behind the 'compassion pill', quickly asked him not to go into the science of the pill (what parts of the brain it effects, how the chemicals work, etc). That, however, was precisely the one thing I did want to hear about. 

What is it with BBC current affairs types and their apparent dread of scaring audiences with detailed scientific findings? 

Jon Donnison gets a mention on 'Newswatch'

If you recall, Jon Donnison's latest Twitter spat concerned an accusation that his reporting from Vanuatu was "pretentious (award-hunting) crap". 

Well, that wasn't the only criticism his Vanuatu coverage has received. This week's Newswatch showed a clip of a BBC News report in which JD picked up a Bible from a ruined school, showed it to the camera, then chucked it away. 

A viewer wrote to the BBC:

I was disgusted to see your reporter throw a copy of the Bible onto the ground. I'm an atheist, but find such contemptuous disregard for any religious work offensive. I'll bet you wouldn't have shown the report if the book he had abused was the Quran.

I'll bet he's right about that.

Some of the news that's fit to print

Sticking with matters party political, it's always interesting to see which political stories the BBC chooses to report - and which it chooses not to report.

The lead story in this morning's Times was: 

Hedge fund millionaire is Labour’s covert donor

One of Labour’s biggest private donors is a wealthy hedge fund boss whose identity the party has repeatedly refused to reveal. Martin Taylor, who has held at least one private meeting with Ed Miliband, has been unmasked as the mystery benefactor who has given the party almost £600,000 in three years. The revelation will provoke accusations of hypocrisy against the Labour leader, who has attacked the Tories for being “the party of Mayfair hedge funds”. 

The story was swiftly taken up, around 12 hours ago, by the Herald ("Labour donor unveiled as millionaire hedge fund manager"), the Financial Times ("Labour's 'mystery donor' revealed as hedge fund manager)" and the Daily Telegraph ("Hedge fund manager revealed to be top Labour donor"). The Daily Mail joined in around 10 hours ago ("Hedge fund chief revealed as Red Ed's £600000 donor"). The Daily Express joined in 4 hours ago ("Revealed: Mystery £600000 Labour donor is hedge fund manager Martin Taylor"). The Huffington Post reported the story 3 hours ago ("Hedge Fund Manager Martin Taylor Gave £600000 To Labour"). The Sky News website published it over 2 hours ago ("Labour Received £600k From Hedge Fund Donor"). The Independent arrived within the past hour ("Labour 'open to the charge of hypocrisy' after failing to divulge hedge fund manager’s donation") - though, actually, they had another version of the story earlier in the day. 

You will, however, look in vain for the story on the home page of the BBC News website. Or on their Politics page (where yesterday's UKIP scandals remain a main story). The BBC have simply chosen not to make it a story, for whatever reason. 

Ah but, they have sort-of reported it somewhere (if you look carefully): in their daily paper review, where the Times and its lead story can't be avoided. So that's all right then.

[P.S. Today mentioned the story in one of its three paper reviews. And that was it.]

A Tale of Two Parties on 'Newsnight'

I suspect that supporters of the Labour Party would have been much happier watching last night's Newsnight than UKIP supporters.

A speech by Labour's Tristram Hunt was giving top billing, a report by Chris Cook and an interview by Evan Davis. 

Chris Cook's report gave Mr Hunt's ideas a respectful airing and Evan Davis then gave him an interruption-free interview - though Evan did preface their discussion with a comment about an (unnamed) education blogger having described Tristram's speech as "cliche-ridden".

Tristram's interview with Evan was certainly cliche-ridden. Given his past as a BBC documentary presenter, you'd have thought he might have made his ideas sound interesting (especially as they are interesting). But he didn't. It was professional politician's management-speak all the way. Chris Cook made a far better fist of it than him.

The ideas Tristram Hunt are proposing are those that Sarah Montague looked into for her fascinating Radio 4 series, My Teacher is an App - the idea that teaching remains stubbornly old-fashioned in its approach to new technology, that here's a huge wealth of innovative online learning programmes out there which schools are very nervous about introducing into their classrooms. It's still pretty much a teacher and a blackboard (or whiteboard).

After that came the bit on UKIP: Three new scandals for the party and Allegra Stratton popping down to Thurrock and ostentatiously pointing out that the UKIP candidate there was very willing to talk to Newsnight last time they were down, but this time doesn't want to talk to them. Then Evan Davis followed this up by saying that they'd inviting several top UKIP figures to appear but they had all declined Newsnight's invitation.

From a tweet by Douglas Carswell, I think it's possible to see why UKIP declined that invitation:

Newsnight asks if I'll appear on their show. Not after the way they behaved last time. Thanks v much
— Douglas Carswell (@DouglasCarswell) March 20, 2015

Islamic State: The liberal-left's take (via the BBC)

Tonight's PM discussed Islamic State and its seemingly relentless advance, with gruesome terrorist IS attacks in recent days in Libya, Tunisia and Yemen. 

I made notes...and, for the sake of not wasting them, here they are...

To my mind Islamic State is now a (terrorist) state, no longer 'so-called', indubitably Islamic, and Iran-like in its exporting of terrorism and Nazi Germany-like in its viciousness, genocidal instincts and sheer evil...(please feel free to disagree)... 

Strongly left-wing but often astute Independent columnist Patrick Cockburn was one of the guests on PM. The other was liberal U.S. academic Jessica Stern from Harvard University. It was a classic BBC left-liberal BBC discussion.

As you do (if you're a blogger about BBC bias), I looked up Jessica. She's even got her own Wikipedia entry, which quotes Dateline London regular (and leftist) Isabel Hilton singing her praises:

According to the review by Isabel Hilton in The New York Times, in Terror in the name of God, Stern interviews "Christian, Jewish and Muslim extremists, violent anti-abortion warriors and admirers of Timothy McVeigh, and discovers how much they have in common. Nothing she finds leads the reader to suppose that any of the religious faiths is inherently more prone to violence than the other.

Oh yeah? The perfect BBC expert it seems! (For more, confirming that fact, from the Huff Post (where she writes), please see here).

So much for the set-up...

BBC presenter Carolyn Quinn began by quoting from Patrick Cockburn's latest piece where he said that U.S. airstrikes have failed to diminish Islamic State.

PC said, in response, that ISIS controls an area the size of Great Britain, that it's conscripting from the six million people it rules, and that it's become "a magnet for jihadis from all over the region" [yeah, and from the United Kingdom too]. He thinks it will go on until it's defeated, "and there's very little sign of that at the moment".

Carolyn asked Jessica Stern if Islamic State was going to spread to southern Europe. Jessica said they are trying to bring that about and that (a) they aim to "goad the West into fighting them in Syria" and (b) they aim to inspire people [of an unspecified but guessable nature] "to carry out attacks at home on their behalf, in their name".

"Should the West intervene in place like Libya?", asked Carolyn. Jessica said that the Libyan government is requesting arms to stop ISIS making their way to Europe, but then deferred to Patrick for his view. 

Patrick said he doesn't think there's a solution at the moment and that there are seven wars going on between the Pakistan border and northern Nigeria. He thinks it's difficult to contain Islamic State and that the "attention-grabbing atrocities" we've seen in recent days "aren't that difficult to carry out if you have somebody who's completely fanatical and willing to get killed. It doesn't require great expertise to murder a lot of people praying, or a lot of people in a museum".

Carolyn suggested this meant "impotence" in the face of "this ungoverned space across the Mediterranean". 

Patrick said the West and its allies could have done more, that the opposition to IS is "disunited", that there's "no focus", and that there's "very little sign of it being defeated". Even IS defectors say it's well organised, he said. 

Carolyn asked about the spread of its appeal. Jessica Stern talked of the "grievances" of Sunnis, which is (she said) "what's making for ready recruits and failed states"...

...and also, unfortunately, this is just has just become a really faddish way to express dissatisfaction with the status quo. People who want to re-invent themselves, not even necessarily Muslims [er, yes, Muslims...100% Muslim], converts [yes, that's better, Jessica. Did you 'misspeak'?], are susceptible to the lure of this sort of canned ideology. It's a way to express unhappiness, a way to...a desire for change, either in one's personal life or political life. We need to address the ideology as well as its military presence.

Carolyn then asked Patrick Cockburn, "it's not a passing fad, that's the problem?" 

PC said, 

It's much more than a fad. It certainly does attract discontented people all over the region - a region that's full of people who have very little to lose, who are very poor, who have no jobs, who feel they have been failed by their governments. So it's going to attract all these people. I think that the hope that it's all going to go in the way that it's going to go in a way...that it's going to implode is very much wishful thinking. It's just, they haven't really organised a systematic assault on the Islamic State that they ought to do.

I'm not at all sure what this means in terms of 'BBC bias', despite the left-liberal nature of PM's invitation list. I'd be grateful for any assistance here.

The BBC's 'foreign policy'

Sometimes we bloggers about BBC bias write as if we believe that the BBC has its own independent foreign policy. (As if it's the Vatican City). 

We say thinks like: "The BBC is soft on China", "The BBC is hostile to the Israeli government", "The BBC is anti-Putin" (or "pro-Putin", to taste), "The BBC is soft on Obama", "The BBC is rooting for the Arab Spring", "The BBC favours a rapprochement with Iran", etc, etc.

Even though we hear people being interviewed on the BBC arguing in favour of and against such and such a position, it still sometimes strikes us that the BBC interviewers questioning those guests are questioning them from a particular standpoint. 

Then we spot that other interviewers are also questioning them from a similar standpoint. 

And then we spot that BBC reporter after BBC reporter appears to be reporting the same story from the same standpoint as their interviewing colleagues.

And then we spot that BBC reporter after BBC reporter has taken to Twitter and seems to be tweeting (and re-tweeting) points-of-view that echo that very same standpoint. 

And then we read BBC journalists writing articles beyond BBC platforms (Jeremy Bowen, usually in the New Statesman; Owen Bennett Jones in the London Review of Books, etc) containing sentiments which also seem to come from the same standpoint.

And then we end up thinking that the BBC is biased. And, therefore, we end up thinking either that:

(a) the BBC does have its own foreign policy, or 

(b) the BBC contains so many like-minded people that groupthink tends to/inevitably sets in.

I favour (b), with a strong dose of 'inevitably'.

[Of course, Media Lens types think the BBC has a foreign policy too - the foreign policy of the British state of which it's a tool].

**********

All of this is merely a (long-winded) preamble to my actual point: I think that lots of BBC journalists are strongly sympathetic to the idea of a rapprochement with Iran. And I think that his sympathy has resulted in an ongoing bias in their reporting of matters relating to Iran. 

I've heard several BBC documentaries over the years arguing that the West has been unfair to Iran and that Iran has just cause for its resentment at our behaviour. I've heard many BBC reports sympathetically portraying Iran. I've seen many tweets (and re-tweets) from BBC reporters (apparently) critical of Israel's 'hawkish' attitude towards Iran. I've seen lots of nice stuff on the BBC about that nice, smiling teddy-bear-in-a-turban, Hassan Rouhani. 

And on the very day that the BBC publishes an article called 'Obama tells Iran of 'historic' opportunity' (and, unusually for the BBC website, opened it up for comments), I was reading a piece by BBC Middle East correspondent Paul Wood in, of all places, the Spectator, which has just popped a cherry on top of the BBC cake for me. 

It said everything I expected a BBC reporter to say on the subject.

Using veteran Democrat advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski as his mouthpiece, Paul Wood contrasts Dr Brzezinski's "realism" with all those silly, irrational. war-mongering U.S. Republicans and "extremist" Israelis (including their prime minister) who want to bomb, bomb and bomb (Iran) again. Dr Brzezinski wants a U.S. rapprochement with Iran and, Paul points out (repeatedly) Dr Brzezinski is someone to be trusted, someone who "does not balk at making the 'tough calls'. 

His whole Spectator piece is a semi-closet call for a Western rapprochement with Iran. Just sample his closing words for proof of that:

If President Obama is right, the alternative — an increasingly moderate Iran brought back into the family of nations — may be one or two rounds of negotiations away. All it would take is an outbreak of rationality in the Middle East.

"All it would take is an outbreak of rationality in the Middle East." An example of one BBC reporter's bias? Or of BBC bias as a whole? 

I'd say the latter.

The BBC and half the story

The headline on the BBC News website is one of those BBC headlines that can, if you come at it unprepared, read like a cryptic crossword clue:

Soldier beheading plan teen jailed 

The Sky News headline, in contrast, makes sense straight away:

Teen Gets 22 Years For Plot To Behead Soldier

Sky publishes the shocking letter Brusthom Ziamini wrote declaring his intention to behead a British soldier. In it, he quotes Surah 2:216: "Jihad holy fighting in Allah's cause is ordained for you Muslims though you dislike it and it may be that you dislike a thing which is good for you..."; he talks of ISIB, "Islamic State of Ireland and Britain"; he writes, "let's kill them, slaughter them and implement Sharia in our lands and kill every gay, every Shia..."; he advises his parents not to mix with Christians, Jews and non-believers...

Sky also quotes his statements to al-Muhajiroun about buying a black flag "to rock it everywhere I go in the Kaffir's face"; how he posted comments on Facebook saying he was "willing to die in the cause of Allah" and that "Sharia law on its way on our streets. We will implement it, it's part of our religion." 

Sky also reports him as saying that "he first became interested in Islam at the age of 15 through rap music and decided to convert again in the months before his arrests".

The BBC article is characteristically much less informative. 

The letter is missing, as are most of the quotes revealing the depth of his religious motivation and its sheer viciousness. There's no mention of the surah; no mention of his hatred for specific groups (gays, Christians, Jews, Shia Muslims); no mention of 'Islamic State of Ireland and Britain'; no rocking of the black flag "in the Kaffir's face; and no mention that his 'support for Sharia law' is for Sharia law on Britain's streets.  

Here's a flavour of the BBC's report: 

Ziamani was born in London to Congolese parents and went to school in Peckham. His mother worked as a nursery nurse and his father was a psychiatric nurse. 

The defendant told the court that his parents, who are Jehovah's Witnesses, had found out he was a Muslim only when they had seen pictures of friends in Islamic clothes on his mobile phone.

During the trial, jurors heard how Ziamani had fallen in with members of the extremist organisation al-Muhajiroun, after he was "kicked out" of his home after converting to Islam.

Police say the group played a "major role in influencing and shaping his radical views" and he attended their demonstrations.

The jury heard Mr Ziamani also put posts on Facebook supporting Sharia law and stating he was "willing to die in the cause of Allah".

Poor lad: his parents chucked him out and he fell in with a bad crowd. A classic hard-luck story - except for the bit about him wanting to behead British soldiers. 

A spat on Twitter

I feel rather like a low-budget gossip columnist here, but hey...

Here's a 'robust exchange of views' on Twitter between the BBC's Jon Donnison and one of his readers:

******

Jon Donnison ‏@jondonnisonbbc  Mar 19
I don't know this little girl's name who I met in Vanuatu. But I think "mischief" or even Miss Chief quite suits. pic.twitter.com/eaQIh9nUmd
View photo

The Intelect! ‏@_Inteligent  Mar 19
@jondonnisonbbc @BBCWorld Another journo using a disaster to hone their craft, rather than just report the facts. Spare us the corny lines.

Jon Donnison ‏@jondonnisonbbc  Mar 19
@_Inteligent Genius, font of all knowledge, bright star amongst candles. Educating and enlightening human beings. 41 followers. Cheer up.

The Intelect! ‏@_Inteligent  Mar 19
@jondonnisonbbc ahhh the followers 'card'...it's the twitter cock measure now.Just do your job and stop the pretentious (award hunting) crap

Jon Donnison ‏@jondonnisonbbc  Mar 19
@_Inteligent Have you tried anger management?

The Intelect! ‏@_Inteligent  Mar 19
@jondonnisonbbc hey I'm chilled matey; just want you to focus on your job,  not your ego/peer recognition.

Don't you just love Twitter? It always brings the best out in people (especially BBC correspondents), doesn't it?

******

Incidentally, as soon as JonDon finished his assignment in Vanuatu his Twitter feed went straight back onto his main obsession...

...no, not his proper job, reporting Australia for the BBC, but, inevitably...

...tweeting about Israel (complete with a link to Haaretz (a piece by Peter Beinart).

That's something Twitter also does: It always brings the impartiality out in people (especially BBC correspondents), doesn't it?

A belated St. Patrick Moore's Day

The 4th March is my St. Patrick's Day. 

It marks the birthday of the late Sir Patrick Moore, patron saint of all of us amateur astronomers.

Patrick Moore was the Jeremy Clarkson of the BBC in the years before Jeremy Clarkson (minus the punching of minions, of course - unless Chris Lintott knows otherwise). He even, golly gosh, liked UKIP.

The blessed Sir Patrick, monocle-in-eye, would often warn us never to use our telescopes and binoculars to stare directly at the great sun god in the sky. And, as a result, I never did - and never will.

The BBC has been super-informative in the past few days about warning us not even to look at the Great Sun God (PBUH) with our naked eyes...and quite rightly so:

DON'T....LOOK....DIRECTLY....AT....THE....SUN......IT'S...BRIGHT...AND...HOT...

During the last solar eclipse however (whenever that was), I forgot myself and - in a moment of wild thoughtlessness - looked out and saw, for a good second or so, the sun in partial eclipse. 

And, idiot-that-I-am, I might have repeated my transgression today, sitting at work in almost exactly the same place, had it not been for all the grey clouds pretty much surrounding sunny Morecambe.

Obviously, it's never normally cloudy in Morecambe. 

Morecambe is, famously, Britain's sunniest seaside resort. That's why you must come here.

Our deckchairs are permanently out. Morecambe Bay sparkles in semi-eternal sunlight. The Eric Morecambe statue (restored to majesty after a local attack of vandalism) half-blinds spectators with its brilliance. (The giant statues of the two dead Kims in Pyongyang have nothing on it). Seagulls regularly faint in the heat. 

The Furness Peninsula crowd over the bay, with their crappy NHS hospital, daren't even take their sunglasses off when looking in our direction. The Marbella crowd move here en masse for the summer.

Plus, I always wear shorts and cool shades (like Horatio from CSI Miami), and all of Morecambe's wonderful womenfolk - even our wonderful would-be jihadi brides - wear bikinis all year round, even in the midst of winter. 

And, if proof were needed that today was unusual, the BBC's environmentalist analyst Roger Harrabin recently moved here in order to demonstrate global warming in action. He's tattooed the words, 'Phew, what a scorcher! Thank God for global warming!' on his left arm since arriving here. 

[Well, at least according to the Morecambe Tourist Board]. 

That said, hope you saw more of the sun and its lunar 'stopper' than we did.

And, returning to blog-related matters, the BBC has been great to watch vis a vis the eclipse. This is the sort of thing they do brilliantly. 

"Great Britain - a nation of marvellous migrant mongrels!"

Guardian journalist and BBC presenter Adam Rutherford was back on presenting duties for Radio 4's week science magazine programme BBC Inside Science. He began by reporting on that fascinating study into the genetic history of the British 'Caucasian' population which hit the headlines this week. 

It showed, as you are probably aware: (a) that Britons have barely moved from where they has settled in around 600 AD over the course of 1,400 years; (b) that almost all 'Caucasian' Britons have a significant genetic inheritance from the original inhabitants of these isles; (c) that all of these ancient communities can be linked to specific communities in other Western European countries (especially France and Germany); (d) that the Celts are a diverse bunch with less in common with each other than they have with, say, the English; (e) that ancient regional/county dividing lines reflect the DNA evidence (especially the one between Devon and Cornwall); and (f) that the conquerors (the Romans, the Vikings) had very little genetic impact. 

All very interesting. I couldn't help getting the feeling, however, that Adam Rutherford was using the study on today's BBC Inside Science to make a point, to get across a particular message - and that he was doing so with all the subtlety of a pumped-up Viking warrior on a big night-out.

Can you spot what message he might have been trying to get across from his introductory and closing remarks?:

But first, the election is looming and one of the perennial topics is immigration.  Well, believe it or not, we're absolutely a nation of immigrants and over the last 10,000 years there has been wave after wave of immigrants coming over here, taking our jobs, breeding with our women.

Great Britain - a nation of marvellous migrant mongrels! - by a long shot my favourite study of the year so far.

And there was far more where that came from.

Some Guardian writers/BBC presenters just can't stop themselves from pushing an agenda it seems, courtesy of the BBC.