Stephen Pollard in the Evening Standard and Fiona Govan and Chris Hastings in the Telegraph have both written on the Kilroy-Silk affair.
Apologies for repeating myself, but I say again: the BBC’s offence in withdrawing ‘Kilroy’ was not that it exceeded its rights but that it was demonstrably biased and hypocritical given its tolerance of Paulin and many other commentators who have made less murderous but still vituperative blanket condemnations of Israel, the US or Britain.
The average viewer of ‘Kilroy’ doesn’t give a stuff about the issues that engage the average visitor to this blog, but does get annoyed when his or her favourite show is canned at the PC establishment’s say-so. Kilroy will become a hero to many. He’s not quite the hero I would have nominated for popular veneration, but it ain’t me that chooses. That the BBC is biased has been made clear to a previously apolitical segment of its audience.
UPDATE: A couple of Kilroy-related posts from Public Interest round-up this roundup nicely. To start with he lambasts the Guardian for claiming that Paulin’s case is different from Kilroy’s because, like, Paulin is a proper critic but Kilroy is merely a talkshow host.
Making up the rules as they go along, ain’t it? The Guardian’s own Aaro hosted a radio show on Radio 2 last week – called David Aaronovitch, no less – John Humphreys and Libby Purves of the Sunday Times and the Times regularly host shows on Radio 4, and they all opinionate like it’s going out of fashion. Come on Guardian! You can do better than that.
There’s more. You know I said how as the ‘Kilroy’ fans and our own wonderful selves were quite separate groups? Er, actually, not quite.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Mark Steyn also comments. That Paulin meme gets around, doesn’t it?
In light of the CRE’s threats, I’m preparing my campaign banner:
“FREE THE SUNLAMP 1!”
I wonder if Mark Steyn noted, when he quoted CRE’s Trevor Phillips: “and thirdly he could use some of his vast earnings to support a Muslim charity.” the irony at play here.
NOW that would be wonderful if the money went to Hamas.
Seems the thinking at the BBC and CRE are the same.
OFF TOPIC
Today 13/1/04. John Humphrys interviews a former US civil servant, Thielman
Theilman asserts that the US government knew all along that Saddam had no WMD.
Humphrys gets Theilman to confirm that if the US knew that so did Blair.
Humphrys does not ask Thielman why his knowledge differs from that held by the Security Council when passing 1440.
Neither does Humphrys ask Thielman if he has an opinion on why Scarlett & Dearlove would lie to Hutton.
Humphrys shows that he places far more faith in Thielman’s opinions than those of our distinguished intelligence chiefs.
dan
That interview was total disgrace – Thielman was given a real cushy ride by John Humphries, at prime time on the Today programme. Just part of the BBC vendetta against Blair and WMDs. With no alternative opinion to give the balance that the BBC is supposed UNDER ITS CHARTER to provide.
And here’s about Tom Paulin, the poet the BBC refused to censor…
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2002/580/cu2.htm
We are fed this inert
This lying phrase
Like comfort food
As another little Palestinian boy
In trainers jeans and a white teeshirt
Is gunned down by the Zionist SS
Whose initials we should
— but we don’t — dumb goys
Clock in that weasel word
Crossfire
— Tom Paulin, “Killed in the Crossfire,” The Observer (18.02.01)
Tom Paulin does not attempt to hide his anger at what the Israelis are doing in Palestine: it is, he says, “an historical obscenity.”
Paulin, currently professor of English at Hartford College, Oxford, a leading poet and, for several years now, a controversial TV pundit, is among the few British intellectuals who has dared to criticise Israel, questioning even its very existence.
“I never believed that Israel had the right to exist at all,” Paulin told Al-Ahram Weekly .
“Paulin has become the rare thing in con
RKS proved right in Europe and from the BBC too!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3396597.stm
” Muslim cleric who wrote a book that advised men how to beat up their wives without leaving incriminating marks has been sentenced”
Of course there’s the usual disclaimer from the followers of the fifth columnists of islam.