The disturbing right-wing drift of our beloved BBC continues apace, and Yasmin Alibhai-Brown ( aka “The Yazzmonster” ) files her latest report from the front line:
“Unlike me, my husband is not given to hissy fits or surges of flaming outrage”.
She begins. Hey, I can believe that. But she’s setting a pretty low bar, isn’t she?
“But last week he threw down his towel (literally) and finally gave up on the BBC. He thinks it has turned dilettante, is contemptuous of facts, of progressive politics and of its own responsibility to uphold decent values – its raison d’etre surely”.
Poor Mr. Brown. I wonder what he was doing. Had he just come out of the shower? Or maybe he was doing the dishes. I like to think the latter. If Mr. Brown was striding round his living room stark naked bellyaching about the BBC it could put me off my breakfast. Not in front of the children.
“I can completely understand my Englishman’s disillusionment, but I cling still to the noble idea of the BBC, to the breaking branch of a dying tree, though winds shake my faith every day.
As an act of back-dated contrition, the BBC gave Alastair Campbell hours of free promotion for his diaries. Now Tony Blair confides in a trusted, hand-picked journalist,”
that’s David “Aaro” Aaronovitch, another running dog of capitalism, apparently.
“confessing his greatness and his closeness to the Almighty. Then came news that the unique Dateline London (News 24 and BBC World), on which highly respected international journalists discuss world events, a programme watched by 78 million people, is to be axed”.
And about time too. On the very few occasions I have ever seen it it invariably contains the blessed Yazza, babbling on about something or other, some French bird from Le Monde, the ageing ex-Observer hack Adam Raphael, and an Arab gentleman who talks more sense than the rest of them.
“This act of vandalism was followed by an announcement of a season of programmes on the “besieged” white working classes. Nick Griffin of the BNP could well be their consultant. Are migrants going to get their series titled “Scapegoats”? Sometimes I wonder if these bigoted attitudes chime with BBC producers in the way that Families Need Fathers do. Perhaps their daughters are bringing home unsuitable “ethnic” boys too often.
Public-service broadcasters must make uncomfortable programmes on any group or on immigration – and there are excellent examples of responsible, critical journalism. But a whole series propagandising against multiracial Briton? To validate the race hate that sloshes all over our isles, from playgrounds to football pitches? Some researcher rang to discuss one programme “re-appraising” Enoch Powell. What’s to reappraise? My money is being used to reassure people who hate people like me”.
But of course the old girl hasn’t even seen the programmes. She doesn’t know what the series contains. Ignorance is bliss, eh? Still, it’s a long rant, which ends on a tearful, some might say lyrical tone.
“But yet, but yet, there is the wonder of the BBC too, as I was reminded last week when attending an event to mark the birth of the BBC World Service, the best of Britain exemplified – as reliable and authentic today as ever. Its director, Nigel Chapman should be proud that he keeps the promise made in December 1932, to tell the stories and uphold the good and free society. We watched a video of the key moments in history when the world had no other voice to tell them what was happening. Many of us were tearful as memories were brought back of the Idi Amin coup, Vietnam, the trial of Nelson Mandela.
In the gorgeous Art Deco theatre, Gavin Esler (who also presents Dateline) introduced and interrogated three previous Reith lecturers – the writer Wole Soyinka, the US economist Jeffrey Sachs, and the philosopher Onora O’Neill – on free speech and journalistic ethics. Once upon a time the corporation understood these concepts”.
Ah yes. Freedom of speech. What a quaint idea.
“Today the corruption of populism and relativism seeps under the imposing doors, fouls up a once venerated institution. The BBC we knew and trusted is no more. It is a player in the marketplace of nastiness, and I can no longer argue with any conviction for a licence fee”.
Fine by me, love. Privatise it. If Yazza thinks the Beeb is right-wing, wait till it’s privatised. Bring back Dixon of Dock Green! Bring back the Black and White Minstrel Show!
And Strictly Come Hanging. One day, folks, one day.
Yazzmonster said: “But a whole series propagandising against multiracial Briton?”
Alibhai-Brown clearly works on a ‘for us or against us’ basis. A simple-minded approach in which she does herself a disservice.
The whole article reads as a dummy spitting exercise because she’s in danger of being ignored by the BBC.
If Alibhai-Brown has courage in her convictions she will no longer accept taxpayer’s money for appearing on the BBC.
Nicely written article, btw.
Hopefully, however, the BBC have moved on from thinking that if they’re attacked from both the left and right that they must be somewhere in between or neutral.
I do actually have some sympathy for YAB. Perhaps if the BBC became a little more staid in how it reports news, or even, perhaps, boring through giving the facts and leaving the opinion and perspective to others then it might not be so bad.
The strident hectoring of the Yazmonster (and her ilk) at our expense on the bbc, was probably what finally persuaded a great many intelligent but non pollitically partisan people, that the bbc was no longer representitive of their views.
Peter
“and an Arab gentleman who talks more sense than the rest of them.”
Are you referring to Abdul Bari Atwan of Al-quds newspaper? Because, if you are, your critical faculties have been seriously damaged by trying to get any consistent sense from the Yazzmonster’s pronouncements. ABA is to rational argument what Richard Black and Roger Harrabin are to impartial reporting on climate change.
Yasmin is quite bonkers, isn’t she?
“But yet, but yet, there is the wonder of the BBC too, as I was reminded last week when attending an event to mark the birth of the BBC World Service, the best of Britain exemplified”
Is she on crack? The BBC World Service (formerly the Empire Service) is a hollow shell of its’ former self. They are politicized hit-men, and are so unselfconcious about it that they channel their opnions absurdly through the occasion reading of “listerner emails” which could have been written by George Soros’ joke writer.
Seriously Yaz, I recommend adding prunes and whole grains to your diet.
Please keep up your good work against JAB. She is a reactionary oaf whose prose alone demands action. Did you see her on 18 Doughty Street, discussing Nick Cohen’s ‘What’s Left?’ with Iain Dale? Brown admitted, in the first minute, that she hadn’t read the book and proceeded to give her very vocal and emotive opinions on this gap in her reading list. She exemplifies everything that is wrong with contemporary journalism; political correctness defined as minority fetishism.
That Doughty St programme was just embarrassing. More tellingly, in a recent 3-way between her, Dale, and Douglas Murray (http://doughty.gdbtv.com/player.php?h=40ff2dc2d28c145f455f04c74be019dd), Murray generally ignored her, and after a while simply turned his back on her completely.
But what really hurts is not just that Yazzer is such a poor writer – I mean, her prose style is so poor – but that she actually gets paid for it.
Much might yet be forgiven if only she learned to express her batty ideas with at least a modicum of flair: perhaps they might then be mildly entertaining reading (though I doubt it), but at present her articles read like contributions to the school mag by someone who’s not nearly as clever as she thinks she is.
In fact, i think that’s really Yazzer’s problem – she is totally lacking in insight or self-awareness, and to that extent is not very different from the grotesque characters created by Ricky Gervais (David Brent, in The Office), or Alan Bennett’s Woman of No Imortance (played by Patricia Routledge).
Yazza is also woefully short on laughs. PC indignation personified. She and the Indy deserve each other.
“Yasmin is quite bonkers, isn’t she?”
Can you imagine her, Sandy Tosvig and Jo Brand stuck in a lift with you? Dear.God.
Then again if the other person stuck with them was John Reith he might begin to understand the truth and come across to the side of the Light not the dark! He might even gain some sympathy on here!
dave t | Homepage | 26.11.07 – 10:32 pm
I have been in that lift, dave t. At least… metaphorically.
Whoever it was (Nietzsche? Goethe?) who said ‘whatever does not kill me makes me stronger’ was bang on the money.
But Yasmin Alibhai Brown (crazy name, crazy dame) ain’t the only one singing this song.
Ever heard of this geezer?
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/sunny_hundal/2007/09/liberals_abandon_the_bbc.html
According to his cif profile, he’s
An ardent environmentalist and liberal, he is a vegetarian and cares strongly about the oppression of people everywhere …
Priceless.
He’s probably against vicetoo, but didn’t want to come over as too judgmental.
Yes. Abdul Bari Atwan (boy I’d love to use a different spelling of his surname) is never off the rubbish Dateline. He’s the prat who said he’d dance in the streets if Israel was nuked by Iran. What an utter arsehole. No wonder the BBC love him.
http://ibloga.blogspot.com/2007/08/if-iranian-missiles-strike-israel-by.html
But how could Iran possibly nuke Israel if all they’re doing is building a peaceful domestic nuclear power program (underground, under meters of reinforced concrete with anti-aircraft guns sat on top…in a country with the world’s second larest reserves of conventional crude oil…that threatens to wipe Israel from the map or the pages of time or whatever)?
Why can’t somebody just tell Mr Atwan that Israel has been atom bombed? Then we can film him doing a jig in the streets of London, overjoyed because 7.1 million Jews have been vapourised or maimed, and we can send the video in to ‘You’ve Been Framed’ and if they show it – get this! – we’ll get £200!
Everyone’s a winner.
Wole Soyinka
Jeffrey Sachs
Two stirling British chaps who so readily understand what the BBC is supposed to do.
Yazz loves recycling – this article is sooo similar to last week’s rubbish. The only new thing is her hubby literally dropping his towel.
The other thing she loves – as well as recycling and (we hope) her hubby – is straw men. Her article is littered with these and the false dichotomy fallacy: “The only alternative to the existing left-biased BBC is straight out of the 3rd Reich with brown-shirts reading the news and singing the Horst Wessel song.”
Actually, I always sing the ‘Horst Wessel’ song when the BBC news comes on.
Perhaps because every Muslim KNOWS that Iran is building the Atomic bomb and are barking made enough to use it?
Only the poncy liberals that turn up on the BBC are in denial.
I dislike the women intensely. But on this I am fully behind her and her reasoning. I am disappointed that it has taken her so long to cotton-on, as they say.
I hope when the women cools down and starts to think for a change, she will come to ask herself this almost childishly simple question.
Why is it that the BBC is now so distrusted by the thinking left and the thinking right???????
She may even come to the same conclusion as myself.
That it is really more of a question of US v THE BBC, then it ever really was between left and right.
We both want the same things, far more then the BBC or the media in general along with the rest of the establishment, will ever allow us to understand.
What I want is for the BBC to report facts and to stop giving us opinions of poncy left wing journalists.
The World Service is not funded by the licence fee,it is directly funded by the government.