Pro-AV lefty BBC producer Richard Leeming bemoans the ignorance of the plebs:
The right-on metropolitan media clique knows best but for some reason the general public refuses to acknowledge it. What a shame, eh?
(See also Jon Snow)
Pro-AV lefty BBC producer Richard Leeming bemoans the ignorance of the plebs:
The right-on metropolitan media clique knows best but for some reason the general public refuses to acknowledge it. What a shame, eh?
(See also Jon Snow)
I don’t often watch Question Time, but anticipating a clash of cultures between Douglas Murray (Hooray) and Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (Hiss) I thought it would be worth watching last night. In the event the excitement was generated by action-man Ashdown.
Elder statesmen-turned-national-treasure are often afflicted by symptoms of geriatric pre-dementia such as continually harking back to the glory days, and his youthful military adventures in the Royal Marines have provided Lord Paddy with eternal bona fides for his unassailable expertise on everything to do with ‘war.’
Having taken on a Tony Benn-like egotism, he peers out from concealed eyes, talking over others, and sniggering with fake incredulity at anything they might dare to say.
Yasmin’s arguments collapsed under their own inconsistency, so she made up for it by performing histrionic gestures of mock exasperation. The director featured shots of her over-dramatised shrugs and facial acrobatics at moments calculated to best mock and undermine Douglas Murray.
The QT zeitgeist was thrown off balance by certain members of the audience. In particular a lady who had experienced the sharp end of Al Qaeda’s London Jihad, who made an emotional speech in support of Douglas Murray.
Douglas Murray has to bear the hampering ball and chain of the demonising ‘neocon’ label, and he heroically puts himself in situations in which he is outnumbered by hostile and dishonourable opponents.
A remarkable example of BBC bias, or incompetence, call it what you like, came following Douglas’s explanation that the West didn’t need to ‘be seen’ to use due process of law to deal with Osama Bin Laden in order to show that we are ‘better than them’, because the West patently shows that this is the case the whole time. (Merely by being libertarian, democratic, and free as opposed to Islamic, oppressive and barbaric)
(28:56) Paddy Ashdown, however, deliberately or through stupidity, totally misrepresented this by repeating indignantly, despite Douglas’s protestations, that Douglas had merely said we don’t have to show that we’re better than Al Qaeda. (Cut to shot of Alibhai Brown’s bizarre, exaggerated clapping.)
Meanwhile, David Dimbleby who was filing his nails or tweeting, or not paying attention for reasons of his own, sat back and allowed this slanderous disingenuous drivel to continue unchallenged. (I’m fairly sure a shot of this was edited out of iPlayer) But whether he couldn’t see, or wouldn’t see what what Paddy was getting away with, it was appalling chairpersonship.
“How old are you?” Paddy had been allowed to ask Douglas earlier. The same question should have been put to Paddy, begging the answer “Well past it.”
Finally, I mustn’t forget to query why Armando Iannucci was given so much time to waffle on meaninglessly, or indeed why he was on the programme at all.
Welcome to the LiveChat which is a 5th May Election Special.
We kick off with the return of Question Time; which tonight comes from the last BBC option “damn I can’t claim decent expenses from here” of London.
On the panel we have Secretary of State for Transport and Conservative dark horse Philip Hammond, Andy Burnham, Paddy Pantsdown, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and Douglas Murray. Really? Are the same dozen people always on speed-dial?
Immediately afterwards we have the local election results and lots of idle speculation about the result of the AV referendum.
Unfortunately we won’t get David Vance‘s result until Friday morning so the champagne will have to stay on ice.
As it’s such a big night we’re going to split the Chat tonight. If you want to take part in the QuestionTime and England/Wales/NI election results then this Chat is where you want to be. If you want a Scotland twist to your evening then use the Chat window in the post below.
The Chat tonight reflects the different voting areas, and is hosted on Biased-BBC, AllSeeingEye, MaxFarquar and QT stalwart Subrosa‘s blog. Moderating will be AllSeeingEye, Subrosa, Max Farquar and David Mosque, and both chats will go on until people fade away though tiredness or wine.
This post has been split so that if you want to follow both LiveChats at the same time you can easily open the two posts in two different windows and put them alongside each other.
Cunning thinking, eh?
This Scottish-oriented Chat is being hosted and moderated by Subrosa although you can’t escape the grim glare of TheEye’s moderating touch here either.
Many thanks to MaxFarquar for the two excellent logos we’ve used here tonight.
Not a single voice allowed on the BBC today to criticize. Every single Beeboid on air is saying how wonderful this is, and how this is “paying respect” to the families and is absolutely not a victory lap or moment of opportunism. Of course, they don’t know what He thinks, or what this really is, but they are telling you nevertheless. All US vox pops are positive, enthusiastic, supportive.
The BBC is also helping to spin the White House talking point that Bush forgot about Bin Laden and it was only the current President who cared. There is still no mention on the BBC of the fact that the name of the courier was obtained during the Bush Administration, and that Sunday’s event was the culmination of years of work. Mustn’t harm the Narrative.
No sneering at the President telling firemen in NYC that He’s “got your back” in front of the whole press corps, something that ought really to have been a private occasion. In fact, this, as Huw Edwards told us twice now, is “the defining moment of His Presidency”. He spoke to Eleanor Clift, but forgot to mention that she’s a die-hard Democrat and supporter of the President.
Where are the critical voices? Surely there must be someone in the country who thinks this is unseemly? Or someone who might think it’s odd that He never visited Ground Zero as President before but runs down there now? You won’t hear any editorializing or sneering today from the Beeboids. Not even from Matt Frei, who has his best serious journalist face on. today. Only respect for the White House agenda from the BBC.
An impartial broadcaster should not be telling you what His motives are, or whether or not this actually is the right thing to do. They should be telling you what’s happening, and what various opinionmongers think it means. The Beeboids themselves should not be telling you what to think about it. Yet they do.
Note to Matt Frei: Today’s visit wasn’t supposed to be about Him, right? It’s supposed to be about the victims, their families, healing, and possibly some closure for the country’s psyche. Except you and your colleagues are making it all about Him even while you pretend you’re not.
The President ordered Osama Bin Laden killed without trial, without due process of law, and the BBC North America editor is crestfallen. Mardell really doesn’t know what to do. He has his own opinions, his own moral code to follow, yet cannot bring himself to actually blame the President for it. Instead, he works to shift blame onto the ugly United Statesians he’s found distasteful for so long.
On the scene in New York, Mardell explains what the President will be doing, and why. Well, actually, no he doesn’t. He mostly quotes the White House spokesman, who is the husband of Katty Kay’s personal friend and business partner. Mardell also quotes the President and mentions what Sarah Palin said as well. Why the British public should give a damn about what Sarah Palin says instead of an actual politician or even Presidential candidate is a mystery to me, but we know that the BBC cares very, very deeply.
When the President lays that wreath this evening, I hope he’s a bit more considerate than He was when He casually tossed a rose on the pile in 2008. His lack of consideration and sympathy was evident then. Funny how He never visited Ground Zero on the actual anniversary in 2009 or 2010, but is coming to do it now? If this had been George Bush, the BBC would be screaming about how it’s a victory lap. Instead, they’re full of respect and telling you exactly what the White House wants you to think.
But Mardell revealed his true feelings about the whole sorry affair on his blog yesterday. All impartial journalism goes out the window now. This is Mardell’s personal opinion, and shows how crushed he is that his beloved Obamessiah has ordered someone killed without trial. Of course, I don’t expect Mardell to actually criticize the President or His management skills for all the screwed up facts they spewed out after the event. Fog of war and all that, I’m sure. Nothing to do with amateurs running the show.
In any case, here’s Mardell’s own opinion:
The president’s press secretary Jay Carney suggested this was the result of trying to provide a great deal of information in a great deal of haste.
I can largely accept that. There is no mileage in misleading people and then correcting yourself. But the president’s assistant national security advisor John Brennan had used the facts he was giving out to add a moral message – this was the sort of man Bin Laden was, cowering behind his wife, using her as a shield. Nice narrative. Not true. In fact, according to Carney this unarmed woman tried to attack the heavily armed Navy Seal. In another circumstance that might even be described as brave.
Well, sure, but what’s the point of saying such a thing about bravery, if not to direct the audience in a certain direction? Just state the facts and let the audience decide. No need for editorializing like this.
For those involved an operation like this, time must go past in a confused and noisy instant, and they aren’t taking notes. Confusion is very understandable. But you start to wonder how much the facts are being massaged now, to gloss over the less appealing parts of the operation.
Oh, dear. Mardell is starting to question his undying trust of the President? We’ll see in a moment.
And of course there is the suspicion that the US never wanted to take Bin Laden alive. Here at least many see a trial as inconvenient, awkward – a chance for terrorists to grandstand. Look at all the fuss about the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
The bit I’ve put in bold is where Mardell begins to shift blame. It’s extremely wrong to say that people see the trials as “inconvenient”. It’s just that many politicians don’t want the circus in their home towns, and – more importantly – there are legal ramifications of having a civilian criminal case, which may harm the outcome. I don’t expect the BBC to tell you that, though, because they don’t agree with it.
In the confusion of a raid it’s hard to see how the Seals could be sure that Bin Laden wasn’t armed, didn’t have his finger on the trigger of a bomb, wasn’t about to pull a nasty surprise. If he had his hands in the air shouting “don’t shoot” he might have lived, but anything short of that seems to have ensured his death.
Now Mardell is the one doing the backtracking. He’s just said that he is doubtful about the whole thing, but now allows it’s “hard to be sure”, etc. Then he places the blame for this squarely where he believes it to be:
I suspect there will be more worry about this in Britain and Europe than in the US. That doesn’t mean we are right or wrong. It is a cultural difference. We are less comfortable about frontier justice, less forgiving about even police shooting people who turn out to be unarmed, perhaps less inculcated with the Dirty Harry message that arresting villains is for wimps, and real justice grows from the barrel of a gun. Many in America won’t be in the slightest bit bothered that a mass murderer got what was coming to him swiftly, whether he was trying to kill anyone in that instant or not.
And there we have the anti-American bias of the BBC’s North America editor, the man the BBC says you are supposed to trust to help you understand the US. Mardell’s weak gesture towards cultural relativism is lost when he uses derogatory terms like “frontier justice”, and implies that we in the US don’t care as much when the police shoot unarmed people (slander), “Dirty Harry message”, and that hoary old chestnut, “real justice grows from the barrel of a gun”.
This is Mark Mardell telling you his personal opinion of what he perceives to be the mentality of the US. It’s not reporting, it’s not impartial, it’s not anything other than the BBC telling you that we are inferior. Worse, this is also Mardell’s way of telling you that the cold-blooded killing without due process of law is not the President’s fault. No, He was forced to do this by the ugly US public, because that’s what we want. Is this really the purpose of BBC editors’ blogs, to spout personal opinion and venom?
In all of Mardell’s reporting, and indeed in all of the BBC’s coverage of the event, there is no criticism at all of the President Himself. All blame is placed elsewhere, and in fact the President is portrayed as the only adult in the room, above it all. Jeremy Paxman said on Newsnight that the White House “dithered”, but I think he got away with it. Otherwise, Mardell has previously made very effort to tell you that the President considers every issue nearly as carefully as Deep Thought took to work out the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.
So in the end, Mardell has to find someone else to blame when the President does something he doesn’t like. Sad, really, and the public is led away from the facts and into opinion.
Side note: The BBC is still leaving the door ajar for Truther conspiracy theories with this line:
Bin Laden was believed to be the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks in 2001 and many others.
Have they learned nothing? He confessed on video which has been broadcast by the BBC, wrote about it, talked about it. It’s a fact that Bin Laden was behind it, not supposition.
As the President does His victory lap at Ground Zero today, the BBC is giving full coverage. And by “coverage”, I mean covering for Him. Barbara Plett is on the scene on the News Channel this morning telling us what will happen.
He’s “paying homage”, and “showing respect” to the families of the victims. Nobody wants to accuse the President of making this a political event, Plett assures us. The BBC has the White House talking points from Jay Carney, and they are dutifully following it.
“He wants to meet with them and share with them this important and significant moment, a bitter-sweet moment, I think, for many families of the victims,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said.
Well, He’s meeting with some families, anyway. Some haven’t been invited, and one family at least has declined to give Him the photo op. But what’s a little white lie amongst friends, eh? As long as they’re reporting White House talking points, they’re doing their job. He’s not using this for political purposes, no, no, no. Some people may think that, the Beeboids allow, but that’s not what He’s about. Heavens no. Even today’s coverage on the News Channel says the same thing.
Isn’t this visit to Ground Zero a bit sudden, not planned until just now to take advantage of the event, asks the newsreader in the studio? Oh, no, says Plett, stammering as she’s caught off guard. He’s just paying respects to the families now. Pro Obama at all costs, indeed.
The BBC continues to be the foreign branch of the White House press office, but He’s made it very difficult for them this week!
We’ve had many surprises this week. One was seeing Mark Regev in the studio, speaking without constant interruptions and contradictions. We had the usual anti Israel tripe from various talking heads too, endlessly bringing up the illusory obstacle to peace, Netanyahu’s refusal to extend the settlement freeze.
Eventually, Hamas’s mourning of Bin Laden’s assassination, or heroic martyrdom, was mentioned. Even the fact that the Arab Spring might not necessarily presage enlightenment and democracy as we know it was voiced, openly, on the BBC.
However, back to normal this morning with Thought for the Day (1:48:06) The Rev Angela Tilby’s words of wisdom addressed the intractable problem of Israel Palestine. Now that those two naughty boys Hamas and Fatah have made friends, she brayed, peace can happen at last. Doves and Hawks, she purred, are both vital to the process. Hawks, though annoying, must be brought in from the cold. We must not treat this as a playground dispute, she warned, unaware that that was exactly what she was doing.
Her two unconvincing reminders that Israel’s fears were rational stuck out oddly, as though they’d been squeezed into the script as an afterthought, having remembered the need for impartiality just in time. The final bit, about Daniel Barenboim’s Gaza gig and the wonderful peace giving properties of Mozart avoided mentioning the tricky subject of Hamas’s aversion to music.
But this isn’t about Today. Most people take its irrelevance as a given, something like being made to swallow a tonic that is thought to be good for you, but isn’t really.
It’s about the item that followed. Are targeted assassinations acceptable? Does Obama’s recent escapade set a precedent? Geoffrey Robertson QC had been listening to Thought for the Day, because he mentioned it to help his argument that targeted assassinations are never justified. What, he speculated, if Sarah Palin as POTUS decided to assassinate Fidel Castro, or Julian Assange? Or what if some Ayatollahs decided to assassinate Salman Rushdie? (What indeed.)
Danny Yatom, former Head of Mossad was on the line. “ Danny Yatom”, says Sarah Montague, authoritatively, “You think it’s better to kill them that remove them alive. “ “No” he replies from some echoing Zionist den, “It’s better to capture alive and obtain intelligence, but we are at war, and in that case, if you don’t shoot, you are shot.”
So our human rights lawyer can’t see the difference between random hypothetical murders of people that a head of state might disapprove of and Israel’s intelligence-led targeted assassinations of terrorists in pre-emptive self-defence in. a. state. of. war.
The USA should have got Daniel Barenboim to play Al Qaeda some lovely Mozart instead.
If comments on Twitter are anything to go by, Richard Bacon was an extremely inept and very biased host on last night’s Young Voters’ Question Time. This will come as no surprise to regular readers of this blog who already know that he is simply incapable of being impartial and shouldn’t be covering politics at all, either on BBC TV or radio. One audience member even tweeted that Bacon said openly that he was going to vote “yes” in the AV referendum. Quality impartial BBC journalism, that.
Click on the images to view just some of last night’s Twitter commentary.
More:
More still:
And to counter any feeble suggestions that Bacon doesn’t have a dog in this fight, here’s what a member of the audience tweeted:
Here’s a new Open Thread for you, enjoy!