The Tea Party, like UKIP, is always a source of mocking outraged humour on the BBC, always guaranteed to raise a snigger from presenter or guest.

A comparable negative and insulting characterization of similar groups on the left is completely absent from the BBC…Occupy or the Socialist Worker’s Party or  UK Uncut (well…they’re pretty much the same group in reality) get an unwarranted amount of respect and regard for their opinions…the late Paul Mason an ardent fan of Occupy.

Note a similar sweeping under the carpet of Ralph Miliband’s Marxism  last week despite Unite’s dinosaur Union Baron, Len McCluskey, adopting it as his manifesto for a Brave New World as he strives to reshape the Labour Party to suit his own political vision….back to the future.

 

Mark Mardell, himself no slouch at denigrating the Tea Party, proves that he could handle a job at the Daily Mail with his latest bit of rabble rousing, crowd pleasing, tabloidesque slam dunk of the Tea Party once again:

The Republicans have been accused of having Tea Party tantrums, they’ve been compared to people who want to burn the house down, suicide bombers, hostage takers and teenage drivers repeatedly taking a blind curve in the rain.

All these images of blackmail and mayhem come about because their strategy has brought the government to the brink of shutdown. What may happen at midnight on Monday is short of Armageddon, but it is not pretty.

 

Now the normal formula is to raise the hyperbole, get people’s interest and then say…well, you know that’s what people say…but the reality….

But Mardell doesn’t bother with that, he puts the boot in, and keeps putting it in….he leaves you with the idea that the Republicans are setting out to destroy America for no good reason at all….‘It is an argument between those who want to rush to the barricades and go down in a blaze of glory, heroes of the revolution to like-minded Tea Party types, and those who think it is a pointless charge but don’t want to be labelled traitors and cowards.’

Here the lead-in link to a report on the close down in the US is titled ‘Suicide Caucus’…..in the report it continues to cast around the slurs:

The rebellious faction hails from solidly conservative, mostly rural areas across the country. They’ve been called the “weird caucus” by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the “suicide caucus” by Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, in reference to a disregard for their party’s survival. They sometimes refer to themselves as “wacko birds“, adopting as their own the derisive label given to them by Republican Senator John McCain

 

 

No negotiation…the Republicans are being unreasonably obstinate….

“The thing that’s different about these Republicans is their unwillingness to bargain,” says Vanderbilt University public policy professor Bruce Oppenheimer.

“I’m not sure if it’s because they lack government experience or they’ve made such strong promises to their constituencies, but they’ve put their feet in cement and can’t or won’t move.”

 

I wonder if Oppenheimer thinks the same about Obama?…

Mr Obama is refusing to negotiate with the Republicans over the budget issues until they pass a temporary bill to reopen the government.

 

What’s curious about the BBC coverage is that it seems more intent on throwing around insults, about the Republicans of course, with no similar critical and negative appraisals and brickbats for the Democrats.

 

A Today programme piece  last week on the shutdown took the view that the Republicans were at fault, there was no deep reflection on the Republican’s reasons given for their ‘stubborn’ refusal to obey Obama…whilst Obama had two speeches aired in the same report, naturally chosen to make him look statesmanlike and responsible, the Republicans intransigent and unreasonable.

However things aren’t quite so simple.  The Republicans have very good reaon to want to delay and spend time examining ‘Obamacare’….apart from the massive expense the legislation was steamrollered through the Houses:

From Cranmer….

US budget ‘shutdown’ – what the pro-Obama BBC won’t explain 

‘….legislation was forced through in the most partisan manner: it received not one single Republican vote. For such a significant cultural and economic change, this is unique. Also unique is the remarkable fact that the Bill was large, complex, and so timetabled that it was physically impossible for any of the legislators to have read it within the time available, and the vast majority still have not. In the current debate, Senator Cruz was able to rebuke Senate Democrat Leader Harry Reid by pointing out that he, unlike Reid, had read it. It is doubtful that many in the UK appreciate this extraordinary breach of duty by the proponents of Obamacare. The then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi delivered the breathtaking response when challenged: “We have to pass this Bill so you can know what’s in it.”

Can you imagine the response of the BBC if Iain Duncan Smith had brought his Welfare Reform Bill to Parliament at 24-hours notice and declared such a thing?’

 

It seems that many of the American peple didn’t know what they had been signed up for…..many liking the idea until reality hits, and the envelop drops through the letterbox:

“Of course, I want people to have health care,” Vinson said. “I just didn’t realize I would be the one who was going to pay for it personally.”

Cindy Vinson and Tom Waschura are big believers in the Affordable Care Act. They vote independent and are proud to say they helped elect and re-elect President Barack Obama.

Yet, like many other Bay Area residents who pay for their own medical insurance, they were floored last week when they opened their bills: Their policies were being replaced with pricier plans that conform to all the requirements of the new health care law.

Vinson, of San Jose, will pay $1,800 more a year for an individual policy, while Waschura, of Portola Valley, will cough up almost $10,000 more for insurance for his family of four.

 

 

Of course it is suggested that many millions will also benefit…..but if the legislation hasn’t been properly scrutinised how can they really know?

This morning on R4 we had a programme which commented on Government and the big projects it likes to put into action in the modern era…..almost inevitably failing….and yet no such caution from the BBC over ‘Obamacare’, one of the biggest such projects probably ever launched by any government.

 

For the BBC, if you’re a white Republican from Arkansas ‘it’s all just shipping’, you’re history,  Obamacare’s here to stay and the Hispanics flooding over the border will keep you Whiteboys out of office for ever.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is an old Bedouin saying that once the camel gets his nose in the tent the body will surely follow. 

 

Sunday Morning Live which asked ‘Are Muslims doing enough to stop the radicalisation of young people?’, was I think pretty groundbreaking for the BBC, at least I have never heard anything quite so open, raising so many contentious and taboo issues.

There were quite a few guests, nearly all Muslim, and there was pretty much a consensus of opinion, Yvonne Ridley aside, on most points.

　

One issue was that debate is being closed down by conservative Muslims…we all know that as soon as ‘Muslim issues‘ are raised the cry of ‘Islamophobia’ echoes across the Media…they want us to stop talking about Islam.

Which made me laugh because I’d already seen Mehdi Hasan’s response when he heard the question that the programme asked:　

Mehdi Hasan ‏@mehdirhasan 11h BBC Sunday Morning Live question: “Are Muslims doing enough to tackle radicalisation?” #sigh

　

Such people want to close down debate because they know where the debate might lead…and this one on SML proves the point and why, as Peter Hitchens said on the programme, we must stop talking of ‘Islamophobia’ because there is no such thing, it is perfectly legitimate to disagree with what is a political ideology and not a pathology.

And as for Mehdi Hasan, that rabid self publicist and reactionary Islamist…just why does the BBC keep giving him a platform for his rhetoric?….I know the fireworks are fun, Question Time a case in point, but when there are Muslims like Dr Muhammed al Hussaini available, who presents a grown-ups view of the world, why have the ones who throw their dummies out of the pram and present an extremely unlikeable impression of Islam?

　

The programme blew apart the BBC’s own narrative when it comes to reporting on Islamic terrorism and presenting programmes about Islam…..which is that the terror is a result of Western foreign policy, that the terrorists are not real Muslims, that we cannot talk about the Koran and its meaning, that Islam is a religion of peace, that the majority of Muslims are not ‘conservative’ verging on fundamental, and that someone with a brown skin cannot be racist.

　

Here are some of the radical, and usually forbidden thoughts, from the contributors to the programme:　

　

A core teaching of Islam is that you must give your life for God….Martyrdom.

There is the slow growth of the idea amongst conservative Muslims that you cannot be part of this society, that their allegiance should be to the Umma, the Caliphate.

I have multiple identities, just one of those is being Muslim.

There is a growing political correctness that won’t allow discussion of Islam and what the Koran means….we are not a living in a brutal desert society with tribal blood feuds.

We must promote intellectual freedom and debate about core theology.

The behaviour stemming from the teachings in religious texts (Bible included) is deeply disturbing…promoting violence and genocide.

Mosques and those who run them can be racist, run as cultural clubs that excludes Western or white converts.　

The MCB is extremist and unrepresentative with only 6% of Muslims saying they felt represented by them.　

Communal tension is driven by the doctrines in the Koran itself.

It’s a very clever trick to claim someone who commits some crime isn’t a real Muslim just because they do something bad….this disengages with the problem…and doesn’t allow debate and a solution to the behaviour.　

Stop talking of Islamophobia, there is no such thing, it is perfectly legitimate to disagree with what is a political ideology and not a pathology.

　

And finally the solution maybe, they say…..

To challenge the narrative.　

Something we have been arguing for on this site for a long time from the BBC…..recognise that Islam can promote violence, that groups like the MCB are extremist and unrepresentative, that claiming any Muslim terrorist is not really a Muslim isn’t any longer credible, that the Koran can drive intolerance and separation between communities…and finally to examine the Koran itself and its true meaning, good and bad….just as they do with the Bible and Christianity.

 

Whether the outcome of the programme was as intended by the BBC or came as a bit of a shock to them it was a good programme with some very honest contributions.

The camel has his nose in the tent then…..The question is will anyone at the BBC take any notice…and then act upon such valid and challenging arguments and assertions?

Let’s hope the Bedouin were right….but in this case probably not.

　

　

 

 

 

Via Bishop Hill

 

Clive James has had a dig at Brian Cox and the BBC’s climate change coverage:

Clive James: I’m not sure I trust this science rock star

But hey, the smiling Professor (the smile sometimes switches itself on for no reason at all, like a refrigerator door loose on its hinges) might be right, and certainly seems so when backed up by so much institutional power, including the power of the BBC. He might care to remember, though, that two of his predecessors in the Top Beeb Boffin role – Nigel Calder and David Bellamy – have never been allowed back on the air since they failed to join the chorus about the dangers of global warming. For now, however, he is in tune with the times: safe, as it were, for as long as disaster threatens.

 

 

One of the BBC’s other new blue eyed boys, Jim Al Khalili is upset:

Jim Al-Khalili ‏@jimalkhalili 5h  Shame his clever prose wasted on drivel “@SLSingh: Sad to see Clive James buying into climate contrarians’ propgnda

 

‘Contrarians’?  ‘Propaganda’?   Impartiality in his DNA then….er…What’s this DNA  thingy then Jimbo?….I’d ask you what ‘Impartiality’ was…but you obviously don’t know.

The Spanish Inquisition is alive and well, and the sun revolves around the earth.

 

 

Good to see a BBC science presenter so open to inquiry and questioning of the ‘science’, a curious mind.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Polly Toynbee is a long time fan of the BBC and defends it relentlessly whilst being a long time not such a fan of the Daily Mail’s editor Paul Dacre (2008): 

The feeding frenzy against the BBC, spurred on by Dacre and Murdoch, grows ever more threatening. It matters because politicians are afraid of both men. More sinister than the trip to Deripaska’s yacht was the less publicised visit by David Cameron to Murdoch’s yacht on that same holiday. Obligingly, Cameron wrote a piece in the Sun last week joining in the anti-BBC hue and cry.

 

Here she tells us that Dacre, and Murdoch, have an evil legacy for Britain:

Delicate Guardian readers may find it hard deciding whether Max Mosley or Paul Dacre is the more unsavoury character. But there’s no doubt which of them does most harm: Dacre – along with Rupert Murdoch in his different way – probably does more damage to the nation’s happiness and wellbeing than any other single person, stirring up hatred, anger, fear, paranoia and cynicism with his daily images of a nation going to hell in a downward spiral of crime and depravity.

 

She of course has no problem with the Marxist ideology of Ralph Miliband and thinks it ourageous that such an ideology should be called an ‘evil legacy’.

But then she is also a long time fan of George Bernard Shaw….so you might understand how Polly thinks….if not let’s take a peek under the bonnet:

 

Polly ‘“Everything in the State, nothing outside the State,” Toynbee defends Ed Miliband and attacks the Mail as  ‘Bully, coward, hypocrite, shameless, remorseless, ruthless, malignant – add your epithets for the Mail here.’

 

 Toynbee is, in contrast, very approving of the writings of George Bernard Shaw:

What makes Shaw so likeable and readable is the odd blend of soaring idealism and no-nonsense realism

 

Shame about this newspaper article:

In 1927 Shaw published in the London Daily News a letter titled :

“Bernard Shaw on Mussolini: A Defence.”

 

or how about this:

 “The Nazi movement is in many respects one which has my warmest sympathy.”

 

or what of his liking for Oswald Mosley:

He was well-disposed toward Oswald Mosley, Britain’s home-grown fascist demagogue, declaring Mosley “the only striking personality in British politics.”

or inconveniently for Lefty Polly:

Bernard Shaw, who, for some years at any rate, declared Communism and Fascism to be much the same thing, and was in favour of both of them.

 

Or how about his  ‘admiration for the “great Communist experiment” which as it “spreads over the whole world” would prevent the “collapse and failure” of civilization.’  after his visit to the Soviet Union in 1931.

 

Polly quotes, approvingly, his ‘idealism’:

 I like George Bernard Shaw’s acerbic remark in his great socialist tract:

“The blunt truth is that ill-used people are worse than well-used people.” He adds: “I hate the poor and look forward eagerly to their extermination. I pity the rich a little, but am equally bent on their extermination.”

All classes are “each more odious than the other: they have no right to live”.

 

She tells us that:

The problem, Shaw says, is that the poor are kept ignorant, and without “trained minds capable of public affairs”, so they cannot see how “the evils of the system are great national evils”.

Shaw’s clarity of argument and caustic wit prod and question the weary old reasons why markets are immutable, the world must always be as it is and nothing can ever change. All it would take, he says, is enough people who want to change it. All writers can do is keep making the case for something better.

 

Fascinating how the mind of Polly Toynbee works…..how exterminating the Poor and the Rich is an  ‘ideal’ to be considered…..interesting also that the ‘Capitalist system’ is Evil, Paul Dacre is evil…….but we can’t call Marxism Evil.

 

 

What else is there about Polly’s hero that we ought to know?:

Playwright George Bernard Shaw hailed Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini as the world’s great “progressive” leaders because they “did things,” unlike the leaders of those “putrefying corpses” called parliamentary democracies.

 

 

aaaahhh but the Left cry, that’s so unfair picking something from someone’s past to pillory them now (Daily Mail support for the Blackshirts in 1934 aside of course):

The problem with the right-wing use of Shaw to pillory moderate socialists and nonsocialist liberal progressives is not only that very few of the latter held such views, but that this kind of cherry picking is ahistorical. It doesn’t seek to understand how such now unacceptable opinions gained currency, or who held them and why. It is what Pascal Bruckner calls the sin of anachronism, which he contrasts to real history, which “forbids us to judge preceding centuries from the point of view of the present.”

 

But of course Toynbee is cherry picking the bits she approves of in Shaw’s writng and ignoring the rest, just as the Left cherry picks the Mail’s history without context or understanding.

 

Maybe the BBC remember’s this:

Late in 1929, Shaw among other public figures had been asked by the BBC to give a talk in a series called Points of View. He chose “Democracy” as his subject and turned the term upside down by declaring, “Who can blame Signor Mussolini for describing it as a putrefying corpse?”.

 

 

 

 

 

The BBC love Mehdi Hasan.  He is an everpresent presence on our screens, as much or possibly more than that other wretch Alastair Campbell.

I wonder why….of course he’s a Muslim but he wears a nice suit and he talks of reform of Islam…the BBC lap it up.

But really, what is it about this two faced, duplicitous, lying little toady of the Iranian regime who on our screens dresses in those western suits but when kicking back with his brethren changes into his Islamist garb…Mehdi being a Shi’ite lay preacher….as he lays into the Kufar, those ignorant cattle?

 

 

If you want your very own Mehdi Hasan they’re available now at Amazon…as seen on the BBC:

 

Buy Mehdi Hasan at Amazon

www.amazon.co.uk/mehdi+hasan

Low Prices on Mehdi Hasan.
Free UK Delivery on Eligible Orders

 

However there is more than one Mehdi Hasan, not just the BBC, Westernised version…if you would like the radical, preacher version or the devout Muslim who claims also to be secular and progressive version you’ll find them here, a huge selection, going cheap:

 

Mehdi Hasan for less

www.xxl-sale.co.uk/Mehdi–Hasan

Now or never: Mehdi Hasan
Huge selection sale on!

　

Yes there are many versions of Mehdi Hasan, one moment secular progressive the next radical Islamist preacher, the next Muslim reforming barnstormer, the next a vocal advocate for the advancement of Islamic influence in the West.

　

Hasan provides you with the version that he thinks you will believe in, the one that will get him on the telly and into print.

He knows that if he dressed as he does when talking to a Muslim audience and started preaching verses from the Koran he wouldn’t be taken seriously and his message would be lost.

His message is simple.

His sole aim is the advancement of Islam, to increase its influence and to eventually see that Islam is the dominant political and social ideology in this country.

That is not a message he knows he can put out openly and so he hides behind his reformist, progressive, secular image whilst all the time slowly, slowly pushing the message that inch by inch gains weight and influence.

He urges his fellow Muslims not to be doctors and engineers but to be journalists and media poppets…in order to ‘ help influence the industry’s coverage of issues such as terrorism and integration.…“I see people like myself – who happen to be both a professional journalist and a practising Muslim – as a bridge between the Islamic community and the media, and by extension between Muslims and wider society,”

In other words he means to get Muslims into positions of power and influence to push a media assault that presents Islam in a way they want you to see it, but not as it really is.

　

Think not?

Let’s have a look at the many faces of Mehdi Hasan.

　

　

I saw this last night on Guido’s site and thought ‘Weird…a spoof…and yet…it’s funny peculiar rather than funny ha ha’.

All became clear reading the Mail this afternoon and found to my great amusement that it was all too real, Mehdi Hasan had grovelled for a job at the hated Daily Mail……

Dear Mr Dacre,

My name is Mehdi Hasan and I’m the New Statesman’s senior political editor. My good friend Peter Oborne suggested I drop you a line as I’m very keen to write for the Daily Mail.

Although I am on the left of the political spectrum, and disagree with the Mail’s editorial line on a range of issues, I have always admired the paper’s passion, rigour, boldness and, of course, news values. I believe the Mail has a vitally important role to play in the national debate, and I admire your relentless focus on the need for integrity and morality in public life, and your outspoken defence of faith, and Christian culture, in the face of attacks from militant atheists and secularists.

I am also attracted by the Mail’s social conservatism on issues like marriage, the family, abortion and teenage pregnancies. I’d like to write a piece for the Mailmaking the left-wing case against abortion, or a piece on why marriage should be a Labour value, and not just a Conservative one. My own unabashed social conservatism on such issues derives from my Islamic faith.

I do hope you’ll consider me for future columns and features in the Daily Mail on political, social, moral and/or religious issues. I believe you once told sports columnist Des Kelly that he should “make them laugh, make them cry, or make them angry”. That’s something I believe I could do for you, and for your readers, on the pages of the Mail.

Thank you very much for your time.

Sincerely,

Mehdi Hasan

Senior Editor (Politics)

New Statesman

　

 

Well  yes…certainly made this reader of the Daily Mail laugh.

　

　

Now most of you will know why that is so jarringly funny…you will have seen his performance on Question Time when he launched an all out attack on the Daily Mail asking:

‘Who hates Britain more…is it Ralph Miliband or the immigrant bashing, gay baiting, women hating, Muslim smearing, NHS undermining Daily Mail?’:

 

 

 

Nothing like a good old bit of dog whistle rhetoric.

　

Previously he’d said:

Question Time is a fun show to do but I’d be the first to admit that it doesn’t lend itself to nuance or depth and doesn’t allow panellists enough time to unpack their views and opinions in any detail.

Here he writes in The Guardian about the British media:

“I grow tired of having to also endure a barrage of lazy stereotypes, inflammatory headlines, disparaging generalisations and often inaccurate and baseless stories.”

Quite so Mehdi.

So let’s unpack Mehdi’s politics and religious convictions and ask who is it that hates Britain more, the Daily Mail or the immigrant bashing, Gay hating, women hating, Kufar smearing, intellectually stagnant Islamic world?

You’re no doubt shocked…how could I say such a thing…well don’t look at me…ask Mehdi…he has said all those things about Islam as he presents his ‘secular, progressive’ face to the western media.　

But….if this is a hatchet job on Mehdi Hasan then so be it.

Tom Holland ‏@holland_tom 12h As ever, @NickCohen4 is very good on the tensions that can exist between progressive & religious ideals on the left:

 

Nick Cohen on Mehdi Hasan:

He is a religious reactionary.

As things stand, the world remains upside down. The left rather than the right defends reactionary religion, as long as the reactionaries do not have a white skin. You should never tire of pointing out that they are complicit in an enormous betrayal of progressive principles. Women, gays, secularists, liberals and socialists from ethnic minorities ought to be able to turn to British liberals and leftists for support against the patriarchal men, who seek to control them. Rather than fraternal greetings, they find indifference and hostility.

 

Hasan doesn’t agree with Cohen’s label of ‘religious reactionary:

Mehdi Hasan ‏@mehdirhasan 10h @J_Bloodworth @scarletstand @sunny_hundal given you seem to agree with Cohen on me being an ‘Islamist’ you have zero credibility on issue…

　

Curiously Hasan doesn’t think we should criticise Islam…he believes that it will have terrible consequences, so shut up:

Its going to end in the holocaust…‘…years ago when Europeans got concerned about a religious minority in their midst it didn’t end too well, so forgive me for being worried.’

　

Of course the Jews weren’t forcing their religion down people’s throats, nor were they attacking people across the globe driving Jews and Christians from their homes.

This is what Tony Blair had to say about the influence of Islamic ideology:　

We have to put it on the table and be honest about it. Of course there are Christian extremists and Jewish, Buddhist and Hindu ones. But I am afraid this strain is not the province of a few extremists. It has at its heart a view about religion and about the interaction between religion and politics that is not compatible with pluralistic, liberal, open-minded societies.’

　

This is what David Cameron, in his Munich speech, had to say about tackling the Islamist threat:

In our communities, groups and organisations led by young, dynamic leaders promote separatism by encouraging Muslims to define themselves solely in terms of their religion.

All these interactions engender a sense of community, a substitute for what the wider society has failed to supply.

You might say: as long as they’re not hurting anyone, what’s the problem with all this?

I’ll tell you why.

As evidence emerges about the backgrounds of those convicted of terrorist offences, it is clear that many of them were initially influenced by what some have called ‘non-violent extremists’ and then took those radical beliefs to the next level by embracing violence.

And I say this is an indictment of our approach to these issues in the past.

And if we are to defeat this threat, I believe it’s time to turn the page on the failed policies of the past.

So first, instead of ignoring this extremist ideology, we – as governments and societies – have got to confront it, in all its forms.

At stake are not just lives, it’s our way of life.

That’s why this is a challenge we cannot avoid – and one we must meet.

 

 　

　

Is the Mail unBritish or is it Mehdi Hasan  that is ‘Dangerously unBritish’?

This is a speech given by the Rt Hon Baroness Warsi to Tell MAMA (Measuring Anti-Muslim Attacks) in Jan 2013:

Let me tell you what’s really dangerous:

It’s when people are treated differently because they hold a different religious belief.

It’s when a country turns a blind eye towards that discrimination.

And it’s when we allow a perception of a people to become so entrenched that extremists are able to capitalise on it.

Because any form of prejudice, bigotry or discrimination is wrong.

It’s unBritish.

　

So….

what’s really dangerous?….what’s ‘UnBritish?

It’s when people are treated differently solely because they hold a different religious belief.

　

Well just have a look at this video of Mehdi Hasan denouncing the unbeliever, the non-Muslim…the Kufar…you know, the Jew, the Christian, You (You who clapped him so loudly on Question Time)…as ignorant cattle…animals….without morals…

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijDRFusSZkU

 

Hasan says:

“In Islam we do not bend our Law…never…We know that keeping the moral high-ground is key. Once we lose the moral high-ground we are no different from the rest of the non-Muslims; from the rest of those human beings who live their lives as animals, bending any rule to fulfil any desire.”

　

One other point from that…’We do not bend our Law…ever…’

And yet this is the Mehdi Hasan who in the Guardian, the New Statesman or the Huffington Post or on the BBC ,wearing his slick Western suit, will insist he seeks to reform Islam.

If you never, never ‘bend our Law’ then you aren’t being honest about the possibility of reform…The Quran being the final unchangeable word of God.

　

And here he is again smearing ‘the other‘:

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPvW_A1w7W8

 

 

Via Harry’s Place:

From Jahiliya to Jahiliya’, given at the Al Khoei Islamic Centre in February 2009 (the speech has now been removed from the IUS website, but we have archived a copy):

“The kaffar, the disbelievers, the atheists who remain deaf and stubborn to the teachings of Islam, the rational message of the Quran; they are described in the Quran as, quote, “a people of no intelligence”, Allah describes them as; not of no morality, not as people of no belief – people of “no intelligence” – because they’re incapable of the intellectual effort it requires to shake off those blind prejudices, to shake off those easy assumptions about this world, about the existence of God. In this respect, the Quran describes the atheists as “cattle”, as cattle of those who grow the crops and do not stop and wonder about this world.”

　

Fairly clear what Hasan thinks of non-Muslims…..but is Hasan’s ‘them and us’ rhetoric harmful?

Is Hasan one of the ‘Young, dynamic leaders‘ that Cameron spoke of?….

In our communities, groups and organisations led by young, dynamic leaders promote separatism by encouraging Muslims to define themselves solely in terms of their religion.

　

You’ve already read Cameron’s view…rhetoric of the sort Hasan peddles needs to be combated….here Blair admit’s the start point for the radicalism comes from a belief, not politics…..

Their cause is not founded on an injustice. It is founded on a belief, one whose fanaticism is such it can’t be moderated. It can’t be remedied. It has to be stood up to.

We must be clear about how we win this struggle. We should take what security measures we can. But let us not kid ourselves.

In the end, it is by the power of argument, debate, true religious faith and true legitimate politics that we will defeat this threat.

　

　

At the top I asked ‘Who is it that hates Britain more, the Daily Mail or the immigrant bashing, Gay baiting, women hating, Kufar smearing, intellectually stagnant Islamic world?’

So let’s have a look at if there is any legitimacy to those claims at all….

We’ve already seen the anti-Kufar language used by Hasan…but who else used such language all too recently?　’Kufar‘ of course being highly derogatory in itself.

What is the difference between Mehdi Hasan’s ramblings and that of the killers of Lee Rigby who make similar statements about the Kufar as he did…all based on the Quran?

Adebalajo said, in his speech, “We are not scared of Kufar … my brothers remain in your ranks and do not be scared of these filthy Kufar. They are pigs … Allah says they are worse than cattle.”

 

 

The language is the same..only the method is different….so you have to ask is it the beliefs from which their actions derive which are the real danger?

When you start using the language of them and us, when you isolate others, when you belittle and demean them, when you demonise them the result is that they become less human in the eyes of those who listen…..and the result is they are treated very differently.

　

Hasan in this article rejects any claim that the killers of Lee Rigby were influenced by Islamic teachings:

The Muslim faith does not turn men to terror

The two suspects in the Woolwich killing were violating the doctrine of their own holy book

To prove this Hasan quotes this from the Quran:

‘Whosoever killeth a human being…” says the Koran, in the 32nd verse of its fifth chapter, “it shall be as if he had killed all mankind, and whoso saveth the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind.”

 He goes onto say:

Some cut and paste verses from the Koran out of context; others unthinkingly demand “reform” of Islam. Few want to discuss the role of British foreign policy in helping to radicalise these young, disaffected individuals.

 

When a Muslim quotes that verse (5:32) to you you know immediately you are being spun a line and  it seems Hasan has been ‘cutting and pasting’ to suit himself for the actual, full quote reveals that verse refers to Jews and not Muslims:

We decreed upon the Children of Israel that whoever kills a soul unless for a soul or for corruption [done] in the land – it is as if he had slain mankind entirely. And whoever saves one – it is as if he had saved mankind entirely. And our messengers had certainly come to them with clear proofs. Then indeed many of them, [even] after that, throughout the land, were transgressors.

 

　

 

But jump back a bit…Hasan also said he was happy to talk about foreign policy and its role in radicalising Muslim youth…and that Islam is not responsible…it is a religion of peace….

 

That’s odd…because in this speech to a Muslim audience he refers to the work of Pervez Hoodbhoy , professor of nuclear and high-energy physics at Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad, who in a speech in 2001 denied that foreign policy was responsible for the hijacking of Islam and the subsequent radicalisation of Muslims…or that Islam is a religion of Peace…..

Fearful of backlash, most leaders of Muslim communities in the US, Canada, and Europe have responded in predictable ways to the Twin Towers atrocity. They have proclaimed first, that Islam is a religion of peace; and second, that Islam was hijacked by fanatics on the September 11. They are wrong on both counts.
First, Islam – like Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, or any other religion – is not about peace. Nor is it about war. Every religion is about absolute belief in its own superiority and its divine right to impose itself upon others. In medieval times, both the Crusades and the Jihads were soaked in blood. Today, Christian fundamentalists attack abortion clinics in the US and kill doctors; Muslim fundamentalists wage their sectarian wars against each other; Jewish settlers holding the Old Testament in one hand and Uzis in the other burn olive orchards and drive Palestinians off their ancestral land; Hindus in India demolish ancient mosques and burn down churches; Sri Lankan Buddhists slaughter Tamil separatists.
The second assertion is even further off the mark: even if Islam had in some metaphorical sense been hijacked, that event did not occur on September 11, 2001. It happened around the 13th century. Indeed, Islam has yet to recover from the trauma of those times.

　

Hasan tells us that:

I have been a Muslim all my life and visited mosques across Europe, North America and the UK. Never, not once, have I come across an imam preaching violence against the West or justifying the murder of innocents.

He clearly hasn’t watched the Dispatches programme nor read Harry’s Place:

Undercover Mosque

And Undercover Mosque – The Return

 

　　

Hasan tells us that Muslim terrorism is a result of politics not religion or culture, here he denounces Cameron’s Munich speech which condemned State Multi-Culturalism: 

The Prime Minister’s provocative speech prompted this particularly odious headline in the Telegraph:

Muslims must embrace our British values, David Cameron says. (Why “odious”? Because it implies that the majority of Muslims don’t embrace basic “British values” and aren’t integrated, which, as Cameron knows, and I can attest, isn’t true.)

The English Defence League (see point five, below) is, in my view, made up of violent extremists and yet they are not a product of “multiculturalism”, failed or otherwise.

Terrorism is a political problem; not a cultural problem.

　

　

However he had to admit religion was an inciter of terrorism:

Is Islamic terrorism cultural or religious:

 

Gentleman in audience – “The root cause of terrorism is bad teachings in religious schools.”

Mehdi – “Rubbish”

Mehdi – “Terrorism is not a cultural problem, terrorism is a political problem”.

Douglas [Murray] – “And it’s a religious problem as well”

Mehdi – “In your view Douglas it’s a religious problem”.

Douglas – “I’m perfectly willing to talk about foreign policy as would David Cameron be, but you cannot pretend that there is no religious component to the terrorism because there is ”

Mehdi – “I thought you said it was cultural. Culture and religion is not the same thing”.

Dimbleby – “Mehdi, you’re saying there is no religious component?”

Mehdi – “I’m saying there is a religious component; I’m saying there’s not a cultural component”.

　

　

Hasan always uses the example of the 7/7 bombers and converts to suggest integration had nothing to with radicalisation, that being ‘integrated’ didn’t stop you being a terrorist….

Some of the most high-profile terrorists in recent years have been “integrated” Muslims. Take Mohammad Sidique Khan, the ringleader of the London bombings in July 2005. He was a teaching assistant who impressed parents, colleagues and pupils at the school where he worked. As a teenager, he called himself “Sid” and spent most of his time playing football with white kids.

Then there are the white, British-born people who convert to Islam and become terrorists, like Nicky Reilly or Oliver Savant – are they unaware of, or unfamiliar with, British values? Would teaching them to speak English help secure our airports or railway stations?

　

Of course Hasan always misses out the vital ingredient…the conversion or reconnection to Islam and the awakening of a devotion to the religion not previously there……a devotion which when inflamed by preachers who sow seeds of division and provoke apartheid can grow into something beyond mere devoutness.

　

Hasan goes so far as to utterly deny a religious element, despite, as shown above, admitting it exists:

Talking of 9/11 he asks…..What motivated them to do it?

No mention of religion. No mention of Islam. No mention of virgins in heaven, 72 or otherwise. For the lead investigators into the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, politics, not faith, was the key motivating factor. Terrorism, as even that notorious Islamist-baiter Martin Amis once conceded, “is political communication by other means”

　

　

And here is another dodge where Hasan tries to evade responsibility for previous smears:

On multiculturalism: I didn’t equate David Cameron with the EDL or “smear” him, as Tim Montgomerie and others have claimed.

 

Well, actually Hasan, yes you did, here tying Cameron in with the Neo-Cons and Quilliam ( Hated by Muslims who see it not unlike the EDL) and making a casual link to the EDL and BNP:

How is this new, original or different? As I said, much of the Cameron speech fits in with a pre-existing, long-standing Gove/Quilliam/neoconservative agenda. As Mohammed Shafiq of the Ramadan Foundation points out:

‘On the day we see fascists marching in Luton, we have seen no similar condemnation or leadership shown from the government.’

The timing of Cameron’s speech is awful. It comes on a day on which the far-right English Defence League is marching in London in protest against Islam. As Nick Lowles, editor of Searchlight, writes, “What began as a street movement to oppose Islamic fundamentalism has broadened its target to the religion itself.”

Yet Cameron did not spare a single one of the 2,476 words in his speech for the EDL – or for other far-right groups such as the BNP.

　

And then there’s Labour’s Muslim MP Sadiq Khan, who accused the Prime Minister of ‘writing propaganda for the EDL’.

　

 

As for the Mail’s ‘immigrant bashing’

Well calling for restrictions on immigration is hardly ‘bashing’…unlike of course what happens to Jews throughout Europe, under attack from immigrants to their land….Sweden, Holland, France and Germany have all seen a rise in anti-Semitic attacks with Jews being forced to flee their homes and country.

Attacked by Muslim immigrants.

So who is doing the ‘bashing’?  Not the Mail.

Christians around the world are under threat, none more so than those within Muslim majority countries where their communities are being destroyed, their churches burnt and their clerics beheaded.

Even within Islam itself Hasan admits that problems arise…because of the religion…and yet he remains a Muslim.

He castigates the Mail for ‘Muslim smearing’ and yet he admits that Islam has a dirty little secret…its anti-Semitism:

It pains me to have to admit this but anti-Semitism isn’t just tolerated in some sections of the British Muslim community; it’s routine and commonplace.

 

And the real problem is that anti-Semitism is integral to Islam, it is part and parcel of it…and yet Hasan remains a Muslim for all his ‘angst’ about it.

‘You will find that the most implacable of men in their enmity to the faithful are the Jews and the pagans, and that the nearest in affection to them are those who say: ‘We are Christians.’ 5:82

‘The unbelievers among the People of the Book and the pagans shall burn for ever in the fire of Hell. They are the vilest of creatures.’ 98:6　

Believers take neither Jews nor Christians for your friend. 5:51

‘Believers make war on the infidels who dwell around you.’ 9:123

‘Prophet make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites and deal rigorously with them.’ 9:73

 

Hasan of course has little compunction about working for the Guardian (or as shown above for the Mail itself) which is well known for having anti-Semitic articles in its pages:

‘Somebody’ invented a ‘heroic past’……one of the great mistakes of history.

The whole of the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament, can be read as a record of people coming to terms with failure. In part this was done by the invention of a heroic past, in the empire of Solomon’s time, something that may have been one of the truly great mistakes of history

　

Who would that ‘somebody’ be?

The ‘Jews’ of course……the Jews invented their past…invented their existence as a ‘nation’ and invented their right to exist as such a nation.

The Guardian calls that ‘one of the greatest mistakes in history.’

In other words it would have been better if the Jews had never existed, then Israel would never have existed and the Middle East would be the land of milk and honey where everyone lives in peace and harmony.

　　

Hasan says this:

I, for one, refuse to worship a God who is so weak and needy that he compels Muslims to worship him

And yet, he remains within the Islamic fold…he doesn‘t ‘refuse to worship’ such a God. He does so by living in denial or by turning a blind eye.

He denounces the death penalty for apostates in Islam because he claims that there is no Islamic law that pronounces such a sentence:

The Prophet Muhammad never had anyone executed for apostasy alone. In one case, in which a Bedouin man cancelled his pledge of allegiance to Islam and left Medina, the Prophet only remarked that “Medina is like a pair of bellows: it expels its impurities and brightens and clears its good.”

　

But again that’s misleading from Mehdi Hasan.

Islamic law is very clear, apostates can be killed. The Hadiths, which are an essential and integral component of Islamic law tells us so:

Bukhari (52:260)  – “…The Prophet said, ‘If somebody (a Muslim) discards his religion, kill him.’ ” Note that there is no distinction as to how that Muslim came to be a Muslim.

The penalty of death for apostasy is repeated elsewhere in Bukhari: Whoever changes his Islamic religion, then kill him (Bukhari 84:57). Another Hadith (Bukhari 83:37) holds that death is required in three cases: for a murderer, for a married person committing illegal sexual intercourse, and for one who deserts Islam.

　

Mohammed said that if an Apostate did not ‘attack’ Islam, that is, criticise it and disparage it, then they could live….if they did criticise Islam they could be killed.

　

　

And what of Homosexuals? Mehdi accuses the Mail of ‘Gay baiting’.

This from a man who supports the Iranian regime which hangs people for being gay.

This from a man who stays in a religion that insists gays be killed…you can throw them off mountain tops or stone them to death….watch Undercover Mosque….such horrors are being preached in the mainstream, major mosques…authorised by the most respected religious authority in Saudi Arabia.

　

Here’s a poll from the guardian:

Muslims in Britain have zero tolerance of homosexuality, says poll

　

Here’s what Mehdi Hasan has to say:

Yes, I’m a progressive who supports a secular society in which you don’t impose your faith on others – and in which the government, no matter how big or small, must always stay out of the bedroom. But I am also a believing Muslim. And, as a result, I really do struggle with this issue of homosexuality.

As a believer in Islam, however, I insist that no mosque be forced to hold one against its wishes

 

So Mehdi pronounces himself ‘secular and progressive’…and yet he is also a devout, practising Muslim….the two things are complete opposites….you cannot be secular and religious, you cannot be progressive and live by a 6^th century religion which teaches you to hate gays, kill Jews and apostates, treat women as second class citizens and non-Muslims as cattle.

He says he is forced to be homophobic because of his religion.

He claims he hates homophobia.

And yet, not only does he stay within the religion he is a lay preacher for that religion.

　

So all in all Mehdi Hasan has many faces, one which he presents to the ‘Western World’, the Liberal Media that he needs to access to spread his message and to win supporters, and the face he presents to Muslims where he preaches a fundamentalist and a very Islam Über Alles message….

He states that

There are 1.2 billion Muslims in the world, and yet Muslims have only 10 Nobel Prizes whilst 12 million Jews have 150 Nobel Prizes. There are 6 Jewish universities (note Jewish, not Israeli…does Israel not exist in Hasan’s world?) in the top world 200.…and no Muslim universities at all.

And then we wonder why we are losing battles…we’re not being out fought, we’re being out thought, we are not under armed, we are under educated.

　

‘Losing battles….outfought, under armed’…what sort of language is that, what can he mean?

Clearly Hasan thinks in terms of ‘them and us’, Muslims and ‘the other’. and it is a war out there….a clash of civilizations…he wants the Islamic world to over take the ‘West’….Why? 

 

For a man who proclaims his secular, progressive, democratic loving philosophy…you have to doubt that somehow.

But then is there anything you can believe about Mehdi Hasan, the man who writes articles about anti-Semitism, about homophobia, about killing apostates….and why they are wrong…and yet, he remains a Muslim despite all those horrors being sanctioned by that very religion.

And we haven’t even got onto women….you know the other sex who don’t really need to be educated…but if necessary, well they can sit at the back of the class because they’re just not important in an Islamic Faith school.　

Hasan isn’t exactly a pro-choice liberal on women:

Yes, a woman has a right to choose what to do with her body – but a baby isn’t part of her body.

Oh hang on, he says;

You can’t keep smearing those of us who happen to be pro-life as “anti-women” or “sexist”. …You might assume that my own anti-abortion views are a product of my Muslim beliefs. They aren’t.

Wonder what he makes of Evolution….because Muslims, those obviously no longer in the Golden Age of Islamic Science, believe in Creationism.

 

He is quite liberal about nuclear weapons though…as long as you’re a Shia country…like Iran;  Sunni Pakistan, or Israel, nah, not so keen (See above video for the anti-‘Islamic bomb’ comments):

 If you were our mullah in Tehran, wouldn’t you want Iran to have the bomb…., wouldn’t it be rational for Iran – geographically encircled, politically isolated, feeling threatened – to want its own arsenal of nukes, for defensive and deterrent purposes?….of course, less than a thousand miles to the west, there is Israel, your mortal enemy, in possession of over a hundred nuclear warheads and with a history of pre-emptive aggression against its opponents.

 

Why is Israel Iran’s mortal enemy?  Israel would not have any desire to attack Iran if Iran were to leave Israel alone.

 

And he’s not so keen on answering awkward questions about Iran and its brutal oppression:

 

 

 

 

 

 

　

Whatever, I’m sure we’ll find out what he thinks on every subject under the sun….as Peter Hitchens ruefully looks forward to:

I’d like to think we’d hear a bit less of him in future. But I doubt it. Since he first stormed into my e-mails many years ago, anxious to bombard me with his views of Israel, he’s grown, and grown and grown as a voice in our media. I think he will continue to do so.

 

 

 HAsan defends himself here:

Anatomy of a Hitchens Hatchet Job

 

But take it all with a pinch of salt.  This article for example is given as an illustration of his urging Muslims to ‘integrate’.  But why?

 

Hasan is a Labour man.  He knows Muslims will mostly vote Labour…..but also the more they participate and take control of political processes the more they can influence laws and the ploitics that can be advantageous to the Muslim community, advancing the Islamisation of a small part of the UK, a mini-Pakistani state…..

How can Muslims complain about our rights, our freedoms, our collective future, if we aren’t engaged in the political process across the board as active British citizens?

 

 

Final word to Mehdi Hasan himself:

Mehdi Hasan ‏@mehdirhasan 6h  @hina3661 @alomshaha Which principles was I selling? You cant have it both ways. Either I’m a secret reactionary or a principle-free zone

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Telegraph slams the BBC for its tidal wave of pro-Labour reporting over the Mail/Miliband punch up:

The BBC insisted that its coverage of what was a significant political story had been “appropriate, balanced and impartial”.

However, an analysis by The Telegraph found the story took up almost 49 minutes of the 12 hours of broadcasting by Today, BBC Radio 4’s flagship current affairs programme, over the four editions between Wednesday and Saturday, while there were 30 articles published on its website — including one in Farsi — by yesterday afternoon.

Ken Livingstone and Lord Glasman, both Labour figures, secured two of the week’s highest-profile slots on the Today programme at 7.10am on Wednesday and 8.10am on Friday, while Left-wing figures including Tony Benn were able to speak without opposing views being presented.

On Saturday night a government source entered the debate and said there was “certainly a question mark” over whether the BBC’s coverage had been proportionate and impartial.

The source suggested that the BBC may have given too much prominence to reporting the row, especially given that it occupies such a powerful position in the media.

 

 

and again:

Questions over BBC ‘Labour bias’

 

What is often missing from the BBC reports is any context….Miliband’s Marxism is only ever fleetingly referred to whilst claiming the basis of the Mail’s article was solely the diary entry of the 17 year old Miliband….when it was clearly based upon his Marxist views.

The BBC has also used this as an opportunity to attack the Mail, quite happily labelling it anti-Semitic by association….and never refers to the Mirror’s own publication of similar articles praising the Blackshirts,  nor indeed making any mention that the Left were as enamoured of Hitler and his Nazis as anyone on the Right….nor indeed to its own wartime anti-Semitism.

‘Have I Got News For You’ got in on the act going beyond ‘a joke’ you might say and taking a highly partisan, political approach….all the more effective at spreading its lie for its high audience and the much more receptive nature of the material.

 

 

 It is a fact…Oswald Mosley loved Britain.

How do we know this for sure?

Because he served not only in the British Army in the First World War but in the Royal Flying Corps as well.

 

The Westminster Gazette told us…‘He has human sympathies, courage and brains.”

So let’s have no more derogatory remarks condemning Oswald Mosley for his Fascist beliefs.

He loved Britain, he served in the Forces…and that’s good enough for the BBC.

 

 

If we are to believe the BBC having served in a country’s military is demonstration enough that you love a country….regardless of your political, social and cultural beliefs however much they are in contradiction to British political, economic and cultural values.

Emily Maitlis on Newsnight continually pressed this point of view…and flashed up a photograph of Ralph Miliband in uniform to emphasise her point.

 

 

But that is a very easy, lazy, unthinking route to go down as proven above with Oswald Mosley…and demonstrates, if any demonstration were needed, just how bad Newsnight is at handling anything more than a simplistic argument.

 

If past political positions inform us now how that same political institution thinks today what to make of this:

 

 

The Democratic party created the Klu Klux Klan.

Are we saying that President Obama is a racist, anti-Black Democrat?

Maybe he is…he didn’t serve in the US Army after all.

 

 

The Useless Idiots at the BBC are once again dancing to Labour’s tune…..as Peter Oborne noted:

“Rather than representing the nation as a whole, it [the BBC] has become a vital resource – and sometimes attack weapon – for a narrow, arrogant Left-Liberal elite.”

 

We could look at the BBC’s cover up of Labour’s immigration policy, its cover up of Labour’s deadly legacy in the NHS, its cover up of Labour’s economic incompetence, its cover up of Muslim rape gangs, its cover up of Palestinian terrorism, its anti-Israeli stance, its undermining of confidence in the economy and promotion of Labour’s ‘Plan B’…and of course its coverage of the War on Terror in which it has chosen to side with the terrorists.

We could look at all those things and ask if the BBC has been a force for good in Britain.

 

But not today.

Today we look at the BBC’s hypocrisy in trying to smear the Mail as anti-Semitic by using a headline from 1934 as possible evidence of today’s attitudes in the paper…attitudes which we are told include homophobia…evidenced by the Jan Moir article allegedly.

 

The BBC is using its massive power and influence to again attack a commercial and political rival and to aid the Labour Party in trying to impose political control over the Press.

Miliband claimed this ‘wasn’t about regulation…I’m not trying to censor the Press I’m trying to correct it.’

But of course that is a lie, that is a lie…as Ed Miliband might say….Miliband demanding that the paper’s owner Lord Rothermere investigate its culture and practices.

And as noted by Guido Fawkes:

His interview with LabourList this morning betrays the real motivation for why Miliband and Alastair Campbell, who is at the centre of this, have gone after the Mail

 …to curtail Press freedom and impose political control.

 

Fraser Nelson in the Telegraph nails the BBC vested interest in supporting Miliband…apart from the obvious ‘quite vocal,  massive bias to the left’ as Mark Thompson admitted was central to BBC outlook on life: 

Members of the political class have been attempting to tame the press for decades. (The Spectator came out against such interference back in 1834.) Yet only now, when many of the public prints lie on their deathbed, do politicians have a reasonable chance of success. The pressure group Hacked Off is desperate to establish political control, and it sees its chance. It has, in Mr Miliband, someone keen to play David to the Goliaths of Fleet Street. As one Cabinet member puts it: “Miliband may very well push through the full Leveson regulation with Liberal Democrat support.

The BBC is certainly doing its best [to help Miliband], and is treating his spat with the Daily Mail as if it were a national emergency. The debate about press regulation is impossible to understand in Britain without considering the BBC’s interests. It loathes Sky, and was keen to stop Rupert Murdoch’s attempt to buy the broadcaster outright. Murdoch’s News Corporation had a $12 billion cash pile, and it fancied putting rocket boosters under Sky. Mark Thompson, then head of the BBC, signed a letter begging the government to stop Murdoch. The BBC broke its own rules and became an actor in the drama. Even worse, it never admitted the fact.

Like a medieval army that believes it has to keep conquering or face defeat, the state-funded BBC has started to occupy new terrain and is now a hegemon in providing the printed word. More people get their news from the 18-year-old BBC website than from any newspaper, unfair competition which is crushing not just local newspapers but national ones, too.

its selling point is that it is seen as moral, and more balanced than the newspapers – so it has a vested interest in stories that present the press as being collectively guilty of a terrible misdemeanour. At times, it seems to delight in the discomfiture of the Daily Mail – and, make no mistake, the two are now rivals, battling it out for digital readers. BBC Online even has its own version of the Mail Online’s famous “sidebar of shame”, with stories headed “my Nazi blood” and “teenage exorcists”.

　

　

In support of that interest a vast wave of sympathetic coverage and ‘analysis’ in favour of Miliband has been streaming out of BBC portals…on the web, on radio and on Television.

This Newsnight interview by Emily Maitlis with the Daily Mail deputy editor, Jon Steafel, demonstrates the highly partisan approach whereby the Mail is wrong and has to defend itself whilst Miliband’s Marxist father is someone who loved Britain…we know because he served in the Navy…as Maitlis keeps reminding us as if that is a reflection of his politics. Of course this is the interview where for some reason, the completely unconnected to the story, Alistair Campbell, is brought in to have his say.

　

　

The Today programme told us its ‘lead story’ was the Mail and Miliband….and raised the subject of anti-Semitism which is the latest line of attack on the Mail….it also accused the Mail of continuing its campaign against Labour and Miliband by reporting that Labour covered up hospital failures. However the Telegraph was highlighting that report last night:

Labour accused of ‘cover up’ over failing hospitals

Labour has been accused of putting pressure on the NHS watchdog to “cover up” information about appalling standards of care at failing hospitals in the run up to last General Election.

 

A story curiously missing from…the BBC.

　

Miliband, the BBC reports on its website, said he did not agree with the Jewish Chronicle’s suggestion that there was “a whiff of anti-semitism” about the Daily Mail’s Ralph Miliband article….but of course both the BBC and Miliband know that mud sticks.

To help that mud stick the BBC adds this: Before WWII, Harold Harmsworth praised Adolf Hitler and in 1934 penned a Daily Mail article headlined “Hurrah for the Blackshirts” celebrating Oswald Mosley’s British fascists

No mention of the left wing Mirror’s own headlines supporting the Blackshirts…led by Labour’s  Oswald Mosley….who served in the British Army during the First World War…so he loved Britain you know!…and as the Westminster Gazette told us…‘He has human sympathies, courage and brains.”

 

The Mail’s City editor Alex Brummer has demanded an apology…….He ‘told the BBC the paper was owed an apology over claims that its Ralph Miliband articles were motivated by anti-semitism.

 

　　

This morning Nicky Campbell joined the fray with a question:

Is the Mail Good For Britain?

 He raised the spectre of the Mail’s support for the Blackshirts in the 1930’s, but of course made no mention of the Mirror’s.

He connected this to claims that the Mail is anti-Semitic and homophobic.

Curious that so much is made of that past error of judgement and yet we are not allowed to examine Ralph Miliband’s…it is fine to label the Mail, and presumably the owners and journalists who work there, as ‘anti-Semitic’ but to say a man who loved Britain so much that he wanted to change it didn’t love Bitain is taboo:

Ralph Miliband’s biographer, Michael Newman, said the late academic “wanted a different kind of Britain” but “wasn’t against Britain”.

　

　

But if we’re to delve back into the past in order to understand the present let’s also include the BBC…..and if the BBC is found to be anti-Semitic and homophobic tendencies in the past can we then accuse Campbell of being a Jew hater and Gay basher? Would that be fair?

　

Maybe we should ask Is the BBC Good For Britain? Let’s have a look through the archives:

 Why the BBC ignored the Holocaust: Anti-Semitism in the top ranks of broadcasting and Foreign Office staff led to the news being suppressed

ANTI-SEMITISM in the higher ranks of the Foreign Office and the BBC during the Second World War led to a policy which suppressed news about Germany’s attempt to exterminate European Jews, new research will show this week.

… both Foreign Office and BBC officials held a low opinion of Jews, and believed this was shared by the public.

They deduced that saving millions of Jews would not be seen as a desirable war aim by the British. At other times they justified suppression of details of the atrocities by arguing that they would not be believed.

News reports could only be carried if, in the view of the BBC and the Foreign Office, they were well-sourced. If the sources were Jewish, they tended not to be believed.

　

 

BBC accused of ‘institutionalised homophobia”

The BBC is “almost endemically” homophobic in its portrayal of gay and lesbians across a range of programmes, a report concluded.

The report also found “low-level homophobia” was institutionalised throughout factual and entertainment programming on the BBC. A monitoring exercise by researchers at the University of Leeds found that, during 168 hours of programming, only 0.4 per cent of the output tackled gay and lesbian issues and 80 per cent of that coverage was deemed negative.

Focus groups singled out the BBC as the worst broadcaster in terms of its portrayal of gay men and women and issues surrounding them.

　

　

And what about that ever present commentator on the BBC Mehdi Hasan…do they have nothing to say about his institutionalised homophobia?:

As a Muslim, I struggle with the idea of homosexuality – but I oppose homophobia

I’ve made homophobic remarks in the past, writes Mehdi Hasan, but now I’ve grown up

I’m a progressive who supports a secular society in which you don’t impose your faith on others – and in which the government, no matter how big or small, must always stay out of the bedroom. But I am also a believing Muslim. And, as a result, I really do struggle with this issue of homosexuality.

No Mehdi, you cannot be ‘secular and progressive’ and at the same time a devout,  believing, practising Muslim, the two things are complete opposites.

Still the BBC likes him.

Whilst having a lot to say about the Mail and its alleged anti-Semitism it is curious they have nothing to say about events like this which are regularly highlighted by Harry’s Place:

 

Interpal Gathers Gay Haters in London

This Sunday the Hamas supporters of the British charity Interpal will hold yet another conference featuring hate preachers. The venue will be the Edmonton Islamic Centre in London.

Abdullah Hakim Quick
Quick is an American Islamist preacher. His line on homosexuality is as clear and chilling as can be.

They said “what is the Islamic position [on homosexuality]?” And I told them. Put my name in the paper. The punishment is death. And I’m not going to change this religion.

Murtaza Khan
Khan is one of the worst British hate preachers.

I’m not homophobic. I believe in a natural way of life. I’m repeating you what your Bible tells you. In the hadith you find: “You find the people doing the action of Lot, kill the one who does the action and the one the action is being done to.”

Abu Usamah at-Thahabi
Thahabi is an imam at the Green Lane Mosque in Birmingham.

Do you practice homosexuality with men? Take that homosexual man and throw him off the mountain.

　

 

I expect it would be considered Islamophobic to challenge those views.

 

　

　

　

I’m going to be away for the next few days so I am putting this Open Thread up in a timely fashion and hope that it can sustain you in my absence. I will return on Tuesday.