Looks like betrayal is in the Campbell blood as the ‘Dodgy Dossier’ author tries to betray the Brexit voters and urges the Remain troops on….as he did with the British army in Iraq….which Labour then hung out to dry putting them on trial for ‘war crimes’…ably assisted by the BBC…..
Your energy and passion is much needed. Get those uni campuses stirred up. We need resistance and rebellion from people because there is so little from Parliament https://t.co/zSKbwGdiA0
Hmmmm…would that be a ‘populist’ rebellion or what, maybe an ‘internationalist spasm‘ that Campbell is fomenting? Better have a word with Lord AdiEU…Brexit being a “a dangerous populist and nationalist spasm worthy of Donald Trump”. I guess he is employing the same logic that the Weathermen terrorists used in the US…when democracy ‘fails’ you…take up violence.
Global Implications of The New Populism. What is it? What is the emerging new world order and what does it mean? Why is populism becoming so attractive around the world? How we can expect the world to change – what is under threat? Nothing much – just the whole of Western civilization and the future of the planet maybe.
Still, inciting riot, rebellion and resistance to the most democratic vote Britain has probably ever had…what’s not to like?
Shame most of the comments on the Tweet really put the boot into Campbell in a way the sycophantic BBC never does when he all too frequently appears in their studios….guess all is forgiven after their little Iraq War spat….the BBC rescued Campbell from the slough of despond, and his no doubt guilt driven PTSD, by practically employing him so often was he on the airwaves…even given his own little show at one stage.
Campbell moans about ‘populism’ and campaign tactics that lack intellectual rigour and depth…
Populists the world over, not least in Europe, will take heart from this. The insurgent has an inbuilt advantage. The more noise you make the more people seem to listen. Making people laugh, or making them feel, is as important as making them think. Getting down and dirty, despite what Michelle Obama said about the need to stay high when your opponent goes low, seems to have won the day.
He claims it is a new thing, naturally it is not, it’s as old as politics…Reagan famously campaigned by ‘sellng the sizzle not the steak’ and what is Corbyn’s sudden surge in popularity based upon if not a massive social media campaign that harnessed the stars of youth culture….a ‘populist’ campaign that the BBC rhapsodizes about…despite its own disdain for populism…otherwise known as Democracy.
Kamal Ahmed: Thanks Molly. Headline has been changed. It was not meant to be taken as literal, but as an historic reference that was out of date.
Kamal Ahmed: It’s been pretty torrid on here since @Andrew_Adonis raised the issue. The headline has been changed and I have deleted the original tweet. Journalism has to be read in context – headline and article. I felt meaning was clear. I hope we can keep the debate civil.
After many false dawns, at last some sunlight has fallen on Europe’s strongest economies.
Growth across the European Union is at levels not seen since 2007.
And the continent’s powerhouse countries – Germany and France – are seeing growth at levels not experienced since the financial crisis bounce-back of 2010.
For Britain, where growth is still reasonable but has slowed since the Brexit referendum, better EU growth is good news.
Nearly half of all we export goes to the EU.
And we are still in the single market and the customs union, which gives us tariff free access to the EU.
That relationship will change.
But the UK is still a major beneficiary as the EU marches forward.
The report was of course entirely pro-EU in any case….you might think the original headline was put there like a honey-trap, designed to bring in Leave voters who then find they are being assailed with pro-EU propaganda…the British economy bounced back long before the EU’s and the EU is merely playng catch-up rather than leaping ahead as Ahmed’s report suggests. Ahmed has long been a pro-EU advocate…his ‘reality checks’ damned Brexiteer claims whilst downplaying criticism of Remain’s apocalyptic claims.
Is Ahmed trying to lure in Leave voters to read his pro-EU propaganda? The Remainers certainly think he might be…..
Perhaps it’s symptomatic of how some journos are squirming at the BBC and that the only way they can get any pro-EU info out there is under cover of bad-mouthing the Union. It’s how artists and writers operate under totalitarian regimes, by watching their backs.
No, it doesn't. But look on the bright side – it will probably be shared by lots of Brexity-Trumpkin bots who haven't figured out that it's all about the success of the EU.
Speaking to the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, he said: “We are not shackled to a corpse. You can see the European economy’s recovery. It’s the largest single market in the world.
“The idea you have to choose between being a success in the European single market of 500 million and campaigning to have jobs and wealth created by trading with other economies – you don’t have to choose, you should do both.”
Tommy Robinson thought the BBC maybe having a petty little dig at him by promising to provide transport to bring him to a BBC interview and then the car fails to turn up [1 min 56 s in the video].
Paranoia or BBC games with the hated Tommy Robinson?
Just reading in the Sunday Times that Ann Coulter, someone the BBC ranks alongside Tommy Robinson as a ‘Far-Right’ rabble-rouser, was also promised a BBC car…and it didn’t turn up.
Conspiracy or BBC inefficiency?
Remember this….just a computer error?
Which brings us to the Remain Dementum movement which is in fine fettle as it howls at the moon barking up the wrong tree….they claim the BBC is a ‘Farageist’ supporter….and yet the BBC’s approach to Farage and UKIP, which they presented as akin to Nazis, was merely a dry run for how they report on Trump with massive derision, mockery, slanders and making malign associations with fascism, racism and Nazis.
Here’s Craig at Is the BBC biased? revealing Lord AdiEU’s falling out with the very obviously remain supporting BBC..
Andrew Adonis: The BBC is now performing so badly at impartial and fearless news, & the quality of Netflix etc now so much better at drama, I am wondering for the first time in my life whether we couldn’t do better. Sky can keep sport! BBC on ropes. Sport largely gone to Sky. Quality drama gone to Netflix. BBC news increasingly Brexit, weak & simply Govt press releases. If Netflix set up a sharp, balanced News service, what would be left besides local radio, a desert island & a few good foreign correspondents?
Gary Lineker: What a load of complete and utter tosh.
Andrew Adonis: The BBC’s most highly paid presenter?
Nick Robinson: Well there’s the fact we’re the most trusted source of news & the world’s best nature programmes (Attenborough) & most popular entertainment (Strictly & Sherlock) & culture (Proms & Glasto) & sport (Wimbledon & the Olympics). Other than that what has the BBC ever done for us?!
Andrew Adonis: Huge complacency Nick. The country is in crisis, dangerously poor, polarised, fractured and populist, & you want us to throw garlands! This is not where things are at, I’m afraid. And in the view of many of us, you (the BBC) are the midwife of Farageism. And btw, your news website, after a string of complaints today, still hasn’t corrected a disgraceful headline describing the EU as a ‘corpse.’ Is this what you mean by ‘most trusted source of news’?
Nick Robinson: I don’t want garlands. I want perspective & an acceptance that in a fractured society the BBC will hear from (& challenge) people you may dislike and/or fear.
Andrew Adonis: Well, I haven’t noticed the challenge, tbh. @BBCr4today now just a noticeboard for government and Farage press releases. Vast uncritical coverage of Boris speech, & total failure to get into the Northern Ireland crisis,just the latest instances.
Of course it is part of a campaign by the Dementum stormtroopers to bully and intimidate the BBC into not publishing anything remotely positive about Brexit….shouldn’t think that would be a problem…but in fact they have succeeded in censoring a BBC report despite it being entirely benign for Remainers, as you might expect from Kamal Ahmed…
Andrew Adonis: Apart from the disgraceful headline – when was the EU a ‘corpse’? – the BBC’s economics editor declares the EU will be ‘without, in the future, Britain.’ But we haven’t left & Parliament is a long way from agreeing Brexit. Yet more Brexit bias! https://twitter.com/bbckamal/status/963765351484882945 … Sorry to keep on about the BBC debasing public debate, but when was the European Union a ‘corpse’? Germany: I wish I was that lifeless! A disgraceful standard of analysis.
Kamal Ahmed: Thanks Molly. Headline has been changed. It was not meant to be taken as literal, but as an historic reference that was out of date.
Kamal Ahmed: It’s been pretty torrid on here since @Andrew_Adonis raised the issue. The headline has been changed and I have deleted the original tweet. Journalism has to be read in context – headline and article. I felt meaning was clear. I hope we can keep the debate civil.
Brendan Cox is headlining on the BBC at the moment…must be a big news story….which begs the question why the BBC pretty much ignored the story when it was headlining in the Mail and on Guido as well as in other papers a while back….one BBC employee admitting he deliberately chose not to highlight those stories…..and note his alleged sexual assaults were carried out when he was married to the sainted Jo Cox.
This is of course standard BBC practice…ignore stories that are bad news for the Tribe until forced to take notice as the story goes beyond their control and any attempt to suppress it is clearly not succeeding. Is this how they are playing the ‘Agent Cob’ allegations about Corbyn? Not a peep on the website…clearly hoping it will blow over and no further evidence will be found to back up the claims. If there is more concrete evidence? The BBC will of course be first to break the story! If the claims had been that it was a Tory in league with say the EDL the BBC would immediately have promoted the rumours as headline news….as they have with Trump/Russia.
This is how they operated with Rochdale and Rotherham….not reporting what was going on and only when the story became unstoppable did they climb on board and of course, tried to claim it for themselves with films like ‘Three Girls’. They received plenty of praise for that film but it was years too late…where was it ten years ago?
Now it’s #metoo as the BBC plays catch-up…..although not in all cases…..still censoring the truth about their involvement in Osborne’s attack at Finsbury Park…it’s always the Far-Right and Tommy Robinson to blame. Which reminds me….remember this cartoon from the Guardian…the real culprit is missing…..any apology from Rowson, Morley and all those who gloated that the Mail and the Sun were the ’cause’ of the terror attack?….The Huffington Post joined in as it gleefully reported that the Mail had been called an ‘open sewer’ [by little Owen Jones] as it attacked the Guardian for its malign cartoon.
The Guardian’s flagship summit returns on 7 March 2018 to look at responsibility against a backdrop of rapid change, and discuss how publishers and brands can best serve their audience and consumers.
View the latest programme here and list of speakers here.
As the mainstream media faces increasing accusations of bias and misinformation, we’re asking what constitutes balance in news? And as new and independent outlets make headway, how can they work with the mainstream to best serve readers and the public?
As news and information consumption changes, social media platforms are are finding themselves under more scrutiny than ever before. So what responsibility do these platforms have for the content they host? Should they be judged by the same standards as news providers?
Unfortunately the conference’s opening keynote speaker is…Paul Mason, radical, hysterical and bonkers….and once fanatical fan of activist social media…now?
Emily Maitliss is there…relegated to moderating the discussion on women’s issues….nice bit of sexism from the Guardian there….lot of white faces as well.
And of course Nick Robinson will be on hand to give us his unbiased thoughts on balance and bias in the media…no bias in the question at all…..
9.20 – 9.50 Transparency, objectivity and the new media landscape
During both the American presidential election and Brexit campaign, media owners faced a dilemma over showing balance in their coverage and giving credence to false claims – so in the post-truth age, why aren’t all ‘facts’ equal? And who are the new media players staking a claim in a more divided world?
Moderator: Polly Curtis, editor-in-chief, HuffPost UK
Nick Robinson, presenter, BBC Today programme
Matt Kelly, editor, The New European and head of content, Archant
Sacha Berlik, managing director, The Trade Desk
Can’t wait for the video…and no doubt Robinson will be back in the papers treating us to more reassurances that the BBC is the finest and most trustworthy news provider worldwide and stoutly defending it agaiinst all claims of bias and partisan reporting. He has to do this by written word in the Press as he can’t talk on the radio with his tongue so firmly in his cheek.
Also look forward to seeing all those BBC ‘outside contractors’ getting their tax bills now they are deemed employees by HMRC. Blooming tax dodgers.
The Establishment shakedown continues as Brexit and the Trump victory are incessantly ‘stopped and searched’ by th self-appointed thought-police who aim to close down the wild west of the free speech internet. It’s a well known fact, if you believe the BBC, that Clinton lost and Brexit succeeded due to Russian interference and the Social Media companies not doing their job….filtering out those whose opinions don’t align with the values and beliefs of the BBC and fellow travellers. The operation to ‘regulate’ the Social Media companies is moving into high gear as the hysteria builds and the massive vested interests, political, commercial and philosophical, try to generate the impression of a consensus that these companies are acting against ‘our’ best interests and to ramp up the pressure on politicians to rein them in. The reality is of course it’s not the actual platforms that are the concern but the sort of people and the views they hold and disseminate that these vested interests look to rein in, they seek to shut down all opposing voices that shine an inconvenient light upon their own actions and beliefs and which offer genuine alternatives to the ones the BBC would like to see on a ballot box. Democracy in action.
Here’s the billionaire who has interfered in more national elections and political and economic issues than any Russian autocrat. Soros uses his ill-gotten billions to corrupt and disrupt societies politically and socially, shamelessly and callously happy to tear them apart whilst pretending to ’empower democracy’ and all to keep the gold flowing into his own coffers and to serve his own political interests.
Soros cares not one jot about the British people, or indeed the American, he is after all the man who ‘broke the Bank of England’ and made over a billion doing it [the irony….he forced us out of the ERM]…and surprise surprise, another irony…or cunning plan….. he made a killing on Brexit…..the market turmoil based upon the apocalyptic warnings of Project Fear saw the markets drop after the referendum and Soros made another bundle. He has been found guilty of insider dealing before…any chance Project Fear was ramped up to such ridiculous heights of hysteria to help make rogue traders a few billions? Maybe a select few of Osborne’s friends in the City were delighted whatever the outcome of Brexit.
Now he’s all for attacking those who give a platform to populists…as opposed to autocratic billionaires who think they should be able to make all the decisions for the people…
Soros Calls on EU to Regulate Social Media to Fight Populism
Billionaire open-borders activist George Soros has demanded the European Union (EU) regulate social media because voters’ minds are being controlled and “manipulated”.
He claimed the size of social media firms made them a “public menace” and argued they had led people to vote against globalist causes, including electing President Donald J. Trump, in an article for The Guardian published Thursday.
Soros is as much a demagogue as any tyrant…he claims Trump wants to run a Mafia-like state and is just like Kim Jong-un….
The current moment in world history is a painful one. Open societies are in crisis, and forms of dictatorships and mafia states, exemplified by Vladimir Putin’s Russia, are on the rise. In the United States, President Donald Trump would like to establish his own mafia-style state.
Not only is the survival of open society in question; the survival of our entire civilisation is at stake. The rise of leaders such as Kim Jong-un in North Korea and Trump in the US have much to do with this.
Then we get this….hilariously unaware…or more plausibly…an obvious piece of misinformation…
Companies earn their profits by exploiting their environment. Mining and oil companies exploit the physical environment; social media companies exploit the social environment. This is particularly nefarious, because these companies influence how people think and behave without them even being aware of it. This interferes with the functioning of democracy and the integrity of elections.
It takes significant effort to assert and defend what John Stuart Mill called the freedom of mind. Once lost, those who grow up in the digital age may have difficulty regaining it.
I assume he means the intemperate BBC interference on behalf of Clinton as it disparaged, mocked and maligned Trump in every broadcast and article about him….or indeed his own funding of anti-democratic, some [the FBI or the Department for Homeland Security for instance] might say terrorist, organisations in the US to oppose Trump, not forgetting his funding of the Obama social media campaigns.
The growing industry of paid activists and media to purposefully, systematically deceive the American people is unjust, unloving and wicked. I beg news reporters and journalists to take the time to discover the money behind the optics and events that shape our daily news.”
She’s right. But don’t wait for the “professional” journalists to tell you what’s really going on. We live in a time of “citizen journalism,” where we have access to tools to help expose the truth and cut through the mass propaganda the media is all too eager to feed us from the Soros table of plenty.
The Soros folks try to discredit anyone who shines the light on their sordid activities. But the money trail is evident for all who care to follow it.
Yes, ‘don’t wait for the “professional” journalists to tell what’s really going on’. They’re mostly on the same side as Soros. Look at the attempts to use ‘Fake News’ to shut down debate, free speech and political diversity. We’ve often made the accusation that the BBC uses this narrative to shut down or at least regulate to death its political, cultural and commercial rivals in an attempt to make it the dominant media provider….manufacturing the impression that it is one of the few sources of news that can be trusted thus reinforcing that dominance not just by facts on the ground of huge restrictions upon oppponents but by manipulating and deceiving the viewers’ opinions and perceptions. Of course before ‘fake news’ it had Leveson to champion as it tried to shut down Murdoch once he stopped supporting Labour.
The biggest irony? Google and Facebook were secretly backing Clinton…and we know Facebook got caught out promoting left-wing news whilst suppressing right-wing sites….and Google employees are involved in something similar now. As said the real target isn’t the social media companies themselves, it’s the people who use them…the right-wing people that Soros and Co want to silence.
Here’s someone who sees the BBC et al’s narrative on fake news for what it is…an attempt to stop people calling them out for their own fake news….
Speaking at a TEDx talk at the University of Nevada recently, investigative journalist and author Sharyl Attkisson revealed the left-wing roots of the term “fake news” that became popular during the 2016 election. Attkisson noted that during the election there seemed to be a concerted media effort to focus on “fake news” within conservative media, which made Attkisson suspicious both of this new term and the mainstream media’s sudden attempts to push it to the forefront of the national conversation. She then traced the origin of the word back to the nonprofit organization “First Draft,” which, she says, “appears to be about the first to use ‘fake news’ in its modern context.”
Attkisson said that soon enough “fake news” was being discussed on a national level, as if the mainstream media had received “its marching orders.” She stated, “Fake news, they insisted, was an imminent threat to American democracy.” Attkisson posed a question, “What if the whole anti-fake news campaign was an effort on somebody’s part to keep us from seeing or believing certain websites and stories by controversializing them or labeling them as fake news?”
It was then that Attkisson decided that, “the whole thing smacked of the roll-out of a propaganda campaign.”
Attkisson then noted that there was a sudden shift in the attitude towards the term “fake news” — thanks to President Trump. “But something happened that nobody expected. The anti-fake news campaign backfired. Each time advocates cried fake news, Donald Trump called them ‘fake news’ until he’d co-opted the term so completely that even those who [were] originally promoting it started running from it — including the Washington Post.”
Attkisson warned that the next attempt to suppress speech has come in the form of something called “media literacy,” where people are told which news outlets should be trusted – unsurprisingly most of the supposedly trusted outlets are liberal and mainstream. What Attkisson describes is reminiscent of Facebook’s “trusted publishers” system which aims to dictate which news publishers should be trusted by Facebook users. “Media literacy advocates are busy trying to get state laws passed to require that their version of media literacy be taught in public schools,” said Attkisson.
Attkisson concluded, “When interests are working this hard to shape your opinion, their true goal might just be to add another layer between you and the truth.”
If Clinton had won and we’d all voted remain you wouldn’t be hearing a word about ‘fake news’ and the power of the Social Media companies…so long the darlings of the BBC who priaised them for their apparent role in the Arab Spring…not so bothered then about political narratives on social media when it goes their way.
The BBC is very excited about what is a bit of a non-story as Mueller tries to dignify his witch-hunt with a few Russian small-fry…let’s face it, should there be any surprise that Russia tries to interfere in a US election? Hardly a new tactic for them. And after all the BBC does it, the Guardian tried it and got slapped down. And the US isn’t known for its lack of intervention in other countries’ internal affairs…such the small matter of Brexit. Wasn’t it Reagan and Thatcher who toppled the Soviet Empire? Bet old comrade Corbyn was gutted.
Speaking of which…Comrade Cob-Nut’s alleged dalliance with Commie spymasters hasn’t hit the BBC headlines yet…it’s top story in the Telegraph, it’s in the Mail, not the Guardian of course, it’s in the Times…but for some reason a story about the leader of the Opposition, whom the BBC keeps on insisting is the next, and soon-to-be, PM, hasn’t made it onto their own pages. The BBC seems more concerned about Russian interference in US politics than the fact that a terrorist cheerleader who has close ties to Russia and Iran is so close to the top job in the UK…a man who wants to disband the Army, do away with MI5, trash Trident and neuter NATO….and of course destabilise society and crash the economy. Just how does the BBC manage to ignore this story….can it ride it out hoping it will blow over quickly or will it have to dust off the cover stories that show Corbyn was a flag-flying model figure of the British Establishment?
Do you want tracts or tracks? Quentin Letts has gone for the tracks and Radio 3’s politician-free zone detoxing from the Today show’s politicised take on everything from sliced bread to bent bananas.
Virtuous teetotallers boast about going on a ‘detox’ for a month. Well, bully for them. Mind you, I just did something similar and truly feel a lot better for it.
But this is not because I forsook alcohol. Go without hooch for a month? You must be joking. No. My detox routine concerned early-morning listening habits.
I switched from Radio 4 and instead tuned in to the BBC’s classical music station, Radio 3. Yes, I gave up the Today programme.
It began in the second week of January and it is bliss. Instead of being assailed by the latest Project Fear alarms about how Brexit is going to consign us to ruin, I have had my horizons expanded by top-class music.
Today’s programme would not have changed his mind as it ticked every right-on box from Project Do Fear about Brexit to Project Don’t Fear about Islam.
We had an Imam comparing the shooting in Florida with the actions of the ex-British Jihadis, presumably trying to reassure us that the Jihadis are driven by the same temporal demons of the non-Muslim killer and thus their murderous rampages have nothing to do with Islam. And anyway…forgive and forget…let’s be more compassionate and forgiving…they were driven to do what they did by circumstances, malign influences and world events…they’re not bad lads really.
Ironically we then had Today launch into Project Fear telling us we will be terrorised by Jihadis if we leave the EU. They liberally quoted Sir John Sawers, ex-head of MI6, oh, a Remain voter, not mentioned by Today, who has consistently briefed against Brexit and wants it reversed….as any old chum of Tony Blair might do of course.
They also had Robert Hannigan on, ex-Director of GCHQ. He was previously interviewed by Emma Barnett a couple of weeks ago. She was rather stunned when she asked him if Brexit has made us less safe, she obviousy thought he’d say it would, but he replied no, in fact there has been more co-operation with Europe since the referendum…the only concern was to make sure we maintained the data sharing of intelligence. He also said that most intelligence work was bi-lateral between nations and not the EU itself…thus Brexit would make no difference.
How times change…I imagine someone has had a quiet word as an almost completely different picture was coaxed out of him today. Of course it helped that Justin Webb avoided asking if we would be less safe after Brexit and went straight for the data question…were the questions shaped to avoid embarrassing truths? Webb cherry-picked subjects that were of minor concern as Hannigan admitted but which could be sensationalised to alarming heights. It’s like the BBC reporting WWII by only looking at Dieppe, Dunkirk, the Blitz, Singapore and the fall of Tobruk and leaving the audience to think we lost the war….and of course failing to mention the Americans and all the other allies we had to help us win in Europe. Much like today where our major intelligence partner, the US, wasn’t mentioned…nor all the other countries around the world.
‘Any Questions’ was trailed telling us they would be asking if ‘leaving the EU would make us less safe, and how do we stop it making us less safe?’…..Hmmm…seems like the first question is pretty redundant in their mind. And of course then there is that important question…processed food, it gives us cancer and an early grave right, especially if you’re poor? Yes, it’s really all about class war…it’s an ‘issue’ that’s been hijacked by the Left and turned into a narrative about the rich living longer and the poor dying early due to the rubbish food they have to eat due to poverty….never mind people are fitter, bigger and live far, far longer than ever before due to this food….and that is why the NHS is having to cope with so many old people now….processed bread and chicken nuggets….maybe we should feed the lower classes gruel and the odd turnip for a treat and let them die even younger….leaving only the rich, educated and intelligent who can then vote against Brexit in any future referendum and keeping the NHS for the healthy and wealthy. So many problems solved with a bit of lateral thinking. ‘Toxic’ chicken nuggets are a liberal/fascist’s wet dream really…like Zyklon B for the dirty, unwashed, stupid masses who dare to think for themselves….it is after all Big Business force-feeding us these things…and they all want to Remain….suspicious or what? Let’s face it Remainers are not shy about wishing death upon Leave voters.
Anyway…here’s some more of Quentin Letts’ thoughts on detoxing from Today…
Without Radio 4 winding me into a bate, life has become much less itchy. Instead of having to hear ministerial half-wits trying to claim the HS2 railway is a good idea, or professional grievance-mongers moan about the health service, or a gloopy-voiced reporter trotting out cliches about food banks, my mornings started with music from various centuries and cultures.
For a newspaper reporter to write that is, you may feel, self-harmful. Is Today not an agenda-setter?
That has always been the received wisdom in Fleet Street and elsewhere in British public life. At big investment houses, in government departments, in the lobbying and public-policy worlds, Today has long been de rigueur.
Maybe I’m imagining it, or maybe I’m just getting old, but since the EU referendum, the output of many BBC current affairs shows has become markedly shrill. Hour after hour they broadcast neuralgia — gripes from the modern Establishment that Brexit is going to bring all manner of disasters.
While prisoners of Radio 4 were being subjected to yet another fist-chewer of an interview with Labour’s robotic Remoaner Sir Keir Starmer MP, or while they were wheeling out yet another retired mandarin or professional secularist or social-mobility hand-wringer, I was being captivated by a Rachmaninoff cello sonata. The cello sang deep and lonely to the piano’s trickle. Mesmerising.
While Today listeners were probably having to endure some big-state propaganda about Whitehall impact assessments or NHS winter pressures or EU immigrants’ rights or Legal Aid cuts or Heaven knows what else, I was having my mind opened to the modern English composer Jonathan Dove’s In Beauty May I Walk.
If I’ve felt a smidgeon of regret it is only because an old friend of mine became editor of ‘Today’ last year and she said she was going to try to make the programme less metropolitan. She quickly ran into flak from the BBC establishment and Labour MPs.
I had been losing patience with Today for some years. I thought the programme was dreadful during the Leveson inquiry, after the Cameron government had caved in to centre-Left demands to bring newspapers under political control.
How could the BBC’s flagship radio programme sympathise so gleefully with such an authoritarian move?
During the Coalition years, when our country’s finances were teetering close to the abyss, Today eagerly promoted voices demanding greater spending by government. We rarely seemed to hear from the taxpayers who crave greater restraint by the Treasury.
Maybe I am being unfair to Mishal Husain and Nick Robinson & Co, but they seem imprisoned in the Westminster bubble, which, with every day that passes is further removed from the real world most Britons live in.
Life is so much bigger and more interesting and full of possibilities than Today suggests.
Can I keep up my abstinence from Today? Possibly not. Journalistic curiosity is inescapable and there is really no one better for skewering our awful politicians than John Humphrys.
But at least I now know where to go for relief when the cacophony of luvvies becomes too much.
Another day on the BBC and another idiotic smear story about Trump. The ‘Footlights’ used to churn out comic genius like Monty Python, Beyond the Fringe and the Goodies…now all we get from our universities are tragic clowns who end up as BBC reporters trying their best to combine satire with hard edged news and failing miserably at both and of course english graduates who think they are scientists.
Nick Bryant for example. He regurgitates ancient jibes at Trump in an attempt to disparage him and Fox News but instead ends up embarrassing the BBC as this tripe is given airtime on its flagship news programme the Today show[07:45].
So Trump watches Fox News….how I laughed when I heard that terrible old slur again…the incredibly partisan BBC sneering at a right-leaning Fox News…the BBC is so vastly superior don’t you know! Fox shockingly played ‘jingoistic music’ as it showed film of a US attack on Jihadis…the BBC would never do such a thing, it prefers to give its airtime to ambulance chasing lawyers and lying jihadis as they try to put our soldiers in prison and earn themselves some blood-money with the BBC aiding and abetting in that. They earn their 30 pieces of silver for that.
Then apparently Fox was reporting in a Fox manner, bad, on ‘undocumented immigrants’. Whothey you may ask? Ah…the BBC’s now official term for illegal immigrants which they now use regularly. Whilst the BBC tells us it won’t use terms that may appear to be the prefered term used by a particular party, such as terrorism [except when it’s a white guy/Jew], and thus indicate they are supporting one side they are happy to use what is a highly political term that has been designed by the Leftist pro-immigration lobby to try and make out that illegal immigrants are in fact entitled to travel where they like, documents or no documents, and not having documents does not mean they are ‘illegal’. However the term ‘illegal immigrant’ is the official term used here and in the US…the BBC is very definitely taking sides on this one. Does it call Jewish settlers ‘undocumented migrants’? Does it hell, it calls them illegal occupiers. What is it about the Jews that the BBC doesn’t like?
Then Bryant dragged in a commentator…oh, he’s from the anti-Trump New York Times…the only surprise is he’s not from the anti-Trump Washington Post. We learn that Trump watching Fox is like children’s TV where the kids react and the programme responds back…it’s a two way mirror…Trump watches Fox, Tweets and his Tweets become news, setting the agenda for the day. Erm…pretty much like the BBC then when the Today programme interviews someone, gets the quote they want and the BBC then uses that quote to lead all its news bulletins…usually something derogatory about Brexit or the government’s running of the NHS or welfare.
We then get onto an even more stupid smear…Trump’s tweet about the NHS being in crisis…apparently this is all Fox News’ fault once again. We now know that Trump’s an idiot because the NHS isn’t in crisis…it’s the best health service in the world as all its defenders came out to say. Thus Fox is peddling fake news.
Hmmm….isn’t it the BBC’s favourite story when there’s no other news around to claim the NHS is in crisis? Every winter, every spring, every season, every month, every day….the BBC tells us the NHS is in crisis. Except it’s not when Trump says it is.
The problem with Trump, we hear, is that he gets his world view from Fox….that the Russia investigation is a witch-hunt [I imagine he can work that out for himself as he must know better than anyone whether he colluded with the Russkies or not], that the FBI are at fault [well…it doesn’t look good for them if you read the news…not just Fox but the lefty NYT], and of course his belief that the Media are biased against him…where on earth would he get a mad idea like that? Can only be from Fox…or maybe just watching and reading the 90% of US media that is anti-Trump.
Bryant has produced an incredibly flawed, ignorant, partisan, misleading anti-Fox, anti-Trump tract that would be more suitable for one of the BBC’s favourite internet sites that it uses to spread lies and gossip when it can’t be seen to break such drivel as news itself, such as Byline and Buzzfeed, the technique, the trick, is to then report on the furore that the smear stories create and spread the ‘news’ that way thus distancing itself from the blame.
Amazed any editor worth their salt would allow Bryant to push such rubbish on the BBC’s flagship…maybe she agrees with it..in which case the problem is even bigger.
Russell Brand is the BBC world view, their mindset, brought into being in a perfect, eloquacious, silver-tongued articulate glibness and quite barmy life form…well, life, perhaps not as we know it. If you have two hours to spare….go and walk the dog or wash the car….anything but watch this video. Surprised Sam Harris doesn’t run him through with a chair leg or something.
Islam? All about the peace, designed to produce a loving and harmonious society [though he hasn’t read the Koran]. Nagasaki? Nuclear terrorism. Iraq War? Stealing land and oil [The war cost far, far, far more than buying the oil would ever have]. Wars by the West are just colonisation to sell Coca Cola and Starbucks. Who are we to judge other societies and cultures? Burqas are great…wearing one is just a self-discipline for the ladies….it’s like yoga, a way of refining consciousness for a woman in a world where abstract ideas commodifying women are served by overly-bloated power dynamics in the tumble-dryer of love.
Here’s an example of Brand in glorious full flow….he hardly listens to Harris and has the left-wing rhetoric off pat…he is so over the top he doesn’t make much sense and is definitely in love with his own cleverness and poetic flow of left-wing cant….he is set off, triggered, by Harris’ thought that the women of Afghanistan are oppressed…..Brand thinks not….who are we to judge?…..
The metric by which we evaluate them is a distinct metric drawn from another narrative…we might say ‘Bloody hell…women dressing like that’….but I don’t think we are in a position to make that kind of judgement. Why should their narrative adhere to our template?
The imposition of our heterogeneous, hegemonic ideas of how masculine and feminine relationships work might not be universally applicable. I think it’s precisely the kind of reasoning that’s used to justify the bombing and commercial colonisation of those territories….‘they’re not like us, they treat women differently from us’….I don’t think we’re in a position to make those judgements.
I think these kinds of theoretical tableaux are used to create a false hierarchy and a moral superiority by a dominant culture that subsequently uses thinking of this nature to underwrite the modern day colonisation and subjugation of these people on a massive scale…it’s 9/11 every day so that a state system can perpetuate itself using rationalism, using comfortable means of execution…it’s no better than 9/11.’
Hmmm…the West freed the Arabs from the Ottoman whip and subsequently helped support and develop so many Muslim countries that then arose, freed the Afghans from the Soviet yoke, fought against the anti-Muslim Serbs in the Balkans, protected Kuwait and Saudi Arabia from the ravages of a secular Saddam and then freed Iraqis to choose their own destiny, they saved Indian Muslims from the Hindu fascists and created Pakistan…a Muslim Zion, they smashed the ‘non-Muslim’ Isamic State that was terrorising so many Muslims….and of course it is well known that Western countries are more Muslim friendly than Muslim countries…go figure Russell.
The anti-Islam West? The real problem in the Middle East and across the world in Muslim territories, and indeed in the West itself, are the ‘extremist’ Muslims who want to impose ‘Islam’ upon Muslims.
But who are we to judge. All cultures are equal, it is all relative. You can contemplate my template, you can contemplate your template, but what you can’t do is conflate one template with another template because that way you just get an illegitimate estimate of a cultural distillate. or something.
Of course it’s suddenly not all relative when it comes to choosing a political party and a manifesto….suddenly you can make judgements about the value of certain ways of life and policies.
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