From Autonomous Mind:
John Inverdale, the BBC presenter fronting the Scotland v England Six Nations Rugby today, said a few moments ago on BBC1 that Christine Bleakley successfully managed to water-ski ‘across the whole of the British Channel’ yesterday.
The first offering from Simon Schama’s much-trailed ten-week stint on Radio 4’s A Point of View is pretty much as expected – Labour spin from a Labour supporter. According to Schama the narrowing polls prove that “we” the electorate really want bad tempered tough guy Gordon Brown as our leader, in defiance of those nasty anti-Brown newspapers and their politically-motivated narrative about the PM as a bully. (Remind me – where was Andrew Rawnsley’s book serialised? Oh yes, those renowned Tory rags The Observer and The Guardian.) In his attempt to convince us that Gordon’s the man we desire Schama gives much of his essay over to an embarrassingly unfunny imagined phone call between Peter Mandelson and Alastair Campbell (whose name he misspells). Schama’s services don’t come cheap; if this dire effort is a foretaste of what’s to come I think a BBC Trust inquiry could be in order. There’s not much that BBC bosses enjoy more than throwing bundles of cash at their favourite historian in return for his reliably left-of-centre take on events, but even some of them must be concerned at the quality of this opening piece.
And what’s with Schama referring to himself in the third person? He did in it one of the two oft-repeated trails for the programme (the other had him enthusing about Labour closing the gap in the polls), and he does it again in an interview for the Radio 4 blog. It’s an affectation that’s ridiculous in ego-inflated punch-drunk boxers, never mind fucking historians.
Update. Forgot to add, Schama does get one thing correct – suck up to your opponents and likely they’ll spit in your eye. Last week, in one of those depressingly common celeb-obsessed announcements that all political parties love, the Tories promised to involve big-name historians in their proposed overhaul of the national curriculum. One of those historians? Simon Schama.
From The Washington Examiner:
Democrats have suffered from a string of scandals reminiscent of the corruption that plagued the GOP before the party lost the majority in Congress four years ago…
Charlie Rangel… is under investigation by the House ethics committee for five separate matters…
Eric Massa…stands accused of sexually harassing a male staffer…
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is investigating whether (Governor David) Paterson improperly interfered in a domestic abuse case involving one of his aides.
Of those stories, only Paterson’s has been covered briefly by the BBC and – surprise surprise – the article fails to mention which party he belongs to. Google News searches on Rangel and Massa reveal a total lack of interest, even after fresh revelations about the latter’s bizarre predatory sexual behaviour.
It is completely inconceivable that the BBC would have dealt with these stories in the same manner if Republican politicians had been involved. The word “Republican” would be blazing from headlines and highlighted in the opening sentences of numerous articles. The “Republican sleaze” narrative would be unstoppable.
But these are Democrat scandals, and Democrat scandals simply don’t get BBC journalistic juices flowing. Move along now, nothing to see here. Come back when a Republican does something wrong.
Thanks to David Preiser in the comments at this earlier post for tracking down the Jane Garvey clip from May 2007 in which she told Peter Allen her memories of Labour’s victory ten years earlier. Worth another listen:
Conservative MP Graham Stuart appeared on the Victoria Derbyshire show this morning to discuss Lord Paul after the non-dom Labour peer had chickened out of an interview at the last minute. Stuart took the opportunity to have a bit of a go at the BBC (his segment begins approx 12.30 in – available for 7 days):
“Imagine a Tory donor who’d bought a company, run its pension fund into the ground, bought the assets back for pennies in the pound, who became a privy counsellor even though he wasn’t qualified while personally funding the leader’s leadership bid – they (sic) would be a massive story and yet somehow the BBC runs day after day on Lord Ashcroft, who as far as I can see has done nothing wrong, and gives Labour an easy ride. It takes me back to the tales we had of the champagne bottles in 1997 and I’m afraid the BBC remains biased and fails to ask the proper questions of those who are currently in power.”
Even though I won’t be voting Tory I find much to agree with there.
Update 8pm. Iain Dale has made this his quote of the day (copy ‘n’ paste job, no link back here I might add). In response, Victoria Derbyshire has asked about the champagne reference:
I’m surprised she hasn’t heard about it, but for her benefit here’s her former Radio Five Live colleague Jane Garvey to explain. (Unfortunately the mp3 link no longer works. If Laban still has the sound file he might like to upload it again.)
In his latest column for the commie Morning Star our new friend Chris T-T stands up for “performers from within the left-wing diaspora” against “anti-BBC wonks”. Bless.
Richard Bacon (Radio Five Live, August 27, 2009) vs Sarah Palin (Tonight Show, March 2, 2010)
Varying levels of cringe arise from both first-time efforts (and, yes, some people in Palin’s Leno crowd seem overly keen to express their support, though no more so than your average please-reinforce-our-worldview Now Show audience) but I think she wins with the better gags and snappier delivery. The self-obsessed BBC presenter (and renowned Palin-hater) is simply dire. One-nil to the Barracuda?
Richard Bacon:
Sarah Palin:
Jim Naughtie to Baroness Ashton this morning:
You’re a hundred days into the new job now. I mean, this is the kind of long term work that you have to do. Do you feel at all drained by some of the arguments that have been erupting in Europe about the settlement after the Lisbon Treaty was ratified and the way the appointments were made and so on?
What touching concern for her “long term work” and the wearisome distractions she has had to endure, the poor never-elected thing.
As the John Hathorne character in the ongoing witch-hunt against the poor, voiceless, victimised comedians of The Now Show it would be remiss of me not to note (with ignorant sadistic crypto-fascist foam-flecked glee, naturally) that the Tory candidate for Brighton Pavilion is asking the BBC for a bit of clarification.
Update. Brigstocke: “we had to be very careful to ensure that The Green Party were not hosting or organising it”
Update 2. It’s getting weirder. In the comments to the original blog post Brighton-based musician Chris T-T (no, me neither) is demanding money for use of a photo freely available via Twitter. Happy to give him credit – but not money – for the photo. Mr T-T, who apparently played at the Green Party benefit gig on Saturday, is also a columnist for the Communist Party of Britain’s house rag The Morning Star.
One more from Twitter:
Piotr M. Kaczynski works for the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), a think tank which claims “high standards of academic excellence” through “quality research”. Roughly a third of its funding comes from EU institutions and national governments, and one of its main research areas is climate change (it gave a number of presentations at Copenhagen).
And one of its leading “thinkers” believes that the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile were caused by climate change.
But remember, it’s the sceptics who need educating.
Update. Piotr responds in the comments – unconvincingly but (and please note) very politely.
