Author Archives: T

Paul Reynolds (sorry – ed) has a balanced and informative discussion of the US position on torture and its definition.

After Natalie’s good analysis of what is wrong with the BBC’s coverage of the Sydney culture wars, I note the “See also” box at the top right of this page links to ‘Australia’s unease with outsiders‘.

I note in this inflammatory and pernicious guff the sort of generalisations that would never be employed of “people of Middle-eastern background” (or insert desired trendy PC shibboleth):

‘They want the drawbridge raised – and the door firmly locked.

As the father explained, they had left Britain to “escape the blacks” and didn’t want to have to move again.

Such attitudes are not uncommon here.’

Ignoring the inflammatory headline, this is outrageous nonsense. The mere fact that Mr Mercer located one family in Perth with somewhat lamentable views is hardly evidence of what Australians think. I grew up in Perth (as a migrant from England) and (I am ashamed to admit) Perth unfortunately does have a lot of the worst sorts of English whingers (the equivalent of US white trash) so this sort of view can be found. To extend this to Australians as a whole is pretty silly (and that is what Mr Mercer does). One Nation is finished here electorally, and was when Mercer wrote this opinion piece masquerading as news (Hanson was finished in the October 1998 election).

Also note the standard English “convict sneer”, imported as usual where is is at best tenuously relevant:

“Competition can be fierce and many more people are rejected than accepted.

It wasn’t always like this.

In the 1820s Australia, a convict colony, was competing for new migrants with other New World countries, notably the United States and Canada.”

Australia is apparently not a modern multi-racial democracy the envy of most in the world, with a GDP in the top 10 or top 14 (depending on the numbers) – something that happened 200 years is somehow relevant. This may seem a bit skittish, but Australians have a justified aversion to English sneering about convicts (it tends to get raised too often to be mere coincidence). Imagine if the BBC referred to the Taiping Rebellion (or even better, Confucianism) every time it reported on anti-Japanese protests in China (at a deeper level, the reference might be appropriate, but the BBC is hardly a purveyor of deep and responsible historical analysis).

For completeness’ sake, White Australia is rolled out again:

‘The controversial and racist “White Australia” policy was finally abandoned in the early 1970s.

For generations, this discriminatory migration programme attempted to sustain the country’s European origins in the face of a perceived threat of a mass influx from Asia.’

This is strictly speaking correct but misleading – as the Menzies Liberal government started the first steps in abandoning the policy in the 1950s. The magic of “early 1970s” in the context of Australian history is that this was the era of the Labor Gough Whitlam, who was the great “progressive” who allegedly woke us up from a Liberal dark age.

Another attempt to pass lamentable anti-free speech laws in the UK, but note this sloppy slide:

‘Current race hate laws do cover some religions, such as Jews and Sikhs, but not others.

Some Muslim groups have been pushing for that anomaly to be redressed.’

This is, of course, not true. Current race laws deal with Jews and Sikhs as races, not with Judaism and Sikhism as religions. Similarly, they cover Arabs or Persians, but not Muslims – for the very good reason that ‘Muslim’ is not a race.

Never fear, though, because the UK is just chock-full of ‘Islamophobia’ – whatever that is.

In this piece, a roving correspondent for the BBC went to Sydney to see what is happening with one Aboriginal community in Australia’s most notorious and crime-ridden Aboriginal ubran area, Redfern.

Unfortunately, we get shallow, noble savage rot:

‘I imagined them to be a dark-skinned people, the men with bushy beards, eking out a living in the country’s outback.

Instead I found a lost people, bereft of their culture and struggling to survive as outsiders in a European society they have no real hope of being integrated in.’

This really just shows how ill-informed the writer is about the amazing variety of Aboriginal tribes, languages and ways of life – for example, most Aborigines live in cities or large country towns, not the ‘outback’, which in Australian terms is too non-specific to mean much (Australia is the size of Europe or the US excluding Alaska).

The article also appears to have missed the inquest currently being held into the Hickie death.

Not only does this tendentious, Rousseauvian twaddle miss the successes of Aborigines in Australia (and of course there is still a long way to go), it also betrays the preconceptions of the writer:

‘Just before I left Sydney I went to the opening of the new Redfern community centre. It was ironic that at the launch, the organisers had to bring in didgeridoo players from outside to entertain the guests. There were no local Aboriginals who could provide this service.’

Perhaps that might be because the didgeridoo is not exactly native to inner-city Sydney?

‘It is also ironic that I was unable to find Aboriginal handicraft made in Australia.

Tourists are going home with boomerangs made in China.’

Funny that – my large Aboriginal art collection is all made by Aborigines in Australia. Go to a trashy tourist shop in any city in the world and you will find tourist tat made in China.

When I saw it, this article was on the front page of the BBC news website. Australia’s reputation has already been trashed by the BBC, which paints it as some racist, concentration-camp erecting country off the edge of the world (completely untrue) – this propaganda hardly helps.

It may not be as bad as Melanie Phillips says, but it is pretty bad.

This article shows that smug, taxpayer-funded soft-leftism at government broadcasters is not unique to the UK.

That article in the Sun is here.

The Telegraph reports here.

The Guardian is here.

The Times is here.

Meanwhile, the BBC reports the story in a slightly different way (‘Last Updated: Wednesday, 28 January, 2004, 08:44 GMT’, whole story pasted here to watch for stealth edits – emphasis added):

‘The Sun says the report came from someone ‘with no vested interest’

Lord Hutton is to deliver his long-awaited verdict on the death of weapons expert Dr David Kelly in a few hours.

His findings were due as a row grew over what appeared to be leaked details of the report in the Sun newspaper.

It claims Tony Blair is cleared of any “dishonourable conduct”, but the BBC is accused of a series of failings.

The Tories have blamed the government for the leak but Downing Street has strongly denied it was responsible, as has the BBC.

Tory party leader Michael Howard called for the Metropolitan Police commissioner to conduct a full inquiry into the “disgraceful” leak.

Advance copies

Lord Hutton will set out his key findings in a televised statement at 1230 GMT, an hour before his full report is published.

MPs will then be able to tackle the prime minister about the report during a Commons statement at 1400 GMT.

INQUIRY BACKGROUND

September 2002: Government produces dossier about alleged Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, including claim they could be deployed within 45 minutes

May 2003: BBC Today programme’s Andrew Gilligan broadcasts report of claims Downing Street “sexed up” dossier, with 45 mins claim included against intelligence agencies’ wishes

10 July 2003:Dr David Kelly named as suspected source of report as government continues to deny the story

17 July 2003: Dr Kelly found dead

August 2003: Lord Hutton begins six weeks of hearings about the circumstances around Dr Kelly’s death

Q&A: Hutton Inquiry

Advance copies were given at lunchtime on Tuesday to the government, the BBC and the family of Dr Kelly, after they undertook not to reveal its contents.

The weapons expert apparently killed himself last July after being named as the source for BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan’s story that the government exaggerated its 2002 dossier on Iraqi weapons.

According to unconfirmed reports in the Sun, Lord Hutton cites a psychiatrist’s evidence that the scientist committed suicide because he had been “publicly disgraced”.

The newspaper claims that Lord Hutton says the BBC report that Downing Street “sexed up” the dossier was “unfounded”.

BBC media correspondent Nick Higham said the Sun had throughout the inquiry put the worst construction on evidence about the BBC and the best gloss on the government’s actions.

“It may be that what we are getting is a version of Lord Hutton’s views filtered through the Sun’s eyes,” he told the BBC 10 o’clock News.

BBC COVERAGE

ONLINE:

Webcast of Lord Hutton statement and Commons debates, with full text commentary

News and analysis as it happens

Round-the-clock weblog from BBC’s team of correspondents

TELEVISION:

Hutton Report special on BBC One from noon

Round-the-clock coverage on News 24

RADIO:

Full coverage on BBC Radio Five Live

Full coverage and analysis on Radio Four in extended World at One. Live coverage from the Commons at 1400 GMT on long wave, with a special programme on FM at 1500 GMT

The Sun says the judge is also said to criticise BBC governors for failing to make a detailed investigation into whether Gilligan’s story for Radio 4’s Today Programme was supported by his notes.

The paper says the report finds there was no “dishonourable, underhand or duplicitous strategy” by Tony Blair or the government to leak Dr Kelly’s name as the BBC’s suspected source.

It claims Lord Hutton says the Ministry of Defence was “to be criticised” for not telling Dr Kelly his name could be confirmed to journalists or that it had eventually emerged.

He notes, however, that the scientist was not an “easy man to help or advise”. [Note no reported reported speech when Kelly is implicitly criticised]

The Sun says Alastair Campbell, Downing Street’s former communications chief, is “cleared completely” of any wrongdoing.

‘Filtered’ version

It is understood the newspaper has not seen the full report, but has had parts of the findings read to it.

The report comes after Blair defeated rebels on tuition fees

Downing Street on Tuesday evening categorically denied “that anyone who was authorised by the government to see this document has either shown it to, or spoken about it to, anyone else”.

But Tory co-chairman Dr Liam Fox said the government’s fingerprints were “all over” the leaking of findings from an inquiry which was itself set up to investigate the “unauthorised disclosure of information”.

Top-up fees

The report is the climax of evidence from 74 witnesses over the six weeks of the Hutton inquiry, which involved thousands of pages of documents.

Lord Hutton was asked to inquire into the circumstances surrounding Dr Kelly’s death, and has spent more than four months writing up his conclusions.

Tory leader Michael Howard and Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy are currently reading the report, having been given advance sight of it from 0600 GMT on Wednesday.

The report comes after the government scraped a five-vote victory in the House of Commons test of its controversial plans for university top-up fees.

Now there are calls for an inquiry into the leak itself. Welcome to modern Britain, the land of government by inquiry….let the circus continue!

Well not exactly – but not Hutton anyway. Jim Miller on State of the Union.

The Panorama show last night on the Hutton Enquiry was riveting viewing. The most interesting part was where the unbroadcast interview with Dr Kelly was shown:

‘INTERVIEWER (SYNC) Are they an immediate threat?

DAVID KELLY (SYNC) Yes, they are. Even if they’re not actually filled and deployed

today, the capability exists to get them filled and deployed within a matter of days

and weeks, and so yes, they’re a real threat.’

I think Natalie was being kind to the BBC on this point – the BBC has even spun this.

Many complaints about the BBC’s sneering treatment of Christianity have been made. Meanwhile, in an article about the Hajj, this interesting line:

‘An estimated two million worshippers are expected at Mecca, where the prophet Ibrahim was told by Allah to build a shrine dedicated to him.’

I do not pretend to be an expert in Judaism or Islam, but I understand Ibrahim is the Islamic equivalent of Abraham. Whether in fact the person Jews believe to be the father of the Jewish people really went to Mecca is highly debatable,and certainly not to be reported by the BBC as if it were fact. It would have been much more sensible to say ‘Islam holds that the prophet Ibrahim…’, but that would be questioning the beliefs of non-Christians, a PC anathema.

Foreign Policy is a highly regarded US publication with a wide and important international readership.

From the current edition, this quote:

‘With varying degrees of delicacy, everyone from fringe U.S. presidential candidates Lyndon LaRouche and Patrick Buchanan to European news outlets such as the BBC and Le Monde have used neocon as a synonym for Jew, focusing on Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Eliot Cohen, and others with obvious Jewish names. Trying to resurrect the old dual-loyalties canard, they cite links between some neocons and the Likud Party to argue that neocons wanted to invade Iraq because they were doing Israel’s bidding.

Yes, neocons have links to the Likud Party, but they also have links to the British Tories and other conservative parties around the world, just as some in the Democratic Party have ties to the left-leaning Labour Party in Great Britain and the Labor Party in Israel. These connections reflect ideological, not ethnic, affinity. And while many neocons are Jewish, many are not. Former drug czar Bill Bennett, ex-CIA Director James Woolsey, the Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, social scientist James Q. Wilson, theologian Michael Novak, and Jeane Kirkpatrick aren’t exactly synagogue-goers. Yet they are as committed to Israel’s defense as Jewish neocons are—a commitment based not on shared religion or ethnicity but on shared liberal democratic values. Israel has won the support of most Americans, of all faiths, because it is the only democracy in the Middle East, and because its enemies (Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran, and Syria) also proclaim themselves to be the enemies of the United States.

The charge that neocons are concerned above all with the welfare of Israel is patently false. In the 1980s, they were the leading proponents of democratization in places as disparate as Nicaragua, Poland, and South Korea. In the 1990s, they were the most ardent champions of interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo—missions designed to rescue Muslims, not Jews. Today neocons agitate for democracy in China (even as Israel has sold arms to Beijing!) and against the abuse of Christians in Sudan. Their advocacy of democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan is entirely consistent with this long track record. If neocons were agents of Likud, they would have advocated an invasion not of Iraq or Afghanistan but of Iran, which Israel considers to be the biggest threat to its own security.’

The BBC used to be an authoritative, non-biased, reference news-source for the world. Now it is merely a European news outlet broadcasting anti-Semitism.