Jeremy Paxman’s behaviour on last night’s Newsnight was staggering. Perhaps his astonishingly aggressive demeanour was his way of bluffing the audience into thinking that social media gossip was a credible substitute for concrete evidence against the EDL.
With continual interruptions, hectoring and and exaggerated facial expressions of disgust, he completely departed from interviewing and veered off unsteadily in the direction of attempted verbal assassination. I’m glad to announce that he failed to reach his destination.
Stephen Lennon AKA Tommy Robinson – he has two names, so people usually call him the bloke from the EDL – had another grilling on BBC News 24 from £92,000 per annum worth of BBC anchorwoman, Carrie Gracie. However hard she tried, she just couldn’t trip him up, and she didn’t bother to conceal her frustration.
Breivik’s insane killing spree has unleashed some unedifying spectacles of no-holds-barred lashing out at the ‘far right’ from the media and the BBC, and their favourite target is the EDL, which they see as the epitome of illiberalism and intolerance. The more Ms. Gracie insisted that the EDL had ‘the same objectives’ as Breivik and tried to connect him and his atrocity with the EDL as an organisation, the weaker her case became. She failed to ridicule him, trip him up, counter-argue or bully him on any level at all, but instead got herself more and more worked up, so that the whole of the following item was conducted with a rictus grin.
By merely admiring the way Stephen Lennon stood up to the BBC I foresee the prospect of being inextricably associated with the EDL for ever more. But I support Israel, which already places me as a right-wing nutter, so what the hell.