Category Archives: Melanie Phillips

I am not an unqualified fan of Melanie Phillips; sometimes she seems a tad too rigid and a tad too pious in her pronouncements. But her new book, The World Turned Upside Down, is a fascinating – and riveting – read for all those who wonder where the BBC’s Jew-hating, tree-hugging, anti-religious, industry-bashing, climate change fanatical, lefty-loving mindset comes from. Her central theory is that such causes are now espoused by BBC types because they believe that they are “liberal” – but in reality, the agenda of all of the various trendy “-isms” is authoritarian state control of a type best exmplified by Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia. And very relevant to the current Jew-bashing that is going on, Ms Phillips trenchantly reminds us in the book that in 2009, the BBC Trustees rebuked BBC Middle East “expert” Jeremy Bowen for claiming that the Israeli agenda in the six days war was not to protect itself from Arab aggression, but to finish the unfinished business of 1948 – to capture East Jerusalem. It’s also relevant to Mr Bowen’s latest reports of hate over the past few days that he received only a mild rap over the knuckles for this outrageous claim; clearly, the Trustees’ real agenda was to allow him to carry on regardless.