The above is a graph (hopefully now showing…apologies, but was OK when posted originally) plotted using rainfall data from as far back as 1766 by Doug Keenan(via Bishop Hill). It doesn’t show any particular change in present rainfall patterns from those experienced since 1766.
An independent review of the Met Office Hadley Centre commissioned by Defra and the MoD in 2007 concluded that: ‘It is beyond dispute that the Met Office Hadley Centre occupies a position at the pinnacle of world climate science and in translating that science into policy advice.’
Looking at the graph it is apparent that there is a pattern to the rainfall….every 50 years or so the rain falls more frequently in the middle range…starting at the beginning of the century, building up slowly and then dying away towards the end of the 50 year period…..anyone looking at that might speculate that we are now in a period when the rain should be getting heavier…..if it followed a pattern shown over two centuries or more.
Funnily enough that seems to be the case.
What is confusing is that the Met Office has another data set for rainfall….which I presume is the one they used in press releases recently as it dates only from 1910….the rainfall recorded is different to the Hadley data.
The BBC quote these figures from the Met. Office:
Met Office: 2012 was UK’s second wettest year on record
Top five wettest years in the UK 1. 2000 – 1,337.3mm 2. 2012 – 1,330.7mm 3. 1954 – 1,309.1mm 4. 2008 – 1,295.0mm 5. 2002 – 1,283.7mm (Source: Met Office)
I’m not certain how the Met. Office calculate the UK totals...or even which data set they actually use but using the Hadley data for England and WalesI can show you how easy it is to cherry pick ‘record rainfall’ figures to emphasise any assertion about climate change that you fancy.
The BBC report that April and June have been the wettest April and June on record…indeed they have.
But what about the rest of the months in England and Wales?
When was the wettest January ? 1948. February? 1833. March? 1947. May? 1782. July? 1828. August? 1912. September? 1918. October? 2000. November? 1852. December? 1876.
When was the wettest month on record? November…1852.
Wettest month in Scotland? January 1993.
Wettest month in Northern Ireland? December 1999.
When was the wettest year on record? 1872, followed by 1768.
Which decade was the wettest on record? It was not 2001-2010…it was in fact 1871-1880. 1991-2000 was wetter than 2001-2010. (I haven’t calculated every decade…..merely picked what looked as if it would be high totalling and calculated from there….so there may be an even wetter decade….point being …the wettest decade is definitely not 2001-2010)
So you can see just throwing up ‘record’ figures is highly misleading….it certainly is slightly wetter than average at the moment but look again at that graph….and that might be entirely ‘normal’ in that pattern….we might in fact be due even heavier rainfall in the next decade or so. …only for it to dry up again.
So when the BBC busy themselves quoting these ‘scare’ figure which are designed to convince us that the world is about to end just consider that the records show things were just as bad, if not worse over a century ago…well before the IPCC claim our use of fossil fuels etc resulted in a change of climate, mostly in the last 50 years.
The Mayans predicted 2012 would finish with the end of the World…the BBC predict a similarly dire end.
The Mayans were wrong…..The BBC seem similarly to be in the sway of a religious fervour that clouds their judgement and prevents their journalism from functioning properly, stopping them digging out the truth rather than just accepting press releases from groups and organisations with vested interests….. The BBC are happy to suggest that because April and June were the wettest on record we can conclude that unusual and disasterous climate change is upon us…whilst the figures suggest otherwise…..any climate change might be entirely normal…and even beneficial for many.
Whatever the truth of the figures it might do to question them a bit more and look back into history for a few lessons and a broader perspective.
I assume this has an entirely innocent explanation:
Right click on the area of screen playing a video and click on ‘Global Settings’, then click on the ‘Camera and Microphone’ tab and open ‘Camera and Microphone settings by site’ and this is what you might see…..
s.ytmg.com is apparently Youtube allowing for interactive video games but why does the BBC need to request access to my camera and microphone?….though I don’t have any connected for precisely that reason.
If you haven’t blocked BBC access….
Whilst you are watching the BBC is the BBC watching you?
The BBC ignored the oncoming US ‘Fiscal Cliff’ for a long time but has now got the recent deal that at least initially puts the brakes on marked down as one of Obama’s magical successes….something we in Britain, George Osborne in particular, could learn from.
However what the BBC aren’t telling us is that the deal imposes more ‘Austerity’ on the US than Osborne has imposed upon us (or should I say the Labour Party has imposed upon us?)…..
For years now, economists like Paul Krugman [mostly on the BBC!] have been criticizing countries in Europe for engaging in too much austerity during the downturn — that is, enacting tax increases and spending cuts while their economies were still weak.
But after this week’s fiscal cliff deal, the United States is now on pace to engage in about as much fiscal consolidation in 2013 as many European nations have been doing in recent years — and more than countries like Britain and Spain.
So how does the sheer scale of the U.S. austerity program for 2013 compare to what European countries have been doing over the past few years?
Britain has earned a lot of criticism for its austerity programs in the past two years. But at a total size of 1.5 and 1.6 percent of GDP, each of those two deficit-reduction years were smaller than what the United States is planning this year.The United States is also planning to cut and tax more heavily this year than Spain did in 2010 and 2011. Or France. That said, we’re nowhere near Greek or Portuguese or Irish levels of austerity.
A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests Congress has enacted around $304 billion in tax hikes and spending cuts for the coming year, an austerity package that comes to about 1.9 percent of GDP.
Investors are right to be grateful to Congress for not plunging the US into an entirely avoidable downturn.
If the global economy is going to thrive in 2013, it needs all the forward momentum it can get from the US, especially in the first few months. US fiscal policy will tighten by about 1% of GDP this year, but that’s similar to the tightening that occurred in 2012.
It won’t tank the economy.
Note that a 1% ‘tightening’ ‘Won’t tank the economy’.
Funny how Osborne’s 1.5% fiscal tightening is presented by the BBC as the death knell of our economy.
The BBC is happily stoking a New Year revolution reporting with glee every claim by Labour, the Unions, charities and interest groups that they can lay their hands on which attack the government in any way possible.
It seems that anybody with an anti-government message can have their say on the BBC…but what is more telling is what the BBC is not telling……
Today the BBC are having a field day with the newly released Service Sector economic figures using the Purchasing Manager’s Index which show a downturn in sales…… UK service sector activity falls in December Activity in the UK’s services sector fell for the first time in two years in December, a survey has suggested, raising fears of yet another recession. The PMI services index from Markit/CIPS fell to 48.9 in December, down from 50.2 in November. Any score below 50 indicates the sector is shrinking.
In November they used the same PMI to show a slow down in manufacturing…..
Weak demand shrinks UK manufacturing sector in November The UK’s manufacturing sector shrank in November at its fastest pace in 18 months as global demand weakened, a survey has indicated. The Markit/CIPS Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) fell to 47.6 in November, its lowest level since June 2009, from 47.8 in October.
Today the BBC give us figures from Germany showing they are growing…
Germany retail sales higher in 2012 Retail sales in Germany rose as much as 2.1% last year as Europe’s largest economy took the eurozone debt crisis in its stride, according to the Federal Statistical Office.
In December the BBC gave us figures showing Chinese manufacturing was growing….
China manufacturing picks up momentum, data shows Manufacturing activity in China has continued to rebound in November as two sets of figures have shown the industry is now expanding. HSBC said its Purchasing Managers’ Index hit a 13-month high, while on Saturday the government’s version of the same index touched a 7-month high.
What is missing? What is missing is any reports of economic good news from the BBC….
A couple of days ago the same Markit company released PMI figures showingBritish manufacturing was growing….. the Guardian reported that…even the Economic Timesin India reported it…but as far as I can see our very own British Broadcasting Corporation didn’t…not on the website nor on the radio……
UK manufacturing PMI hits 15-month high in December: Markit LONDON: British factory activity jumped unexpectedly in December to grow at its fastest pace since September 2011, a survey showed on Wednesday, raising the chance that the economy eked out growth at the end of 2012. The Markit/CIPS Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) rose to a 15-month high of 51.4 in December from an upwardly revised 49.2 in November – a far stronger increase than any predicted in a Reuters poll of 24 economists.
No Good News is, er, Good News for the BBC.
What else has the BBC failed to reveal to us which coincidentally fits in with their own political agenda?
Someone who is so powerful and influential in guiding government green policy and industry direction and yet is also deeply involved in that industry. And yet the BBC ignores that.
Just as it brushed under the carpet Roger Harrabin’s small matter of £15,000 gifted to his CMEP group by the Tyndall Centre, not to mention his ‘vulnerability to manipulation by lobbyists’…..’This week, campaigner Jo Abbess is boasting about how she browbeat the BBC into modifying a story about Global Warming’.….Harrabin bowed before her might…“Have a look in 10 minutes and tell me you are happier. We have changed headline and more.”
What else has the BBC recently ignored?
A year or so ago the BBC told us that Christianity was ‘flourishing’ in the Middle East, even stating that Christians in Gaza were getting on famously with the Islamic extremists Hamas.
Things must have changed drastically since then but the BBC seem not to want to look too closely at what Muslims are doing to Christians:
Christianity at risk of wipe-out in the Middle East, warns new Civitas study Christianity is in serious danger of being wiped out in its biblical heartlands because of Islamic oppression, according to a new report from a leading independent think-tank. But Western politicians and media largely ignore the widespread persecution of Christians in the Middle East and the wider world because they are afraid they will be accused of racism.
Another recent Civitas report that slams Cameron for doling out billions in foreign aid money purely to fund his Party’s new ‘not nasty’ image was ignored by the BBC….the BBC of course love handing over money to third world countries and so regardless of a chance to bash the Tories they look to the ‘greater good’ in their opinion and ignore the bad…..
The 250-page Civitas publication, Aiding and Abetting, written by foreign correspondent Jonathan Foreman “The powerful momentum behind current aid policy seems to have much to do with the Conservative Party leadership’s ongoing drive to ‘detoxify’ its ‘brand’ and market itself as ‘compassionate’. To the extent that an increase in foreign development aid serves this public relations purpose, its effectiveness or lack thereof at delivering a better life and future for various poor peoples around the world is presumably beside the point, although at $11 billion per annum it amounts to one of the most expensive marketing campaigns in history.” “To ‘rebrand’ his party and cement the Coalition with the Lib Dems, David Cameron is apparently willing to take advantage of the real generosity of British people and simultaneously make life more miserable for the handicapped, the elderly and the otherwise vulnerable. “It means that a set of policies trumpeted as manifesting generosity is in fact a cynical, ruthless and morally reprehensible con-job pushed by marketing gurus for whom their real-world effects in the underdeveloped world are largely irrelevant.”
The BBC normally leaps at any chance to repeat lurid criticisms of Cameron or the Tories such as May’s ‘Nasty Party’ comment, Mitchell’s supposed ‘Pleb’ comment and Nadine Dorries’ ‘Arrogant Posh boys’ comment. All quiet here though.
No News is Good News if it would otherwise conflict with the BBC’s own interests.
He wraps up his report in a vast number of equivocations…..so many that you might start to believe that he didn’t really believe his own report….it’s quite clear that the man made global warming advocates have had their fingers burnt so many times with failed predictions that they now refuse to state anything absolutely categorically…except that global warming is defintitely man made.
Some useful hedging phrases:
– Massive variablity from year to year (in weather)
– Figures are preliminary
–There is a trend of increasing episodes of extreme rain…but it could just stop
–Predicting climate in the UK is particularly difficult
– Weather in the UK is much more unpredictable
… he isn’t even sure about his ‘scientific consensus’….‘I think that one thing underpins this, and there are a lot of caveats around this, the Earth has got warmer.’
Ah of course…global warming.
What is it about the rain that means we get more floods now?
‘The issue is the way it falls in sudden bursts not the amount of rain.‘
Not where I live……lots of floods around here and yet no ‘extreme rain’ falling in awesomely heavy bursts…..it floods because the rain falls over a long period of time rather than in one deluge….the ground is sodden and eventually cannot soak up anymore water…then it floods.
It would be interestig, sort of, to sit down and check the Met Office stats…..but life is too short…however a quick perusal might raise a few questions when you look at historic data for rainfall and sunshine levels in various locations.
Looking back over 100 years and you might see that some places have become cooler and have less rain…or stayed very similar.
These so called ‘record’ weather events must be based upon very slim margins or increases in whichever data is selected.
Bradford’s worst rainfall year was 2007 but otherwise is fairly average with 2012 being lower than average by a long way for rain.
Lowestoft looks to have less rain…..in 1915 123 mm and 2012 109 mm.
Eskdalemuir had 313 mm in 1921 but only 246 mm in 2012.
Heathrow seems to have remained fairly static weather wise…whilst Oxford has had more rain.
Which all raises the question…just which figures does the Met Office use to judge a ‘record’ year?
I’m no expert but it is apparent that selective data can easily be used to massage figures….just limiting the period that is examined from 1960 onwards limits the credibility of any claimed record.
This does seem to be a non-story in the scale of things and not based on anything really concrete….yes it has rained for long periods…but is that really so unusual? Look back over 100 years and it doesn’t seem at all unusual….isn’t Britain famous for its rain?
Even Harrabin admits…it could just stop.
Inconvenient facts I guess…just like that one about ‘no warming for the last 16 years’.
This item on Today about smog in Iran illustrates the BBC’s easy going attitude towards Iran’s nuclear ambitions (2 hrs 53 mins)…..apparently the smog is all the fault of sanctions imposed upon Iran…..and just as the BBC endorsed the campaign to end sanctions on Saddam Hussein they rarely miss an opportunity to undermine those on Iran or any possibility of a military strike against Iran to stop its nuclear ambitions….a plane crashes a couple of years ago and it’s the fault of sanctions…never mind that it is a Russian built aircraft not supplied by the US.
Sarah Montague was straight in today with the accusation that sanctions were to blame for the smog…however no such excuses were made in 2005 or 2007 (or indeed for the smog in Beijing…do we impose sanctions on China?)….
Authorities have blamed the severe smog on emissions from the capital’s three million cars, many of which lack modern exhaust filters. It is estimated that up to 5,000 people die every year from air pollution in the city.
2007Iran smog ‘kills 3,600 in month’ Cheap fuel encourages car use in Iran, correspondents say, and many vehicles do not meet global emissions standards. “It is a very serious and lethal crisis, a collective suicide,” the director of Tehran’s clean air committee, Mohammad Hadi Heydarzadeh, told an Iranian newspaper.
So cheap fuel encouraging extensive use by massive numbers of cars which do not meet modern emission standards. Collective suicide? or Sanctions? Some one forgot to mention them.
‘Comparing the boastful narration with its shrugging response to the bug is instructive. In the world of Apple, its devices are magic and any acknowledgement that they’ve failed to live up to that dream is quietly filed on its support site.’
‘….It’s easy to dismiss the Do Not Disturb bug as trivial and in isolation it is, but over time Apple’s response to problems and the number of irritating little errors that pop up in iOS could begin to mount up in the public consciousness. And while Apple’s successes get massive coverage, it’s mistakes are equally magnified.’
You might have had a feeling of deja vu as you read that, a feeling that some other rather large and ‘magic’ and rather boastfully proud corporation could just as easily be being described.
No prizes for guessing which one I’m talking about.
But here is a classic example of that Corporation’s unwillingness to respond in an honest and open way to questions:
Kind of strange from an organisation that prides itself not only on its own accountability and transparency but also on its power to hold others to similar account.
How can it possibly demand answers when it refuses to answer exactly the same questions itself?
This post was inspired by a recent comment from Jim Dandy, one of our defenders of the indefensible. He said that he wanted opinion in his journalism. I expressed my disappointment that he wanted “opinionated” journalism, and he objected to what he thought was my deliberate twisting of his words.
You do know what opinionated means don’t you? It does not mean the condition of having an opinion. Or perhaps you are deliberately twisting my words.
Impartiality allows for opinion to be expressed.
I was confused by this, and asked for an explanation, which I got:
Opinionated is a perjorative term suggesting the person unduly, aggressively and dogmatically holds by their opinions.
It might be different in the US.
Still confused, I tried a different tack, and asked Jim if he felt that the BBC’s North America editor, Mark Mardell was the embodiment of his definition, to which he said, simply, “No.”
This led me to compile this collection of Mardell’s journalism to provide evidence that he does, in fact, unduly, aggressively and dogmatically hold by his opinion. Specifically his opinion that the Tea Party movement and, essentially, all opposition to the President is based on racism.
Read the following, and decide for yourselves whether or not Mardell allows his personal opinion to inform his reporting, and whether or not he has dogmatically stuck to his guns in spite of the evidence before him.
September 15, 2009, when Mardell was barely a month into his new job:
So I am describing and inviting debate, not passing comment. The relationship between black and white has been such an important driving factor in American political history that it would be strange if it now mattered not a jot. The allegation is that many of those who are calling their president “un-American” mean he is not white.
Democratic propaganda, over-sensitivity or truth? Tell me…
He says he’s not passing comment, then gives his opinion anyway. This is after he gives you a link to only one point of view from the vaunted NY Times: yes, opposition to the President is based on racism. Mardell came to the US knowing for a fact that this is a racist country. Let’s see if he learns anything in the coming years.
Just a couple of weeks later, Mardell eagerly reported that Jimmy Carter said that opposition to the President was due to racism. He then went out to try and find people to support that, but came away with only the suggestion that the African-American community thinks it’s all down to racism. To Mardell, this is proof enough. The President Himself said that He doesn’t think that’s the case, but Mardell believes He’s lying.
Just outside his restaurant, I chat to some African-American women and mention what we are doing.
“Woah woah for Carter,” one says, raising her hands above her head. “He tells it like it is.”
She cannot peer into the soul of the protesters, any more than President Carter can.
But many African-Americans may feel as though a subterranean stream has burst above ground, even if the president would rather not get caught in the spray.
This woman may not be able to peer into people’s souls, but obviously Mardell can. And he does, over and over.
Mardell and the sub editor who wrote the title are actually referring to what they see as ideological purity regarding taxation and small government, but nobody with any intellectual honesty can claim that they don’t realize the not-so-subtle reference to the idea of racial purity espoused by actual white supremacists. Mardell chose the word very carefully. After talking about policy stuff, he said this near the end of the post:
There is no display of the visceral hatred that dripped from the cable networks last summer, and little of the sense that Obama’s government is some how illegitimate, rather than just plain wrong. There is a feeling that the president promised to govern from the centre and he hasn’t. But I have to ask, is this movement really of the people, or of largely white, largely well-off people?
They’re white, so there must be an underlying reason behind their objection to expanding government and raising taxes and increasing our debt and leading us to government-provided health care. Never mind what they say out loud: Mardell is looking into their souls. This is journalism?
Curiously, when reports came out about Sen. Harry Reid’s unfortunate statements about The Obamessiah back in 2008, Mardell defended him against charges of racism.
Indeed is what he said racist, or in any other way reprehensible? Liz Cheney thinks it is racist. The Kansas Star calls the remarks “stinking racist comments”. A left wing blogger Field Negro says it is “ignorant stereotyping”. Mr Reid himself refers to the comments as “improper”.
But what has irritated me about the flood of articles is that there has been a lot of nudging and winking but few have come out and said what they find offensive.
Imagine that. The man who has no trouble declaring racism without pointing to specifics which he finds offensive is irritated by what he sees as vague hints by other people.
So let’s have a look at what he actually said. The comments come from a book out this week, Game Changes .The authors say Reid “was wowed by Obama’s oratorical gifts and believed that the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama – a ‘light-skinned’ African American ‘with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one,’ as he later put it privately.”
Mardell then actually defends Reid by saying he’s just “old-fashioned”. Nothing to see here, move along. Why is this not racist, but someone who objects to wealth re-distribution, full stop, without a word about anyone’s dialect or skin color, is racist? Of course, Harry Reid is a Democrat. He holds approved thoughts, so cannot be racist. However, if one holds an unapproved thought about an economic or political issue, there must be something inherently wrong with one’s character, an underlying reason for disapproving of, say, the NHS. Reid gets a pass, but as we all saw recently with Mardell’s and the BBC’s coverage of Mitt Romney, a Republican is by definition flawed for making a much less dangerous gaffe (e.g. “binders of women”).
In closing, Mardell’s defense of Reid reached new heights of hilarity:
But the guts of what Reid was saying was that many American voters were still pretty racist but some wouldn’t see Obama as “really” black. He thought Obama was acceptable to the electorate because he was light-skinned and didn’t have a voice that identified him as black. That seems to be Reid’s attempt to describe a state of affairs that may be unpleasant, but may be true. He was explaining the lie of the land as he saw it, not endorsing the views he outlined. If you can’t do that you are no good as a strategist.
You read that right: Reid was making a racist statement to highlight the racism of other people. How clever of him. Mardell really does have a magical gift for peering into people’s souls, doesn’t he? Naturally, this supports his opinion that opposition to the President is based on racism.
So here there is a great paradox: a movement that boasts its theoretical love of America and democracy but which hates its real life institutions. It’s not their fairly mainstream economic theories I strain to understand, but the passion; a passion which means that political discourse has become increasingly uncivil, filled with vitriol and abuse.
It’s nice that Mardell admits his condescension, but this is where we depart the realm of journalism and enter the land of opinion. That’s the whole point of BBC editors, of course, which causes endless problems. Notice how remarkably different his reaction to the Tea Party movement was to his opinion of the Occupiers. He loved their passion. I wonder what the key difference is?
So why is the Tea Party boiling?
Some say it’s racism. Those I’ve met are not racist but I do wonder if for some there’s a sense of lost superiority. For all their lives there’s been a white man in the White House. It’s not just that Obama isn’t in this image, he does not fit any stereotype of a black person that they know. Cool, cosmopolitan, calm and aloof. There is a sense of disconnect for what ought to be their view of the natural order.
“Some say…” He says straight out he hasn’t met any racists yet, but refuses to let go of his suspicions. He’d been in the US for over a year by that point, gone to several Tea Party gatherings, spoken with lots of politicians. Yet it hadn’t changed his opinion one iota. Is he lying that he didn’t meet any racists? Or does he just think he hasn’t worked hard enough to find them under the bed? You can almost feel Mardell straining to justify his opinion in spite of what he sees in front of him.
A woman who told me that Obama was a socialist and her country was sliding into Marxism said when he was elected president she drew the curtains for three weeks and couldn’t answer the telephone. Only the Tea Party saved her.
America is changing fast and some in the Tea Party people don’t like the loss of the assumption that white, European, 1950s America is the norm, the benchmark.
He hasn’t met any racists, but is still confident enough to tell you that some in the Tea Party are concerned about race. Not only is no evidence provided to back this up, but he even says he’s never met any actual racists. How can he get away with this?
The main speaker said: “Our name is being dragged through the mud, that we’re violent racists.” The all-white crowd cheer or just nod. I have never seen any overt racism at a Tea Party rally and don’t today.
No “overt racism”, eh? Then why bother pointing out the “all-white crowd”? A rhetorical question, I know. When people don’t hold approved thoughts, there must be something wrong with them. Having given up the struggle to justify his opinion that it’s based on racism in the face of no evidence, he’s moved on to qualifying his statements that he hasn’t found any evidence. He doesn’t have to provide any now.
Over the past year I have spoken to many supporters of the Tea Party and been to lots of rallies. I have spoken to people whose characterisation of Mr Obama and his aims seems to me way off beam, a cartoon enemy conjured from some 1950s nightmare. Some believe the constitution tightly constrains the sort of economy America must have, and that only they can define what is properly American.
Now he’s giving his opinion on Constitutional law and economics. This isn’t journalism at all. This is an op-ed piece. Like I said, this the inherent problem in the very concept of BBC (titled) editors.
There is a wide-eyed enthusiasm that is easy to mock.
Yes, very easy to mock. In fact, it’s so easy, that Mardell happily mocked one of them during an appearance at the BBC College of Journalism. First, of course, he has to give the disclaimer that he’s never seen any overt racism. The relevant bit begins at around 54:45 in, where a young Beeboid asks Mardell about the “visceral hatred” of the President.
We’re not racist, he says, “At least not in a straight-forward sense”. Oh, really? He says that underlying the concern about government spending our money, it’s really about not wanting the government to “spend money on people not like them”. No real evidence, but he remains as convinced of it as he was the day he arrived. Even if we don’t come out and wear the pointy white hoods and carry our lynchin’ ropes around, we’re still racist under the skin. And he happily mocks a woman with a Southern accent. “You knew exactly what it was.” Oh, how they all laughed, eh? To Mardell, the Tea Party is driven by crypto-racism. This is what they really think of us, and it informs all BBC reporting on US issues.
(Full analysis of the BBC’s CoJ audience with Mardell can be read here.)
Right before the election last November, Mardell laid it all out:
A lot of time in my first two years was spent trying to understand what lay behind the anger that I had seen on TV.
As we’ve seen, he had a pre-conceived notion of what lay behind that anger: racism. So what has he learned in the intervening years?
Beyond a fairly conventional conservative concern about taxation and debt, there is an inchoate angst that their country is going in the wrong direction, that they need to “take it back”.
Some think this is code for “take it back from the black man in the White House”.
After all the evidence of his reporting on the subject, it’s quite clear that Mardell is using the standard hack trick of “Some say…” to present his own opinion. We know he’s being disingenuous here. He’s said quite openly a number of times that he thinks it’s all about race. Using this dodge is a big phony act.
It is not that simple. Nearly all of the people I met were white and most middle-aged or older. But few were racist in the conventional sense.
The only time I have seen that in the raw, I was off duty, at a dinner party. A woman growing increasingly passionate as the wine flowed called Obama a “monkey” and said “he’s trying to give OUR money to THEM”.
Not the poor, not the shiftless, “them”.
Since the woman Mardell mocked earlier was a crypto-racist and didn’t openly make any racist statements, we have to assume that this is now two clear incidents – to him – of racism, out of the hundreds of thousands or people Mardell’s seen at Tea Party rallies and whatever political gatherings he visits. Yet on the strength of this he still demonizes the entire movement, still convinced that tens of millions of people are driven by racism and not legitimate policy concerns.
“They” are part of a different America, with a different history who want a different path for their country.
A millionaire in a designer chair in his plush Chicago home, surrounded by modern art, makes the same point as the broken-toothed men perched on smashed-up office furniture outside a beat-up shotgun house in Texas.
Next to me in the pew of a Florida church, the man with a trim grey beard and a “veterans for Obama badge” tells me the same thing.
These very different people all had one thing in common. They’re black. And that means they share a history and often they also share a perception of the present.
Black Americans up and down this huge country tell me Mr Obama didn’t create this mess, and he needs time to clear it up.
They know all about patience. They know all about clearing up other people’s mess. They know about being shut out of this country’s narrative.
There’s a black history month. It rather implies that for the other 11 months, it is white history that will have its way. With Mr Obama they feel that has changed, just a little.
And with that, Mardell moves from demonizing the opposition for caring only about the color of a man’s skin to declaring that we must re-elect a President simply because of the color of the man’s skin. It means a lot to black people to see one of their own as President, so we must dismiss all other concerns. He was only recently pushing that Narrative, in September 2012. (Even then he was still declaring that opposition to the President’s policies is really only objecting to redistributing wealth “to people not like us.”) This is racialist thinking at its finest. Anyone who watched the full video of Mardell’s appearance at the BBC CoJ will also have seen him admit that the President actually isn’t quite up to the job. In other words, we must keep a poor performer on simply because of the color of his skin. He’s not that competent, but it’s okay cos He is black. The soft racism of lowered expectations lives on at the BBC.
In the end, Mardell has learned nothing. He came here with a pre-conceived opinion, and steadfastly refused to let the evidence before him change his mind. His personal opinion remains unchanged, and informs all of his reporting. Since he’s the “North America editor”, his opinion also informs other aspects of BBC reporting on US issues.
Next, we can have a debate about what it means to have opinion in journalism, and how impartiality allows for it.
Wanting to take a moment and wish you all for a very HAPPY NEW YEAR! Thanks for your endless support for the site over the past twelve months! We’ve had a few tricky moments this year, particularly on the server issue and a other few technical fronts but we will be here in 2013 as determined as ever to hold the State Broadcaster to account. This site will continue to focus on demanding balance from the BBC and our greatest asset remains all those very committed readers who come here every day.
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atlas_shruggedNov 19, 20:55 Start the Week 18th November 2024 So it is International Men’s Day today. Even more amazing Times Radio brings it up. Time to talk about the…
MarkyMarkNov 19, 20:46 Start the Week 18th November 2024 Q1. Can a man have a cervix? Q2. What is a working person? HA HA HAH AH HAHAH!
pugnaziousNov 19, 20:20 Start the Week 18th November 2024 The BBC backs Starmer….and Starmer is happy… ‘Sir Keir told reporters: “All of you can check out what that means…
Lefty WrightNov 19, 20:13 Start the Week 18th November 2024 By definition illegal immigrants ARE criminals or has the law changed so that an illegal act is no longer a…
DocmaroonedNov 19, 20:13 Start the Week 18th November 2024 Rajan is a perfectly obnoxious BBC shit! Have not watched it since the Bamber days. Seem to remember the questions…
ZephirNov 19, 20:10 Start the Week 18th November 2024 I’m disappointed Eddie, I started reading your post and thought it was going to be a joke…. Anyway, I went…
Eddy BoothNov 19, 19:57 Start the Week 18th November 2024 “A soldier, a nurse, a lorry driver and dozens more: who are the men accused over rape and assault of…
SluffNov 19, 19:52 Start the Week 18th November 2024 Agree with most of that, Fedup. There was one brief glorious moment when Boris, against lest we forget the doom-diatribes…
pugnaziousNov 19, 19:50 Start the Week 18th November 2024 The BBC finally admit that farmers are angry about Rachel Reeves’ rural raid….they ignored it for ages even as the…
