Gavin Esler’s Dateline continues to regularly serve up panels where all four guests come from the Left. Today’s cast list was:
– Abdel Bari Atwan, ‘al-Quds al-Arabi’ (the programme’s most regular guest)
– Agnes Poirier, of the left-wing french magazine ‘Marianne’ (and a very regular columnist for the ‘Guardian’, which Esler opted not to mention)
– Yasmin Alibhai Brown, the ‘Independent’
– Dr Vincent Magombe, Africa Inform International
As a result, viewers got a one-sided set of views, some of which were very, very silly:
1. THE RESIGNATION OF DR FOX
Dr Magombe thought it boded ill for the government and complained about “the extreme antiques of the Conservatives”, especially the “outrageous things” they are saying about immigration. “The tone that the Conservatives always use in this debate really just shows normal people that they are extreme in their beliefs,” he said. YAB attacked Fox. Agnes said “I’m not going to cry over Dr Fox’s departure. It a good thing for Europe because he was one of the really staunch Europhobic ones in cabinet”. ‘Bari’ talked Tory “sleaze”, recalling the last Conservative government (but forgetting who was in power from 1997-2010, and all their sleaze.) That was pretty much it!
2. THE ‘ARAB SPRING’
As ever it was straight to ‘Bari’ for some ‘impartial words of wisdom’ on Syria. Atwan talked nonsense about Syria’s “neighbours” being about to arm the rebels, talked up “outsiders” and attacked the United States. YAB also attacked the “outside forces” for wanting to “keep the Middle East as it was” and named names, attacking specific neo-cons and “Zionists” in some semi-demented rant based around Dr Fox. (Someone, and it sounded like Gavin Esler, said “Yes” in response.) Dr Magombe then blamed American “manoeuvring” for putting the military into power in Egypt & later blamed the Americans for keeping Museveni in power in Uganda.
3. THE U.K. GOVERNMENT’S STRATEGY ON OBESITY
This began with YAB saying “they don’t care about obesity because rich people are generally thin and they care about the rich, not the poor. All they’re interested in is feeding profits to the food industry.” (A few hums of agreement heard from the other guests!) Agnes Poirier wanted to be “authoritarian” and ban McDonalds. Esler sucked up to Atwan about the Arabs having the best food in the world & Atwan got to plug his book on Arab food, and attacked our fry-ups. At least Dr Magombe disagreed with the rest on this issue.
What a ridiculous, biased programme Dateline is.
Dateline:- ‘The Bari Atwan Show’
Atwan has Flipped
Nice work, Craig.
Craig,
Thank God, I didn’t hear it !
I hope that you are still keeping a record of all of your excellent work in exposing the BBC.
I love the bit about “Arabs having the best food in the World “.
Maybe, the next ” Dateline” can have a panel of French, Italians, Turks, Indians, Thais, Chinese, Japanese and others to debate that. In the interests of fairness and objectivity, of course !
PS Any potted shrimps in Arab cuisine ?
No self-respecting cuisine should be without them, Grant!
Todays Guardian has a piece by “wor Polly”.
She is fretting about the homeless, which seems to me like she`d love to house a few vulnerable young people in her many mansions!
Hoping that some Occupy Wall St types might draw us up a directory of the many houses of Polly, Yasmin and Wedgies so the poor and the marginalised can be directed to the nearest ones available.
Either that or commandeer a bus for Tuscany…Cliff Richard to drive it?
Yet of course with the useless leftie hypocrites..they want the Tory state to stump up for what these luvvies would never do themselves.
For that is what they set blind trusts up for…so that the State can do the mopping up whilst leaving their consciences intact and the tax paid as negligible as poss!
The extent to which ‘Dateline’ really is ‘The Bari Atwan Show’ can be shown by counting the number of appearances by the programme’s guests so far this year.
Atwan comes top with 13 appearances. The Beeb’s favourite U.S. commentator, the liberal Michael Goldfarb, comes next with 10 appearances, followed by left-wing Arab writer Mustapha Karkouti (the one with the huge moustache) with 8 appearances, then Germany’s centre-right commentator Thomas Keilinger with 7 appearances. Everyone else has 5 or less appearances.
They love Atwan at ‘Dateline’.
Craig,
This is one for Dezzie or Scottie to comment on. Where are they when we need them ?
Craig, your heroism in the line of duty is inspirational! Atwan and I do not mix – things tend to fly and the air turns deep-blue.