Weekend Open Thread

 

Operation ‘Get Boris’, a long term BBC mission, moved into top gear yesterday as the state broadcaster did its level best to undermine and vilify our new Foreign Secretary around the world at a time when it should be fairly apparent that such toxic rhetoric is the last thing this country needs as it tries to break away from the EU straitjacket and heads out to do business with the whole world.  It seems the BBC, our national broadcaster, the ‘gold standard’ for others to follow, puts its own politics first rather than the interests of the country.

The BBC is still trying to label Boris as a racist for his Sun column in which he mentioned Obama.  We’ve already looked at that in depth but it does no harm to keep countering the BBC’s continuous lies about this subject.  Boris was merely listing the reasons put forward by others for Obama possibly not wanting a ‘special relationship’ with Britain…and the comment about his Kenyan roots came from the Guardian….Could Obama’s dual colonial heritage spell the end of the special relationship?…...and indeed the BBC itself…..’His meteoric rise to political fame has propelled the name Barack Obama onto the lips of millions of Kenyans.  He has Kenyan blood coursing through his veins.’

I guess if you’re a Lefty mentioning Obama’s race is ‘celebrating diversity’ whereas if you’re a Righty it’s because you’re a fascist xenophobe.

And as the BBC lists all of Boris’ supposed faux pas they don’t mention one that I’m pretty certain they absolutely hate as he lays into Islam…the BBC can’t have you knowing that not everyone panders to the Islamist terrorists as does the BBC…..

To any non-Muslim reader of the Koran, Islamophobia – fear of Islam – seems a natural reaction, and, indeed, exactly what that text is intended to provoke. Judged purely on its scripture – to say nothing of what is preached in the mosques – it is the most viciously sectarian of all religions in its heartlessness towards unbelievers. As the killer of Theo Van Gogh told his victim’s mother this week in a Dutch courtroom, he could not care for her, could not sympathise, because she was not a Muslim.

The trouble with this disgusting arrogance and condescension is that it is widely supported in Koranic texts, and we look in vain for the enlightened Islamic teachers and preachers who will begin the process of reform. What is going on in these mosques and madrasas? When is someone going to get 18th century on Islam’s medieval ass?

Is it not ironic that the Turkish army, in a Muslim country, knows better how to deal with Islamists who seek to destroy their own country than do Western politicians and BBC media types who supposedly are defenders of the liberal faith?

Endless BBC bias on display these days….fish in a barrrel or a turkey shoot?  The floor’s yours……..

 

 

Bricking it

After the BBC’s faux outrage at the killing of Jo Cox and its attempts to exploit her death by linking her murder to the Brexit campaign telling us that Leave’s rhetoric had whipped up a storm of hatred it seems odd that the BBC is now so silent about this…from the Telegraph…

Half of the female shadow cabinet ministers who resigned over Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership have faced death threats or warnings of violent attack, The Telegraph has learned. 

Six of the dozen senior women who stepped down in the last month have faced threats of physical attack or violence, while many of the others have received intimidating messages online.

The danger from some threats has been deemed so realistic that police have been called in, while others have installed extra security measures amid growing concerns about their safety from relatives. 

One former front-bencher was told she would “get it like Jo Cox did”, another was told to kill herself and a third was warned a queue of people would be outside her home “waiting to rape” her. 

The threats have been so concerning that Rosie Winterton, Labour’s Chief Whip, has raised it at a shadow cabinet meeting.

The party’s ruling body has also suspended all normal constituency party meetings until September amid fears of hostility growing during the leadership contest this summer. 

There are now calls from moderates for supporters of Mr Corbyn – who has also had death threats – to lower the tone of their rhetoric.

A muslim is looked at in the street and the BBC sends round a film crew to report on the hate crime…death and rape threats to women MPs who oppose Corbyn and the BBC isn’t interested.  I think the BBC is taking Nick Robinson’s warning not to say inconveniently bad things about Corbyn a bit too far…these are his supporters making these threats, just as it was one of his supporters that abused a Jewish MP at a meeting about anti-Semitism…a supporter whom Corbyn then went up to to apologise to rather than remonstrate with.

As I mentioned before Peter Allen told us on Thrusday that a brick lobbed through Angela Eagle’s window was nothing to be concerned about…it’s only one brick, it means nothing he told us…and of course we don’t know why it was thrown or who did it…guarantee that if it had been a mosque window the why and who would have had instant answers from the BBC…and it would have immediately announced a rise in hate crime.

 

Pourquoi?

 

Another Islamist attack in France and immediately you have the problem spelt out to you by those in charge….the problem is their own refusal to accept what the problem is…..

‘A tragic paradox’

European Council president Donald Tusk says it is a “tragic paradox” that the victims of the attack in Nice were celebrating “liberty, equality and fraternity” – France’s motto – on the country’s national day.

No, it’s not a ‘paradox’, tragic or otherwise.  The fact the victims were in a crowd celebrating ‘liberty, equality and fraternity’ is exactly the point, the Islamists are violently opposed to those values and beliefs.

About time those in charge started to understand the problem and where it stems from.

The BBC peddles the terrorist narrative that the Iraq War has radicalised Muslims.  OK, let’s go with that.  So ‘young British Muslims’ have been radicalised by the British invasion of a Muslim country.  They then attack British troops in Iraq and attack the UK itself.  Why are they angry and radicalised?…because ‘Britain’ is not a Muslim country.  If Britain had been they would not have been bothered about the invasion (Remember Bin Laden wanted to invade Iraq himself…the fact that Saudi Arabia wouldn’t let him is what set him off in his rage against America and the West).  So what are they loyal too?  Britain or Islam?  The answer is clear…they are loyal first and foremost to Islam.  An Islam that teaches intolerance and hatred towards non-Muslims and their beliefs, practises and life styles.  As Mehdi Hasan preaches to his fellow Muslims…Islam will not bend its laws to  suit the ignorant and immoral Kafur even in a majority non-Muslim country.

Why do they attack us?

It’s not just bombs and bullets they use to ramp up the pressure but cultural blackmail, lawfare and media propaganda…two recent examples that seem minor but say so much…Muslim boys who refused to shake hands with female teachers.  Its a deliberately political act by those boys intended to stir up controversy and grab headlines, raising ‘issues’ and putting pressure on politicians whom they know will be reluctant to suppress a ‘religious’ duty…should they force the boys to shake hands it will lead to court action and the usual cries of Muslims being oppressed and marginalised…leading to, we are told by Muslim ‘community leaders’, anger, radicalisation and terror…therefore the answer, Muslim ‘community leaders’ tell us, is to allow Muslism to live their lives completely under Islamic rules….which is exactly the tactics the MCB in the UK uses to try and ‘blackmail’ government and other authorities into turning society ‘Islamic’.

Understand.

 

 

Ho Hum

 

 

Dylan Noble, white male, unarmed, shot by US police.  The BBC doesn’t seem to have reported it at all…it’s on every other news outlet as the police video is released…just not on the BBC.  The shooting is as controversial as any of the shootings of black men that the BBC fills the airwaves with.  The difference of course is that the victim is white and therefore doesn’t provide any evidence that the BBC looks for to ‘prove’ its accusation that white police officers are racist….and in fact goes a long way to proving that the problem is not racism but police tactics and response training.

Here’s the video…it is graphic and shows the shooting but it illustrates perfectly the way US police can respond to a threat situation…..

 

 

Curiously on Tuesday 5Live was giving much airtime to the girlfriend of a black man shot by police, Philando Castile, who videoed the immediate aftermath of his shooting…but not the actual shooting.

What is interesting is that the BBC did not say anything about ‘white police officers’ this time and only referred to this as a case where the problem is the way the police responded.  Why might the BBC be so coy when normally they are desperate, absolutely desperate, to portray every shooting as a racist murder?  Anyone listening to that report wouldn’t know because what the BBC fails to mention is that the police officer who shot Philando Castile was Chinese American and not white. Here we have one case where race isn’t mentioned and another where a white man being gunned down by police isn’t even reported as far as I can see.  The BBC being very economic with the truth when the truth dosn’t match its own prejudices.

We know that #Blacklivesmatter’ is a very problematic organisation, verging on terrorist as it encourages violence and cop killing, and you have to ask why the BBC has utterly failed to explore any of the issues raised around #BLM, the BBC preferring to take everything their spokesmen and women say at complete face value as credible and true.

Today I thought that might have changed…I should have known better.  BBC Trending, that rather extremist race hustling page on the BBC news site, brought us this…

The black cop who has a problem with ‘Black Lives Matter’

A promising bit of actual investigation you might think…you’d be wrong….it’s just an immediate BBC counter to something they don’t like…someone, a black cop, raising doubts about the truth of the #BLM’s claims.  The BBC try to pick it apart and rubbish everything he said.

The BBC tell us that the evidence shows that Blacks are more likely to be shot than whites given all the circumstances…but that’s not true…we’ve already looked at some of the stats and the New York Times just published a study that demonstrates that it isn’t true and at least provides evidence that should make the BBC take a far more measured and nuanced stance when reporting the apparent mass genocide of blacks by white cops that is the narrative the BBC prefers……

The result contradicts the image of police shootings that many Americans hold after the killings (some captured on video) of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.; Tamir Rice in Cleveland; Walter Scott in South Carolina; Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, La.; and Philando Castile in Minnesota.

In shootings in 10 cities involving officers, officers were more likely to fire their weapons without having first been attacked when the suspects were white. Black and white civilians involved in police shootings were equally likely to have been carrying a weapon. Both results undercut the idea of racial bias in police use of lethal force.

 

 

 

Brickbats and Red Rosettes

 

A brick is sent flying through the window of the challenger to Corbyn’s marxist mob-rule and what?  Who’s to blame, why’d it happen?  Is it of any importance?

The BBC has decided that nobody knows who chucked the brick nor why.  Not a clue.  If it had been through the window of a Polish shop the BBC would know exactly who to blame, and why. Peter Allen just dismissed it utterly….he told us that it was just one brick…it wasn’t important.  Can’t imagine him saying that is it had gone through a mosque window….unless it was an Ahmadi ‘mosque’ of course. [Note how the BBC reported the final chapter in the killing of the Ahmadi shopkeeper, Asad Shah, in Glasgow by a Sunni Muslim…it was a ‘religiously motivated’ attack…but not because the victim was an Ahmadi and therefore the victim of a hate crime, but because the killer thought the shopkeeper had insulted Islam…so the victim was in fact the wrongdoer here…the killer the real victim.  Good old BBC]

Trump is facing death threats, Farage had death threats, his family were threatened, Leave voters suffer a barrage of intense hate, abuse and threats, Angela Eagle and many Labour MPs are under virtual attack with yet more death threats and threats of rape…and the BBC plays all that down or ignores it as much as possible…..however say you’ve been looked at in the street when wearing a headscarf and you’re frontpage news on the BBC.  Just why is the BBC so intent on covering up the huge amount of threatened violence and abuse that is targeted at those on the Right and those who oppose Corbyn?  Why does Corbyn’s hard left Marxism get a free pass on the BBC?  Why does his support for terrorist organisations hardly merit a mention?

The BBC is quick to blame Brexit for a supposed rise in hate crimes against immigrants (though the police who get interviewed always suggest there may be a rise but it may just be more awareness and people prepared to report it…or people who have an interest in reporting it and claiming it as due to Brexit) but not so keen to link other violence to the Left’s rhetoric…such as the attacks on Trump and Farage and the killings of police officers in the US.

The BBC isn’t so keen to challenge the laughable rhetoric of the SNP and Len McCluskey as they demand that ‘democracy’ be respected….that’ll be the SNP who completely refuse to accept the ‘once in a lifetime’ independence vote and McCluskey who told us that if democracy didn’t deliver him what he wanted he would have his troops on the streets using other means to get his way….and is now telling us how the challenge to Corbyn, far from being democracy in action, is a ‘sordid little fix that is alien to our traditions’. Yeah a traditional brick through the window is so much more democratic and decisive than a show of hands.

Personally I find Corbyn deeply sinister.  The BBC can’t find a bad word to say about him, and his partners in crime.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Midweek Open Thread

 

The BBC likes to use a Chinese curse, ‘May you live in interesting times’, to describe the effects of the allegedly lamentable Brexit vote…personally I’d prefer another Chinese proverb….‘Out of chaos comes opportunity’.

So far not much chaos other than in the Labour Party (if it still exists)…looks like the Brexiteers are getting some prime, influential, jobs….and what to make of May and Hammond?  Both sceptics who, reluctantly?, plumped for Remain….are they now going to be more ‘onside’ with the Brexit camp?  Fallon is very pro-Europe but sidelined a bit out of the mainstream politics going to Defence whilst David Davis is the Brexit champion and Liam Fox international trade minister, Boris Foreign Minister….all three jobs closely tied to Brexit negotiations.  There is of course pro-Remain Amber Rudd as Home Secretary…so involved in police, security and immigration.  All in all seems fairly balanced so far.

The BBC’s main concern for Cameron is his ‘legacy’, how he will be remembered?…naturally he will be remembered for his ‘disastrous’ decision to grant the plebs a vote on the EU. [The wrong decision taken for the wrong reasons, a colossal misjudgement, the BBC told us yesterday, comparing Brexit to the disasters of Iraq and Suez] Peter Allen told us all his good work [LOL…can’t remember the BBC reporting much of that] has been ‘washed away’ by the vote which has destroyed his reputation as those ignorant plebs have wasted the opportunity…as Peter Allen said…‘and look what they did with that chance’…..laughing and sneering.

He also told us that the Leave voters didn’t vote for something only against…but that’s Allen’s, and the BBC’s, own negative narrative that wants to say there is no plan and Leave voters have no idea of what they want…what does Brexit mean? the BBC keeps asking, aiming to create confusion and chaos and ‘lose’ Brexit in a dizzying whirl of ifs and buts and whatabouterys….hoping to re-invent the meaning of ‘Brexit’ along the lines Remain wants.

Trouble is the vote was for something…controlling immigration and exiting the political, social, economic and judicial dominance of the EU, just as Norway has kept out of so much of that [ plus no free movement of course]….they want a free market with friendly relations and cooperation on things of mutual interest…such as travel, health and security.

Does there need to be a plan?  Not a detailed plan as the BBC and Remain insist…..how can there be a plan when it is so dependent on negotiations with the EU?  Any plan is just so much fodder for the media to generate as much news headlines about ‘crisis’ and failure as possible.  Any plan would be forensically gone over by the BBC and presented as a hopeless failure with endless problems and would be an utter waste of time as no ‘plan’ survives contact with the enemy…or reality.  The only plan needed is a general idea of what you want, such as trade deals and controlling immigration…it is only when the negotiations begin that any details can begin to crystallize along the lines of the possible when you hear what the other side really thinks and wants itself, and is prepared to give way on when not posturing, trash-talking, in the run-up to the ‘fight’ over negotiations.

The BBC has taken the Remain narrative all the way here, the Brexit vote was an unnecessary disaster that nobody really wanted, that there needs to be a detailed plan [that they can trash] and the SNP is justified in claiming it has the democratic mandate to stay in the EU when the reality is this was not a national or party political vote but a vote across Britain and it is irrelevant how any single part of Britain voted.

The BBC tells us that Britain is divided as never before….so in a general election when millions voted for several different parties Britain was somehow more united than in a vote in which 75% of the electorate voted and was split just two ways?  How is that  ‘more divided’ than ever?  Brexit didn’t give us Devolution…that was IRA terrorism, Scottish National Socialist anti-English bigotry and the Labour party.  Yet again, a very selective narrative, of a divided Britain is one used to attack Brexit.

We were also told that the Tories were in turmoil….and yet this was just the usual leadership election…one carried out within three weeks at a  time of intense pressure and political disruption.  May is in office and is setting about creating a new government at warp speed…hardly the mark of a Party in turmoil.  Again just a BBC narrative that suits its own agenda.

With that brief introduction to the midweek open thread I give ground…the floor’s all yours…….

 

 

 

Chiles’s Got Issues

 

 

A plea to the Tory Party….Please, please, please don’t release news of a highly significant and important nature at a time when the BBC’s main anchor on the radio is Adrian Chiles.  This is the podcast of his reaction and analysis on hearing Andrea Leadsom quit the leadership race……..

 

What’s that Adrian?  It’s so, sooo unfair that we don’t have a say in who is going to be PM….it’s just plain wrong that there will be no general election….gosh, where did you hear that?

Corbynista Jon Trickett says:

“It is crucial,  given the instability caused by the Brexit vote,  that the country has a democratically elected Prime Minister. I am now putting the whole of the party on a General Election footing. It is time for the Labour Party to unite and ensure the millions of people in the country left behind by the Tories’ failed economic policies, have the opportunity to elect a Labour government.”

Blimey mavis…have some more gripe water son.

Adrian’s teddy no doubt went in the corner as he was missing Sponge Bob Square pants coz old Leadsomwhatserface was interrupting his happy time….still we got plenty of gurgling analysis from him and a couple of baby sitters were allowed to give their two penneth worth…hardcore Remainer and Tory ‘Peter Mandelson’, Matthew Parris [Who Chiles thinks is a sound bloke…Really?], John Rentoul also told us we must have a general election and Rachel Sylvester  (who did the hatchet job on Leadsom) gave Leadsom a bit more of a spanking as Chiles burbled along in agreement.  Did seem like a bit of a BBC fanclub all saying very agreeable things.

What were the babyfaced Chiles’ thoughts?  Leadsom went purely because of the ‘motherhood’ comments…never mind that she had little support amongst Tory Party MP’s…she may or may not have won the support of the ‘grassroots’ but she wouldn’t get the support of the MP’s.  On a day when Labour’s Angela Eagle announced she was challenging Corbyn for leadership, who the ‘grassroots’ support whilst the MPs do not, you might have thought that that was a relevant comparison and a major reason why Leadsom ducked out of the race…..it would have been exactly the same situation for her, had she won, as Corbyn is in now. She said what we need now is a strong and well supported PM…which we wouldn’t have with her.   No such link from Chiles.

When a caller suggested there wasn’t good, informative media reporting during the referendum Chiles made a strong statement about the press coverage…it was brilliant and informative….Really?  Then all the chatter at the BBC about the evil right-wing press having fooled and beguiled the simple folk with their bigoted, racist lies is all wrong then?  Or is that only when it suits?

And what of that general election?  What about all that uncertainty?  Wouldn’t business just go into a tail spin?  What would happen?  Would Corbyn, the marxist wrecker, get in and destroy the economy?  Would there be another EU referendum, would the last one just be shelved?  Blimey Adrian, that’s a tough one.  Funny how the line ‘business hates uncertainty’ isn’t being wheeled out by those who want a general election.

So let’s be clear…the press were brilliant and informative, a general election would bring a positive creative chaos and it’s time for Adrian to have his nappy changed.

Night night all.

 

 

Start The Week Open Thread

 

What an utter insensitive b*****d that Andy Murray is….cold, heartless and calculating, doesn’t he have any feelings for those tennis players who don’t have kids…do they not also have a stake in succeeding in the tennis world as well?

“The last thing I looked at before I went on court today was a picture of my daughter,” Murray said.

“I feel like that’s what I’m playing for now, so that in a few years hopefully she can be proud of what I have achieved.”

Murray was reticent about whether he thinks his daughter, who was born on 7 February, will change his game.

He said: “I think obviously priorities change significantly.”

Anyway, another week and lots of bias, bad journalism or just plain stupidity…you judge….the floor’s yours once again.

 

Justin Webb and the BBC’s impartiality

Isn’t there a danger of over-intellectualising? … Art challenges and it challenges the status quo, and if you’re left wing that’s what you do, and if you’re on the political right generally and you’re a conservative you like things as they are.

Justin Webb, 8 November 2013

Justin Webb, presenter on the BBC’s flagship Today programme (which is broadcast on its premier station, Radio 4), put forward a highly controversial point this week: he thinks the BBC’s impartiality might undermine its ability to report the facts. It is very surprising for a journalist to argue that factual accuracy and impartiality are opposed; such a claim may indeed alarm those who already question the BBC’s impartiality. Webb’s latest intervention is certainly revealing in its own right, but what may surprise readers are the transcripts which I have made of the many, apparently unconscious and sometimes astonishing demonstrations of left wing bias which Webb has openly displayed while presenting on Today. These transcripts, which I reproduce below, show that Webb’s recent comments about the BBC’s impartiality are part of a well-established pattern of “partiality” in Webb himself.

Webb’s latest comments focus on the BBC’s reporting of the European referendum, which many feel was heavily biased in favor of Remain.

justin-web-impartiality-1

justin-web-impartiality-2

 

I think Leave had good cause for suspicion. For example, the BBC were diligent in reporting on celebrities like David Beckham who supported Remain (despite what many would regard as the former footballer’s tenuous grasp of the issues involved), but were virtually silent on the intelligent and well informed support for Brexit from actor John Cleese and novelist Dreda Say Mitchell. Cleese and Say Mitchell’s stance may have been difficult to accept for their Remain supporting “luvvie” admirers, which is perhaps why the BBC’s audience might have gone through the entire referendum without realising that this famous pair supported Brexit. The BBC even featured Remain ads on its website (see http://order-order.com/2016/05/16/proof-remain-campaign-is-paying-bbc/), which it lamely blamed on “third party” error.

Webb’s article in this week’s Radio Times however argues that the BBC was too impartial, and that this excessive impartiality somehow disadvantaged Remain: “Some of those on the losing side think they were let down. The Oscar-winning film producer Lord Puttnam is among those who wonder if impartiality rules torpedoed the search for truth: he accused the BBC in particular of providing ‘constipated’ coverage.”

This quote illustrates both Webb’s qualities and his terrible weaknesses. He is well intentioned and sincere, and not afraid to voice an opinion. His bias is not deliberate or malicious. What is frightening is how unconscious he is of that bias; his political views are so deeply ingrained that he regards them as simply corresponding with objectivity; he is unable to see the world from a different perspective and therefore unable to achieve any awareness of the political assumptions which underlie his own views.

In this particular case, Webb suggests that impartiality may have prevented the BBC from challenging some of the claims made by the Leave campaign which were – so the Remain camp claim – factually incorrect. These disputed claims essentially consist of the claim that £350m is paid by the UK to the EU every week, and that this figure would be spent on the NHS post-Brexit.

Indeed, £350m is a gross figure, and does not take the UK’s rebate or the amounts paid by the EU to the UK into account. And, indeed, how the money formerly paid by the UK to the EU is spent post-Brexit will be decided by parliament, not by the Brexit campaign; parliament may, indeed, not decide to allocate an extra £350m to the NHS. But these are strange arguments to make against the value of objective reporting, which is a sacred value. Most supporters of the Leave campaign understood that £350m was a gross figure. It was well understood that around £163m was the net saving, and the remaining c. £187m was money that the UK could now spend as it chose, not as the EU dictated. The Brexit campaigners even joked about it:

justin-web-impartiality-3

And most Leave voters understood that the NHS was one area to which previous EU contributions might be allocated, but that it would be up to the government of the day to decide this. All politics relies on tangible images and concise slogans. The campaign to Leave Europe was no exception.

The Remain campaign for its part made claims which were arguably even more questionable. George Osborne claimed an emergency budget with tax increases and spending cuts would be required post Brexit. This silly proposal, though unchallenged by the BBC at the time, was immediately shelved after the referendum. Remain’s main argument was that institutions like the IMF, the IFS and the Bank of England predicted that there would be serious negative economic consequences if the UK left the EU. Not once did the BBC detail or analyse the appalling forecasting track record of any of these institutions, which undermined the value of any argument made with their support.

My view on the claims of both sides is of course partial and open to challenge. What is notable however is how Webb approaches them as a supposedly unbiased journalist:

  1. He believes he knows the truth in this particular case;
  2. He believes the truth contradicts the Leave campaign’s claims;
  3. He doesn’t credit Leave voters with a mature understanding of the Leave campaign’s claims;
  4. He doesn’t see the inaccuracy of the Remain campaign’s claims which the purportedly objective BBC did not subject to scrutiny;
  5. He thinks that to present the truth you may need to abandon impartiality;
  6. He doesn’t credit the audience with an ability to weigh up the claims made by both sides without the assistance of an expert to advise them.

What unites these points is an inability to distinguish between objectivity and political views which are so deeply held that Webb is unconscious of them. These assumptions are a constant with Justin Webb. I have noticed them for a long time. When I hear a particularly brazen one I listen to it on iPlayer and transcribe it. What follows is a selection of Webb’s most revealing unconscious lapses.

 

Exhibit 1 – In which our hero says that all artists are left wing (8 November 2013)

For some reason the Today Programme ran a story on an exhibition of “left wing art” at the Tate Gallery in Liverpool. Selection of this exhibition for a long discussion on Today is already a little questionable. More dubious is what came after arts correspondent Will Gompertz’s survey of purportedly “right wing art” in response to a question from Webb. Webb responded by saying (I quote):

Isn’t there a danger of over-intellectualising? … Art challenges and it challenges the status quo, and if you’re left wing that’s what you do, and if you’re on the political right generally and you’re a conservative you like things as they are.

By saying that art challenges, and challenging is what you do if you’re left wing, Webb implies that all art is left wing. Furthermore, the inescapable logical conclusion of his statement is that the conservatives who “like things as they are” can’t be artists. This is an extraordinary thing to say. Webb’s assumptions about art, when taken at face value, are an undisguised expression of left-wing bias.

As an aside, the exhibition was devoted to artists who not only held “left wing views” – independently of their artwork – but also tried to integrate those views into the way they worked. Webb’s comments by contrast seem to refer to “left wing art” as “art by left wing people,” not as art with specific left wing characteristics as featured in the exhibition. This vagueness in Webb’s terms of reference patronises art; it wouldn’t have been allowed if he was discussing economics, or foreign policy.

But what Webb may say is that the view that “art challenges … and if you’re left wing that’s what you do” wasn’t his personal view, but a view that was held widely enough to be put up for debate on Today. If that were really the case however, one could argue that he should have prefaced his statement with “some people might say” or an equivalent disclaimer. The fact that he did not preface it in this way would strongly suggest a sympathy for the view he was introducing to the debate. But in an effort to be as fair as possible to him you could assume that, perhaps, in the heat of the moment, he just forgot. If we accept this excuse, you could then say that by putting this view to Will Gompertz he was only doing his duty as an impartial presenter.

But even if you accept this excuse, Webb’s assertion would still be very revealing about the views – views regarding art or politics or anything else – which are ambient in Justin Webb’s world, which are part of his mental furniture as it were. It is also revealing in what it tells us about which of those ambient views he naturally cites when presenting on the Today programme. To understand what the selection of this particular notion tells you about Webb you need to make a number of judgements about it: how reasonable is it? how widely held is it? to what extent does it deserve to be a kind of default assumption? If it is normal and rational to hold such a view, then the fact that Webb introduced it to the debate shouldn’t raise any eyebrows. If however it is a flaky view, or one held only by a particular segment of society, then it tells you a lot about Webb’s politics.

The first thing to say is that it is difficult to imagine anyone with any artistic sensibility entertaining anything so absurdly reductive and simplistic as the notion that artists “challenge the status quo.” How does Michelangelo’s David challenge the status quo? Or the Farnese Bull? Or the figs on the walls of Oplontis? Or Velasquez’s Las Meniñas? Or a Chardin still life? Or Anthony Gormley’s Angel of the North? Or Anish Kapoor’s Flaying of Marsyas? Or Rachel Whiteread’s resin blocks? Great art is certainly original, but that originality can form part of the established order as easily as it can challenge it. Such a perception of art is narrow, superficial and lacking in historical perspective.

Webb’s claim about conservatives liking “things as they are” is almost as silly as his assumption that artists “challenge the status quo.” Will Gompertz had only just seconds earlier referred to the Futurists, who both supported the Fascists and wanted contemporary art to make a clean break with its past by embracing the machine age – evidence which contradicted Justin Webb’s very point. Even someone with a very basic knowledge of art history knows that there were always stylistic innovators with right wing politics (Cézanne in his late work) and left wing painters with a rigidly traditionalist approach (such as the Soviet realists); that artists of very different political persuasions can make very similar art, and ideological bedfellows can make very different art (e.g. Malévitch versus the Soviet realists).

What is most reprehensible in Webb’s decision to advance this particular view on the Today programme is not the politics behind it, but how thin and vacuous it is. Serious and analytical left-wing writers on art like Slavoj Žižek, or Georges Bataille, or Walter Benjamin would grimace at such a sub-sophomore offering.

Furthermore, far from being a common view, the idea that conservatives like things as they are is a very particular and determined one. Parties which style themselves as left wing like to portray their views as “progressive” and their opponents as stuck in the past. But the reality is more complicated. The policies of the post-war Labour government were undoubtedly innovative and ground breaking, but more recently it is “the right” which is proposing radical changes such as the introduction of private sector involvement in schools or reductions to certain benefits, and “the left” which wants to “keep things as they are.” Indeed, some artists in the exhibition like William Morris were “left wing” partly because they tried to keep alive the old methods of craftsmanship in the face of the absolutely revolutionary phenomenon constituted by industrialisation and the machine age. So the “left wing art” in the very exhibition Justin Webb was discussing was dedicated to keeping things as they were before the industrial revolution. But Webb wasn’t really paying attention, and that is the point. His views are so deeply ingrained that even the most obvious evidence does not have any impact on them

Webb’s assumption about left wingers challenging the status quo and artists being left wing is representative of a lazy and casual prejudice which is particular to a very specific part of the political spectrum. It really has no place on a serious radio programme. The fact that Webb chose to air it on Today shows that he has internalised this particular left wing view of the world so deeply that he wasn’t aware of it. It just came out, like a repressed desire in a Freudian analysis session.

Webb may say he was being light-hearted. This is not a valid excuse. First because if it is a joke then it’s a really, really poor one and completely unfunny. Second because the Today programme is not a place and art is not a subject for weak jokes. Thirdly because the comments can only be construed as light hearted in a particular context of shared assumptions; if it is a joke then it’s a knowing joke. Saying that it’s light-hearted merely confirms that Webb assumes that everyone thinks like him about the left and its relation to art. Webb presented his very political view on art as an alternative to “over intellectualising” from Gompertz. In so doing he implied that his views were a kind of plain, simple or obvious truth. This assumption shows how deeply seated his prejudices are, and how blind to them he is.

 

Exhibit 2 – In which our hero refers to the “progressive” vote (29 April 2015)

As part of the General Election campaign Webb visited Bath, where he accompanied the eventually unsuccessful Labour candidate Ollie Middleton as he canvassed voters. His report included a recording of Middleton’s pitch to a young lady who had voted tactically for the LibDems in the previous election. After Middleton’s pitch Justin Webb asked the voter:

Can I just ask you before we go, if your heart is Labour, but you voted LibDem last time, do you feel that the experience of the coalition government has sort of freed you to vote with your heart this time round?

The voter responded “yeah” she had voted tactically before but might not do so this time. Webb asked Middleton: “That was quite encouraging for you?” to which Middleton naturally agreed. Webb then went on to say:

That’s your hope isn’t it because this city actually has quite a lot of people who would regard themselves as progressives [my emphasis], on the sort of liberal left [my emphasis], your big hope is that you kind of peel people away and say vote with your heart now.

To be fair to Webb it is legitimate for journalists to follow candidates (as long as they follow candidates from both sides). And the premise for his story – that those who wanted to vote Labour, but voted tactically for the LibDems instead as the only party likely to beat the Conservatives, may now vote Labour because the LibDems entered a coalition with the Conservatives – was logical after a fashion. But it bore little resemblance to electoral reality in Bath, where, despite a loss of share for the LibDems similar to what they experienced nationwide, Labour ended up with less than half the LibDem vote and the Conservatives won the seat.

But note Webb’s unguarded use of the word “progressive.” As with his equally unguarded comment on artists, he explicitly equates “progressive” with the “liberal left” in this statement. Webb assumes that being left wing is “progressive” the way he assumes left wing artists challenge the status quo. He unconsciously accepts the left’s idealistic self-image which, as we saw, is simplistic and historically inaccurate. Indeed, for Webb a vote for the left is a vote “with your heart,” presenting a vote for Labour as the idealistic option. That may be how Labour sees itself, but Labour is a political party, not a journalist. What is revealing here is that Webb adopts the trope of liberal left = progressive = idealistic without a second thought. Seemingly unconsciously, he organises the world in his reports according to distinctively left wing premises.

And in this throwaway line Webb reveals a belief that there are “quite a lot” of progressives in Bath, in other words that the “progressive” agenda he subscribes to unconsciously is a popular one. He assumes that LibDem voters in Bath are more likely to vote for Labour and will be opposed to the Coalition. That assumption implies the possibility of an untapped reservoir of left wing voters who can shift the electoral balance in the country. In so doing Webb proved himself to be subject to the same wistful thinking as the Labour party was prey to when it thought it could win the General Election. But on what statistic could he possibly have based his “quite a lot”? Is there really a survey showing the number of progressive people in Bath? As it turns out, in the only statistic that counted, namely the General Election, Webb’s “quite a lot” was not discernible (UKIP gained 4.3% points of share compared to 6.3% for Labour), and to this day probably only exists in the world of his unconscious assumptions.

 

Exhibit 3 – In which our hero interviews Frances O’Grady and asks no challenging questions (28 August 2014)

Webb interviewed Frances O’Grady about a TUC report which found that in some regions most women working part-time were earning less than the living wage (the report referred to the Living Wage as set by the Living Wage Foundation, and was published long before the Conservative government’s proposed increased minimum wage was branded a “living wage” by them). On air, O’Grady said that this was true of “three quarters of women working part time in Lancashire [and] two thirds of part time women workers in West Somerset.” Here is a transcript of the “interview” with Webb’s questions in full:

Now you’re demanding employers do something about this aren’t you but first off let’s be clear, what’s the difference between the living wage and the minimum wage, Frances?

What are the rates in Britain?

(O’Grady gives the factual answers to those questions)

Webb: So you’re finding that it’s overwhelmingly women working part time who earn less than those figures?

O’Grady: women bringing “vital money into the family […] are paying a high pay penalty.”

Webb: Now this comes on top of other figures which show women have suffered more economically during the downturn. Why is it that women seem to consistently come off worse?

O’Grady: Well I think there’s a problem about where women tend to work and the value that’s given to the jobs that women do like care, like cleaning, catering, shop work and so on. But there’s a real problem of attitudes too and I think it’s not just employers who need to get their act together. I would like to see government taking a lead and declare all its departments a living wage employer.

Webb: And this actually, umh, this comes against a background of a long squeeze in real wages as we were hearing a moment ago for all workers doesn’t it?

(O’Grady answered that it was the longest wage squeeze in a century).

Webb: So what can be done? How can we, how can we improve wages for part time women workers?

O’Grady: Well government [should] lead by example like every department signing up to the living wage, but perhaps more importantly government using its public contracts worth £140bn in total to spread the living wage into the private sector. We’d like a higher national minimum wage. But we’d also like to see government and employers recognise that collective bargaining is the best way to get fair wages, but one other issue is that too often we see part time work concentrated in those low wage ghettos, why not have more part time job share and flexible opportunities in the top jobs that pay well?

Webb: But that wouldn’t address the problem for these people ehm working you know … in low paid jobs would it?

O’Grady: No and that’s why we’ve been arguing for a higher minimum wage in those industries like cleaning where we have the evidence that employers can afford to pay more.

Webb: Excellent – Frances O’Grady.

O’Grady: And thank you, Justin.

Every one of Justin Webb’s questions is sympathetic and opens with statements which support a distinctive political narrative. Women are victims of pay injustice (“overwhelmingly women working part time earn less”); women are victims of the economy (“women have suffered more economically during the downturn”); workers in general are victims of the economy (“this comes against a background of a long squeeze in real wages”); and something must be done to redress these wrongs (“how can we improve wages for part time women workers?”). The statements made by Webb as introductions to his questions would not be out of place in a Momentum manifesto! These statements, I remind you, are made by Webb the BBC interviewer and not by O’Grady the TUC interviewee.

More shocking than what he says though is what he doesn’t ask. There is not one single challenging question in the whole interview. And this in an interview where there is much, much to challenge:

  • One might point out to Frances O’Grady that women working part-time earn less than the living wage in many regions because there are not many jobs there;
  • That if businesses in those regions were forced to pay higher wages they might not be able to afford to hire as many part-time staff;
  • That the only alternative to part-time jobs paying below the living wage for many women in those regions is unemployment;
  • That companies paying employees high wages are unlikely to get value for money if those employees work part-time
  • That countries where governments interfere in the Labour market in this way and enforce higher wages (e. g. France and Italy), as demanded by O’Grady, have high unemployment, with many of their citizens coming to work in the UK labour market criticised by O’Grady as a result;
  • That it is unfair to ask tax payers to fund wages in the public sector which they cannot earn themselves in the private sector;
  • That it is indeed a little underhand to use people’s natural sympathy for part-time women workers to agitate for a massive pay increase for public sector workers (many of whom are TUC members);
  • I could go on …

Of course many will disagree with these points. That’s democracy. The problem is that Webb did not ask a single one of these questions. His only “challenge,” namely that increasing the proportion of part-time workers in high paid jobs “wouldn’t address the problem for [those] in low paid jobs” is a fake question, a lay-up: O’Grady had already answered that question in her previous point! In the end the interview was barely worthy of the name. It turned into a political broadcast by the TUC. It was like a CEO interview in a corporate newsletter, or the questions loyal MPs ask ministers in their party – “And does my Right Honorable friend not agree with me that overwhelmingly women working part time earn less?”

Again, I’m sure Webb is not deliberately biased. But the statements he makes in the lead up to his questions, and his total and abject lack of critical questioning, demonstrate just how deeply he shares O’Grady’s views. Again, this is probably completely unconscious. Webb can’t imagine anyone disagreeing.

The left wing art discussion and this interview both feature subjects on which it was easy for Webb to feel he was doing his bit for causes which the BBC likes to champion – women’s issues and the arts. Perhaps it’s because of this that Webb suspended his critical faculties. He didn’t need to ask difficult questions because he was already earning brownie points by talking about the gender pay gap and about progressive art. But this prevented him from doing his job in the interview with O’Grady, which is to ask the questions to which his audience wants to hear answers.  There is a term for this: it is called “virtue signalling.” In both cases, Webb doesn’t analyse the issues but uses them to broadcast his “progressive” views on subjects which make people in the BBC feel warm and fuzzy.

And what a way to end his interview with “Frances” (in which the use of the first name only already betrayed a cosy familiarity): “Excellent.” “Excellent”? Why doesn’t he just give her a round of applause?

Justin Webb’s latest remarks about objectivity show that he cares about journalism as a profession. But it also shows that he is incapable of objectivity, and has been for a long time, possibly since birth. He means well. But his perception of reality is so deeply conditioned by his politics that he is unaware of his bias, which is probably incurable.

BBC buckles under Brexit, but bounces back

This is already old news, but I thought I’d plonk the BBC coverage of the Referendum results above the parapet for all who would like a record of it in one prominent place. It’s from 10 pm on the 23rd till 1 pm on the 24th:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

I imagine the BBC found itself in quite a dilemma here: though yearning to express its pro-Remain bias as the results came in, it must have realised that the pretence of impartiality had never been quite so critical. And so, with a fairly straight face and a tremendous effort, it managed to behave for the most part like a responsible news organisation.

However, the inbuilt bias was clearly revealed in a number of strange ways:

At 9:50 minutes in on Part 1, Jeremy Vine stands next to a yellow and blue strip, which have both just reached the end of their referendum race. The yellow strip is in the foreground and much wider with ‘Remain’ clearly perched in front of it in black while the white ‘Leave’ text is invisible, having merged with the white finish line. At 9:53, Vine’s leg blocks that meeting between Leave and the finish line. At the end of his demonstration, Vine says, “We put them 50-50 here,” but of course it was more like 75-25.

At 14:20 on Part 2 Dimbleby talks to Arron Banks, founder of Leave.EU, “who helped fund the leave campaign.” At 15:50 he asks him, “How much did you give to the campaign, yourself.” On hearing that it was six million pounds, Dimbleby asks, “Why?” Amazingly, Banks responds politely rather than telling Dimbleby it was none of his damn business. It was difficult to hear Banks. Those unfamiliar with the antics of the BBC would have thought that was purely a technical malfunction.

Then of course there is the funereal announcement by Dimbleby, at 2:39:30 on Part 2, that the ’75 referendum had been reversed as there was no chance of Remain overtaking Leave.

And at 3:21:30 on Part 2, Dimbleby asks Andrea Leadsom, “How can you have calm reflection when the world is falling about your…feet.” She politely points out that it isn’t.

At the end of a speech by Nigel Farage at 1:27:05 on Part 3, Dimbleby says, “Nigel Farage, who has now made by my reckoning three speeches …in fact when he sees a camera he makes another speech.” This was a Dimbleby theme re Farage on the night: somehow he felt justified to mock him for perceived inadequacies like “changing his mind.”

Andrew Neil takes over on Part 4, ending the nudge-nudge, wink-wink Dimbleby bias, subdued though it was by circumstances.

At 22:40, Victoria Derbyshire talks informally to a panel from the public, apparently representing various shades of opinion on the referendum. Fox News had a very similar format during the primaries and I was wondering whether the BBC copied it from Fox. But I can’t imagine any BBC hacks ever watching a Fox broadcast. If caught in the act, they’d never live it down.

Well, as we’ve seen over the past weeks, the BBC has bounced back after the great trauma of the Brexit win and is energetically pushing all the doom and gloom propaganda it can. May it suffer many more such blows. Maybe, just maybe, it has learned a lesson from Brexit.

Sunday Update: Thanks to Dazed and Confused for linking to the full BBC referendum coverage in one video.