18 July 2019
Diary of a Corbynista
BBC versus Corbyn
by Don Urquhart
11 July
Corbyn’s latest statement of Brexit policy makes a second referendum a front-runner.
Johnson’s current “Do or Die” pitch regarding a 31st October Brexit is designed to get him into No. 10.
Once there the only “Do or Die” will be about keeping him at that address. If Parliament succeeds in stopping no deal, Johnson is left with General Election or second referendum as options and it is only the latter that keeps him in office.
Meanwhile Smear of the Day is hotly contested. On Politics Live Andrew Neil had two Tory journalists and a Tory MP ranged against Guardian reporter Dawn Foster. The latter tried to offer a defence of the Labour Party against the allegations made by John Ware on the previous night’s Panorama but was talked over by the other 4. The winner, however, has to be Radio 4’s Today programme whose lead item was Jeremy Corbyn fiddles with anti-Semitism cases rather than Panorama drives horse and carriage through BBC charter with its Tory propaganda. Well done Radio 4.
12 July
If you repeat a lie often enough people will believe it and you will even come to believe it yourself.
So Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf.
Yesterday the BBC hauled in Blairite after Tory after Blairite to confirm that the Labour Party was finished unless they discarded Corbyn.
The Jewish Labour Movement (JLM) was held up as the authentic voice of Jewish members rather than Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL) although you can be a JLM member without being Jewish.
John Ware’s Panorama was defended with desperate heroism despite its dependence on assertion masquerading as fact supplied by a cast of actors, lobbyists and disaffected ex-employees.
What has the BBC become?
13 July
Hannah Baker is a pretty girl who commits suicide for no apparent reason and the series 13 Reasons Why shows how her life unravelled. She has been raped by Bryce Walker, who is captain of the football team and the baseball team’s pitcher. He comes from a wealthy family and has pupils and staff alike in thrall, ruling through threats, bluff and bluster. He is in the tradition of Flashman in Tom Brown’s Schooldays.
Yesterday I saw another in the tradition of Harry Flashman and Bryce Walker. Andrew Neil attempted to interview Boris Johnson who just talked over him with no attempt to answer the question.
Our next Prime Minister behaves more like Tommy Robinson than like Dominic Grieve, Sam Gyimah and Justine Greening. PMQ’s will be an embarrassing charade.
14 July
The big winner from the Kim Darroch affair might well be Julian Assange.
Here’s how Eurasia Future puts it:
Assange publishes leaked material in the public interest and is in prison and threatened with execution as a result. By contrast, the Daily Mail publishes leaked information after an admonition not to do so from the Metropolitan Police and the Mail is praised to the hilt.
It is hard to see how we can send Assange to the US to be tried for something we find praiseworthy in our own media.
15 July
The Department for Education tells us at the drop of a hat that they are spending record amounts on education as if this provides some sort of answer to the teachers who have to buy educational materials out of their own pockets. Here’s an item in Schools Week which gives a clue as to where the government funding, such as it is, ends up.
The government has ruled that a single-academy trust that spent thousands on luxury paint and pays its head £260,000 has not broken funding rules.
16 July
Here’s the BBC response to my complaint of July 3rd:Thanks for taking the time to get in touch regarding ‘Panorama – Is Labour Anti-Semitic?’ broadcast 10 July on BBC One. We note you have concerns about the programme.
To allow us to reply promptly to your concerns, and to ensure we use our licence fee resources as efficiently as possible, we’re sending this response to everyone. We’re sorry that for this reason we can’t reply personally to you on each point which has been made.
The BBC stands by its journalism and we completely reject any accusations of bias or dishonesty.
Panorama, broadcast 10 July, explored a topic of undoubted public interest, broadcasting powerful and disturbing testimonies from party members who’d suffered anti-Semitic abuse. We also heard from former Labour officials, some of whom defied non-disclosure agreements to speak out about their experiences inside the Party and its anti-Semitism crisis. This shows the serious questions facing the party and its leadership on this issue.
The programme adhered to the BBC’s editorial guidelines, including a full right of reply for the Labour Party.
John Ware is a highly experienced and respected investigative journalist, whose track record includes critically-acclaimed and award-winning reports.
We reject any claims Panorama took any of the evidence out of context.
The significance of the email from Seumas Milne is that it showed one of the most powerful figures in the Labour Party expressing concern about the handling of anti-Semitism complaints and suggesting the wider process should be reviewed. This goes contrary to the Labour Party’s claims that this process was independent of the Leader’s Office. The impact of this email on those dealing with the complaints process was made clear in the eyewitness testimony shown in the programme.
As is the nature of such investigations, the BBC has relied on a significant body of evidence, some of which could not be included in the broadcast programme for reasons of source protection and space.
The lady doth protest too much methinks.
Here is the Labour Party response:
The Panorama programme was not a fair or balanced investigation. It was a seriously inaccurate, politically one-sided polemic, which breached basic journalistic standards, invented quotes and edited emails to change their meaning. It was an overtly biased intervention by the BBC in party political controversy. An honest investigation into anti-Semitism in Labour and wider society is in the public interest. The Panorama team instead pre-determined an answer to the question posed by the programme’s title.”
I thought I would look up the Editorial Guidelines for BBC Current Affairs.
Under Section 1.2 Editorial Values, the first sentence is:
Our audiences trust us and they expect us to adhere to the highest editorial standards.
Sadly, those days are long gone.
17 July
On July 15th there was a parliamentary debate on the subject:
The impartiality of the BBC is in question and needs addressing so as to protect its charter.
Who knew?
I picked it up on Twitter and thought I would tune in to BBC Parliament to try and catch it.
No sign and no reporting of the event on the national broadcaster as far as I can see.
Hansard has it.
