I'm hoping that the biggest editorial brains at the BBC were on some sort of extended awayday yesterday, and junior hands were on the tiller. Leading on the Lineker v Braverman story at 6pm and 10pm on BBC1 was reporting the smoke and not the fire. It has clear appeal to those who enjoy our current culture wars, and is eminently reportable. But to make it a lead is playing to the Government's unevidenced assertion of 'the people's priorities', which further asserts that unless you support their current proposed legislation you are fundamentally unpatriotic and anti-humanitarian.
If Rishi Sunak's advisors really want to redefine migrants approaching our shores in inflatables as 'illegal', then the right place to start is withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights, and other international agreements. Then, judges in this country, at the highest level, would simply have to accept an Act of Parliament saying a foot on the pebbles of Dungeness is sufficient offence to be jailed and transported. But the Government is absolutely not doing that, having calculated that the very act of 'being thwarted' by forces of darkness and Gary Lineker over the next 21 months will win them sufficient votes to be re-elected.
One of the BBC's previous big editorial brains, Richard Ayre, was on the Today programme this morning, and thought on balance that Gary Lineker would and should go. He created a new category of presenter - Crown Jewels - and clearly thought that by invoking comparisons with the language of the Third Reich, this particular diamond had broken an as-yet unwritten rule that no person in receipt of an as-yet unspecified amount of BBC funds should express a political opinion on social media in the next 21 months.
With time to reflect, Richard might realise this would lead to a mad perpetuation of this current culture crusade. He tried to make it sound as if it were common sense, in the run-up to an election. Since the successful tactics of Alastair Campbell last cowed the BBC in 2003, we have been in continuous election campaigning, with every day a battle to define and 'win' the agenda. Once Lineker is ousted, they'll come for non-compliant comedians, dramatists, essayists, poets, rappers, on top of their current hunt for environmentalists and academics-defined-as-woke.
Bill, I couldn't agree more. But don't you think this points to the obsolescence of the BBC's impartiality policy? It worked well enough in the consensual age in which it was constructed. When Lab followed Con and Con followed Lab and they tweaked taxes and spending by a few £bn either way and everyone thought it sensible to include a trades union representative on committees and quangos to represent the interests of the working class.
ReplyDeleteBut in an age where US presidents lie, not just lie but use lying as an instrument of policy, where UK Prime Ministers break their own laws and lie to Parliament about doing so, where the powers that be take unprecedented powers over their population and then refuse to give them back, what use is impartiality? The BBC is doubling down on impartiality, striving to be even-handed on issues you simply can't - and shouldn't - be impartial about. It took them a dismayingly long time even to begin reminding viewers and listeners that Trump's claims about having the 2020 election stolen had no basis in fact.
So here we are, the BBC is once again trying to enforce impartiality - by which it clearly means silence, by the way - on an employee who has dared to say it like he sees it. We are in a downward spiral towards fascism in this country; it's not inevitable but it's real. It's often said that whoever mentions Hitler first in an argument loses that argument. But what if you see things sliding that way? We need to ask ourselves this: why did the Nazi government of the 1930s even bother to pass anti-Jewish laws through the Reichstag? Why didn't they just do what fascists do, and brutally enforce their will via the Brownshirts and the Gestapo? Because fascists want to persuade the population - and themselves? - that they are acting legitimately. They legitimise their actions by clothing them in the normal procedures of politics.
We could have a Kristallnacht in this country if age-old xenophobic sentiments continue to be whipped up - by the actual government! - in the way you describe. They are playing a horribly dangerous political game, and may reap a whirlwind. We've already seen rioting and clashes outside refugee centres. And, on current form, the BBC would simply stand by and report it, 'impartially' of course. I used to write news for the BBC; here's what we might hear coming out of our radios one fine morning:
"There's been another night of widespread violence in many towns across Britain. Thirteen people are thought to have died in the disturbances, including two police officers, and many hundreds have been injured. The windows of refugee centres and ethnic minority shops have been smashed, and there are multiple reports of shopowners being dragged into the street and attacked. The Home Secretary has said she regrets any violence but refused to condemn the British Brownshirts group, whom she has previously characterised as 'patriotic citizens prepared to do what is necessary for the survival of their mother country.' She went on to say, 'They are resisting an insidious invasion, just as our armed forces would resist enemy troops who landed on our shores.' The violence comes as Parliament begins two days of debate on the Government's Alien Internment Bill. The Opposition have called the measures 'pure racism'; the Prime Minister has described them as 'the final solution to a problem we should have been tougher on years ago. The country is crying out for action, and this government is taking that action.' "
Silly? Unthinkable? Not if the BBC, one of this country's greatest liberal institutions, carries on trying to slam shut the stable door of 'impartiality' when the horse of ideological, populist politics bolted years ago (metaphorical apologies to the inimitable Humphrey Lyttelton).
An agile BBC might consider setting up a patient rational academic discussion of 'the language of Germany in the 1930s' and the language of Government ministers now. Not, of course, the current BBC....
ReplyDeleteThey could appoint one of the agile performing groups to do it.
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