Bashing the BBC, Bashirgate and Boris

 I don't think anyone envies Martin Bashir at the moment. I can only hope that he and his family are not looking at social media or the right-wing press, as they will feel themselves under siege. This is not to excuse Bashir's conduct 25 years ago. He has been exposed - need I tell you what you know already? - as having forged bank statements to facilitate an interview with the late Diana, Princess of Wales. When this issue surfaced last November, I was very suspicious. 25 years to expose such wrongdoing seemed very strange, and the explanations for this seemed unconvincing. It looked to me that the story had broken as a red herring to deflect pressure from the government for its handling of the pandemic and as a handy stick with which to beat the BBC.

Understandably, Diana's sons are deeply upset at the results of the Dyson Report. Prince William has made a deeply emotional speech blaming BBC bosses, as well as a "rogue reporter". Harry has blamed a toxic media culture for his mother's death.  As Jonny Diamond, BBC Royal correspondent comments: "In the past, of course, it's been Harry that's been so angry with the media, William appeared to have made his peace with it, but the second in line to the throne has launched a visceral attack on the BBC, a sign of his deep hurt and deep dismay."

It's certainly ironic that the tabloid press, which upset Harry and Meghan so much that they left the UK, are now attacking the BBC for using tricks favoured so much by those same newspapers. Have we forgotten the hacking of Milly Dowler's phone, Squidgygate and the phone call by Charles to Camilla in which he spoke of how, if reincarnated, he would like to come back as a certain intimate feminine object? And does the Bashir scandal, dating back so many years, invalidate present-day BBC reporting from around the world? Does it render BBC coverage of the Windrush scandal, the negative effects of Brexit and the disgrace of the track and trace system dishonest and fraudulent? Well, there is one man who might think so...

As if you hadn't guessed! Boris has just spoken with concern and gravity on this issue. According to the BBC (the same): 

"The BBC should take "every possible step" to ensure that nothing like its deceit of the Princess of Wales to secure an interview ever happens again, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said".

Boris Johnson, as we know, is just the man to be aware of how harmful dishonesty in journalism can be. He was sacked from The Times for fabricating a quote from his godfather. His career as a columnist for The Telegraph was somewhat spoiled by the fact that he persistently wrote untrue articles about the European Union. He received £275 000 a year for this latter job, describing his salary as "chickenfeed".  Yes, just the man to judge Martin Bashir and the BBC.

. I would be amazed, however, if he and his cronies are not looking at how they can use Bashirgate, to coin a phrase, as another stick with which they can beat the BBC. They have already made several moves in this direction. The first was the appointment of Richard Sharp as BBC chairman. This must have caused Boris great satisfaction, as The Byline Times points out: 

"The newly-appointed Chairman of the BBC has donated more than £400,000 to the Conservative Party since 2001, Electoral Commission records show.
Earlier today, it was announced that former Goldman Sachs banker Richard Sharp is set to be appointed as the chairman of the BBC’s board of directors".

The report goes on to say that Mr Sharp will be leading negotiations with the government over the licence fee. Pensioners beware. And Mr Sharp is not the only appointee in favour with Boris and his pals...

Tim Davie, the new Director-General of the BBC, is definitely the government's man at Wogan House. The Independent rightly says that this is beyond satire:

"How, for example, do you satirise the following? The BBC appoints a new director general whose first act in the job is to tell his staff they can’t go on marches because of the threat of “perceived bias”. Not actual bias, just perceived. Oh, and what do you know, this chap who now runs the BBC and is determined to liberate it from any perception at all that it could be anything less than entirely politically neutral, also once stood for election as a Tory Party councillor and was deputy chair of his local Conservative Association".

Mr Davie has launched a crusade against what the Tories see as Leftist bias in the BBC. We all know about how the Mash Report has been axed, to the delight of the right-wing press. Another of his ventures was the sacking of the junior script editor of Peaky Blinders for unacceptable tweets. Mr Davie is a typical Tory advocate of free speech - for the political Right.

We can be in no doubt that there will be further such measures taken by the Tories at the Beeb. As said previously, the popular satirical BBC programme, "Have I Got News For You" will definitely be in the firing line. The licence fee may well be raised considerably.

To conclude, there might well be another harmful knock-on effect. If the use of forged documents and cover stories is to become banned, it will make genuine investigative journalism very difficult. It will become next to impossible to infiltrate terrorist or criminal organisations or hunt down fugitives from justice. A prime example of such an operation was the entrapment of the gangster, John "Goldfinger" Palmer, by the now-sadly-defunct programme of the 80s and 90s, The Cook Report. Roger Cook, the intrepid eponymous reporter, wrote in 2015 :

"We were initially told our proposed programme was too risky and that Palmer was too clever to get caught. But we weren’t deterred.
We asked two drug barons we had met while filming a Cook Report in Burma’s Golden Triangle to pose as opium growers who needed drug money ‘cleaned’.
It worked a treat. We had Palmer on tape offering to launder $160 million of opium profits for them twice a year, even boasting that his rates were the best in the business".

If deception is to be eliminated, sting operations like this will become impossible. Bashirgate will be a dream come true for everyone who has something to hide, be they politicians, celebrities or criminals.

Israel, Palestine and the Arndale Centre

 

It's never easy, writing about the Israel-Palestine-Gaza issue. If you try to be fair, both sides accuse you of favouring the other. Besides this, some people are prone to rebuking you for things which they believe you have said, and yet, you haven't. It's happened to me a couple of times. I remember one occasion, some years ago, when the BBC screened a programme on this conflict and received exactly the same number of complaints from both sides. "Sit on the fence and you get splinters in your bum", goes the saying.

Well, so be it. I don't mind being accused of bias by both sides as long as I know that I have made an honest effort to be fair. The recent tragic events in Gaza and Israel call for people like me to try and make an objective assessment, as far as possible. The BBC has taken the lead in this, with a "Reality Check" on some of the claims made by both sides in the conflict so far. 

Among other items, the Beeb scrutinise one claim made by an aide to President Netanyahu who posted a video on Twitter purporting to show rockets being fired at Israel from Gaza. This is a still from the video:

Fact: this footage comes from Syria, and is three years old. It shows an attack made by Syrian forces against a dissident group in the city of Deraa. The Netanyahu aide took the video down after Twitter described it as "manipulated media".

From the other side, we have the fire at the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. The Palestinians who made the video claimed that it showed the mosque on fire, and the Israelis were letting it happen. In the actual film, you can hear some Israelis singing an anti-Palestinian song.

Fact: the mosque was never on fire. As the BBC says: 

"The video is real, but additional footage from other angles makes it clear that a tree near to the mosque had caught fire, not the mosque itself."

What cannot be disputed is the extreme brutality of the Israeli forces against Gaza, which has been well documented. I could perhaps continue on this theme, and I am not dismissing it as irrelevant, but this outbreak of warfare follows others of its type, and will presumably develop the same way. As Paul Adams comments:

"These episodes follow a familiar pattern: Israel presses home its undoubted military advantage until the international outcry over civilian casualties, and a deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza, demand that the operation end. In Israel's estimation, we have not reached that point yet".

Israel might well regret that. There are indications even here that the Palestinians mean serious business this time. The Palestinian ambassador to the UK, quoted in the Daily Mirror, said:

"Husam Zumlot, Palestinian ambassador to the UK, told crowds: "This time is different. This time we will not be denied any more. We are united. We have had enough of oppression."

There are signs of this within Israel. Inter-communal violence has broken out between Arab and Jewish communities and threatens to worsen.

There are even signs of this here. Four men have been arrested following what appears to have been a pro-Palestinian mini-motorcade through a Jewish area in North London on Sunday. From a car bearing a Palestinian flag, these men allegedly shouted anti-Semitic abuse. To be fair, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign condemned the motorcade incident. On Sunday, an Essex rabbi, Rabbi Rafi Goodwin, was attacked and hospitalised outside his synagogue in Chigwell. According to the Evening Standard, his two attackers have been arrested: 

"Two men have been arrested on suspicion of GBH with intent after a rabbi was attacked in Essex. The men, 18 and 25, are being questioned on suspicion of the assault in Chigwell."

Welcome as these arrests are, they are merely part of a recent rise in anti-Semitic hate crime. According to a separate BBC report, there has been a surge in anti-Semitic incidents: 

"The Community Security Trust said there had been a fivefold increase in reports of anti-Semitic incidents since the recent escalation in tensions between Israel and Palestinians. Between 8 May and 17 May the charity recorded 86 anti-Semitic incidents, up from 16 in the previous 10 days."

I am sure the extreme Right here in the UK are pondering whether or not to join in with such endeavours, but they have a problem: they hate both sides already. They are notoriously and fanatically anti-Semitic, but are violently anti-Muslim also. We might even see the avowedly neo-Nazi groups turning out to help the Palestinians and the more anti-Muslim groups such as the remnants of the English Defence League doing the same for the pro-Israeli side. What a punch-up that will be!

Another common factor to both sides is their capacity for alienating public opinion worldwide. Israel does not seem to realise that bombing Palestinian families out of their homes does not win friends and influence people. The IDF say that they are trying to hit Hamas fighters without realising that every Hamas or civilian death creates more Hamas fighters and draws more international opprobrium. Hamas, yet again, have a propaganda victory.

Palestinians do not help themselves by firing rockets at Israel or by staging aggressive demonstrations. The main London protest rally on Sunday, supposedly attended by 130, 000 people (oh, yeah) saw nine police officers injured. The equivalent Manchester march only attracted several hundred, but turned nasty on several occasions. There was at least one scuffle in the Arndale Centre between demonstrators and members of the public that was filmed by MSN News. The pro-Palestinians targeted what they saw as pro-Israeli businesses. They protested ineffectually for a short while outside Barclays Bank in Market Street (the bank was closed). They then went on to picket Tesco, which, fortunately for staff, put up its shutters. The Manchester Evening News commented: 

"The march eventually came to a pause at the corner of Cross Street and Market Street, where city centre councillor Pat Karney tried to speak to the protesters.
But he was booed off as he attempted to ask them not to intimidate shop workers..."

Not a very edifying performance by the demonstrators.

To conclude, I think we can discern the unthinkable conclusion: there is no solution acceptable to both sides in the Israel/Palestine dispute. The only way to ensure an end to armed conflict would be one imposed by the United Nations, which would be unacceptable to both sides and, as in Bosnia, completely useless. 

Boris Johnson and the Rasputin Effect

 

As I type, Andrew Castle on LBC is holding a debate about the failure of the Labour Party in the Hartlepool byelection. This is a debate being held in all sections of the media, in homes and offices and, one hopes, in Labour Party Headquarters. What has not yet been questioned is how someone like Boris Johnson has risen to be our PM and, more pressing, is: why does he appear to an unstoppable winner?

A seemingly perceptive article in The Byline Times would have it that "...Labour appears to be a toxic brand". It goes on to say that Labour's policies in the 2019 Election were initially popular with the public, but...  

"According to polls, Labour’s headline policies were popular. 73% of voters supported increasing the minimum wage to £10, 66% supported tax rises for those earning more than £80,000 – and so on. However, pollsters found that, when these policies were attached to the Labour Party, their popularity dropped markedly".

If this is correct, then Labour has much to do. The debate has begun, and will rage for a long time. But, rather than add to what is admittedly an important controversy, I would like to examine the role of Johnson's personality in his present electoral success. To my surprise, and, no doubt, many people's incredulity, there are distinct similarities to the career of Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin (1869 - 1917), I am well aware that there are many differences between these two men. Some people will undoubtedly point out the more crassly obvious differences, but certain common factors are unmistakably clear.

Most people know the name of Rasputin thanks to a very potted musical history put out on record in the 70s by Boney M (if you don't remember it, click HERE). Unusually for a pop song, it contains a modicum of truth about Rasputin in the lyrics. Although never an ordained monk, as some believed at the time, he was known as a mystic and a healer who came to the attention of the Russian royal family. Remarkably, and all historians admit this, he did seem to be able to help the young Tsarevich Alexei's haemophilia. Rasputin's apparent healing skills led to his being included in the royal family's entourage. People familiar with the song, however, will best remember the chorus, where we learn that Rasputin was "Russia's greatest love machine" and the "lover of the Russian Queen". The latter claim is dismissed by historians (although Rasputin himself bragged about it), but the former has an element of truth, and that brings us to the first similarity to Boris Johnson.

Both men share what might be described as a "liking for the ladies" and an indifference to public notoriety and scandal. Rasputin exploited his status as adviser to the court to the full. As "History Collection" says:

"... many admiring women visited him simply for sex. Lots and lots of sex. Rasputin was, by all accounts, what would be considered today a sex addict, with enviable stamina and staying power. Saint Petersburg’s authorities posted plainclothes policemen at Rasputin’s building, and their reports frequently described dozens of women, from prostitutes to high ranking aristocrats, visiting his apartment".

Boris has never quite accomplished this, but has tried very hard, as many commentators and newspapers have salaciously documented, not least in one revealing article in The Sun.  From this article alone - pre Jennifer Arcuri - we learn of his two previous marriages and many known affairs (there are probably many more to be discovered). And, as with Rasputin, the widespread notoriety of his peccadilloes have done him no harm politically. It's not been noted, but Boris is the first prime minister to live in 10 Downing Street with an unmarried partner and a child born out of wedlock. And he still remains largely popular with the media. Have we become more tolerant? I have reservations about that. Had our PM been a woman with two failed marriages, a torrid sexual history and an illegitimate child, I believe the political and media fallout would have been very different.

But I digress. The other similarity between these two very different men is that they both seem unassailable, at least to themselves and their admirers. Rasputin was not well liked by everyone in Russia, even in his heyday, but he enjoyed the protection of the Tsar and Tsarina. Any court official who tried to act against Rasputin soon found themselves en route to Siberia. I have no doubt that Johnson, despite the allegations of sleaze made against him, feels himself more secure after the Hartlepool result. In fact, Labour activists phoning in to LBC this morning are saying that these accusations were of no interest to voters on the doorstep. 

Perhaps not to them, but they are to some people in the Conservative Party, and this could point to a coming similarity between Boris and Rasputin: an internal coup. Rasputin was not removed by popular unrest. He was assassinated, in a legendary long-drawn-out attack, by a group of Russian aristocrats who were concerned about the negative influence of Rasputin on the royal family. There are Remainer Conservatives who bear Boris no love for the way he sidelined them before, during and after Brexit. There are others who deplore the conduct of what they see as the Boris Johnson clique's undermining of traditional conservative values. One of these disgruntled Tories is the writer, Peter Oborne, who writes, on the Open Democracy website:  
"Brexit has mutated ... into a brutal assault on everything we stand for.
Like Paul Johnson turning his back on Labour forty years ago, there is no way that I can as a lifelong Conservative vote for Boris Johnson’s revolutionary clique..."

Besides this, there are the sleaze inquiries that may well (probably?) find incriminating evidence against the PM. Should that happen, there could be an internal revolt by dissenting Tories to remove Johnson. He may not be poisoned, shot and thrown in the nearest river like Rasputin, but his fall will be spectacular.

"Ra, Ra, Rasputin, Russia's greatest love machine" - oh, sorry, wrong picture!