QUESTION TIME?

QUESTION TIME?

>> SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2009

I see that the BBC's strange version of political 'balance' was in evidence again in this week's edition of R4's Any Questions? It was time for an appearance by UKIP (Marta Andreason, the former chief accountant of the EU,now an MEP for UKIP), so who is lined up against her? The ridiculous (but fanatic europhile) Charlie Faulkner, Shirley Williams (ditto) and from the Tories, one of the last remaining europhile MPs Kenneth Clark. Not only that, they chose an audience from Cambridge University that, judging from its reactions, was also madly pro-EU. Predictably, the three panellists had a joint love-in about how wonderful the EU was, while Andrea - though giving as good an account of herself as possible in the circumstances - was pushed to the margins. According to my sums, parties with eurosceptic policies amassed almost 60% of the vote at the June elections, not 25%.

Blowing the Whistle

Did anyone else read Nick Cohen’s disturbing piece about whistleblower Derek Pasquill. He is bringing a case of unfair dismissal (hopeless) against the FCO. It isn’t true to say that the BBC hasn’t reported this subject, they have. But they focus on the ethics of whistleblowing itself rather than what was ‘blown.’ Things more scandalous than several duck houses and home-flippings put together. Putting aside the fact that many people are skeptical about whether there can be truly moderate Muslims, if there really are, it would undoubtedly be a good thing. After all, Muslims have fitted into U.S. society without all the difficulties we have here. Our government recognises the necessity of befriending the Muslims it deliberately brought here. But rather than encouraging and supporting moderates they have chosen to appease and support the likes of the extreme MCB. It seems Jack “I-come-from-immigrants” Straw was complicit in all this. Sitting there on the QT panel telling us all about that, he looked half deflated; likely to shrivel up altogether at any moment. Hazel Blears was beginning to get it. She made a stand, then she was sacrificed in the expenses row. Instead of debating the morality of whistleblowing, shouldn’t the BBC be debating the morality of appeasing, funding and fêting extreme Islamists?

NUTT OUT

The BBC, of course, loves the idea of liberalising the drug laws, or better still, making hard drugs legal so that the boys and girls at White City can have oodles of their favourite white powder and waccy baccy. So when Alan Johnson - under pressure from dear Gordon - sacks Professor David Nutt for over-stepping his brief and lobbying to have cannabis re-classified (again) as a class 'C' drug, there's no question where their loyalties lie. The whole row is cast as a matter of freedom of expression and opinion, with batteries of experts wheeled out to say a) that Professor Nutt is a jolly good all-round egg and scientist who should be allowed to say what he wants, and b)the government is being repressive. Naturally, in support of the good professor in the BBC's coverage are charities such as Drugscope and Release, which for years have been pressing for legalisation of all kinds of drugs, and who believe that methadone is a 'cure' for heroin addiction.  But what's completely missing from the equation is any consideration that Professor Nutt and his colleagues have been a joke for years because the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs - which he chaired - has been hijacked by liberals like him. Also, that - although Alan Johnson has actually done something right for once - the whole of the government's policy towards illegal drug use is a shambles, and it is they that caused the current climate of ill-judged and highly dangerous liberalism.

Party Posturing (Part 2)

>> FRIDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2009

Credit where credit is due. Following Today's attempted ambush of William Hague yesterday over the alleged Nazi sympathies of Michael Kaminski, the leader of Poland's Law and Justice Party who are the Conservative party's new European allies, the programme invited on this morning Michael Shudrich, Poland's chief rabbi, to clarify whether or not - as David Miliband alleged yesterday - he believed Mr Kaminski was anti-semitic. Very cooly and precisely, Mr Shudrich said that, although Mr Kaminski had in his youth belonged to a neo-Nazi party, he had long since moved on and was now strongly pro-Isreal and "anti anti-semitic"in his beliefs. Not only that, again despite what Mr Miliband disgracefully alleged, the Law and Justice Party was not right-extremist (ie racist), but a respectable centre-right party. So the programme definitely went out of its way - by tracking Mr Shudrich down to be interviewed - to demonstrate that David Miliband's claims were preposterous. However, and there is always a big 'however' when the BBC finds something that supports a view to the right of centre, Nick Robinson came in on the act at the end to say that - despite the clarification over Poland -problems still were in store over the new Conservative grouping in the European Parliament, because there were big (unspecified) questions about the Latvians, another member of the new group. The menacing innuendo in his claims was so strong that he virtually nullified all that had been said by the chief rabbi.