THE BBC interviewed an Iranian lunatic this week.
Nothing wrong with that. It is always interesting to hear what Iranian lunatics have to say. Although it is often very familiar — an anti-Semitic diatribe against Israel.
This one was no different. On the Today programme, Mohammad Marandi from the University of Tehran — probably in their prestigious Department of Bearded Islamist Nutters — told the audience how awful the Jews were.
Mo really got into his swing. He described Jews as “the chosen people” and that they practised “ethno- supremacism”. And that they thought they had “exceptional rights”.
Just to spice it up a little he described Gaza as a holocaust.
The remarkable thing is that the BBC interviewer, Mishal Husain, failed totally to challenge these offensive absurdities.
She just let the grizzled old thug chunter on with his attack.
This interview enraged our Jewish community.
The historian Simon Schama described it as “appallingly offensive” and “anti-Semitic abuse”.
The historian Simon Sebag Montefiore said it was “lies, libels and conspiracy theories”.
The only surprise is that people were surprised, really. Since the Hamas savages launched their murderous assault on young Israelis a year ago, the BBC has been guilty of unrelenting, systematic bias.
Don’t take my word for it. Check out an independent report compiled by two people who used to work at the BBC — Danny Cohen and the ex- governess Ruth Deech.
They detailed scores of occasions in which the corporation had misrepresented Israel. This included refusing to refer to Hamas as terrorists — and on some occasions calling them simply “Resistance”.
On one occasion, the report stated: “The BBC incorrectly reported that Israeli soldiers had been ‘targeting’ medical teams and Arab speakers as they hunted Hamas terrorists in a hospital, when instead they actually had brought medical teams and Arab speakers with them to help the patients during the military operation.”
It doesn’t help, of course, that the BBC’s coverage has been full of tendentious reporting by employees of the BBC’s Arabic service.
Some of these were seemingly Palestinian activists, living in the West Bank and Gaza.
But, of course, there is also the fact that the domestic journos have a certain view about this conflict in the Middle East.
And it is a view that does not look kindly on Israel. In other words the corporation is deeply biased, from top to toe.
The BBC is biased on a whole bunch of stuff, of course.
It was hideously biased on the issue of Brexit, for example. And independent investigations proved that bias.
People who wish to be treated to a barrage of loaded, left-wing opinions, can subscribe
Rod Liddle
It is also biased on issues such as transgenderism, immigration and race.
But this last year has seen Auntie really excel.
It has been 12 months of deeply prejudiced reporting, which has outraged the Board of Jewish Deputies and estranged the Jewish community in the UK.
And we have the reports to prove it.
But, do you know what? The BBC doesn’t give a monkey’s.
It will do with Danny Cohen and Ruth Deech’s report exactly what is has done with all previous reports that suggest they are biased. Chuck it in the bin.
It seems pretty clear to me that the only solution is to privatise the BBC. Then people who wish to be treated to a barrage of loaded, left-wing opinions, can subscribe.
And the rest of us can get on with our lives knowing we’re not sponsoring anti-Semitism.
THE Iranians are waiting to see how Israel reacts to their bombardment of the country. A bombardment which, incidentally, reportedly killed only one person — a Palestinian bloke.
And we are all watching to see if this is the start of the next world war.
Don’t be too sure. My guess is that Israel will strike at some of Iran’s nuke sites. Good! But won’t go much further than that.
I don’t think either side wishes to broaden the current conflict.
SO, how did you enjoy watching Phil Schofield marooned on an island?
Listen, I watched it so you didn’t have to. And I can tell you, it was execrable.
Has there ever been a more self-pitying, self-righteous and bitter individual?
The only thing that seemed to motivate him to carry on living was the possibility of sticking the boot into his former colleagues. Because they didn’t “stand by” him.
They didn’t stand by you because they were repelled, matey.
He also said he’s never going to sit on a sofa again. I assume this meant on a TV show rather than in his front room, but whatever.
We’ll struggle by, Phil. Who next for the Cast Away treatment? Huw Edwards?
JUST when you thought the US election couldn’t get any worse, along comes Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.
He is Kamala Harris’s running mate and will probably soon be Vice-President.
He seemed to me, in this week’s debate, to be a dissembling, jabbering half-wit.
He has long claimed that he was in China when the Tiananmen Square massacre took place. But he has now admitted he was actually in Nebraska. “I misspoke,” he explained.
He has also made claims about his US military service record where he also “misspoke”.
Just to be clear, Tim – it’s called “lying”.
Harris and Walz leading the Free World. What could possibly go wrong?
LABOUR is considering ways in which our useless universities might be saved from going bankrupt.
One possibility is to hike the cost of tuition fees for students.
It would be a disgrace if Labour does do this.
A huge fraud has been perpetrated on our young people. Get yourselves massively into debt by studying for a degree in gender studies that will make you almost completely unemployable.
If Labour is serious about reforming our colleges, it should shut half of them down. And pour the money into apprenticeships and on- the-job training.
AS we teeter on the edge of World War Three, I’ve been trying to find some sympathy for the Brits stuck in Lebanon.
There’s more than 10,000 of them.
What are they doing there?
One bloke was on the TV demanding our government send in flights to evacuate them all. He said: “I’ve got a young family. It’s dangerous!”
Yes, mate. It’s Lebanon.
Why would you bring up a young family in one of the most dangerous countries in the world?
Demanding a flight because you’ve suddenly realised Lebanon is dangerous is a bit like demanding to be evacuated from Nepal because you’ve suddenly realised it’s a bit hilly.
THE Tories are getting very excited about who it is going to elect as a new leader.
Hmmm. Here’s the problem.
Whenever a party gets kicked out of office in humiliating fashion, it takes at least three leaders before they become electable again.
This was the case with Labour after 1979 and the Tories after 1997.
I can pretty much guarantee that whoever they choose this time will never be Prime Minister.
AN anti-immigration right-wing party has just swept the board in the Austrian elections.
But the Freedom Party, led by Herbert Kickl, below, is going to have trouble forming a government, because none of the other parties will work with it.
And that is the way in which EU countries have continually kept the populist right out of power – by effectively excluding them from the democratic process.
TORY leadership hopeful Kemi Badenoch has suggested that ten per cent of our civil servants are neither use nor ornament. And she’s taken some flak for those comments.
Just ten per cent, though, Kemi?
I’d put the figure nearer 50 per cent.
