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  Thank you for your comments. Bring on spring!

  I'm not entirely sure that the BBC's World Affairs Editor John Simpson always realises quite how unhelpful he's being to the BBC as far as its 'reputation for impartiality' goes.  I think that's because he lives in bubbles, and his bubbles - the BBC, Twitter and his social circle - overlap far too much, like overly intimate Venn diagrams.  Here he is today  dropping a BBC Two documentary in it: I’ve just finished watching the BBC’s excellent series ‘ Trump Takes On The World ‘, and am reminded of what a very senior British diplomat said to me in 2016: ‘This man is a total buffoon. If he gets elected, we’re all going to regret it.’ 

It happens every year. It's as traditional as cheese-rolling in Gloucestershire. Andrew Marr invites on the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the Chief Secretary to the Treasury BEFORE the Budget, asks him lots of specific questions about things that might be in the Budget and receives response after response along the lines of 'Sorry, I can't answer that. You'll have to wait for the Budget on Wednesday', leading to Andrew getting frustrated. Crazy thought: Why not interview the Chancellor of the Exchequer AFTER the Budget?

I wasn't looking at the TV during Andrew Marr's introduction this morning , just listening, but when he described one of his guests as "redoubtable" - "Georgia's redoubtable Stacey Abrams" - I guessed she'd be a female politician of color. Someone else tweeted , "We’re in the middle of a pandemic. The economy is trashed. But here’s a black female senator from Georgia to polish our virtue signalling. Aren’t we great?" Andrew asked Ms Abrams such tough questions as this: You've been called the woman who brought down Donald Trump, and because of what happened in Georgia, you have been a hero to many Democrats ever since. Let me ask you, has Joe Biden actually spoken to you since then? So, how did it feel for you personally when you saw Kamala Harris take the oath of office as vice-president? Finally, how long before we see a female American president, and do you see yourself in the White House one day? 

  Andrew Marr's public sector instincts leaked out this morning during the paper review. BBC reporter Nick Eardley was reading from a Sir John Redwood piece in the Mail on Sunday  that argues that low taxes stimulate growth and Andrew read out the headline - It's a simple law of nature - and laughed derisively. 

  (h/t JunkkMale) "Tweet in haste, delete soon after" is becoming quite the BBC thing.  Senior BBC reporter Anthony Zurcher is the latest to embarrass himself - though unlike, say, Emily Maitlis or Lewis Goodall, at least he, The Zurch (as 'Sopes & Maitlis' call him), had the decency to acknowledge that he'd deleted them after an error on his part.  In summary , the BBC man thought he'd doggone gone and gotten himself a mighty fine anti-Trump 'gotcha'.  He thought he spotted a modified, Trump-supporting Confederate flag at a Republican rally in Orlando and posted a string of tweets about the flag's history as "the white man's banner", with all that applies for the Trump supporters at that rally, only for others to go and spoil it all by pointing out that it was actually a Christian flag "that had gotten partially wrapped around its poll".  If this kind of thing continues, "Tweet in haste, delete soon after&q

Clicking into Twitter this morning the first thing I saw was Jeremy Bowen riding to the defence of a BBC sports journalist, Sonja McLaughlan.  She's been in the eye of a Twitter storm following her post-match interview with England rugby captain Owen Farrell after England's shock 40-23 defeat to Wales yesterday . She had later tweeted : Toxic, embarrassing, disgraceful, appalling. Just some of the feedback I’ve had. Thanks for using @ sign so it’s all hit home.  Now imagine getting inundated with abuse for doing your job.  In my car crying. Hope you’re happy. Jeremy Bowen replied : I thought it was a good interview. Sonja McLaughlan asked the right questions, the ones on everyone’s minds. Sometimes sports interviewing is way too deferential. This wasn’t. Many others rode to her support, though lots also continued to take issue with her interview .  Here's one of those taking issue in a constructive way :  thedeadballarea:  The Sonja McLaughlin incid

Did you know that President Joe Biden has already bombed Syria?  It's something that could easily have been missed if your relied on BBC TV/radio news.  Here's  Rod Liddle in The Sunday Times this morning:  Joe Biden’s kinder, gentler America fired a number of missiles into Syria last week, killing an estimated 22 people. I assume it was some kind of goodwill gesture towards foreigners. Certainly that’s how it was reported by the BBC. Whenever Trump did anything similar it was presented as “fascist madman murders civilians and starts Third World War”. That sounds like the sort of thing the BBC would do, but did they? I've searched via TV Eyes and I can only find one reference to the US airstrikes on Syria on BBC One or BBC Two or the BBC News Channel, at around 5am on Friday morning - which is quite some feat of under-reporting.     I see Radio 4 reported the US strikes though, intermittently, throughout Friday and Saturday. Except for a brief mention during a

It's intriguing watching the changes to the BBC News website report   Anas Sarwar wins Scottish Labour leadership race  ( via Newssniffer ). The BBC is getting itself in its usual tangle over race and language. Version 7 saw two paragraphs change. One changed from: Mr Sarwar, who is the first minority ethnic leader of a major political party in the UK, got 57.6% of the vote, while Ms Lennon got 42.4%. to: Mr Sarwar, who is the first non-white leader of a major political party in the UK, got 57.6% of the vote, while Ms Lennon got 42.4%. The other changed from: On becoming the first minority ethnic leader of a major political party in the UK, Mr Sarwar said: "That doesn't say something about me. That says something great about Scotland and its people." to: On becoming the first non-white leader of a major political party in the UK, Mr Sarwar said: "That doesn't say something about me. That says something great about Scotland and its people."

  This comment from Jeremy Vine's nemesis LunchTimeLoather on the Open Thread needs a post of its own (especially for readers new to the blog and just passing by and merely glancing at posts): LunchTimeLoather : New Year's Eve seems a distant memory now, but some will remember Nish Kumar's remarks about Nigel Farage on the Graham Norton show . Jeremy Hayes, BBC Complaints Director, told me this week: "I think there is little doubt that it would be regarded as offensive by Mr Farage but the test here is, I think, whether it could be said to breach generally accepted standards, taking into account that the programme was broadcast very late in the evening to an audience of adults. Not everyone appreciates Mr Kumar’s sense of humour, which is often targeted at politicians and can be quite brutal. Having reviewed the programme I do not think his jibe can be regarded as so extreme as to breach generally accepted standards and I am therefore not upholding your complaint.

  How well we know some BBC reporters!  I read a prediction this morning that the BBC's Nick Bryant, reporting from New York for From Our Own Correspondent , would... ...be doing his best to avoid the Cuomo scandal and other similar ‘stuff em in nursing homes to make hospital stats look good’ scandals in other states... ...even though he'd be reporting on Covid's impact on New York City. Kate Adie's introduction led to me into thinking this might prove incorrect as she said, in passing, "Could it have been handled better, with the governor Andrew Cuomo coming in for criticism?" But no, though he did talk about the impact of the disease and the lockdown on the city, Nick Bryant never mentioned Governor Cuomo or the nursing home scandal.  He didn't even allude to them.  The only politician he had a pop at was...guess who?...yes, Donald Trump.  Very Nick Bryant!

  I see a dark Twitter storm gathered around BBC News's Scotland Editor Sarah Smith overnight with the usual calls for her sacking.  (The inevitable hashtags like #resignsarahsmith and #SackSarahSmith are trending). In fairness, the complainants had something substantial to complain about. She made a horrendous mistake at the start of yesterday's BBC One News at Six, saying: Alex Salmond said he believes Nicola Sturgeon has misled Parliament and broken the ministerial code, which he thinks means she should resign .  I actually spent the start of my weekend last night watching, on catch-up, the whole of Alex Salmond's appearance at the Scottish Parliament select committee. The last few hours of it were particularly gripping. So I know for a fact that Mr Salmond went out of his way throughout  not to say that Ms Sturgeon should resign but to say that that's a matter for others to judge. Therefore, it simply beggars belief that a BBC journalist of the standing and

  An interesting little exchange here between Conservative former Scotland minister Lord (Michael) Forsyth and the BBC's Scotland political editor Glenn Campbell: Lord Forsyth : How can Glen   Campbell (BBC ) say we learned nothing new. We listened for nearly 6 hours to a measured  account backed with documentary evidence of how Alex Salmond came to make his devastating charges against the Scottish Government and the committee struggled to challenge him. Glenn Campbell : Because I have followed closely all the written evidence submitted in advance. That is not to say that Alex Salmond did not articulate his case well - he certainly did. Levi Stubbs : I learned loads. This isn't about Glenn Campbell learning something new. It's about the public learning something new.

  Champagne may be being readied at the BBC with  the news that Ofcom wants to give the corporation much greater freedom  to set their own programming targets free from the 148 quotas which presently require them to provide certain amounts of public service programmes - i.e. arts, religion, documentaries, etc.  This would allow the BBC to to set it own targets and mark its own homework, and to use its £3.5 billion a year in licence fee funding to become even more like its commercial rivals and even less like a public service broadcaster. Last Saturday, BBC One viewers saw  Celebrity Mastermind  followed by  Celebrity Catchpoint  followed by  Celebrity The Wall  followed by  Pointless Celebrities . With any luck, thanks to Ofcom, they could soon be enjoying  Celebrity BBC Weekend News  read by Michael McIntyre. The news department could select ten stories to cover and 'spin the wheel' to decide which ones are covered and the order they're covered. BBC reporters like Mark

  In  The Times  this week   Patrick Kidd risked making readers' eyebrows "do ‘WTF’" by writing: In four years of covering Donald Trump, Jon Sopel had to try to maintain impartiality in the face of absurdity. “My eyebrow has learnt to do ‘WTF’, ” the BBC’s man in Washington told an Intelligence Squared event. Well, he didn't try very hard, did he? Patrick continued:  Now, he is almost missing the orange peril. “I feel like I’ve had four years of a daily fix of crack cocaine and I’m now moving over to a half of shandy,” he said. “There’s a degree of cold turkey in the transition.” We predicted that 'yes man' journalism under the Biden administration wouldn't be as much fun for him. What a shame! Still, he's always got his books to flog. 

  This takes me back to my youth, when you'd often hear people railing at the Americanisation of British children's TV - indeed, the Americanisation of everything.  Those were the days of  Scooby-Doo,   The Huckleberry Hound Show ,  The Yogi Bear Show ,  Wacky Races ,  Captain Caveman  & many others.  Here in 2021  the BBC's director of BBC Children's & Education Patricia Hidalgo says she wants this Americanisation sharply reversed .  She aims to make BBC children's TV, especially cartoons, more British "or, at least, European" and dreams of creating an "amazing" version of  The Simpsons  for children and families in the UK: What I think we can do is set our characters in a British setting, or at least European. When I’m talking now [in meetings], I’m saying, what about roast beef instead of turkey? We should be thinking about these things. Children grow up with these cultures. Why not infuse more of our culture? All the newspaper c

  The BBC is forever campaigning about something. I noticed this in passing in The Times : The amateur gardening sector is also under pressure to stop using peat. Gardeners' World , the influential BBC show, consistently encourages people to switch to alternatives, with presenter Monty Don campaigning on the issue.

  Trevor Phillips hit the nail firmly on the head this week,  writing in  The Times :  Outrage at the BBC‘s Emma Barnett for the crime of asking a self-styled Muslim leader how many female imams there are in Britain — a query similar to that addressed to Catholic leaders for decades — displays the same exaggerated regard for cultural “keep out” signs. The apparent capitulation by her bosses to social media clamour betrays a lack of self-confidence in an elite that genuflects (these days, often literally) to diversity. They will do almost anything to avoid calling attention to their own uniformity of social class, ethnicity and political outlook. I don’t think it is true of the BBC’s new boss, Tim Davie, but often the mask of compassion hides simple cowardice. Is he being too charitable to Tim Davie there though?  

  I much preferring reading reviews of TV dramas these days to watching those dramas. My loss maybe, or maybe not. Anyhow, here are two Times reviews of BBC One's latest moody drama, first from Carol Midgley : I watched the first half of Bloodlands , possibly like you, with a sense of “been here, done this” ennui. James Nesbitt was a brooding, sad-faced detective with a tragic backstory (tick). He was put on a case that he thought was connected to another (highly sensitive) one, but was told to “just leave it. It’s in the past” (tick). That case involved his murdered wife (“She’s gone. Nothing’s gonna bring her back”) and now he was on an angry mission to solve it (tick). Pass the déjà vu tablets, I think we’re going to need them. The second came from Camilla Long and was slightly less charitable: What is even more embarrassing than having produced Bloodlands , the most lumpen, graceless, cheapest cop drama in living memory? The answer is: scheduling it in the same week a

  Subscribe Ana Bel Lee (1926 – 2000) Wedding. Tubman Museum (ARTFIX daily .com)  On March 5, 2021, the  Tubman Museum  will open an exhibition titled  A Mighty Chorus: Black Women   Artists from the Tubman Museum Collection .  The exhibit will feature works by local African American women artists from the Tubman museum collection with a special focus on the works of Nellie Mae Rowe and Anna Belle Lee Washington, also known as Ana Bel Lee. After the death of her second husband in 1948, Nellie Mae Rowe (1900 – 1982) spent the rest of her life creating an extensive and important collection of art.  She transformed her home in the Vinings neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia into what she called her “playhouse.” The house was decorated on the inside with boldly colorful drawings illustrating her personal mythology.  The outside of the home was decorated with objects hung from the trees and fences.  Rowe also expressed her creativity by making stuffed dolls, one of whic

Here's the BBC's diplomatic correspondent James Landale this afternoon  marking a moment of history for his country: A slice of diplomatic history at lunchtime when Boris Johnson chairs UN security council. Last UK PM to do so was John Major in 1992. That was the first time the UNSC had sat at head of state level. Also round the table were Presidents Bush, Mitterrand & Yeltsin.  And here he is again, a little later, trying to shame his own country's PM : So, after all that, Boris Johnson bunked off early , having chaired the council for less than an hour & listened to only 5 speakers, handing over to Dominic Raab. I wonder what the other contributors - including heads of government & John Kerry - thought about that? #diplomacy My questions: Is the BBC's diplomatic correspondent saying that the UK PM is lazy here? (It certainly sounds like it. And may be true. But...) Why is he stirring the pot against his own country's PM? Why even raise such que

 A n outstanding group of modern drawings by European and American masters assembled by the late collector Howard Karshan has been presented to The Courtauld by his wife, the artist Linda Karshan. It is one of the most significant gifts of art to The Courtauld in a generation. Cézanne, Kandinsky, Klee & Richter among major gift to the Courtauld Wassily Kandinsky, Untitled, 1916. Brush and India ink on paper, 15.8 x 23.4 cm. The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust) Gift by Linda Karshan in memory of her husband, Howard Karshan © Georg Baselitz. Photo © The Courtauld. Living between London and New York, Howard and Linda formed a preeminent collection of modern drawings. Collecting with great discernment and passion, the drawings were an essential part of their lives for more than half a century. A carefully chosen group of 25 works on paper by leading artists of the modern and post-war period, which lay at the heart of their collection, forms this gener

  Flowers from Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh. Photo not taken by either Mr Salmond or Ms Sturgeon . Thank you for your comments and support. Please keep them coming, if you wish...

Those who enjoy reading BBC Executive Complaints Unit findings that go against the BBC  are in for a treat here .  This one concerns an edition of BBC Radio 2's The Jeremy Vine Show on 6 October 2020 and an interview between the host and Andrew Marr. Here's how the BBC summarises the complaint:  The programme included an interview with Andrew Marr about his book “Elizabethans: How Modern Britain Was Forged” in which he referred to one of its subjects, Jayaben Desai, who was involved in the prolonged strike at Grunwick in 1976. The son of the late George Ward, the owner of Grunwick, complained that the discussion repeated statement about Mr Ward’s treatment of his workforce which were in conflict with the findings of the inquiry conducted by Lord Scarman, and for which the BBC had apologised when they were broadcast on previous occasions. The ECU considered the complaint in the light of the BBC’s editorial standards of due accuracy. What's so striking there is that

  Thanks to Stew for helping to update an earlier post with something even more remarkable.  BBC - "The unbroken thread of fascism in Britain"  looked at a new Radio 4 series which claims that this country has had "an unbroken thread of fascism", despite us being about far more resistant to fascism than most European countries.  The remarkable thing is that the BBC actually toned this down.  They did it via a stealth edit.  Here's what it was: And here's what it became: That first version, stating that fascism is " central " to this country's history rather than an "alien import" may be the biggest lie the BBC has told yet in their attempt to denigrate their own country. Fascism has always been marginal.

  One of the major BBC-related stories of the week has been the furore over Emma Barnett's Woman's Hour interview with the new female head of the Muslim Council of Britain Zara Mohammed - something you've already discussed in the comments. It's a remarkable story.  Emma has really hit the ground running when it comes to hitting the newspaper headlines since taking over at main host of  Woman's Hour  from Jane and Dame Jenni.  She's become 'controversial'. But here Emma Barnett only did what feminist BBC presenters have been doing for decades, albeit not towards Muslims. She asked and pushed exactly the same kind of questions, in much the same kind of persistent way, that BBC Radio 4 presenters (among myriad BBC others) have pushed with no small amount of vigour for at least a couple of decades about the lack of Catholic women priests and senior Anglican women bishops: 'How many are they? Shouldn't there be more? Shouldn't you be doing

I'm seeking your advice please. Which would you prefer as a comments system for the blog?  Should we revert to Blogger? Should we stick with Disqus? It's a tricky matter. We lost people when we moved to Disqus but might regain them now. But we also gained people when we moved to Disqus but might lose them now. (How's that for impartial questioning?)

I'd seriously urge you to read two outstanding pieces before considering Andrew Neil's questions, as they provide all the necessary background and are much more about the BBC's role in the story than you might guess from their headlines: Effie Deans :  It's absurd to imagine there was a conspiracy The Scotsman :  Don't blame MSPs who try to get at the Sturgeon-Salmond truth - Brian Wilson What happened this week is that BBC Scotland interviewed one of the women who accused Alex Salmond.  This has caused some consternation, given that Mr Salmond was cleared by a jury. And critics say that the BBC interviewer, Glenn Campbell, basically let her have a free run at Mr Salmond. Effie Deans  puts The Big Question in a nutshell: "The BBC acts as if Salmond were guilty even though he was acquitted. Why else interview someone the jury did not believe?" She writes:  The BBC are supposed to be impartial, but it is quite clear not merely from this interview b

  If this blog becomes nothing but sponsored ads then maybe we'll need Andrew Neil to launch Andrew Neil's Is the BBC biased?   He seems to be limbering up already . This was him on Thursday: Should the state play a bigger role post-pandemic? Good question. BBC R4  Today  just devoted its prime post-0800 slot to it.  Three guests - all in favour of bigger, more active government. The consensus was never challenged. BBC diversity of opinion in action.

  William Clouston, leader of the SDP, was looking at a new three-part Radio 4 series  earlier called Britain's Fascist Thread . The one-line summary on the BBC website says, "Camilla Schofield explores the unbroken thread of fascism in Britain."  William then tweeted : Only the BBC could commission a programme promulgating the 'Britishness of Fascism'.  Lacking a sense of proportion, it's an insult to fellow citizens who at first mocked Fascism, then rejected it and finally fought and died to defeat it. Fascism has never escaped the fringes in the UK, unlike in most European countries.  We can be immensely proud of that, whatever the BBC says.

The Metropolitan Museum of Ar March 22 through August 1, 2021 Guggenheim Bilbao September 17, 2021–January 23, 2022 Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco March 12, 2022–July 10, 2022 Alice Neel (America, 1900-1984).  Geoffrey Hendricks and Brian , 1978. Oil on canvas. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Purchase, by exchange, through an anonymous gift. © The Estate of Alice Neel "For me, people come first. I have tried to assert the dignity and eternal importance of the human being."—Alice Neel, 1950 Alice Neel: People Come First  is the first museum retrospective in New York of American artist Alice Neel (1900–1984) in 20 years. This ambitious, career-spanning survey at The Met positions Neel as one of the century's most radical painters, a champion of social justice whose longstanding commitment to humanist principles inspired her life as well as her art, as demonstrated in the survey's approximately 100 paintings, dra