Such a dumb move by Gag The Beebers
MORE than 70 MPs have sent a letter to the BBC threatening its existence unless it bans negative reports on Brexit.
As I read it, I genuinely thought it was a Comic Relief stunt which would end with this... “PS: Only kidding. We just wanted to let you hear how Britain really would sound under Nazi rule, unlike your recent drama series SS:GB when no one caught a word due to all the mumbling.”
But it was no joke. The 72 overwhelmingly fanatical Leave backers, really do think that whenever the BBC examines the potential pitfalls of leaving the EU, it does so because it’s stuffed with sore-losing lefties hellbent on defying “the will of the British people”.
The Gag The Beeb 72 feel passionately that our state broadcaster has “skewed” good economic news since the referendum, which I’m guessing refers to soaring shares. Even though that has been widely reported, but with the rider that it’s got a lot to do with the pound crashing 20% since last June due to fears over Brexit, meaning most FTSE 100 firms who are valued in dollars, have become a lot richer.
Ironically, these veritable guardians of the truth gave no examples of this bias, which is the kind of bog standard journalism they accuse BBC journalists of. But when you don’t believe in expert research any more, that’s no surprise.
This ignorant hysteria typifies a wider belief, mainly on the right, that because slightly more than half of voters chose to leave the EU, anyone harbouring doubts about their wisdom is a traitor. Those not singing from the Jacob Rees-Mogg hymn sheet about the glorious uplands God is guiding us to are “Enemies Of The People”, like the judges who ruled Parliament should have its say on how we tear up 43 years of complex treaties.
So we don’t want to hear about banks re-locating staff to Frankfurt, airlines being told they must move their HQs to an EU country to have access to major routes, NHS staff shortages, inflation on the rise because the pound has bombed, or that 27 member states are itching to kick our negotiators’ jacksies back across the Channel to make an example of us. That’s just Project Fear II.
This risible letter is clearly a shot across the BBC’s bows as we enter what could be a hellish couple of years, when the logic of leaving the EU will at times be heavily attacked, and so it warns them, Big Brother-style, that they’re being watched.
We should be genuinely outraged on its behalf because the BBC’s broadcasting journalism is consistently peerless. Indeed, the one notable drop in its standards came during the EU referendum, when its insistence on being even-handed meant that some of the big lies churned out by the Leave camp (such as sending £350million a week back to the NHS) weren’t properly challenged for fear of looking biased.
And how, currently, could the BBC tell the nation that everything is going to turn out brilliantly, when the politicians charged with delivering that outrageously over-optimistic reading of the future won’t give them any details about how they intend to achieve it.
The best response to this Nazi-style dictat came from Nick Robinson, who tweeted: “Do not adjust your set. Normal service from the BBC means you will hear people you disagree with say things you don’t like. That’s our job.”
I’d have gone further and said, if you don’t like the truth, choose to leave the UK as you’ve chosen to leave Europe. And head to Trumpland.
Where there’s no fake news. Ever.
We should be outraged as BBC’s journalism is peerless