While the Beeb sneers, Trump enjoys the tweet smell of success
During the 2004 u.S. elections, the guardian encouraged readers to send letters to American voters in swing states such as Ohio, with a handwritten plea to evict the republican President george W. Bush.
‘Being from Britain ought to give you a certain leverage,’ the paper blithely declared, adding that, unless prompted by concerned guardianistas, some Americans might not vote at all.
inexplicably, folk in the Land of the Free seemed to resent being addressed as rednecks too dumb to be trusted with their own political opinions. They backed Bush in even greater numbers.
Three elections later, it was that same insufferable smugness on the Left that helped Donald Trump to power, when his rival Hillary Clinton dismissed his supporters as ‘a basket of deplorables’. And even now, the BBC has not learned the lesson: Trump In Tweets (BBC2) was one long condescending sneer at his online outbursts.
This documentary bombarded us with dozens of The Donald’s most offensive, combative and illiterate tweets. it highlighted the ones that were gibberish, where he appeared to have fallen asleep while typing a nonsense word such as ‘covfefe’.
it raked up his attacks on celebrities — calling Bette Midler ‘a washed-up psycho’ and warning Cher to ‘stop with the bad plastic surgery’. All this built to a denunciation of the north Korea crisis in 2017, when many feared Trump would provoke a nuclear conflict with his Twitter taunts to Kim Jong-un, alias ‘Little rocket Man’.
Former White House director of communications Anthony Scaramucci savaged Trump, telling the film-makers: ‘He might not have early stage dementia but he has early stage Fascism.’
The BBC, though it is supposed to be politically impartial as our state broadcaster, cannot hide its delight at comments like that. To provide ‘balance’, it also included an interview with a largely unknown rapper called Bryson gray, who offered up some faint praise: ‘He’s definitely the funniest President we have had. it’s fun to watch.’
Trump’s appeal is beyond the comprehension of anyone at Broadcasting House. They can only imagine his supporters are doing it for giggles. This documentary cannot have any effect on the outcome of elections in four months’ time on the other side of the Atlantic. But as long as the Corporation keeps exhibiting its ingrained sense of superiority, by mocking Trump and the tens of millions who voted for him, it can only harm itself. Auntie, don’t be a snob.
There was more than a hint of snobbishness in the storytelling style of Rockfield: The Studio On
The Farm (BBC4), with its plinkyplonk piano soundtrack and silly cartoon graphics. The idea that some of pop’s greatest hits were recorded here, while the owners trundled round on a tractor, struck director Hannah Berryman as preposterous.
To me, the Welsh border countryside seems the perfect backdrop for the creation of masterpieces such as Bohemian rhapsody. it makes complete sense that noel gallagher wrote Wonderwall while perched on a farmyard wall outside Monmouth, or that Coldplay came up with Yellow after stargazing on the edge of the Wye Valley.
Kingsley Ward and his brother Charles set up the studios in their barns after an audition with george Martin, the Beatles producer, failed to ignite their own pop career. This 90-minute history skirted round tensions between the brothers, and didn’t manage to land a chat with Brian May or roger Taylor of Queen.
But it made for a pleasantly eccentric parade of rock trivia.