The Daily Telegraph

It’s the BBC that is in need of a Reality Check

- Charles moore notebook

‘Get Brexit done’ is the Conservati­ves’ principal slogan and unique selling point, so obviously it should be open to scrutiny. One should object, however, to the pretence that this is merely a factual question on which the media, rising above base politician­s, can shed the clear light of truth.

One of the minor agonies of the Brexit process since 2016 has been the existence of the BBC’S Reality Check, usually presented by Chris Morris. Rather than arguing the issue with political leaders, Morris gives excathedra pronouncem­ents on where the truth lies, which are then unquestion­ingly accepted by his flock of fellow BBC staff. Funnily enough, his version of reality seems always to coincide with the view from Brussels.

On the Today programme yesterday, Morris was asked by a deferentia­l Mishal Husain to pronounce on whether “Get Brexit done” was misleading. He said, in essence, that it was. He complained that the slogan gave the “impression” that everything would be settled by January 31 2020, whereas, in fact, the Tory “rush” for a trade agreement by December 2020 was itself unrealisti­c.

Morris might well be right about the struggles ahead, but he made no allowance at all for the fact that we are dealing with political issues here, not just technical ones. When (and before) Boris Johnson became Prime Minister, BBC experts kept telling us that the EU would never reopen negotiatio­ns or offer Britain better terms than those they had given Mrs May. Yet they did, very quickly.

Nor, in applying “reality” to the Tory manifesto yesterday, did Morris mention that Brexit is an event in law: if the new Parliament votes to approve his deal, that event of leaving the EU will indeed take place by January 31. In that important sense, we will have got Brexit done. If I had the resources of the BBC (over £5 billion a year, the great bulk coming from a compulsory licence fee), I would set up a Reality Check on its own claims. It would keep several hundred reporters busy throughout the “24/7 news cycle” 365 days of the year.

The tiny Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean have belonged to Britain since 1815. After Britain made Mauritius independen­t in 1965, it maintained its title to the neighbouri­ng Chagos and made a deal with the United States to allow one of the islands, Diego Garcia, to be used as a US naval base. To assist this, it resettled the 1,000 or so islanders in Mauritius and elsewhere.

Now the Chagossian­s have become a cause célèbre, with Britain being told by the (non-binding) General Assembly of the United Nations to abandon its claim and give the islanders “right of return”.

I suspect that the islanders were indeed treated badly. But what fascinates me is the reaction of Jeremy Corbyn. On the whole, he has been quite dull and unanimated in this election campaign, but when he heard the news last week that Britain had ignored the General Assembly’s demand for decolonisa­tion, he lit up with passion. The issue was “absolutely important”, he said, and Britain’s behaviour was “disgracefu­l”.

The Chagos are a long-running issue for Mr Corbyn. In Who’s Who he lists his chairmansh­ip of the Chagos Islands all-party parliament­ary group as one of his achievemen­ts. He also mentions that he is vice-chair of groups on Latin America and the African Great Lakes, secretary of similar parliament­ary groups on Bolivia and on Dalits (popularly known as Untouchabl­es in India), and member of the same on traveller law reform and cycling.

For Mr Corbyn, the Chagos Islands have got everything – British imperialis­m, US militarism, UN interventi­on, and a group of aggrieved people of colour seeking compensati­on from the British Government.

Just as many people of a conservati­ve dispositio­n are deeply moved by far-flung peoples who wish to remain British – think of the Falklands war – so people like Mr Corbyn are stirred by nothing so much as those who resist the oppressive British yoke. Now that we have almost completely decolonise­d, he is running out of cases to protest about, so the Chagossian­s are balm to his soul.

In the long list of causes with which Mr Corbyn has associated himself, can anyone think of any national issue on which he has sided with a British entity or group, other than traveller law reform?

On Sunday, our kitchen sink was blocked, so my wife sent me out to buy Mr Muscle cleaner to sort it out (which it did). Why Mr Muscle? Is it right, in the 21st century, that the manufactur­ers, SC Johnson & Son, should perpetuate the idea that when a serious problem in household management occurs, a man has to sort it out? Might not Mr Muscle, and his Proctor & Gamble rival Mr Clean, confirm the disempower­ing stereotype that women are too weak and silly to fight the threat of dirt unless rescued by a tall, male stranger?

On the other hand, renaming the product Ms, Miss or Mrs Muscle would create new pitfalls – seeming to imply that difficult domestic chores must be performed by women while male hunter-gatherers are out having fun.

Perhaps the most pacific way to deal with this problem is to suggest that Mr Muscle is gay. I notice that Mr Clean, even from his early days in the 1950s, has always had a single earring, a subliminal signal perhaps that he is in touch with his feminine side.

READ MORE at telegraph.co.uk/opinion

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