Today on Radio 4…

Today on Radio 4…

Stuart Millson briefly forsakes the Third Programme and tunes in to a day of left-leaning bias on BBC Radio 4

Famous for programmes which have become “national treasures” such as The Archers, Desert Island Discs, Any Questions, Today and PM, BBC Radio 4 is conventionally seen as an influence for civilised, open debate, intellectual curiosity and the sort of listening which readers of broadsheet newspapers would regard as their cherished, familiar choice of network.

The BBC in general has long been criticised for left-leaning bias – by Tory backbenchers in rabble-rousing conference speeches and by media-bias vigilantes, who are often able to compare the number of broadcast hours given to (for example) “Remainers”, Labour spokespeople or the heads of “progressive” charities, as opposed to Vote Leave supporters, Christian fundamentalists or climate-change sceptics. However, despite the BBC’s duty to provide impartial political coverage, and Radio 4’s pride in its own editorial integrity, a day’s listening to the network – despite the quality of its programmes – shows how our national broadcaster now reflects the in-built cultural and political prejudices of its leading personnel; confirming, not necessarily a party-political bias, but a predisposition to a liberal-left view of the world which – in this age of resurgent “Corbynism” – could easily be taken for a broadcasters’ version of political activism.

What proof is there for this statement? Perhaps it might be worth returning to the BBC iplayer, and listening again to the news reports and (supposed) “analysis” of Labour’s conference during the PM Programme on the 27th September. Forsaking their usual nit picking and newsgatherers’ cynicism, the presenter and political editor (the usually incisive Norman Smith) seemed almost to reflect, rather than dissect, the new Corbyn-set agenda, which states that Labour occupies a new consensus in British politics: the financial crash of 2008 and the Grenfell Tower disaster having turned the voters against the banks, against institutions and what they are told by politicians etc. Intriguingly – and worryingly – Norman Smith then informed listeners that Corbyn’s aides had even berated him for representing “the old media”, the old ways of doing things and no longer spoke to or for the new generation of voters. Naturally, I could have misread this: so much of the argument is about interpretation, and I, too, have my own in-built bias. But there seemed in Smith’s commentary an acceptance of Labour’s position, a willingness not to argue too much against it – the BBC’s editor choosing to talk about Mr. Corbyn’s electoral “gamble” with an undiluted Socialist message, rather than picking up on the party’s apparent hijacking by the Left.

Assessing Labour’s political shift the next morning on the Today programme, presenter Nick Robinson observed that: “The guys with beards, who used to hand out the leaflets outside the party conference, are now in there leading it.” A true statement, but Robinson seemed almost to soften and sentimentalise the “guys with beards” – failing to observe that many of them are former Trotskyites, and that in so much of the Labour Party now, Marxism has replaced Methodism – often using determined, some might say, ruthless, tactics. During their time in Brighton, some sections of the party were accused of making anti-Israeli, or even anti-Semitic statements – and yet no word of this appeared on the Today coverage. Can you imagine if a Tory conference fringe meeting had harboured such views? The BBC News would be brimming over with condemnation: “the rotten heart of the Tories”, “the racism which lurks just beneath the surface”, “Theresa May must step down!” – not to mention the ensuing Guardian editorials which would ram the message home and discredit the “intolerant” and “out-of-date” Conservatives.

Yet it is not just in its news coverage that we find disproportionate amounts of favouritism or acceptance. During the early part of September, cultural historian and “Guardianista”, Patrick Wright took to the airwaves in a series entitled ‘The English Fix’ devoted to various famous figures from the past – Sir John Betjeman, George Orwell, but also living exponents of Englishness, such as Professor Sir Roger Scruton.

Roger Scruton, by Peter Helme

Wright interviewed Scruton about “why” he thought our country was being encroached upon, and could he (Scruton) offer some real, tangible examples of how or why England was in decline? Sir Roger duly obliged, citing the replacement of English Common Law by EU diktat, and making the point to his interviewer that the many other cultural threats to our country since the end of the Second World War were no less real than the possibility of a physical invasion of the Realm in 1940. The programme, though, began to niggle: why was Patrick Wright given the paid job of asking the questions? Why did Scruton have to account for himself – to explain what, for most of us, is a self-evident truth that much of traditional England, or Britain, has been eroded? Why was Wright not being asked why he thought what he did – why he was content with society as it is today, and why “diversity” or the European Union are seen as innately desirable? The programme would have been much improved by Sir Roger Scruton’s quest to find what makes modern liberals tick. How about a working title for such a series: The liberal fix…?

The reality is that the majority of broadcasters are drawn from a certain metropolitan class. The personnel seem an interchangeable network, speaking the same language, disapproving of the same things (usually Brexit, or Donald Trump), finding “disarray” in the EU withdrawal talks, but “new-found purpose” in Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party. Such views might not be so difficult to contend with, were they part of a wide-ranging political debate – with right-wingers having as much a crack of the whip as the Patrick Wrights and others. Disappointingly, the national broadcaster – supported by the compulsory TV licence fee and supposedly “belonging to us all” – is now the preserve of the socially-liberal Left. It is an employment service for them, and a wonderful opportunity to influence the outcome of elections and the thoughts of an entire population. Fortunately, the incessant Remain message from the airwaves missed its target in June 2016, proving that we may not hang on the media’s every word. Ironically, Jeremy Corbyn and his followers could just be right: perhaps it is the case that the people have seen through the “old institutions” and no longer trust the mainstream media or politicians? If this is the case, Mr. Corbyn should be as worried as anyone else holding high office in our political system…

STUART MILLSON is QR’s music critic

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29 Responses to Today on Radio 4…

  1. David Ashton says:

    But “Betjeman was a fogey, Orwell a closet fascist, Scruton an embodiment of Utter Evil.”

    The BBC has a down on Christianity (see e.g. Daily Telegraph, October 2, Charles Moore) but an up on homosexuality and porntertainment. The Soft Left provides an opening for the Hard Left. The Race and Equality Acts provide the opening for the “race-gender-class” cultural revolution. There is one god Marx, and The Guardian is his prophet. May is a doomed politically correct robot; Corbyn a spearhead of insurrection. The “Daily Mail” undermines the Royal Family. Children are “mixed infants” in a new sense. Normal white male patriots are designated “Far Right” aka “Nazi”. In less than two generations the BAMEs will be the majority in the former England. Even Peter Hitchens advises young people to escape abroad.

    “The greatest danger [when] race war and class war combine to finish off the white world” (Oswald Spengler, 84 years ago).

    Resistance is useless. OR IS IT?

  2. Stuart Millson says:

    I have to say, I felt very sorry indeed for the PM yesterday – the coughing fit and the appearance of this supposed “prankster” (probably an ideological person with an axe to grind). On the plus side, she showed her determination – and spoke from the heart about bringing the country together, offering a better deal for tenants and people in difficulty. She fought back over the P45 stunt, and gained the first really visceral Tory cheer of the entire proceedings.

    I recall her speech when she took over from David Cameron – telling “those who are struggling” that “we’re on your side” – and confirming her passionate support for the Union and for seeing Brexit through. I feel that the defence of “free markets” was probably a bad move, as although enterprise delivers wealth, people tend to see the free market as a term to describe bankers and city slickers. Instead, Theresa May should have mounted a defence of small businesses and manufacturing. (I was glad that she spoke up for British invention and scientific innovation – but there was nothing about Britain’s artistic virtues and achievements.)

    What I disagreed with was a tendency to follow the “cries of the age” – especially her introduction of an ethnographic audit in relation to the use of public services and agencies. This is, surely for a Conservative, misplaced. The truth is that everyone – whatever their background, be they a white person from the “working class” or someone from a black or Asian community, faces indifference or a “wait your turn” mentality from official bodies and public services.

    Finally, anyone wishing to judge the broadcasting media could do no better than listen again to the interrogation given to Amber Rudd by Radio 4’s Eddie Mair on the PM programme yesterday. The questions from Mr. Mair seemed to seethe – and scythe into the Home Secretary; there was a definite “tone” to his (relentless) line of attack, which later extended to Boris Johnson. A list of mistakes and comments from the Foreign Secretary was recited by Mair – as if the whole interview was an assault on the Government. At times, Amber Rudd seemed wrongfooted by the vehemence of the questioning, often pausing before answering. But she stood her ground reasonably well and replied that she was not going to be drawn down the “Boris vortex”.

  3. David Ashton says:

    I agree about the obtrusive “ethnic” aspects (prison, NHS, stop&search, immigrant welcome &c). She has always been an “equality & diversity” politician. Ditto, Greening, Rudd and Ms Scotsperson. Only Hammond has warned against the coming African invasion, while Bojo has recommend amnesty for illegal immigrants (despite an awareness years ago of the “third world” population explosion), but Hammond’s bright idea of selling Communist China our latest technology is the same old story. Boasts of progress in defence, crime prevention, and teacher & nurse supply are ridiculous.

    However, the speech was not the “COMPLETE DISASTER” as explicitly described by the “unbiased” BBC. She managed very well despite an unfortunate cough. She clearly thought on her feet with an unexpectedly witty response to the P45 stuntman and the cough sweet. The media vilification and the feeding-frenzy over Bojo is partly the desire for constant (and irresponsible) conflict on screen but also knee-jerk sympathy for Labour Party.

  4. David Ashton says:

    Although “ex uno numquam disce omnes” the failure of crime prevention has been terribly highlighted by the horrific experience of my 12 year-old good-looking and cheerful grandson Liam, who was beaten unconscious in an unprovoked “fun” assault four days ago with his head, jaw and eyes given appalling GBH damage. He was nearly three hours in theatre and now has a metal plate in his mouth. We shall see what happens to his assailant.

    The family have been burgled twice in a pleasant area of Derby, as have my brother and sister in law since they moved to Cromer from the Korean Republic of New Malden. Our nearby seaside town was subject to invasion from “Travellers” a few weeks ago with the police literally standing idly with their local chief announcing that we must not “stereotype a whole community”. I presume they are among the those whose “characteristics” are “protected” by the 2010 “Equality” Act, which rules out the “English” as an “ethnic group” as we lack a “racial” dimension even though we are “racists”, but it did include anyone “gender transitioning” for explicit protection against discrimination and “hate”.

    The Land of the Rising Scum. Maybe our criminals need Muslim-style penalties and Chinese-style enforcement, and ironically maybe that’s what our surviving descendants will actually get.

  5. Stuart Millson says:

    “… this other Eden, demi-paradise….”

    • David Ashton says:

      According to Anthony Julius in “Trials of the Diaspora” (2012) the English and their cultural history is preeminently and strongly antisemitic, Shakespeare an influential exponent of the Blood Libel. “Shakespeare’s antisemitic lines aren’t his only hot potatoes” (John Sutherland). “Is Shakespeare racist?” (Gary Taylor, OUP blog, 1o September 2016). Happy breed, throne of kings… fascist filth, surely.

      Never mind. Founder of TV’s “Big Brother”, the supremely “Great and Good” Sir Peter Bazalgette (Observer, 8 October 2017), describes the proposed huge Memorial and Education Centre, confronting Parliament, as an “internationally recognised symbol” that will use “Holocaust stories” against “antisemitism, extremism, Islamophobia, homophobia” and other forms of “prejudice” in society.

      Will the many million victims of Marxism-Leninism, or non-white democides, get much of a mention? The English weren’t involved. So what do you think?

      • David Ashton says:

        Apologies for the grammatical slip in the first sentence.

        A further thought: Caesar divided Gaul into three parts, the Left defines patriotism as racism+xenophobia+NOSTALGIA.

  6. Stuart Millson says:

    Prince Albert conceived his “Albertopolis” – museums, centres of technical excellence and the arts – as a symbol of the goodness of Britain; the vitality and vision of its thinkers and creators; the benevolence of the British Empire – the Empire which built railways – and engineered water and sanitation systems for far-flung cities in tropical countries. (And we must not forget that Joseph Bazalgette did some wonderful work for our own Thames embankment!)

    We now live in an age in which (the “elite”, at least) are trying to create an exact reverse of that Victorian/Edwardian/pre-war and wartime national self-belief and pride. The fact that the ordinary people voted for the independence of their country in June 2016 horrified all the nation-haters of the (illiberal) liberal metropolitan Left. We must be cured of that love for our own country, they proclaim.

    • David Ashton says:

      And St Theresa’s mad mission of the “racism audit” with “nowhere to hide” is her paramount obsession along with forthcoming reinforced thought-crime patrol of the internet.

      “Arise, O England!” AND France, Germany, Sweden, Italy….!

  7. Stuart Millson says:

    This morning’s despatches from South Korea by Radio 4’s Justin Webb saw our presenter delighting in the fact that Donald Trump’s scheduled flight close to the border area with North Korea had to be abandoned due to a fog bank. (It seemed more like a satirical, partisan commentary, than an even-handed report.) The President’s speech was also taken apart by the Today programme’s analysis – the sniffy tone of the report so predictable. And the BBC says that it is a paragon of impartiality…

    I cannot quite decide which broadcast offered more evidence of bias: Mr. Webb’s loaded, slanted anti-Brexit questions on yesterday’s programme – or today’s licence-fee-funded snigger at Donald Trump.

  8. Stuart Millson says:

    At the risk of sounding obsessive – anything that Justin Webb said on Radio 4 yesterday was trumped (forgive the pun) by James Naughtie this morning, in his “review” of a year of the Trump Presidency. There was absolutely nothing positive in the report – not one word, not one tiny concession that anything said or done by President Trump was even halfway to being good. Instead, Trump’s ‘America First’ slogan was – stated Mr. Naughtie – the slogan of “Hitler-supporting isolationists in the 1930s”; and that Trump was dangerously close to siding with the “white supremacists who set off the street violence in Charlottesville”. The White House was also a “revolving door” – the Administration and Presidency beset by dismissals, resignations, scandals etc.

    Thank goodness for the BBC – showing us the error of everyone’s ways, including at the top of the list, the US President (closely followed by Brexit, of course).

  9. Stuart Millson says:

    Endured half-an-hour of the Radio 4 Today programme this morning – a blizzard, a bedlam, a broadside of: gender equality, pay equality for women (especially for hard-done-by female BBC journalists); tackling sexism, racism and so forth at the Football Association (where they are, apparently, undertaking new “learnings”); and a new recruitment campaign for the army – which is designed to attract different faiths and sexualities. There was even a Thought for the Day on something called Apocalypsism(?) – I think that’s what they said – a theme probably thrown in just to cheer everyone up even more. After the obligatory dig at Donald Trump, the weather forecast (which didn’t have anything about racism or sexism) and I could stand it no longer – so switched over to Radio 3, to rooted sanity – to a performance of Vaughan Williams’s English Folksong Suite, and a brief discussion on scrambled eggs/buttered eggs.

  10. David Ashton says:

    Ms Claudia Winkelman is on £450,000+ for her major TV contributions to human enlightenment, but some men get more. What is the actual difference between “men” and “women” as defined by “feminists” of every variety?

    And shouldn’t “English Folksong” and “scrambled eggs” be reported to a police officer (if you can find one) as hate speech, or whatever, especially as the “English” are specifically exempted from the “categories” protected by the Equality Act ? The HSBC advert that refers to this lump in the sea (i.e. “England”) shows what has become of our native heritage. Come back, Saturday Night Theatre and Muffin the Mule!

    PS – Can any readers tell me the radio play which had the line in crescendo, “There are three people I will not allow in this house – Karl Marx, George Bernard Shaw and Charles Algernon Swinburne!”? It has stuck in my mind ever since boyhood.

  11. Stuart Millson says:

    Labour MP, Chuka Umunna, appeared on Radio 4’s Today programme this morning, alongside and against Nigel Farage. What is astonishing is how the defeated Remainder side have been able (a) to dominate the headlines since the Referendum, and (b) push the “second referendum”/”they didn’t know what they were voting for” line so much – to the extent that many people (including Nigel Farage!) are even talking about a second vote.

    The great pity is that the day after the Brexit result, our side largely abandoned the field. Instead of pressing home the advantage – holding a Brexit victory rally at the Royal Albert Hall, taking to the airwaves every day to promote a spirit of optimism and regained national independence, the leaders quit the field or went to sleep, or thought their work was done, or trusted the Government too much to get on with things. There then followed the regrouping and refinancing of the Remainiac side, with Gina Millar and co actually taking the Government to court! And now, the airwaves drone with the sound of Remoaners – telling us (as Chuka did this morning) that Article 50 (the EU’s OWN rule!) doesn’t really matter, that it can be revoked, that the result doesn’t really hold true etc.

    What is needed now is a major fightback by Brexiteers, and for the Government to get a grip – and to remind its own “Tory rebels” that Parliament devolved the decision on EU membership to the British people, not to Anna Soubry or Ken Clarke and their friends. As Nigel Farage said on the day after the referendum, when the Remainders were beginning to bleat about holding a second vote: “This isn’t the best of three…”

  12. Stuart Millson says:

    Another typical Today programme on Radio 4 this morning: despite an upbeat, wholly rational and practical assessment of Brexit by Jeremy Hunt, the interviewing presenter tried every trick in the book to make something significant out of the fact that our economic growth forecast is (“due to Brexit”!) lower than it should be. (By about one per cent! It’s the end of the world, clearly.) Amazed, too, to learn on the programme – and this is an example of how the wildfire of political correctness has scorched the very earth of the Corporation – all the leading male Radio 4 correspondents and presenters are prepared to take pay cuts as a sort of sympathy/penance for the “gender pay inequality” in our society/at the BBC. So now, men are being forced to take lower pay! So much for equality.

    The whole BBC, every day, every week, seems to be a transmission centre for: Brexit despondency, gender angst and “inequality” – plus an obsession with “sexism” – closely followed by head-in-hands frustration with every statement made by President Trump and, of course, “Russian interference in the U.S. election”.

    But strange how Radio 4 never mentions President Obama’s brazen interference in our EU referendum – even threatening us with the “back of the queue” when it came to future trade.

  13. David Ashton says:

    The Broadcasting Arm of “The Guardian”.

  14. Stuart Millson says:

    Radio 4 this morning, full of “leaked reports” about Britain being worse off (i.e. with less growth and GDP) outside the European Union. As Duncan Smith pointed out though, forecasts can often be wrong – as the Bank of England and IMF had to admit after their pre-referendum crystal-ball vision of economic meltdown failed to materialise. Personally, I would be quite happy to be a member of a free, self-governing nation – perfectly content to ignore the various percentage points and figures which are meant to dominate our lives and make us feel anxious. (I can hear everyone at the bus stop, or in the pub: “Oh no, GDP will be less than expected when we’re outside the EU, Jim.” “I ‘eard we’d be 0.4 per cent down, Bill.” “Oh God, that’s awful. Oh well, let’s have another pint. At least we aren’t forced to drink in litres.”)

    Yesterday on the Business slot (Today programme, again), presenter Dominic O’Connell managed to get a final anti-Brexit question in on what I thought was going to be a Brexit-free broadcast – asking a functionary of the aerospace industry about the EU exit situation, obtaining the answer that he wanted, of course – i.e. that the situation is “unclear”.

    Low economic forecasts, a poor outlook, Government in “disarray”, divisions within the Conservative Party (but nothing said about Labour), “what sort of Brexit is unfolding is still unclear”, Theresa May “desperate” to drum up trade deals – this is the daily “narrative” (to use their type of term) of Radio 4 and the BBC – the anti-Brexit Broadcasting Corporation.

    Also on Radio 4, Will Self is beginning a journey across Britain by bus – no doubt with the usual peppering of sarcasm and the mild sneer, or depressing reports from down-on-their-luck towns and communities. Why do we have to hear yet another Guardian-type voice? Why is Radio 4 packed with programmes by the Will Selfs, the Patrick Wrights et al? Why can’t we hear something noble or positive from the Roger Scrutons or Roy Strongs?

    Radio 4 really does seem to belong to a certain type of person – the Eurocrat, the scornful “writer and broadcaster” (a term beloved by R4), the we-know-best liberal. And yet we all pay a compulsory fee in order to partake of BBC programmes.

  15. Stuart Millson says:

    Why on earth did Theresa May take the BBC’s hatchet woman, Laura Kuenssberg (dressed in bright red on tonight’s BBC1 news) on the China trade tour? How embarrassing for the PM that Kuenssberg’s question, in front of the Chinese Government, was nothing about trade or the opportunities which would come from the tour, but all about Mrs. May’s “difficulties” at home. In one part of the report, some Chinese students were shown who had created a model of 10 Downing Street, with a special escape facility. Cue, from Kuenssberg, a smirk about leaving No. 10. The report was truly awful – “Theresa May is thousands of miles away” – “in a different time zone” – “her own party divided” – absolutely nothing positive, just a tale of woe, disaster, and the reporter’s (false, sneering) “concern” about it all. I am sure the Chinese must wonder about Britain: how it is that someone from the national broadcaster can accompany their Prime Minister on a nationally-important trade tour, and just endlessly slate and undermine the whole event.

    And we have to pay a compulsory licence-fee to fund the BBC and its “reporting”.

  16. David Ashton says:

    Not how they do things in Communist China, certainly.

  17. Stuart Millson says:

    The Radio 4 Today programme presenter, Sarah Montague is pictured in today’s Daily Telegraph, sporting the campaign t-shirt of the equal pay campaign (there is appalling inequality between the men and women employees of the BBC). Some of the women are only in the £200,000-£249,000 pay category. I hope they can spare a thought for all the poor workers out there struggling along on the minimum wage.

  18. David Ashton says:

    How different radio programmes are compared to those of my boyhood, but then “nostalgia” is emerging as an offence akin to “racism”; the “Fifties” are a dirty word, or “there never was an ‘England’ actually like that”. The “Radio Times” was a nicely illustrated, intelligent journal, and “The Listener” recorded each week a high level of educated discourse and discussion. Saturday Night Theatre was a particularly welcome wireless event, and I even still remember from decades ago one particular line in a play – “There are three people I will not allow in my house – Karl Marx, George Bernard Shaw and [rising crescendo] Charles Algernon Swinburne!” I would appreciate it, if any reader can identify that drama.

    Things went down hill when Hugh Carleton Greene directed the Corporation during the “Swinging” Sixties. His “liberalisation” included his statement that the one thing that BBC radio & TV would never allow was “racism” – which has of course been incrementally redefined, wider and wider, ever since – and his private picture of a naked Mrs Whitehouse whose breasts were used as a dartboard.

    I remember attending a meeting early in that decade, at which a Conservative Party researcher called Julie Gooding produced statistical evidence of a leftist bias in all aspects of the BBC. Thus interested me so much that I began collecting information on broadcast content and personnel, which abundantly confirmed this tendency, quite apart from favored positions on Southern Africa and Vietnam. I personally experienced how interviews and other programmes could be “set up” or faked. Over many years I managed to fill many large cardboard boxes with massive material evidence, though no-one in Parliament or anywhere else showed interest at any stage. This collection was kept in a lock-up which some years ago suffered from extensive flooding, and I sadly had to abandon the project – but not my conclusions. We have had sporadic publications, like Ed West’s little study, but these float away from public notice like a few crumbs on a lake.

    One tiny example of how things work was revealed in the “D**ly M**l”, 29 January, p.12, regarding Labour Treasury spokesman, Corbynista MP Clive Lewis, who had been BBC chief political reporter for the east of England, and who told Momentum activists that he used “bias” by giving more time to reports he preferred: “the angle and words I used [also enabled him] to project my own particular political positions on things in a very subtle way”.

  19. Stuart Millson says:

    The pro-EU bias is extraordinary – today, Project Fear’s protagonists were pushing (across the media) the latest idea that “more regulations” post-Brexit would have a terrible impact upon the retail sector. A strange story – given that we voted to leave the EU to remove its stifling regulations and red tape. Also, if you believe the twaddle served up this morning, Britons will be denied access to new drugs and medicines, because we will no longer be part of the wonderful, all-seeing European something-or-other pharmaceutical agreement. How do non-EU nations, such as the Norwegians, cope with such traumas? Stock on paracetamol everyone: Project Fear/the BBC/Global news has warned us of yet another crisis-to-come after Brexit!

  20. Stuart Millson says:

    An extremely good piece by Charles Moore in the Telegraph yesterday – commenting on Radio 4’s response to news of the Labour leader’s alleged past links to Soviet-era Czech Intelligence operatives. Charles Moore noted how the Today programme’s Justin Webb merely chortled over the story – Moore noting how, if the story had concerned Theresa May having once spoken at a far-Right meeting, the BBC would be ablaze with it, until Theresa May was forced out.

  21. David Ashton says:

    The full story of Labour PM Harold Wilson has yet to be told. I mislaid both his BBC broadcast when he said he had been taken inside the Moscow police HQ on a charge of buying from an unauthorised street vendor (a curious mistake for a frequent visitor), and an article by his supposed Soviet contact here; we know he was filed by the GRU under the code-name OLDING. He is the first and only UK PM to boast of a private meeting with Molotov in the Kremlin, and a personal friendship with the Kosygin family, Mikoyan and Chou En-lai. He believed in “Left speaks to Left” and never got over the Russian wartime alliance. His main service to the USSR was to provide maximum assistance to its war-economy at the cheapest rate backed by the British taxpayer. My guess he was weaned off his Muscovite leanings and pro-communist associates towards the end, when he realised that the CIA & MI5 were onto him, and his Zionist friends were having a change of heart over the Kremlin.

  22. Stuart Millson says:

    Even with some 40 Labour MPs now openly condemning their “leader”, the BBC is still more interested in “splits in the Tory ranks”.

  23. Stuart Millson says:

    There needs to be a major parliamentary enquiry into how our EU referendum may have been influenced by unscrupulous and manipulative forces, and outside interference. First, the role of the BBC and its constant portrayal of Leave voters as ghastly working-class folk (unaware of facts and devoid of reason), needs to be examined. We also need to ask why virtually every news report or “analysis” into the EU exit process is framed in a worried, negative tone – and why a disproportionate amount of time is devoted to the views of, for example, Tony Blair – a man who almost seems like an agent or ambassador for the European Union. Also, why was the Government allowed to spend £9 million on a pro-Remain booklet, posted to every household in the land? (Can the Electoral Commission explain?) Finally, how was it possible that the then U.S. President, Obama, was allowed to appear on British soil during the run-up to the vote, to tell us that if we voted to leave the EU, Britain would be last in the trade queue?

  24. Stuart Millson says:

    More laughable Remainiac propaganda spewing forth from the BBC radio network’s “news” this weekend: yet another “report” which “highlighted” how (this time) the food, drink and hospitality industry would be incapacitated after Brexit, due to casual workers from abroad having to fill in paperwork in order to come here. The poor dears.

    Meanwhile, that stagnating economic exclusion zone known as the EU “Customs Union” continues to cause great angst. Why on earth are we so fixated by this? Are we seriously being told that after the 29th March 2019, we won’t be able to find a way to drive articulated lorries full of goods through the Channel Tunnel and out again at Calais? And that – suddenly – trade will shudder to a halt at the Ulster/Irish border?

  25. Stuart Millson says:

    I wonder if it occurs to Radio 4 to invite anyone onto its news programmes who might take a different line to the “woke”/anti-Empire/feminist ideology which prevails at Broadcasting House? (Under the rules, there should be “for” and “against” participants.)

    Just recently, historian, David Olusoga (a critic of our imperial past) took part in a Today Programme discussion with a quite animated anti-British Empire lawyer – who went as far as to say that the monarchy was “built upon colonialism.” Needless to say, the view was not questioned or challenged by the presenter. Yesterday, on the PM programme, we were treated to what seemed like a party-political broadcast by one, Sue Fish, former Chief Constable of Nottinghamshire. She stated: “Women’s lives are compromised and violated every single day.” Fair enough, that is her view – and it is probably the view of others. But again, no attempt was made by Evan Davis, presenter, to debate this very bold, wide opinion; or to invite a woman (or – horror of horrors – even a man!) to the discussion who might offer an alternative view.

    Across the media, we see very little consideration of ideas – very little in the way of nuances – just “soundbite” opinions, almost always from one wing of the political spectrum.

  26. David Ashton says:

    There has been a turnaround in values, which originated with the “race, gender, class” revolution initiated in the USA during the 1960s and which has been spread demonstrably incrementally across the controlling institutions of western nations, especially ours. My TQR essay on the Wokism cult gave only a partial outline of a process deliberately “agenda-networked” to change the national, parental and cultural values of what our enemies themselves see as “white” civilization. It has been left to perceptive ex-communists like Frank Furedi to smell the rat, and say so. The situation is far worse than the infiltration by communists in the 1930s and afterwards.

    The Anglocidal aims in particular are now becoming more explicit. In crude summary of one aspect, whereas a century ago the English were credited with the construction of a valuable Empire, today the Empire is evil and therefore a pretext for the deconstruction of the English, in their own original ethnic domain; the toppling of statues and the “blackness” of TV adverts are straws in the coming tornado. What are called “white privilege” or “structural racism” or “nostalgic nativism” are now the sporadic residual attempts by an indigenous population to hang on to its own history, literature, institutions and territory.

    Woke legislation and propaganda are designed to paralyse resistance of any kind to what technically amounts to genocide. Even to prove this by careful reasoning and meticulous documentation risks informal and eventually formal suppression. The indigenous English are being pushed into a position not unlike the French under Vichy or the Tibetans under the Chinese Communist Party. Decolonisation is really colonisation; the race-hate jackboot is on the other foot. But as Malcolm Muggeridge once said, the situation is similar to a lobster being boiled so slowly that it does not protest in time.

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