WHO'S LEFT OUT?

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Dateline London's extreme left-liberal bias has thrown up the remarkable situation of having UK politics largely discussed by left-wingers. I've also noted before that the representative of the British press on the panel tends overwhelmingly to come from the Left (see my earlier list).
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Would that change during the general election? Time for an update:
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Well, week one (10/4) saw the appearance of New Labourite Steve Richards of The Independent. Week two (17/4) saw Conservative-supporting Janet Daley of The Sunday Telegraph (Janet was the first centre-right UK journalist on the show since 20/2!!!) Week three saw Michael White of The Guardian. Who was it this week? Yasmin Alibhai Brown of The Independent.ependent.
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If they give us either Janet Daley or Ann Leslie once every six or seven weeks they seem to think they've done their bit for impartiality!!!
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Instead of giving you a picture of any of these fine people, or even Gavin Esler, I will instead offer a photo of one of Yasmin's companions today, the far-left Portuguese writer Dr Eunice Goes. (I chose her completely at random of course).
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Referring to the story of the week, Yasmin Alibhai Brown said the broadcasting of Gordon Brown's private views was "unfair" and said that "personally...there was something bigoted about how she was going on about immigration". The lovely Eunice thought that "the public at large are not too bothered" about the story. (Funny, they were talking about it where I work). At least the usually sound Saul Zadka of AI London was on hand to talk of Brown's "completely insincere" apology and the "contempt" Brown seems to have for such working class people. Henry Chu of the LA Times, one of the usual crop of liberal Americans (there has never been a Republican-supporting American journalist on this show since I began watching it a couple of weeks ago), backed Yasmin ("Everyone is entitled to their views in private.")
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When the conversation turned to immigration, Mr Chu made reference to the "nasty" way the issue came up in 2005 but he was going too cautiously for Yasmin Alibhai Brown who, characteristically, leaped in hysterically to denounce the media for pandering to this talk of immigration as being a bad thing. Naturally, Eunice Goes agreed wholeheartedly and sung the praises of mass immigration. Gavin Esler intervened at this point to back up Eunice, saying "I've conducted some public meetings and ordinary members of the public have said precisely that, our health service could not exist without people who are migrants." When Saul raised the point that many people think immigration has been "excessive" and that the UK is a rare example of a country that doesn't know how many immigrants it has, he was leaped on by all and sundry, including the supposedly impartial host. Saul tried to continue but was shouted down by Yasmin Alibhai Brown. Gavin Esler did not ask her to let Saul speak. Eunice had a few angry goes at him too. Ah, the old rallying cry of the Left against the Right: "Shut up!!"
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Incidentally, for regular viewer of Dateline (if there are any, other than me and Martin at B-BBC!), the role usually provided by French lefty Marc Roche was this week taken by Eunice Goes, who said "most of the Conservative MPs who will come to parliament on May 6th, they are not urbane, metropolitian guys like David Cameron. They are, most..many of them, climate change deniers, homophobes, xenophobes and supporters of the death penalty." Yasmin Alibhai Brown loved it and laughed uproariously. That's the quality of commentator they have on Dateline!
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The late stages of the show brought attacks on Rupert Murdoch and the Murdoch Press. When Yasmin had finished her attack on them, she praised Sky News for not being partisan. Gavin Esler just couldn't stop himself from chipping in "They've not been Fox News in other words!". Cue liberal laughter. Well, I'm going to chip in too: "They've not been BBC News either then!"

M ROCHE, HE MAD!

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Well, after weeks of anti-Tory British j0urnalists on Dateline London, today we finally got a Conservative supporter, Janet Daley. At last there was someone to put the Conservative case to the world.
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She had to face the usual bunch of lefties though, including liberal American Stryker Maguire of Newsweek and the programme's most venomous anti-Tory regular Marc Roche of Le Monde. She also had to face Gavin Esler, who brought up a gaffe by David Cameron: "Let me just pick you up on one point about David Cameron. He did make a gaffe, talking about China as a potential nuclear threat. That was a mistake." Janet said he probably meant North Korea and that it wasn't a big gaffe on a nuclear scale! Esler wasn't going to let it drop: "But isn't the point that we're going to have two more debates, the next one is going to be on foreign policy, and this is something you can bet Gordon Brown is going to say, you know, 'Or are you still going to fight with China?'?"
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Also, M Roche (who was only last on two weeks ago), having already indulged in one of his trademark extreme tirades against the 'very unsavoury' 'toxic' Tories and their 'fascist' allies, soon found himself offered the chance to launch a second tirade against them by Esler (who knows exactly what Roche thinks on this subject, and knew exactly what he was going to say and how he was going to say it - as do I, as I've previously written about their previous discussions on this very subject in early posts) "How is, within the Elysee and within the French political system, how is David Cameron viewed by those of the political Right, who should be his political soulmates?" "Horreur, it's a horreur!" began Roche's inevitable rant, with the 'xenophobes' and 'holocaust deniers' now joining the 'fascists' in his description of the allies of the 'nasty' Tories. Hopefully viewers will just regard him as a pantomime clown.
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Brown was not in Gavin Esler's sights.

BREAKING NON-STORY

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I don't usually watch the BBC News Channel (no time), but I've just switched on a minute ago and who do I see straightaway ? Professor Colin Talbot again!! This time he's chatting to Gavin Esler, but that's the only thing that's different. He's still criticising Conservative proposals on efficiency savings and national insurance...and beneath him, as he speaks, is a banner that reads BREAKING NEWS: Duncan Bannatyne has defended National Insurance rise. Mr Bannatyne, James Caan's friend from Dragon's Den, is a long-term Labour supporter (and party donor). He was only recently wheeled out by the Beeb and Labour to attack the Tories over Lord Ashcroft, now he's attacking them over NI too. What a surprise!! What big news!!
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Back to Prof Talbot and Gavin Esler. Esler did what I expect him to do - nothing to challenge the professor. Instead, he merely sought the professor's advise and sat like a pupil of Socrates at his feet.
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I have now switched off the BBC News channel and will not be switching it back on again any time soon!! Five minutes is more than enough of that!
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ESLER COMES OUT FIGHTING FOR TONY BLAIR

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With Kirsty Wark, Gavin Esler is the most blatantly biased of the Newsnight presenters. His performance on last night's programme saw him act without restraint as a partisan for Tony Blair. He praised the former prime minister and defended him (alongside John Prescott, not pictured) against Eric Pickles and the ubiquitous Chris Huhne with a passion unbecoming of a supposedly impartial interviewer. He interrupted Eric Pickles relentlessly and, when Mr Huhne turned his always-withering fire on TB's business activities, turned on him too, calling his remarks 'outrageous'. Esler was so actively involved in backing Tony Blair that he exercised little or no control over the debate. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/default.stm
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The interruption coefficients here tell part of the story:
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Eric Pickles - 1.6
Chris Huhne - 0.8
John Prescott - 0.6
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LIZ MCKEAN'S VERY BIASED REPORT & GAVIN ESLER TOO

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Last night's Newsnight presented one of the most biased reports I've seen in a while.
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Liz McKean fronted a report that focused on tensions between Nicholas Sarkozy and David Cameron. A clip of Sarko praising the Great Gordo was played before Liz turned her fire where her fire was intended.
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She talked of Sarko's fury at Cameron's decision to withdraw the Conservative Party from the federalist EPP group in Europe. "To hear how furious I came to Notting Hill, home of the Cameroons. Working at the UK embassy in France, Nick Allan witnessed the very first meeting between the new leader of the opposition and the soon-to-be-leader of France." Nick Allan, labelled as "Former press secretary, British embassy, Paris", spilled the beans. An interesting fact about Mr Allan that Liz didn't let her viewers know is that he is about to become the new head of communications at Guardian News and Media. That suggests, does it not, that he's not quite the disinterested diplomat viewers were led to believe?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2010/feb/22/nick-allan-gmg
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A joke by George Osborne about standing on a Sarkozy box did not go down well with the pint-sized French president (I can say that, being pint-sized myself. I need to stand on a chest of drawers even to shake hands with people.) Liz said "the French didn't share his little joke" - and the way she said the words 'little joke' (with a tone of utter disdain) suggest that she didn't share it either. "A serving diplomatic source" 'exclusively' told Newsnight that the French have raised the matter with the British government about the joke, though she added (more quietly) that it wasn't a formal complaint. They were also "very unhappy about a newspaper interview with David Cameron last year in which he appeared to refer to the French president... (dramatic pause from Liz) ... as a dwarf ". (And what a serious look she wore as she said it!). A "scathing" (personal) attack on George Osborne from Le monde was then quoted.
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Guess who turned up next? Yes, it was Gavin Esler's left-wing pal from Dateline London (and one of the BBC's two preferred expert on all things francais - the other was to come later!), husky-voiced French lovely Agnes Poirier. I have never yet heard her say anything nice about the Conservatives on any of her many appearances on Dateline. She's complimented Gordon Brown though on more than one occasion.
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Worse was to come.
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Liz went on to report the latest meeting between M Sarkozy and Mr Cameron, which sounded more cordial - though there remains a bone of contention. Sarko is pressing for Britain to be at the heart of a common European defence policy. Which 'expert' did Liz call on here? Alexandra Pardal of the Labour-aligned Foreign Policy Centre. This think tank was set up by Tony Blair and Robin Cook and its current director is Stephen Twigg MP. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Policy_Centre. Alexandra herself belongs to the Party of the European Socialists http://www.richardcorbett.org.uk/blog/2007/11/june-2009-european-elections-will-be.html. Of course, nothing about the political alignment of either Miss Pardal or the FPC was mentioned by Liz McKean. Every unsuspecting viewer would have been led inevitably just to think that she's another disinterested party and that the FPC is a non-partisan research institute. That's a very strong sign of bias on the part of a reporter.
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The other French expert beloved by the BBC and friend of Gavin Esler on Dateline , Marc Roche of Le monde, was one of the guests in the following studio discussion with Esler and Conservative MEP Charles Tannock. M Roche was the man who wrote that personal attack on George Osborne. Like Agnes, he always attacks the Tories on Dateline and is openly for Labour. Mr Tannock said that M Roche "would say that" and that Le monde is "the Guardian-equivalent in France" (which it indeed is).
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Esler did exactly what I expected him to do. He joined Marc Roche in attacking Mr Tannock, interrupting him five times. Mr Tannock only got 2 1/2 minutes to speak (hardly any time to reasonably rebut all the anti-Tory nonsense that had gone before - especially when he was under bombardment for most of the time). The interruption coefficient here was a very high 2.2.
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So a soon-to-be-top-Guardianista (not labelled as such), a left-wing French journalist (not labelled as such), a socialist from a Labour-aligned think tank (not labelled as such) and, finally, another left-wing French journalist (not labelled as such, until Charles Tannock outed him as such) were all lined up by Newsnight to make mischief for the Conservatives. Moreover, Charles Tannock was not allowed to respond at an appropriate length and, on top of all that, faced bloody Gavin Esler barging in, again and again, and asking questions like this: "But George Osborne's joke about Sarkozy's box and all this kind of niggling stuff, that's just not serious politics is it? I mean, this is somebody who could be running the British economy and he makes silly jokes about the height of the French president". (And what a 'drama queen' performance he made of asking it too!). Mr Tannock replied by saying "Well we all have a sense of humour and..." but got no further before Elser, adopting gestures of incredulity and disapproval, butted in again and asked 'So you think that's a funny joke?!"
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This programme was a joke, and certainly not a funny one.
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Before it we had Michael Crick and what the ubiquitous Chris Huhne rightly called a "non story" about the Lib Dems. After it we had some fluff, with Esler talking about Samantha Cameron with Matthew D'Ancona of the Sunday Telegraph and Rachel (sister of Boris) Johnson, editor of The Lady. At the beginning of the programme, Esler had played a clip from her interview with Sir Trevor McDonald and sarcastically described her comments as "profundities".

WILL 'ALWAYS HAVE WORK AT THE BBC' HUTTON AND CO.

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Back into the Tardis again for a trip back to Wednesday's Newsnight.
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As has been pointed out here and elsewhere, the BBC's unique take on the latest set of economic figures (which even The Guardian didn't put a positive spin on) led to this generally favourable introduction from Gavin Esler: "The unemployment rate actually fell a little in the last month and even better news the percentage of British people out of work is lower than that in other relatively wealthy countries in the Eurozone, but the number claiming benefits has gone up to the highest since Labour came to power in 1997."
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The BBC's obsession with left-wing think tanks was much in evidence in what followed. A report by Terry Stiastny (pictured, with friend) not only featured Dr Anna Coote of the red-green New Economics Foundation but also Ian Brinkley of The Work Foundation (formerly chief economist of the TUC from 1996-2006). Then, as if one Leftie from The Work Foundation wasn't enough, on came the omnipresent Will Hutton from The Work Foundation, to discuss the matter with Esler and James Caan of Dragon's Den. As ever, neither think tank was labelled as 'left-wing' by the BBC.
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When Mr Caan interjected a note of realism into all the Panglossian, pro-Labour (and anti-Tory) guff flowing from the mouth of Mr Hutton, saying "I think we're making too much out of these statistics. When you actually look at the statistics , we've only had a drop of 3000. When you've got a workforce of 20 million let's not get too carried away. I think when you're looking at temp...", Esler interrupted to say "It's better than going up though, isn't it, which we all agree?" Many of Esler's questions came from this same 'things are getting better' perspective.
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PITCHING TO THE LEFT

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Thursday night's Newsnight discussed the elderly care issue. Gavin Esler asked three people to pitch their favoured schemes to the government's egalitarianism-loving independent advisor Joan Bakewell and Emma Soames of Saga magazine.
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Who were the three 'pitchers'?
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1. James Lloyd, of the Blairite Social Market Foundation. He wants a national voluntary insurance scheme.
2. Stephen Burke, of the charity Counsel and Care, who tried to become the Labour Party's candidate for Scunthorpe in the 2010 general election. He favours the 'Death Tax'.
3. Dr Anna Dixon (pictured) chief executive of The King's Foundation (formerly of the L.S.E.), who acted as a policy advisor to the government from 2003-4. She wants it largely paid for out of taxation.
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Gavin Esler had previously interviewed Andrew Lansley, scoring a high I.C. against him of 1.9.
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When attention turned to Sino-American relations, who did Gavin Esler turn to for an American point of view? Nina Hachigian of the liberal Centre for American Progress. That think tank keeps cropping up in my surveys. It must be the American equivalent of the IPPR!
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You could never accuse the BBC of ignoring the Liberal-Left!

'GUARDIAN' BOY IS BACK! WATCH OUT ISRAEL!

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Reading the BBC News website's various stories on the assassination in Dubai of Hamas leader Mahmoud al Mabhouh - and watching Gavin Esler and Peter Marshall on Newsnight last night - you would be hard pressed to know why al Mabhouh is such a controversial figure, beyond what seems to be his involvement in arms deals with Iran (apparently why he was in Dubai) and his high-up position in Hamas. Sky News, however, tells us in its report on the story, "Last month Hamas admitted al Mabhouh, a founder member of Hamas' military wing, was involved in the kidnapping and killing of two Israeli soldiers in 1989." That's an important detail, isn't it? It surely throws some light on what might have happened and why. So why is the BBC being so coy about it?
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Newsnight featured a discussion on the story between Clinton-era official and former US ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk and the ubiquitous Sir Ming Campbell. Esler was far from even-handed and showed his hand throughout (as ever). He and Sir Ming were naturally on good terms, but Abdul Bari Atwan's pal Esler was downright rude to the pro-Israeli Mr Indyk, asking him bitterly sarcastic questions and regularly interrupting him. (Will Gav and 'Bari' be together again on this week's Dateline, slagging off Israel? 'Bari' was on last week, so this shouldn't be the case - but we'll see if Esler and his producer can resist temptation!).
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Talking of biased Esler, as I showed recently each of his three appearances on last week's Newsnight saw him kick off the newspaper headlines at the end with The Guardian. Last night was his first appearance this week and, with all the inevitability of a wink from Anne Robinson, he kicked off last night's newspaper headlines with, yes you guessed it, The Guardian (followed by The Independent of course). Gavin Esler is the Naughtie of Newsnight.
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BUT TO BE FAIR...

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Ah, Janet Daley was this week's Brit on Dateline London. The Left's long run is broken, probably for one week only.
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Also atrocious Abdul Bari Atwan, whose ignorance of anything outside the Middle East shows up week after week, notched up yet another appearance (despite that ignorance), extending his substantial lead as the programme's 'most invited guest'. He attacked Israel. He always attacks Israel. It's a wonder he hasn't accused Israel of being behind the hacking of the e-mails at the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit! (Still, at least he didn't accuse Israel of harvesting organs in Haiti. He left that to an even bigger extremist.)
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Gavin's 'to be fairs' were much in evidence. When he's calling for fairness, it's usually a call for fairness to someone on the Left. One 'to be fair' today was a typical 'but to be fair to Obama' (before going on to praise the president for some 'sophisticated' strategy or other) but another was directed at Greece's socialist government: "But to be fair to the new Greek government, they didn't create this mess. They inherited a huge mess..." Now, as you will doubtless have read, heard and seen in recent days, Greece's self-induced economic catastrophe has been building for decades, with governments of all stripes building up disaster by refusing to do their duty and take on the communist trade unions and all the other vested interests and create the space for a clean, vibrant market economy and a responsible society to thrive. That doesn't sway Gavin Esler away from his instinctive solidarity-with-the-Left, so he'll 'be fair' to PASOK and heap all the blame on the outgoing conservative New Democracy government. All Greek governments have inherited a mess and handed the mess on to their successors. This mess just happens to be a MASSIVE mess, but it's a MASSIVE mess that is simply the sum of all the preceding messes - including, of course, the biggest mess-up of all, which saw an unsuitable country being allowed to join the European common currency for purely political reasons).
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Gavin also, in all sincerity, called businessman and philanthropist Warren Buffett "the great Warren Buffett". Now, what's the betting Mr Buffett's strong backing for Barack Obama helped warm Gav's enthusiasm for him?
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CLIVE OF BROADCASTING HOUSE

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Does Clive Stafford Smith lodge with Gavin Esler, or do they merely car-share?
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As you know, the ubiquitous Mr Stafford Smith of Reprieve also acts as lawyer for that lovable Ethiopian scamp Binman Mohammed and is hardly ever off Newsnight (a slight exaggeration perhaps!). He certainly seems to get to chat to Gav on a pretty regular basis. Last night's Newsnight reported on MI5's denial of involvement in collusion with torture. Ol' Clive was in debate with Colonel Richard Kemp, formerly of the Joint Intelligence Committee. Esler only ever interrupted Colonel Kemp.
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THE WISDOM OF GAVIN ESLER

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Gavin Esler gave us the benefit of his 'wisdom' again on today's Dateline: London, sounding off (as no neutral presenter should) on the controversial topic of paying Taleban fighters in Afghanistan to give up fighting. He's in favour: "The thing that interests me about this (London) conference was, at last!, you know, in other words, it's not rocket science to think it's probably better to offer people jobs and a bit of money if you can stop them shooting at you." This is typical Beeb-think - appease, don't fight (because "nobody's going to win this war in a classic way", he said - as the BBC always used to say about the civil war in Sri Lanka prior to the Sri Lankan army's victory over the Tamil Tigers.) As Gav's Indian guest hinted though, it's not rocket science either for the Taleban. They can (and quite probably will) take our money, pretend to give up the fight, but then start fighting us again (perhaps using the money to buy new weapons). That's the Afghan way, by the sounds of it.
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Old Gav was full of opinions today, and completely unafraid to breach BBC guidelines and share them with us. He clearly takes a dim view of the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War, slamming it again and again. Here are a selection of his (impartial!) views on the subject:
"This inquiry, they ask a question, they get an answer, they move onto something else, and that seems a bit feeble."
"There are all kinds of problems I've suggested here. There are people who watch this, who just want...who already loathe Tony Blair, and who just want to see that he's got fangs, horns and a tail, and all he said was 'this was a decision, it wasn't a conspiracy, I said pretty much public what I said privately'."
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It was plainer than the nose on a plain person's face that Gavin Esler still holds a candle for Tony Blair, a candle he shares with ultra-Blairite panelist David Aaronovitch. The Canadian journalist Laura Lynch of the CBC brought up the issue of the illegality of the war and this provoked Gavin into an extraordinarily passionate defence of Blair's position - a defence that saw our normally easy-going host become remarkably animated and agitated. He repeatedly interrupted her and adopted a sarcastic tone of voice at one point (while saying "Well, there's a British law that says 'no regime change'".) Even ultra-Blairite David Aaronovitch had to correct him here (clearly out of conscience), and that prompted Esler's most passionate intervention of all: "But all I'm saying is, I'm sorry to interrupt, but it's not an exact science. It's absolutely not an exact science." All he needed to add was, "It's not! It's not! It's not!" I must admit that I'm somewhat in sympathy with the point he was so ineptly trying to make (as I supported the invasion of Iraq) but he is supposed to be a neutral presenter not an opinionated guest and should not have been making any of these points. Also I suspect his reason for coming from this position was merely pro-Labour sentiment (something I do not share) rather than any lingering support for the Iraq War.*

ESLER DOESN'T QUITE GET IT

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Opening question from Gavin Esler on today's Dateline: London: "First of all, why is he (Barack Obama) in so much trouble, because people outside the United States don't quite get this, I think?"
Well if all they'd been listening to (over the last couple of years) is the BBC, it would be hardly surprising they don't 'get it'. The Beeb's coverage of Barack Obama has been almost completely favourable, at times nearing adulation.
* '
There's an excellent take on the BBC's inability to 'quite get it' from DB on the Biased BBC website, prompted by an article by John Lloyd: http://biased-bbc.blogspot.com/2010/01/john-lloyd-on-bbc-obama-bias.html. DB links to this excellent article by Brian Micklethwait, which was provoked by an Obama love-in on Kirsty Wark's new Review programme: http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/2010/01/bbc_thoughts_an.html. Brian points out, along the way, the sheer lack of competence in Kirsty's interviewing technique (something I've noted here before): "My third impression was that the chairing of this discussion was incompetent to the point of being ridiculous. Kirsty Wark should be giving a real talking-to. She was far too keen on joining in the discussion with her own opinions, instead of ensuring that all the other people present refrained from all talking at once." 'Far too keen on joining in the discussion with her own opinions' reminds me of Gavin Esler himself, though he is a far more competent interviewer than Kirsty Wark.
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ESLER DONS THE BURQA

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The likely French action against wearing the burqa was discussed on last night's Newsnight by Gavin Esler with his left-wing Dateline friend Agnes Poirier, a gobby, jargon-spouting Muslim student (but quite a looker!) and Lord Pearson of UKIP.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/newsnight
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As you would expect with Gavin Esler he was not neutral in the debate. Very far from it. When the Muslim lass wasn't interrupting (or talking over) Lord Pearson, he was! 10 questions and 7 interruptions came in fast succession, resulting in a very high interruption coefficient of 2.8. (If the pretty student hadn't been talking over Lord Pearson so much this I.C. would doubtless have been even higher, as Gavin would have been able to interrupt even more himself!).
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ALL SIDES OF THE LEFT CAN JOIN IN

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Last night's Newsnight discussed Jack Straw's evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry with a supporter and an opponent of the Iraq War, which sounds balanced enough, but the supporter was self-confessed ultra-Blairite John Rentoul of The Independent (and before that The New Statesman) and the opponent was a Labour-backing blogger Chris Ames, who contributes to The Guardian, The New Statesman and The Independent.
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The BBC News website's main story this morning, Gordon Brown 'to face Iraq Inquiry before election' (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8473790.stm) links in its 'From Other News Sites' section to The Guardian, Observer, Independent, Sky News and Press Association.
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Another lively debate on the Left.

C'EST LA VIE!

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Today's Dateline panel consisted of left-wing French journalist Agnes Poirier of La Vie (pictured!); Isabel Hilton, even-further-left-wing journalist/broadcaster (chinadialogue/The Guardian/Observer/openDemocracy.net (etc)); so-far-left-he-could-soon-come-out-the-other-side-as-extreme-right Abdel Bari Atwan of Al Quds (yet again); and Tom Fenton, a veteran American broadcaster who worked for CBS News. A typical panel then.
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Bankers were duly bashed and Obama duly praised. Agnes had a go at Sarkozy, laissez-faire and Boris Johnson. Isabel also had a dig at Boris, and savaged U.S. foreign policy throughout history. Atwan slagged off U.S. foreign policy, and even condemned them over their response to the hellish situation in Haiti. He was, though, with Obama on domestic policy and the bankers ("I'm really with Obama on these steps", he said.) Mr Fenton agreed, calling Obama's latest action on bankers' bonuses"a very clever move by the president."
**
As ever, presenter Gavin Esler couldn't resist commentating as well as presenting. He said that the one-off tax on bankers' bonuses may be "self-defeating" but it was "somehow satisfying" - and with that he folded his arms and laughed with satisfaction. How many times do I have to tell you Gavin, keep your opinions to yourself!!
*

ANOTHER DATELINE

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Saturday on this blog means Dateline: London with Gavin Esler. Today's panel discussed the failed coup against Gordon Brown (some laughter at the expense of Hoon and Hewitt) before going on to slag off the Conservative Party (as usual). Then, discussing US intelligence in the wake of the failed Christmas Day massacre, they all defended and/or praised Barack Obama & condemned Rumsfeld and the Bush administration (including, naturally, the supposedly impartial presenter Gavin Esler). Finally, Dubai was up for discussion - and here, for the first time, there was disagreement among the panel. One of the lefties (pragmatic Sir Michael White of The Guardian) was characteristically majestic in his indifference to the plight of the poor S.E. Asian workers exploited by the Gulf pharoahs in their bid to build their new megatower - a plight characteristically brought up by one of the other lefties, the far-left Portuguese writer and broadcaster Eunice Goes (one of Gavin's regular cast of Eurobabes, who - for some reason! - is pictured above), who, after waxing righteous on the subject, was not impressed (being a very ideological lady) by Sir Mike's laxity on the issue. Michael Goldfarb of globalpost.com was on Eunice's side. The final guest, veteran Egyptian journalist Abdellah Homouda, edged his bets. He was the only one, during the section on the Conservatives, to balance his criticism of the Tories with criticism of Labour.

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Week in week out, the left-liberal bias keeps on coming. For instance, there had never yet been (in the couple of years that I've been watching) a single American contributor who could be said to come from the Right side of American politics. And there have been lots of American contributors. And there have been many editions which have excluded anyone from the right-of-political-centre completely. There has never been an edition (in the period that I've been watching) that did not have at least two left-of-centre guests on it (and usually there are three, sometimes four). The programme is in severe need of being refreshed.

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NEW YEAR THOUGHTS ON GAVIN ESLER'S 'DATELINE'

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Today's Dateline: London with Gavin Esler was looking ahead to 2010. The cast list today, however, was - with one exception - very much the same as 2009: the extremist Abdel Barri Atwan (who seems to support our Lib Dems!); Anglo-Saxon-baiting Marc Roche of Le Monde, Gavin's American chum Stryker Maguire of Newsweek; &, for a small fig-leaf of political balance, Peter Oborne of The Daily Mail.
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Before I started this blog I used to sent texts to the BBC News channel week in week out moaning about the fact that there were 4 lefties on the panel (as there quite often were). In the second half of 2009, there was a marked improvement on this score, though the tilt to the Left most weeks (as this week) remains.
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I have kept a note of all the guests featured on the programme since early June (I like keeping lists, as you will have noticed!) and it will not surprise any of you who also watch Dateline regularly that Atwan (the spelling of whose name changes every so often!) is the most frequently invited guest, appearing 9 times since early June. For those who don't know him well, here are some of his best-known pronouncements:

"If the Iranian missiles strike Israel – by Allah, I will go to Trafalgar
Square, and dance with delight if the Iranian missiles strike Israel."
"The
events of 11 September will be remembered as the end of the US empire. This is
because all empires collapse when they pursue the arrogance of power."
Saddam Hussein "will go to the gallows with his head held high,
because he built a strong united Iraq without sectarianism."

As ever, Gavin Esler treated him with friendly respect, frequently agreeing with him ("Yes, that's true", and that sort of thing).
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Maguire has been on 6 times and Roche 4 times. This was Peter Oborne's first appearance; indeed, so unusual was it that Esler stumbled over his name during his introduction! Moreover Gavin Esler and Stryker Maguire were at it again, completing each others' sentences. (I have noted this before.) They should get a room.
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As you would expect with such a line-up the debate on the coming British general election was not a balanced one. In fairness Stryker Maguire was (as ever on this subject) non-committal. Not so Atwan and Roche, who strongly assaulted the Conservatives and strongly praised Gordon Brown. Peter Oborne was on hand though to do battle with them. I'll give you a flavour of some of this:
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Roche: "The Conservatives are not see from a European point of view as acceptable, because they side in the European parliament with negationists, with racists, they are against Europe, there is also this feeling of the nasty party coming back (the nasty party is already here, it's in power, and it's called Labour), the background of their leader, this upper class thing, it's back to the ancien regime."
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When Peter Oborne picked Roche up on his facts, & starting pointing out that Alistair Darling also went to private school, Gavin Esler stepped in to change the subject: "Let's move on a little bit...". He didn't move things on during Roche's attacks on George Osborne though.
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Atwan: "I don't want them to have an open mandate, like the previous Thatcher government for example, or even John Major's government."
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Here's a further revealing exchange. Having heard Roche hint at this Esler (doubtless with his fingers crossed) fished for an echo of his own pro-Labour question - and got what he wanted. Interesting.
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Esler: "Do you think if there's not a double dip, if Gordon Brown can go to the country saying, 'Look, the banks are starting to pay us back, unemployment is going down' - and there are actually some reasonable figures from his perspective -, do you think he's in with a chance of..."
Roche: "Yes, because the economy is what makes elections."
Esler: "Interesting."
Atwan: "I think he has a chance. I think he's managed the financial crisis pretty well and this is to his asset. The man actually conducted the whole business in a brilliant way." (Earth to Atwan, Earth to Atwan!)
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Peter Oborne finally restored some sanity to this mad-house: "The factual analysis there is simply wrong!" That's par for the course Peter for the usual suspects on Dateline: London!
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This is a programme that is broadcast on BBC World as well as News 24. So the whole world can watch its weekly wallow in left-liberal opinion. That's a thought, isn't it?

HOW TO BURY BAD NEWS FOR LABOUR

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Newsnight spent lots of time last night on Copenhagen, featuring its 'Self-Regarding Man' and Ed Miliband too (I.C. of 0 for Gavin Esler) -what a treat!
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The economic basket-case that is Greece was also discussed, with Gavin agreeing with Greece's socialist finance minister George Papaconstantinou that being in the Eurozone is no bad thing for a country.
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Then at 37.22 came the news of the latest rise in unemployment - up by 21,000 between August and October. This important news was imparted in just 10 seconds then the programme moved on to the question of 'What is a Jew?' In the days of Conservative government, all rises in unemployment were the focus of frenzied reporting at the BBC. Not so in these days of Labour government. Bad news for Labour is buried.

GAVIN SHOW HIS HAND YET AGAIN

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Today's Dateline London with Gavin Esler pitted the always-good-value right-winger Janet Daley against three left-wingers, the ghastly Abdel Bari Atwan, Obama-fan Greg Katz, and the BBC's favourite commentator on Pakistan, Shahed Sadullah (a left-winger with both charm and intelligence) - and, of course, Gavin Esler.
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Gavin Esler was up to his usual tricks, defending Barack Obama whenever needs called. Even his first question contained a nugget of praise for the Democratic president: "Barack Obama was humble when he collected his Nobel peace prize but he was clear that there is such a thing as a just war, necessary to preserve peace." OK.
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When Janet Daley said Obama's speech was aimed at the home market and aimed at "satisfying the lobby" that thought he was "dithering", Esler interrupted to say "And they were satisfied" before losing heart a little and adding (in a trailing-off fashion) "some of them, I mean..." (which Janet wisely picked up on).
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Gavin then got into this exchange with Greg Katz:
Esler: "Greg, should he have got it?"
Katz: "No, no..."
Esler: "He possibly thinks that, of course"
Of course Gavin. Barack is ever so 'umble.
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The four-against-one situation arose over the issue of the Iraq War, where all three of the other guests rounded on Janet Daley. Esler did not stick up for her (by playing devil's advocate on her behalf); instead he joined the attack: "But Greg was pointing out that many of us just bought it". Janet pointed out that he'd misunderstood her point - as he had. Fancy that, a liberal Beeboid not listening properly to one of his right-of-centre guests!
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Janet is also a 'climate change denier', in BBC parlance (of course, she's no such thing - she's a global warming sceptic). I must note here the little exchange between Gavin and his appalling friend Bari (Atwan) here. Esler, playing devil's advocate, said " There are some people who think that this whole climate change thing (no, Gav, man-made global warming thing!) is a way of transferring money from rich countries to poor countries" but as Atwan was beginning to reply Esler added, with a smile, "Palestine is not included in that." Sucking up to that odious extremist Atwan and socking it to the Israelis at the same - result Gavin!!
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Unusually Gavin Esler did interrupt Atwan at one stage, but only to defend Gordon Brown. Bari was attacking our prime minister for giving loads of money to the banks but not giving as much to poor countries, when Gavin interrupted with a laugh "Well, you could say without saving the banking system (just the banking system, surely the world?) there'd be no money for poor countries, no money for anything."
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After Janet had launched an assault on the hypothesis of man-made global warming Esler asked Mr Sadullah "As you know, the alternative view - and there is an alternative view! - by the supposedly majority of the scientists consulted by the U.N. is that countries like Bangladesh, for example, will really suffer because tides will rise, it's a low country, there'll be more storms. That's the beef." As Janet Daley commented, "Maybe."
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The final topic was bankers and their bonuses. Here Gavin Esler released his inner leftie and bashed away without even a show of balance (though not much coherence either): "Well that seems to me to be the interesting question. Do we expect bankers or is it that some of the bankers just don't get it or is it something that people will just give up banking and take up, you know, become street buskers if they don't get their huge bonuses?" (Well put!) "Well I understand this doesn't effect those who've got it written in their contract that they get a bonus, which is a lot of them" (Is it?) "...in Switzerland or something."
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EVER DECREASING CIRCLES

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The same edition of Newsnight (26/11) also reported on the evidence of Sir Christopher Meyer at the Chilcott Inquiry into the Iraq War. Afterwards Gavin Esler interviewed that pro-Iraq-War Labour rogue Lord George Foulkes and Carne Ross, a liberal-minded, anti-Iraq-War diplomat who has written articles for The New Statesman, The Observer and even that most liberal (in the American sense only) of liberal U.S. blogs, The Huffington Post.
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Yet another lively debate on the biased Beeb, for which left-wingers alone need apply.
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As soon as the debate ended, Esler scanned through tomorrow's front pages, starting - of course - with The Guardian. The headlines from the F.T. and, naturally, The Independent followed. That's Gavin Esler for you!