Like Sue, I binged on politics this morning. It matters, it's fascinating, and it was still raining.
My ears, as ever, were listening out for bias and Paddy O'Connell's Broadcasting Housedecided to mock Andrea Leadsom for overusing the word 'clear'.
They had a dizzying montage of her saying 'clear' in their introduction and the 'feature proper' mocked her repeated use of 'clear' to the accompaniment of the kind of music I associate with late '50s/early '60s adverts showing women trying out soap powders.
Was this an example of some clever biased BBC type (who doesn't like her) spotting her using a word on a few occasions, finding it funny and then wangling it onto a receptive BH?
There was a very striking 'audio essay' on this morning's Broadcasting Housefrom American novelist and translator Maureen Freely (who also writes for the Guardian and Independent).
Her subject was 'coups in Turkey', and she recalled previous coups - some of which caught up her left-wing family and friends.
This latest coup attempt, however, struck her as something very different from those previous coups:
Let's start with the military, which was pretty much decapitated seven years ago when Erdogan incarcerated its entire top echelon on treason charges he later dropped.
How could a handful of officers operating inside the severely compromised force have dared to think a coup possible?
Why, when they went ahead anyway, did they focus on the photogenic or the iconic - Istanbul Airport, the Bosphorus bridges, the National Assembly, the Monument of the Republic in Taksim Square?
Why were the troops and tanks they sent there so few in number and so vulnerable to the angry mob?
Why, while the coup was being live-streamed, did its leaders fail to show their faces?
Why was no attempt made to capture Erdogan?
How, amid the chaos, did he manage to FaceTime the entire nation before landing at an airport that had stopped all flights?
Why by then was there an imam singing solidarity from every minaret?
Why, after the coup was crushed, did the President urge his people to return to the streets?
This was, of course, a call for scepticism, and she strongly implied that this was all far too convenient for President Erdogan in his ongoing attempts to crush all dissent.
Those questions, from what I've read and seen so far, are certainly pertinent ones.
******
The two other voices on BH who commented on the attempted coup (or should that be 'attempted coup'?) were UKIP's Suzanne Evans and Newsnight's James O'Brien, and both shared Ms Freely's heavy leanings towards a 'conspiracy theory' here.
Suzanne Evans said:
Since this failed coup on Friday night Erdogan's government have rounded up over 2,800 soldiers and put out over 2,700 arrest warrants for judges, of all people. And you just think, how did they manage to round up nearly 5,000 people so quickly? There are rumours circulating that Erdogan is not exactly unhappy with this coup, that he might even have had something to do with it. These kind of actions actually almost seem to fuel that idea......But whether it was or it wasn't [planned by Erdogan], what concerns me about this is that this will give Erdogan an excuse to clamp down and pursue an ever more extreme Islamist agenda.
James O'Brien said;
It is, you're right, hard to imagine that these rounding-ups could have been in direct response to an 'unexpected' coup, but I guess it's the slow dismantling of Ataturk's legacy.
******
Are Maureen Freely, Suzanne Evans and JO'B correct in their suspicions?
Was this whole. bloody affair a 'Black Ops' operation by the Erdogan government?
(If so, it was very black indeed, given the loss of life.)
I tend not to believe in conspiracy theories though. Should I start to here?
******
One thing I do know is that Radio 4 can't be accused of pro-Erdogan bias here.
There was a very striking 'audio essay' on this morning's Broadcasting Housefrom American novelist and translator Maureen Freely (who also writes for the Guardian and Independent).
Her subject was 'coups in Turkey', and she recalled previous coups - some of which caught up her left-wing family and friends.
This latest coup attempt, however, struck her as something very different from those previous coups:
Let's start with the military, which was pretty much decapitated seven years ago when Erdogan incarcerated its entire top echelon on treason charges he later dropped.
How could a handful of officers operating inside the severely compromised force have dared to think a coup possible?
Why, when they went ahead anyway, did they focus on the photogenic or the iconic - Istanbul Airport, the Bosphorus bridges, the National Assembly, the Monument of the Republic in Taksim Square?
Why were the troops and tanks they sent there so few in number and so vulnerable to the angry mob?
Why, while the coup was being live-streamed, did its leaders fail to show their faces?
Why was no attempt made to capture Erdogan?
How, amid the chaos, did he manage to FaceTime the entire nation before landing at an airport that had stopped all flights?
Why by then was there an imam singing solidarity from every minaret?
Why, after the coup was crushed, did the President urge his people to return to the streets?
This was, of course, a call for scepticism, and she strongly implied that this was all far too convenient for President Erdogan in his ongoing attempts to crush all dissent.
Those questions, from what I've read and seen so far, are certainly pertinent ones.
******
The two other voices on BH who commented on the attempted coup (or should that be 'attempted coup'?) were UKIP's Suzanne Evans and Newsnight's James O'Brien, and both shared Ms Freely's heavy leanings towards a 'conspiracy theory' here.
Suzanne Evans said:
Since this failed coup on Friday night Erdogan's government have rounded up over 2,800 soldiers and put out over 2,700 arrest warrants for judges, of all people. And you just think, how did they manage to round up nearly 5,000 people so quickly? There are rumours circulating that Erdogan is not exactly unhappy with this coup, that he might even have had something to do with it. These kind of actions actually almost seem to fuel that idea......But whether it was or it wasn't [planned by Erdogan], what concerns me about this is that this will give Erdogan an excuse to clamp down and pursue an ever more extreme Islamist agenda.
James O'Brien said;
It is, you're right, hard to imagine that these rounding-ups could have been in direct response to an 'unexpected' coup, but I guess it's the slow dismantling of Ataturk's legacy.
******
Are Maureen Freely, Suzanne Evans and JO'B correct in their suspicions?
Was this whole. bloody affair a 'Black Ops' operation by the Erdogan government?
(If so, it was very black indeed, given the loss of life.)
I tend not to believe in conspiracy theories though. Should I start to here?
******
One thing I do know is that Radio 4 can't be accused of pro-Erdogan bias here.
Like Sue, I binged on politics this morning. It matters, it's fascinating, and it was still raining.
My ears, as ever, were listening out for bias and Paddy O'Connell's Broadcasting Housedecided to mock Andrea Leadsom for overusing the word 'clear'.
They had a dizzying montage of her saying 'clear' in their introduction and the 'feature proper' mocked her repeated use of 'clear' to the accompaniment of the kind of music I associate with late '50s/early '60s adverts showing women trying out soap powders.
Was this an example of some clever biased BBC type (who doesn't like her) spotting her using a word on a few occasions, finding it funny and then wangling it onto a receptive BH?
Still (much to at least one of our readers' disgust), I have kept crediting Paddy for raising his game, impartiality-wise, in recent years (after his appallingly biased early years), and I'll give him a bit more credit here too - if not for the above!
The programme had been repeatedly pushing both the 'politics is too much for us at the moment' and the 'everyone's feeling down' memes this morning, and Paddy pushed them again during the paper review (and his reviewers followed suit).
Then (like in an old cartoon) a light bulb very clearly switched on inside his head and Paddy began saying that he was pushing this because even some of those who voted Leave were now feeling anxiety because of uncertainty over when Article 50 would be activated. He then pledged to find and put on air people (Leave types presumably) who are still feeling happy. I hope he does.
Meanwhile, over on BBC One...
The Andrew Marr programme's paper review sandwiched poor Tim Loughton MP between former Labour advisor Ayesha Hazarika and CNN's highly-opinionated (and rude) chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour.
Mr Loughton is, as you'll doubtless already know, leading Andrea Leadsom's campaign. Ayesha and Christiane aren't fans of Mrs. Leadsom. I bet you can guess what happened? (Poor Tim.)
The picture the programme's website uses to illustrate the programme will give you a flavour of it:
Later came (i) David Davis (on (a) to call for Tony Blair's head and (b) to back Theresa May), (ii) leading Leave/UKIP supporter Arron Banks (backing Mrs. Leadsom) and, finally, (iii) the famous Jeremy Corbyn (backing himself).
On how Andrew Marr dealt with David Davis over Theresa v Andrea, I'll just quote the questions he asked:
Now, you clashed with Theresa May a bit in the old days over civil liberties and other things.
You�re now backing her campaign. We�ve talked a lot about Andrea Leadsom, she�s a fresh face and so forth. Do you think that she is fit to be a British prime minister?
So people talk about the glass cliff, not the glass ceiling. But you take a women into a really difficult position and there�s a cliff and you push her off it.
And you think she�s just a bit lacking in experience?
I was expecting fireworks with Arron Banks but they never came. Both sides treated each other with cautious respect. Andrew, inevitably, raised the issue of the 'worst poster ever', but he didn't make anywhere near as much of it as, I suspect, Evan Davis or James O'Brien would have done:
Andrew Marr: I guess, if there was one moment or poster which crystallised people�s worries about the Brexit side of the argument it was that Breaking Point poster with the migrants leading up, and Nigel Farage. Do you regret that in any way?
Arron Banks: I wasn�t really involved in that. That was a UKIP matter.
Andrew Marr: Did you think it was a mistake?
Arron Banks: I didn�t think it was a mistake. I think that in terms of the referendum it was very much the economy versus immigration, and I think it put immigration right at the forefront of people�s thoughts. I thought it was not a mistake at all.
As for Jeremy Corbyn, well, I don't think it was a 'toughie' (to put it mildly) but JC took exception to AM's line of questioning from the word go:
Andrew Marr: Now all this started with reaction to the Brexit vote, so a very, very straight forward question if I may to start with. Which way did you vote in that referendum yourself?
Jeremy Corbyn: Remain. I�m surprised you even ask the question.
Andrew Marr: Well I asked it because quite a lot of people around you suggested that you had never been a supporter.
Jeremy Corbyn: Nobody ever suggested I was going to do anything other than vote Remain, and I think you�re very well aware of that.
Despite that, the Bearded One generally seemed very relaxed, chipper even, throughout.
And an even-more-heavily-bearded individual appeared at the end - the lead singer of Miracle Legion, a group I'd never heard of before (and who sound agreeably REM-like to me):
When we first launched this blog we said we wouldn't try to be topical, always reacting to the latest news. In that spirit, I intend to go back to where I left off and bang on about last Sunday on Radio 4.
Broadly put, the station's early morning to mid afternoon' sweep of current affairs programmes - from Sunday at 7.10 to Broadcasting House at 9.00 and The World This Weekend at 1.00, combined with 'topical' editions of Desert Island Discs and The Food Programme - made for a very striking sequence, especially as regards the BBC's post-Referendum coverage.
Sunday's post-Referendum coverage was wholly negative. It focused on the apparent steep rise in racist hate crimes since the result came in. Voices from the affected minority communities were heard from, expressing concern and fear. The two interviewees who discussed the issue - Bishop Richard Atkinson near the start of the programme and Rev Rose Hudson-Wilkin at the end of the programme - both linked these crimes to the tone of the (Leave) campaign.
Broadcasting Housewas mostly negative too. The early stages of the programme were dominated by a post-Referendum political discussion between (strongly pro-Remain) Edwina Currie and (strongly pro-Remain) Shirley Williams. Both were downcast about the result (especially Baroness Williams) and pretty acid about the political fallout. And the final stages of the programmewere dominated by the wistful reflections of (strongly pro-Remain) Lord (Peter) Hennessey, who didn't want us to leave the EU. Ah, but here's the BBC's 'impartiality get-out clause!: One of the three paper reviewers was (strongly pro-Leave) Ruth Lea. So 'that makes it all right then'!
Desert Island Discs, recorded post-Referendum, featured the US ambassador to the UK, Matthew Barzun. Ambassador Barzun defended his president's 'back of the queue' comment (in support of Remain) and repeated the Obama administration's reasons for opposing Brexit - namely that Brexit wouldn't be a good thing.
The World This Weekend, with Mark Mardell, started out on a strongly anti-Brexit footing. First, Mark went to speak to the protesters on the the March for Europe - which, by reckoning, aren't the majority 52% (obviously), or even the minority 48%. They are the 0.17%. Why should TWTW have indulged them, and led with them?
Then came a near-quarter-of-an-hour interview with Tony Blair, who put both the anti-Brexit and the 'this referendum result could be overturned' cases. Mark Mardell began by asking him, "Who now speaks for that 48% who voted Remain?"
After him came a surprisingly short interview with Suzanne Evans of UKIP, It lasted three minutes. Mark began by asking her (and then asked her again) whether, as Mr Blair said. we should vote again if the public mood changes (as, he said, her side would have also said if they'd lost).
Now, of course, the question arises: Is using Tony Blair to advance a position really helpful to that side? I can well imagine hordes of BLiar-haters listening to that interview and hearing nothing but variations on 'I hate that man' humming around their heads throughout the entire interview.
Later playwright (pro-Remain) David Hare, spitting mad about the Brexit vote, and House of Cards author (pro-Leave) Lord Dobbs, barely expressing a view on that subject, discussed post-Brexit politics.
There were some vague shades of grey there, but the tendency on the whole was clear - and in the anti-Brexit direction.
