Post by Teddy Bear on Dec 22, 2012 18:26:28 GMT
Given that this week is the one that the Pollard report was published, and its findings revealing the 'chaos and confusion' found to be endemic within the BBC.
Anybody recalling the way the BBC used every available programme to regurgitate the hacking scandal and Leveson enquiry, as if by besmirching Murdoch they were making themselves look better, one has to wonder why Any Answers today, the programme which allows viewers to comment on questions posed in Any Questions, had no mention of the Pollard report.
But as we saw recently, while there is still many questions to be answered on just how it came about that the BBC shelved the Newsnight report on Savile, but were all too quick to run the one that mistakenly accused 'a Senior Tory', they have 'shelved' questions and answers related to their own behaviour, but chose instead to focus on that of a Tory MP.
Except there seems to be some doubt that what this MP is supposed to have done and said is indeed true. Yet the BBC allowed those callers it had selected to voice their opinions on the subject to carry on insinuating that it was, without any attempt to correct or balance their statements or views.
I suggest listening to the first part of Any Answers on the link above, and available for the next 7 days, then read the article below from The Telegraph, and then ask yourself what was the point of the programme.
I notice the first line of the article says: The Andrew Mitchell affair is to the police what the McAlpine scandal was to the BBC
It looks to me like the Andrew Mitchell affair is to the BBC exactly what the McAlpine scandal was – a way to divert attention from itself for its other failings, and using a Tory to do it.
Andrew Mitchell: a lie gone round the world before the truth had its bicycle clips on
The Andrew Mitchell affair is to the police what the McAlpine scandal was to the BBC
By Charles Moore
On Tuesday night, a Dispatches investigation reported on Channel 4 News that there was new evidence in the case of Andrew Mitchell, the Chief Whip who was forced to resign in October after allegedly calling policemen on the gates of Downing Street “f------ plebs”.
The investigation showed three notable things. The first was that CCTV footage did not confirm the police account of the incident. There was no apparent altercation and no members of the public hanging about, let alone looking, as the police log had put it, “visibly shocked”.
The second was the tape of the meeting between Mr Mitchell and members of the West Midlands Police Federation in his constituency. This recorded Mr Mitchell telling the officers, for the first time, what he had actually said at the gates. The transcript shows that they twice thanked him for doing so, yet when they emerged from the meeting, they said he had told them nothing new. On that false basis, they called for his resignation.
The third, and most striking, concerned the email sent to the Deputy Chief Whip, denouncing Mr Mitchell and claiming to come from a bystander who had witnessed the scene. It turned out to have been written by a serving policeman in the Diplomatic Protection Group – the armed officers who provide Downing Street security. The man has since been arrested. His email, which made untrue claims about shocked crowds similar to those in the police log, was key to spreading doubt about Mr Mitchell among his fellow Tory MPs. It was the loss of party support that eventually forced him out.
On the morning after the programme, I happened to be standing in the rainswept yard of a Somerset farmer. Without any prompting, he switched from discussing the weather to raise the subject of the Channel 4 report. “It’s terrible,” he said, “The police are supposed to protect us. If you can’t believe them, who can you believe? I don’t trust them now.”
This is the essential, simple point – so simple that it was missed in the hue and cry which began on the evening of September 19, when Mr Mitchell attempted to bicycle through those gates.
Unlike my farmer friend, I am a cynical journalist. I never believed the police account. I know Mr Mitchell well. He is certainly capable of rudeness, but I was confident he would never have used the words alleged. I also detected an element of self-defensive fiction.
I wrote at the time that the words attributed to Mr Mitchell – “Best you learn your f------ place… You’re f------ plebs” – were not words that real people, even nasty real people, actually employ. They were the inventions of those who wanted Mr Mitchell to have said those words – a parody of a type they didn’t like. To turn it round, it was rather as if someone who despised the police had put words into their mouths along the lines of “’Allo, ’allo! Wot’s all this, then? You’re nicked, sunshine.” It was a caricature, with a class-war element attached.
But such an argument could make little impression among the great majority who naturally – and, in principle, rightly – do believe the police. The normal citizen, in Britain at least, has the reasonable expectation that a police log is true.
We still do not know exactly what happened. Perplexingly, Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, ignored the fact that the fake email casts extreme doubt on the police log, and continued to back up the log itself. He then took off on holiday. We may have to wait until after Christmas – and the full report from deputy assistant commissioner Pat Gallan – to get much nearer the truth.
But it looks to me like a stitch-up. Note the fact that the email from the fake witness was sent to the Deputy Chief Whip. Which ordinary citizen would know that the Whip’s Office was the right recipient for such a message if you wanted to do maximum damage to Mr Mitchell through his colleagues? Who except a political insider would know that the Deputy Chief Whip, John Randall, has a reputation for not getting on with Mr Mitchell? Who but a political or media operator would have the idea of setting up one of Mr Randall’s constituents to send him an email pretending to be simply a concerned member of the public?
The more you look at it, the more this starts to seem like the police’s version of the Lord McAlpine affair, with “Plebgate” as their Newsnight. Mr Mitchell is a prominent Tory. The police are angry with this Tory-dominated Government over pay and conditions. Along comes something that sounds discreditable. Bingo! Once a very small number of people make lurid claims about what was said, the rest is easy. Senior police officers, Police Federation spokesmen, Ed Miliband (who made a great point in his attacks on Mr Mitchell of the word “plebs”) do not need to question the facts. They merely have to say how shocked they are, and rely on a culture in which being a “Tory toff” deprives you of all human rights. The internet, Twitter and the media will do the rest. A lie has got round the world before the truth has got its bicycle clips on.
In strictly personal terms, the lie is not as disgusting as the paedophile accusation against Lord McAlpine. But it is almost as damaging. It ruined Mr Mitchell’s career – or would have done if it had been sustained. It also has a wider effect. It seems to have allowed the people trained to protect all of us to try to destroy one of those under their care.
Until the 1980s, the public could walk freely into Downing Street. Then, those famous gates went up to protect Margaret Thatcher from the IRA. Gatekeepers are people of great power. It is not a happy thought if the men we trust to carry guns at those gates have their own agenda against their elected masters. These people are blobbed out when they appear on screen and cannot be identified, to protect their security. What about the security of everyone else? As Mr Mitchell admitted he did say, “You’re here to f------ help us.” Minus the rude word, he was right.
There is another similarity with the McAlpine case. It is that the victim had to fight back, without much help. David Cameron behaved decently throughout towards Mr Mitchell, but not strongly. He accepted his word – as one surely must of a senior colleague unless one has overwhelming evidence to the contrary – but he tried damage limitation rather than stalwart defence.
The Downing Street media handling was feeble. The Cabinet Secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood, charged with investigating, was not assiduous in asking questions about the CCTV or inquiring into the email. He was also reluctant to release the CCTV for the world to judge. The Government seemed more interested in self-protection than in Mr Mitchell or the truth – a policy that had the perverse effect of exposing it to further attack. As for the Conservative Party, it continued its proud tradition, inaugurated with the political assassination of Mrs Thatcher in 1990, of tearing at its own.
When the Mitchell story broke in September, I rang up normally rational analysts of the political scene who said that he should be sacked because the “pleb” accusations were so damaging that it was irrelevant whether they were true. In these febrile times of Leveson and all that, the prevailing feeling in British public life is one of fear. Who will denounce whom? Who will fall, and who will survive? In the death struggle of media, police and politicians, who will come out on top? It is not a good way to run a country.
Anybody recalling the way the BBC used every available programme to regurgitate the hacking scandal and Leveson enquiry, as if by besmirching Murdoch they were making themselves look better, one has to wonder why Any Answers today, the programme which allows viewers to comment on questions posed in Any Questions, had no mention of the Pollard report.
But as we saw recently, while there is still many questions to be answered on just how it came about that the BBC shelved the Newsnight report on Savile, but were all too quick to run the one that mistakenly accused 'a Senior Tory', they have 'shelved' questions and answers related to their own behaviour, but chose instead to focus on that of a Tory MP.
Except there seems to be some doubt that what this MP is supposed to have done and said is indeed true. Yet the BBC allowed those callers it had selected to voice their opinions on the subject to carry on insinuating that it was, without any attempt to correct or balance their statements or views.
I suggest listening to the first part of Any Answers on the link above, and available for the next 7 days, then read the article below from The Telegraph, and then ask yourself what was the point of the programme.
I notice the first line of the article says: The Andrew Mitchell affair is to the police what the McAlpine scandal was to the BBC
It looks to me like the Andrew Mitchell affair is to the BBC exactly what the McAlpine scandal was – a way to divert attention from itself for its other failings, and using a Tory to do it.
Andrew Mitchell: a lie gone round the world before the truth had its bicycle clips on
The Andrew Mitchell affair is to the police what the McAlpine scandal was to the BBC
By Charles Moore
On Tuesday night, a Dispatches investigation reported on Channel 4 News that there was new evidence in the case of Andrew Mitchell, the Chief Whip who was forced to resign in October after allegedly calling policemen on the gates of Downing Street “f------ plebs”.
The investigation showed three notable things. The first was that CCTV footage did not confirm the police account of the incident. There was no apparent altercation and no members of the public hanging about, let alone looking, as the police log had put it, “visibly shocked”.
The second was the tape of the meeting between Mr Mitchell and members of the West Midlands Police Federation in his constituency. This recorded Mr Mitchell telling the officers, for the first time, what he had actually said at the gates. The transcript shows that they twice thanked him for doing so, yet when they emerged from the meeting, they said he had told them nothing new. On that false basis, they called for his resignation.
The third, and most striking, concerned the email sent to the Deputy Chief Whip, denouncing Mr Mitchell and claiming to come from a bystander who had witnessed the scene. It turned out to have been written by a serving policeman in the Diplomatic Protection Group – the armed officers who provide Downing Street security. The man has since been arrested. His email, which made untrue claims about shocked crowds similar to those in the police log, was key to spreading doubt about Mr Mitchell among his fellow Tory MPs. It was the loss of party support that eventually forced him out.
On the morning after the programme, I happened to be standing in the rainswept yard of a Somerset farmer. Without any prompting, he switched from discussing the weather to raise the subject of the Channel 4 report. “It’s terrible,” he said, “The police are supposed to protect us. If you can’t believe them, who can you believe? I don’t trust them now.”
This is the essential, simple point – so simple that it was missed in the hue and cry which began on the evening of September 19, when Mr Mitchell attempted to bicycle through those gates.
Unlike my farmer friend, I am a cynical journalist. I never believed the police account. I know Mr Mitchell well. He is certainly capable of rudeness, but I was confident he would never have used the words alleged. I also detected an element of self-defensive fiction.
I wrote at the time that the words attributed to Mr Mitchell – “Best you learn your f------ place… You’re f------ plebs” – were not words that real people, even nasty real people, actually employ. They were the inventions of those who wanted Mr Mitchell to have said those words – a parody of a type they didn’t like. To turn it round, it was rather as if someone who despised the police had put words into their mouths along the lines of “’Allo, ’allo! Wot’s all this, then? You’re nicked, sunshine.” It was a caricature, with a class-war element attached.
But such an argument could make little impression among the great majority who naturally – and, in principle, rightly – do believe the police. The normal citizen, in Britain at least, has the reasonable expectation that a police log is true.
We still do not know exactly what happened. Perplexingly, Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, ignored the fact that the fake email casts extreme doubt on the police log, and continued to back up the log itself. He then took off on holiday. We may have to wait until after Christmas – and the full report from deputy assistant commissioner Pat Gallan – to get much nearer the truth.
But it looks to me like a stitch-up. Note the fact that the email from the fake witness was sent to the Deputy Chief Whip. Which ordinary citizen would know that the Whip’s Office was the right recipient for such a message if you wanted to do maximum damage to Mr Mitchell through his colleagues? Who except a political insider would know that the Deputy Chief Whip, John Randall, has a reputation for not getting on with Mr Mitchell? Who but a political or media operator would have the idea of setting up one of Mr Randall’s constituents to send him an email pretending to be simply a concerned member of the public?
The more you look at it, the more this starts to seem like the police’s version of the Lord McAlpine affair, with “Plebgate” as their Newsnight. Mr Mitchell is a prominent Tory. The police are angry with this Tory-dominated Government over pay and conditions. Along comes something that sounds discreditable. Bingo! Once a very small number of people make lurid claims about what was said, the rest is easy. Senior police officers, Police Federation spokesmen, Ed Miliband (who made a great point in his attacks on Mr Mitchell of the word “plebs”) do not need to question the facts. They merely have to say how shocked they are, and rely on a culture in which being a “Tory toff” deprives you of all human rights. The internet, Twitter and the media will do the rest. A lie has got round the world before the truth has got its bicycle clips on.
In strictly personal terms, the lie is not as disgusting as the paedophile accusation against Lord McAlpine. But it is almost as damaging. It ruined Mr Mitchell’s career – or would have done if it had been sustained. It also has a wider effect. It seems to have allowed the people trained to protect all of us to try to destroy one of those under their care.
Until the 1980s, the public could walk freely into Downing Street. Then, those famous gates went up to protect Margaret Thatcher from the IRA. Gatekeepers are people of great power. It is not a happy thought if the men we trust to carry guns at those gates have their own agenda against their elected masters. These people are blobbed out when they appear on screen and cannot be identified, to protect their security. What about the security of everyone else? As Mr Mitchell admitted he did say, “You’re here to f------ help us.” Minus the rude word, he was right.
There is another similarity with the McAlpine case. It is that the victim had to fight back, without much help. David Cameron behaved decently throughout towards Mr Mitchell, but not strongly. He accepted his word – as one surely must of a senior colleague unless one has overwhelming evidence to the contrary – but he tried damage limitation rather than stalwart defence.
The Downing Street media handling was feeble. The Cabinet Secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood, charged with investigating, was not assiduous in asking questions about the CCTV or inquiring into the email. He was also reluctant to release the CCTV for the world to judge. The Government seemed more interested in self-protection than in Mr Mitchell or the truth – a policy that had the perverse effect of exposing it to further attack. As for the Conservative Party, it continued its proud tradition, inaugurated with the political assassination of Mrs Thatcher in 1990, of tearing at its own.
When the Mitchell story broke in September, I rang up normally rational analysts of the political scene who said that he should be sacked because the “pleb” accusations were so damaging that it was irrelevant whether they were true. In these febrile times of Leveson and all that, the prevailing feeling in British public life is one of fear. Who will denounce whom? Who will fall, and who will survive? In the death struggle of media, police and politicians, who will come out on top? It is not a good way to run a country.
