On-screen warnings on Bob Vylan set ‘not good enough' says UK minister
The BBC is facing questions after rapper Bobby Vylan – of the rap punk duo – led crowds at the festival's West Holts Stage in chants of: 'Free, free Palestine' and: 'Death, death to the IDF (Israel Defence Forces)' on Saturday.
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UK prime minister Sir Keir Starmer has said there is 'no excuse' for the chanting, and the corporation said it showed a warning during the set's stream about the 'very strong and discriminatory language'.
The Bob Vylan set was shown live on an iPlayer stream.
Baroness Jacqui Smith was asked on Times Radio whether she thought the BBC has a bias.
She told the station: 'I don't think the BBC has a bias, but I think it made a mistake here.
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'It's not good enough simply to say on screen that, you know, 'this is dodgy language'.
'It was far beyond that, and it shouldn't have been broadcast live. And I think it would have been possible for the BBC to stop that.'
The British education minister also told Sky that she was 'surprised' that the BBC continued broadcasting the set.
Bob Vylan's performance on the West Holts Stage on Saturday drew significant criticism (Yui Mok/PA)
Over the weekend, the BBC said that viewers would not be able to access the performance on demand.
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A spokesperson for the broadcaster said: 'Some of the comments made during Bob Vylan's set were deeply offensive.
'During this live stream on iPlayer, which reflected what was happening on stage, a warning was issued on screen about the very strong and discriminatory language.'
Kneecap also performed on the West Holts Stage on Saturday (Yui Mok/PA)
A former BBC editor has said that the broadcaster should have the ability to 'cut the feed' whenever there 'is a hint of hate speech'.
Sir Craig Oliver – who also served as director of communications for David Cameron in Downing Street – told Radio 4's Today programme: 'I suspect at next year's Glastonbury there's going to have to be a senior editorial figure who does understand the sensitivities and is going to cut the feed.'
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Sir Keir Starmer led the criticism from across the political spectrum over the weekend, and also referenced Belfast rap trip Kneecap, who had faced calls to be cut from the festival after a member was charged with a terror offence.
The performer led crowds on the festival's West Holts Stage in chants of 'death, death to the IDF' (Yui Mok/PA)
Responding to the chants from Bob Vylan, the UK prime minister said: 'There is no excuse for this kind of appalling hate speech.
'I said that Kneecap should not be given a platform and that goes for any other performers making threats or inciting violence.
'The BBC needs to explain how these scenes came to be broadcast.'
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Bob Vylan, who formed in Ipswich in 2017, have released four albums addressing issues to do with racism, masculinity and class.
Bobby Vylan's real name is Pascal Robinson-Foster, 34, according to reports.
In a statement posted to Instagram, Vylan said: 'Teaching our children to speak up for the change they want and need is the only way that we make this world a better place.
'As we grow older and our fire starts to possibly dim under the suffocation of adult life and all its responsibilities, it is incredibly important that we encourage and inspire future generations to pick up the torch that was passed to us.'
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The Independent
6 minutes ago
- The Independent
Bob Vylan no longer playing Manchester festival after Glastonbury controversy
Punk rap duo Bob Vylan will no longer play at a festival in Manchester this weekend after a controversial appearance at Glastonbury. The group were due to headline the Saturday slot at Radar festival but no longer appear in the line-up. It comes as police launched an investigation after rapper Bobby Vylan led crowds in chants of 'death, death to the IDF (Israel Defence Forces)' during their livestreamed performance at the Somerset music festival last weekend. A statement posted on Radar festival's Instagram account said: 'Bob Vylan will not be appearing at Radar festival this weekend.' It has since updated its website, changing the Saturday slot to 'Headliner TBA' (to be announced). In response, the group shared the festival's statement on their Instagram story, adding the caption: 'Silence is not an option. We will be fine, the people of Palestine are hurting. Manchester we will be back.' The rap group had issued a statement on Tuesday claiming they were being 'targeted for speaking up' after Avon and Somerset police began its investigation. The BBC has also faced criticism for livestreaming the set and has since apologised, describing the chants as 'antisemitic sentiments' that were 'unacceptable'. It later emerged BBC director-general Tim Davie was at Glastonbury while the performance was being livestreamed. A BBC spokesperson said: 'The director-general was informed of the incident after the performance and at that point he was clear it should not feature in any other Glastonbury coverage.' The group have since been banned from entering the US, ahead of their tour, with deputy secretary of state Christopher Landau revoking the duo's visas for their 'hateful tirade at Glastonbury'. They have also been pulled from their upcoming performance at a German music venue. Bob Vylan are expected to perform at the Boardmasters surfing and music festival in Newquay, Cornwall, in August. The group was formed in Ipswich in 2017, and are known for addressing political issues in their albums including racism, masculinity and class. Bobby Vylan is the stage name of Pascal Robinson-Foster, 34, according to reports, while his bandmate drummer uses the alias Bobbie Vylan.
Telegraph
11 minutes ago
- Telegraph
‘It may be dangerous in Israel but it feels safer there than Britain'
Crowds of people swarmed around information stands. Old people, young couples, toddlers and babes in arms. One person joked: 'There must be a Yiddish phrase for 'Packed like sardines.'' But most were not in the mood for humour. Some even had tears in their eyes as speakers on the stage talked of 'coming home'. This was the scene at an aliyah fair held in north London last month, for British Jews who are contemplating moving to Israel (the Hebrew term 'aliyah' literally means 'ascending' or 'rising', but for generations it's been used to denote immigration to Israel). And while this is an annual event, organisers were surprised by just how busy the 2025 gathering was, with 1,100 participants attending, three times the numbers of the year before. 'Usually, we have a few hundred people, but this time we were surprised by how many signed in,' says Rabbi Vadim Blumin, the head of the Jewish Agency in the UK and Western Europe, which helped organise the fair. 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'None of that fills me with joy, but I need to look at my options because things are very bad in this country, and have been since October 7 2023. 'I realised something had changed on October 8, when I went to see my dying mother who was in a Jewish hospice, to find police outside because there had been death threats. That was the first big shock, and things have got progressively worse.' Until October 7, Lee says she felt part of the progressive movement, standing with friends over their various causes, but has had little support in return. 'Even when my friends and colleagues do want to show support, they don't dare say anything publicly. They feel they can't, and that's where we are,' she says sadly. 'My family has been here for 200 years. I love this country and am hugely patriotic. But I am not sure this country loves me any more.' The numbers who have actually left the UK for Israel are small but growing according to statistics from The Jewish Agency and the Israeli Ministry of Aliyah and Integration. In 2023, 404 Jewish people from the UK made aliyah to Israel. Last year, 660 went and, in the first five months of 2025, 250 have gone – a 12 per cent increase compared to the same period last year. Another 980 households have gone through the aliyah process, which takes around four to six months, and involves proving Jewish heritage, providing documentation and an interview before being granted a visa. Sammy Garfinkel was on a gap year in Israel before starting at a British university when October 7 happened. His parents flew him out of the country, but he insisted on going back, and has now started at university in Israel and officially made aliyah. When the 20-year-old finishes his degree, he will be conscripted into the IDF, which has lost more than 800 soldiers in this war alone. 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The Guardian
14 minutes ago
- The Guardian
‘I genuinely love this place so much!' Fatboy Slim's 100th Glastonbury set
Irreverent, bouncy and as suitable at 4am in a club as it is at 4pm in a field, the music of Fatboy Slim dovetails perfectly with Glastonbury. And the man himself, Norman Cook, seems to know it. This year's festival marked a big milestone: Cook has now played 100 Glasto sets – or thereabouts – over the years, popping up everywhere from vast stages to tiny tents. To document the occasion, Guardian photographer David Levene bedded in with the DJ for the weekend, while Cook explained why it holds such a special significance for him. Cook tries to find his daughter for Burning Spear at the Pyramid Stage Bumping into Chris Moyles, and right, having his photo taken with Charley and her son Remi, 7 months, from Somerset Cook checks out the scenes outside Lonely Hearts Club stage in Silver Hayes, where he's due to play that evening at 10.30pm Feeling it at his son Woody's DJ set at Scissors Bar Cook's dressing room at Lonely Hearts 'We're not doing a kind of 100th show extravaganza on the grounds that we don't actually really know which would be the 100th. It's not an exact science, it's a guesstimate. Thing is, I play so many shows, and so many of them are just like impromptu that we really don't know. So I think it'd be a bit much to really get the bells and whistles out. We think it's the Block9 show in the afternoon tomorrow – we think! But no candles, sadly. 'I'm very, very proud of my relationship with Glastonbury and my history with it and I'm lucky, because as a DJ, you can play multiple sets. Obviously, there's probably people who've been to more Glastonburys, but they've only played one show per festival – that's not going to get you into big high figures.' Fire it up! Fatboy Slim at Lonely Hearts Club 'My first Glasto show was on the Pyramid stage in 1986 with the Housemartins, and we didn't know anything really about Glastonbury or festivals. We'd never played in daylight before – we only ever played in clubs – and also we thought that Glastonbury was full of bearded hippies who would probably throw mud and bottles of piss out at us. So we went on quite nervous and quite agitated, but that was quite good in the Housemartins, channelling that aggression – we had the nice tunes, but there was a lot of aggression. We made an awful lot of friends, and it changed our view about Glastonbury. The only weird thing was me and Paul [Heaton] have both had fairly successful careers, but neither of us had managed to get back on the Pyramid stage for 38 years. Last year, Paul played the Pyramid stage and he phoned me up and said, 'Will you come on and do a song with us, just to celebrate?'' Fatboy Slim prepares before performing at Lonely Hearts Club stage Dropping bangers at Lonely Hearts Club, with Stella McCartney backstage 'My favourite Glastonbury moment was playing for [Rob da Bank's label] Sunday Best. I was four days in at that point, my mind had been expanded, altered and distorted, as was everybody's around me. So I decided if I played a record backwards, would people dance backwards? And it was a good theory. Obviously with CDJs, you can press reverse, but with the record, you have to physically rewind it. So I played Block Rockin' Beats, by the Chemical Brothers, pretty much at the right speed but backwards. And it worked. Everybody got the joke. It was just after Twin Peaks too, so everybody was like, dancing backwards to the music. 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Woody came to Glastonbury when he was about eight, and it didn't go well for him or for me and Zoe. But when he started coming under his own steam, it's weird, because we didn't teach him anything, he just assimilated himself into the fabric of it and made all these friends the first year he went. He was built for Glastonbury: he's just got that energy, he wants to talk to everybody, he wants to change the world. Everybody keeps telling me how cool my son is or how mental my son is, sometimes both.' The crowd at Genosys, Block9 'As a festival, Glastonbury never sold out to the man. The Eavis family have kept it independent, which means they're in charge of the way it feels and the way it looks, and people respect that. There's nothing corporate that interferes and dictates, you know, and it's not about making money. The music business, especially when money comes in, it distorts your creative ideas and the feel of it and it becomes a money-making machine. But the Eavis family never sold out. They don't do it for money. They do it because they love watching this going on on their farm every year.' Next up: Shangri-La Having his stage wristband put on before performing at Shangri-La, by his video director Bob 'I genuinely love this place so much. I feel proud if I'm promoting the Glastonbury brand, or just being part of the furniture or just wandering around saying hello to everyone. Michael Eavis can't get around so much any more, but I was always so impressed about the fact that he would just spend the whole festival wandering, saying hello to everyone.' Cook bids farewell to the festival for another year at Shangri-La
