Bob Vylan issue furious statement over Glasto cop probe- 'We are being targeted'
They said: "Not the first. Not the last. Today, a good many people would have you believe a punk band is the number one threat to world peace. Last week, it was a Palestine pressure group, the week before that it was another band.
"We are not for the death of Jews, Arabs or any other race or group of people. We are for the dismantling of a violent military machine. A machine whose own soldiers were told to use 'unnecessary lethal forces' against innocent civilians waiting for aid. A machine that has destroyed much of Gaza."
They continued: "We, like those in the spotlight before us, are not the story. We are a distraction from the story. And whichever sanctions we receive will be a distraction. The Government doesn't want us to ask why they remain silent in the face of this atrocity. To ask why they aren't doing more to stop the killing? To feed the starving?
"The more time they talk about Bob Vylan, the less time they spend answering for their criminal inaction. We are being targeted for speaking up. We are not the first. We will not be the last and if you care for the sanctity of human life and freedom of speech, we urge you to speak up too. Free Palestine."
Following Bob Vylan's performance at Glastonbury, their visas for America, where they were due to perform, were rejected. United States Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said on X: "The @StateDept has revoked the US visas for the members of the Bob Vylan band in light of their hateful tirade at Glastonbury, including leading the crowd in death chants.
"Foreigners who glorify violence and hatred are not welcome visitors to our country." The band's IDF chant came as the Israeli army admitted to shooting and killing Palestinian civilians at aid distribution sites in Gaza.
Since the end of May, more than 583 Palestinians have been killed and thousands injured while waiting for food, as announced by Gaza's Ministry of Health.
An Israeli naval strike also hit a seaside cafe in Gaza, killing more than 30 people, including journalists.
Bob Vylan, who has since been dropped by their talent agent, performed live on the BBC at the time, but the corporation have since said they have no plans of putting it back on iPlayer.
Downing Street also issued a statement following the performance as they said it was "right" for the BBC to express regret at airing the set.
A Number 10 spokesman said: 'We strongly condemn the threatening comments made by Bob Vylan at Glastonbury. The Prime Minister has been clear that any performers making threats or inciting violence should not be given a platform.'
He later added: 'The BBC needs to explain how these scenes came to be broadcast. It's right that they have now acknowledged the live stream should have been pulled and that they will look at guidance around live events going forward.'
Today, the BBC issued a statement to say they should have cut the livestream to Bob Vylan's set. The set was uploaded to iPlayer and remained on the site for more than five hours before it was removed by the BBC.
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Spectator
an hour ago
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Tim Davie shouldn't quit over Glastonbury
There probably never has been a time when a governing party much liked its MPs. If you are on a mission, as governments imagine they are, you are always impatient when your own side raises objections. But it is only recently that governments have seemed positively affronted by the idea that their MPs should have a say. This was encapsulated by Sir Keir Starmer when he dismissed Labour's backbench revolt over welfare cuts as 'noises off'. Off what, exactly? Legislators have the sole right to legislate and that includes the right to refuse legislation. Those, like Rachael Maskell, who parade their consciences may be tiresome, but there is no way of governing this country except through parliament (though people like Lord Hermer are striving mightily to alter this). Prime ministers are oddly blind to the ultimate consequence, which is that their MPs get rid of them. 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In the case of Bob Vylan, the story is about management of coverage, not endorsement, of dreadful views. It does not exhibit the monstrous anti-Israel bias daily apparent in BBC documentaries, news reports, BBC Verify, BBC Arabic, Jeremy Bowen etc. It is more a lack of due diligence. I doubt the resignation of Tim Davie would produce visible improvement. He is actually the first D-G even to admit and pursue the anti-Semitism problem. More shocking is the way the Glastonbury crowd (and therefore, unthinkingly, the BBC) rolls with this type of thing. If – unimaginable, I know – an extreme-right popstar had appeared and announced that he hated 'Zionists' and that Israeli soldiers should die, he would have been howled down. But the left has so normalised Islamist extremism that the overwhelmingly white, middle-class establishment audience has no sense of its weirdness. In a passage not widely reported, Bob Vylan announced to the Glastoholics, 'We are not pacifist punks here. We are the violent punks.' Some of them cheered. Was that a tattoo of a guillotine that I saw on his right arm? Does Glastonbury have to suffer the fate of the Manchester Arena before they understand? Ex-prime ministers are sparing in their public interventions. So far as I can see, Rishi Sunak had made only one Commons speech (as opposed to asking questions) since leaving office – on Rachel Reeves's first Budget. Last week, however, he made his second, in Westminster Hall. It began: 'I last spoke on this subject in this very place back in 2016. A lot has changed in the last nine years – notably, ten chief secretaries to the Treasury, seven chancellors and, indeed, five prime ministers – but one thing that has not changed is my view on grouse shooting.' From that good start, Mr Sunak went on to argue that the sport 'is a part of our local social fabric, and… one of the world's great conservation success stories'. He criticised the tendency of 'some conservationists… to act as though farmers and gamekeepers are somehow trespassing on Britain's landscape, but without their hands repairing our dry-stone walls or their dairy cows keeping the fields lush, the rural beauty of our countryside would soon fade. Heather moorland… is rarer than rainforest, and 75 per cent of it is found right here in Britain. It is a national treasure.' The fanatic Chris Packham, who was attending the debate, was seen to hold his head in his hands as he listened. I hope this oration marks the start of Mr Sunak's comeback. Charm is easy to recognise but notoriously hard to describe. Sandy Gall, who has just died aged 97, had it. When he and the tipsy Reggie Bosanquet co-presented ITN News in the 1970s, charm was visible nightly on the nation's screens. It had something to do with being at ease, a lack of self-importance and the sense that the pair were often repressing laughter. Sandy retained these qualities in many dangerous situations covering wars for more than half a century, and into old age. In 2010, when he was 82, we accompanied him to Afghanistan. It was supposed to be a holiday, plus a visit to the charity which he had established to give prosthetic limbs to children injured by the war when he first covered Afghanistan, hidden in Russian-occupied territory, in the 1980s. Sandy's two rules for later journeys there were that he should never have security – it just makes one a target, he said – and that he should always carry a bottle of whisky, which was illegal. It being high summer, he had advised us not to bring waterproofs, but when we flew in a light aircraft to see Bamiyan and the mountainside which held the colossal Buddhas smashed in their niches by the Taliban, we found the place flooded. The airport was on a plateau. Our hotel was visible below, surrounded by water. Undismayed, Sandy ordered ten donkeys to carry us through the inundation and breakfast to eat until these could be found. By the time we had finished the breakfast, the waters had sufficiently receded for the donkeys to be laid off. He was a dear man, neither broken by the horrors of war, nor puffed up by his courage in the face of them – a true reporter.
Spectator
an hour ago
- Spectator
Who really built this country?
Anyone who has visited Canada or Australia in recent years might have noticed an interesting new tradition. This is the trend for issuing a 'land acknowledgement' at the start of any public event. Before discussion gets under way, some bureaucrat or other will get up and note that we are all fortunate enough to be on the land of X, and then garble the name of some not-especially-ancient tribe. The moment gives everyone a feeling of deep meaning and naturally achieves nothing. Even our King indulged in some of this in May when he opened the latest session of the Canadian parliament. Before getting down to the meat of his speech, Charles said: 'I would like to acknowledge that we are gathered on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg people.' You would have thought that by dint of his being King and addressing a parliament the land had been very much ceded. In any case this is the modern routine. Every-body pays tribute to an extinct or almost extinct tribe, giving the sense that anyone other than the members of the said tribe is an interloper and that indigenous peoples are everywhere and always to be revered. Their ways are forever understood to be the ways of peace. Their customs, habits, crafts and learnings are to be discussed as having a connection to some ancient wisdom, long lost to our own wretched materialistic societies. One interesting thing is that concern for indigenous rights has exceptionally firm borders. The delineation of those borders are clear. All indigenous peoples must be allowed to have rights, just so long as the people in question are not white and do not originate from our own continent. The brouhaha over last weekend's Glastonbury festival nicely clarified some of this. Pascal Robinson-Foster, singer of the rap group Bob Vylan, has been much commented upon because of his 'death to the IDF' chant. But another of his charming ditties got far less attention. This one consisted of him jumping around screaming: 'Heard you want your country back. Ha. Shut the fuck up.' As he repeated this, things like 'This country was built on the backs of immigrants' flashed up on a screen at the back of the stage. I'm not sure that anyone could come up with a more irksome and divisive message if they tried. The taunt is clear: 'If you are English and think this is your country then I have news for you. Nope. It's ours now.' Others have been ratcheting up a similar message. At last year's general election, a man called Shakeel Afsar ran as an Independent in Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley, and was only a few thousand votes away from becoming the area's MP. He is the sort of person who is usually described by local media as a 'firebrand'. I'm not sure that does him justice. His public life has mainly consisted of insisting that Birmingham will not allow the inventor of Islam – Mohammed – to be in any way criticised or ridiculed. Afsar is also not a fan of Prime Minister Modi of India, for obvious sectarian reasons. In a recent interview, he was asked about the line that a few brave souls have had the temerity to utter in recent years: that if you want to bring your Third World beliefs to our country and replay the same failed playbook here, then perhaps there are other countries – including your family's country of origin – in which it might be better for you to live. This was how Afsar responded: 'Our forefathers were instrumental in rebuilding this country after the second world war. It was our grandfathers who worked in the factories 20 hours. It was our grandfathers who came here and ran the infrastructure. It was our grandfathers who brought you the lovely curry which is your national dish. So how can you tell us to go? We're not going nowhere. We're here to stay. We're not here to take part. We're here to take over.' That would seem to me to be almost the definition of a threatening statement, and one almost perfectly designed to stir up the worst sentiments of the human heart. Personally I feel these sentiments throbbing through me when I hear statements like this, or those Mr Robinson-Foster decided to project from the stage at Glastonbury. Keir Starmer, Danny Boyle (who directed the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony) and others have long insisted that this country was effectively built by the Windrush generation. If they had pitched this ball a little shorter they might have been on to something. If they had said that our country had a rich and distinct history and that we owe 'something' to those who came after the last war then they might have brought more people along with them. But the suggestion that the British were an essentially uninteresting and bad people until the noble migrants came to rescue us is a story that is not only false but insulting. So back to the retort that this new type of anti-British demagogue inevitably wishes to provoke. They want a backlash along the lines of: 'Actually this is not your country. It's mine. Your grandfathers may have done something, but mine did far more for a lot longer and to much greater effect. The benefits of the recipe for curry we might litigate another time. But I prefer everything that was already ours.' And so the language of indigenous rights that has been pushed on our friends in Australia and North America finally comes back around to the people it was never meant to assist. Yes – many feel they would like their country back. Many do not wish their country to be taken over. We were here first, they'll think. That's how it works, right?
Spectator
an hour ago
- Spectator
And now let's bomb Glastonbury
A small yield nuclear weapon, such as the American W89, dropped on Glastonbury in late June would immediately remove from our country almost everybody who is hugely annoying. You would see a marked reduction in the keffiyeh klan, for a start, and all those middle-class Extinction Rebellion protestors would find, in a nanosecond, that their rebellion was pointless, because extinction had arrived even more summarily than they expected. Go on, glue yourselves to that, Poppy and Oliver. Street drummers, liberal politicians, provo vegans, radical rappers, spiritual healers, Billy Bragg, that bloke who owns Forest Green Rovers, druggies, tattooed blue-haired hags, almost the entirety of middle-class London – all evaporated. I am not saying that we should do this, of course – it would be a horrible, psychopathic thing to do. I am merely hypothesising, in a slightly wistful kinda way. One on Glasto, one on Brighton, and the UK would soon begin its recovery, with only a few chunks of gently glowing cobalt 60 left to remind us of what we are missing. One on Glasto, one on Brighton, and the UK would soon begin its recovery The BBC would cease to exist, too. It identifies Glastonbury as an expression of the UK 'coming together', which shows you how much it understands about the country. It has poured millions of pounds of licence-payers' money into its coverage, and 400 staff were there last weekend, including the director-general, Tim Davie. Or at least 400 staff were actually working there – I'll bet another 400 or so were there in their little tents, desperate to surf the vibe or whatever the phrase is. All those people, then, and they still couldn't get it right. Nor should we take seriously their claims that pulling the ridiculous Bob Vylan from air would not be anywhere near as simple as flicking a switch. It is every bit as simple as flicking a switch, in that all they had to do was flick a switch. They had rafts of presenters who could have filled the time, plus cameras at every other stage in the festival site. All it needed was someone with the merest vestige of sentience to make the decision – but, then, this is the BBC we are talking about. Whoever was in charge of output at that moment – almost certainly someone called 'Johnny' or 'Ayesha' – probably just thought the stuff about the IDF was 'top bants'. In truth, I am not much worked up about the Bob Vylan (or Kneecap) stuff, per se. They were only doing what an endless list of hip young musicians have done at every summer festival going all the way back to Country Joe McDonald and 'one-two-three-four what are we fighting for?' – i.e., channelling infantile far-left agitprop devoid of nuance and context to an audience of gullible drongos. The difference is that the BBC decided to cover it, thinking – as it unquestionably does – that the majority of the country would be cheerfully humming along with Bob Vylan's tuneful music and are entirely down with the sentiments expressed. That is the BBC's real crime. It is worth a brief digression here on the nature of protest songs, of rock musicians playing politics and whether they have an effect or not. The BBC would argue that they do have an effect, that they tap into a perhaps previously unexpressed sentiment among the wider public and hence herald great change. Au contraire. In the mid- to late-1960s, the more protest songs and festival chants there were, the further to the right swung the rest of the electorate. As evidence, I would point you in the direction of Richard Nixon's comprehensive victory in 1968 and then, after Country Joe had done his stuff at Woodstock, a landslide in 1972. They all seriously believed McGovern was going to win that one, so wrapped up inside their radical bubble were they all (including the broadcasters). All those youthful protests of the 1960s resulted in surprise victories for the right at the polls a few years later – in the UK with Ted Heath in 1970, in France with an unexpected win for Pompidou in 1969, and of course the USA. The more fervently they insist that they are right, the more likely it is that the rest of the country will tell them to get stuffed. I suppose it is possible that Bob Vylan will do for Tim Davie, the DG – although he is the least of the corporation's problems, frankly. He knows he has a workforce which, in its arrogance, subscribes to a set of political beliefs unshared by the people who pay for its existence. And it is so endemic that there is nothing he can do about it. One little thing I noticed: the BBC News dutifully covered the Bob Vylan debacle and did so even handedly. But on every single occasion, on radio and TV, the story was immediately followed by a report of Israeli 'atrocities' in Gaza. Every single time. Do you think that is an accident? There was a programme on BBC Radio 4 on Monday, as part of the 'Currently' series, about Louise Lancaster, an environmental protestor who was finally (on her fifth conviction) handed down a four-year sentence (later reduced to three years) for organising a protest which seriously inconvenienced hundreds of thousands of people. You would be hard-pressed to find a more egregiously biased example of broadcasting. Lancaster – a middle-class teacher from Grantchester – was portrayed as a kind of saint, suffering state persecution for her entirely valid beliefs. The Sun and Daily Mail were mentioned disparagingly and every action taken by Lancaster lauded. The BBC decided first to commission this rubbish and then put it out. Can you imagine it doing a similar piece about Lucy Connolly? Not a chance. That is the real problem with the BBC. It is utterly incapable of recognising the bias it displays every day on an hourly basis, no matter how often that bias is pointed out. Bob Vylan, frankly, is the least of it.
