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The National
06-07-2025
- Politics
- The National
Glastonbury row: Feeble BBC bow to Starmer's new authoritarianism
Two points: various people were delighted at the chance to take a pop at the Beeb (hello, Kemi Badenoch and co) while the chief rabbi must be aware that the IDF are not about to attract a good conduct medal from the public at large any time soon. You might think that the most senior Jewish cleric in the land could distinguish between hostility to the current Israeli administration and antisemitism towards Jewry generally. Though he believes that one might well lead to the other. Most of the public don't share that view, but they do think it's long past time the UK Government took a stronger line with the Israeli premier and those of his Cabinet who are long-standing critics of Palestinian rights. And vocally encourage attacks by illegal settlers on the indigenous population. Of course, calling for any death from a public stage is a lot less than clever, as Kneecap found out. As it happened, it was another act which occasioned much frothing at the mouth and led to calls for senior BBC executives to fall on their swords. READ MORE: Reform UK MP suspends himself from party over '£70k Covid loans' A sense of proportion might be in order though, and anyone who caught the Channel Four broadcast of a documentary, originally commissioned but not screened by the BBC, must have been appalled at the treatment of health teams – including senior medics – by the Israeli Defence Force. As for pausing anything anybody might find offensive, how does that impact on live-streaming of events on TV? Do you follow up by confiscating T-shirts bearing messaging of which you don't approve? We're not yet in the business of aping Trumpland, inasmuch as we don't allow brown skinned Brits to be hauled off the streets by masked Home Office operatives. But that department has taken to boasting about deportation numbers, which is a strange way to treat folks who risked life and limb to reach our shores. On Friday morning, the Home Secretary told a radio audience that if there were to be a death on board an overcrowded craft, all the travellers would be deemed guilty. Including, it seems, the relations of the deceased. But few things mark a change in the UK Government's culture like the attitude to protest, which once had a long and noble history allowing dissent from policy without being hounded and/or chucked in the pokey. Doubtless the protesters who broke into the Brize Norton airbase and threw red paint at planes and their engines might be thought guilty of criminal damage. As might the chap with wire cutters at a similar base once defended by one Keir Starmer KC over 20 years ago, though no doubt he would argue that the cab rank principle of selecting briefs gave him little choice. Then there were the draconian sentences handed out to the Stop Oil protesters, mitigated only slightly by the judge who deemed the originals handed down were over the top. If you think climate change is the greatest danger facing our planet and its inhabitants (and I do), then I suspect those jailed for that particular protest will ultimately gain martyr status. Similarly, the couple who threw oil at the Van Gogh painting – protected like most iconic images by glass – seem to me to be primarily guilty of selecting a target they knew would attract maximum opprobrium and, not at all incidentally, major headlines in every publication. That, after all, is the hallmark of successful protest – not much publicity in throwing paint at high-profile paintings after hours. Some of you will recall the massive protests over the poll tax – never called the community charge except by the Lady Thatcher – which charged the rich man in his castle precisely the same as the poor man at his gate. John Major binned it when he took office, though I remain unpersuaded that the successor Council Tax is a fair substitute. The public outrage at the manifestly unfair poll tax did effect policy change, but also led to the controversial police tactic of 'kettling' protesters. The appalling Donald Trump has set his face against anything smacking of greenery, of course, and persists in believing that climate change and those who are scared of it are merely bowing down before mythology rather than hard, scientifically proven fact. You will recall that one of his favourite rally mantras is 'drill baby drill', while he attributed Californian wildfires to the failure to sweep up forest debris. READ MORE: Youth Demand activists stage Gaza protest at London Pride Just wait till the flames are lapping around Mar-a-Lago, the tacky leisure club run by El Presidente, and we'll be treated to the thought that the fires were all started by the Commies and the 'radical left' as he hilariously terms his predecessor. He has just overseen the construction of a hostile prison facility located in Florida – cheerily named Alligator Alcatraz – since anyone trying to escape will meet up with some of the more hostile residents of the area. Local law enforcement officers stuck ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) hats on some of the 'gators and crocodiles presumably to underscore the risks. How we didn't laugh. Apparently, these facilities (another is being built) cost around half a million dollars a year to run – or peanuts to a man who has just orchestrated a bill which will add trillions to the annual US budget. If even Elon Musk thinks this foolhardy, it might give a more sentient being pause for thought. Some of that money will go to building more prisons and blocking off the border – some will go to tax cuts for the wealthy, paid for by slashing medical and food aid for the poor. Just think of the president as a sort of reverse Robin Hood – robbing the poor to give to the rich. BUT you do wonder what exactly is happening round the UK Cabinet table. Have all those ministers and secretaries of state elected on a Labour ticket suddenly become right-wing zealots? It was instructive to see that the normally super loyal chairs of selected committees were prominent in drawing up the wrecking amendment which holed Starmer's welfare 'reform' below the water line. No way can you describe that size of protest and outright rebellion as down to the usual suspects. We are not yet at the point where we jail people for allegedly disrespecting the Islamic prophet Muhammad as they have just done in Turkey. And it's a fair wee while since the law of blasphemy was turfed out in the UK (though alarmingly later in Scotland as a by-product of the hate speech law). It was way back in 1988 that a fatwa was decreed against Salman Rushdie and a call went out for his death when some Muslims took issue with his book on the Satanic Verses. However, some people have very long memories and Rushdie's fatwa was still in place when he was brutally stabbed just three years ago. More than 60,000 Christians were offended at Jerry Springer: The Opera, when the BBC screened it in 2005. (They were braver then!) Christian Voice tried to sue the corporation for blasphemy, alleging that the portrayal of Jesus as 'a bit gay' was highly offensive. The courts disagreed and suggested that stage productions were immune from a law which, in any event, the Lord Denning had previously decreed was a dead letter. Quite right too.
BBC News
29-01-2025
- BBC News
Stonehenge: Pair deny Just Stop Oil orange paint protest charges
Two people accused of damaging Stonehenge by throwing orange paint over it have appeared in Naidu, 74, and Niamh Lynch, 22, pleaded not guilty to two charges of damaging an ancient protected monument and causing a public stones were covered in orange powder paint as part of a protest by the campaign group Just Stop Oil on 19 June, the court heard.A third defendant, Luke Watson, 35, was excused attendance from the hearing at Salisbury Crown Court and did not enter pleas to the charges he faces. Mr Naidu, of Gosford Street, in Birmingham, and Ms Lynch, of Norfolk Road, in Bedford, are set to face a trial on 30 October.A pre-trial review hearing will take place on 19 Watson, of Bishop's Stortford, Essex, will next appear in court on 30 May.
