Media

Thursday

Rod Liddle

I’ve had it with the insufferable London elite. Have you?

'I’ve had it with these people. They are so smug; they think they know everything and they know nothing. They want a good kick in the face.' So said a close friend of mine, more usually a Labour voter, before she went out to vote for Ukip earlier today. I think it was the Jasmine Lawrence thing which tipped her over the edge. Jasmine is, improbably enough, the boss of the BBC’s News Channel. She had 'tweeted' that Ukip was a sexist and racist party - yesterday. Of course, she should be sacked. Right now. The BBC’s News Channel is supposedly impartial – that’s what we pay for, an impartial service. Either that or the BBC should accept that all of its employees possess political views and there is no problem in having them aired.

Douglas Murray

Matthew d’Ancona has unwittingly shown why people want to vote Ukip

Well it’s polling day, and if anybody wants a spur to vote Ukip they have two options: Peter Oborne’s stirring cover piece in the new issue of The Spectator and Matthew d’Ancona’s column in yesterday’s Evening Standard. If the sight of white activists pretending to be Romanians so that they could accuse black UKIP members of ‘racism’ did not push you over the edge, then d’Ancona’s column probably will. His article was headlined: ‘We must expose UKIP as the racist party it is.’ This is some promise: for years, Ukip's enemies have been trying to suggest that the party is racist. D'Ancona's evidence? Ukip seemed to be racist because it - like the vast majority of the British public – is opposed to mass immigration.

Wednesday

Melanie McDonagh

Is Richard Scudamore allowed private opinions? Apparently not.

There is, you know, quite a bit to be said for having a personal email account for getting stuff off your chest, such as comparing a former girlfriend to a double-decker (don’t ask) and talking about big-titted broads. Any work inbox that your secretary automatically is privy to is, well, not quite the same as one that’s all yours. I’ve taken soundings on this sensitive subject from a friend of mine who is a really good PA, mixes with the mighty and all the rest of it, and she tells me that it’s actually difficult to do the job from her point of view if you don’t have access to the boss’s messages; you need to know what’s going on to keep on top of things.

Tuesday

Ed West

Why people will be voting for Ukip this Thursday

Despite levels of media scrutiny and hostility unseen in recent political history, this Thursday up to 30 per cent of British voters will opt for Ukip. The odd thing is that the more outrageous the slurs made against them, and the wackier the members unveiled in the press, the more their popularity surges, perhaps out of bloody-mindedness; if a Ukip candidate was caught committing autoerotic asphyxiation dressed in a Gestapo uniform tomorrow the party would probably be on 50 per cent by the end of the week. One of the reasons is that Ukip is a product of lowered trust; the party’s supporters have noticeably less trust in politicians than voters in general, and I would hazard a guess that they have far less trust in the media.

Douglas Murray

Is Labour a racist party?

Is Labour a racist party? The answer, I believe, is ‘no’. Apart from anything else, some of my best friends are in the party and I cannot think they hate themselves or anybody else simply because of their skin colour. Yet the question must be asked. For just this weekend I was rummaging through recent editions of the Gazette Live (the latest news, sport and business from the North East, Middlesbrough and Teesside) when I happened upon this story: ‘Five Middlesbrough councillors resign from Labour Party and will stand as independents.’ You can read about the whole sorry episode here.

Monday

Steerpike

Spot-a-doodle-do! Tony Blackburn’s spot the difference

'Great meeting Rob Brydon at the Chelsea Flower Show today,' tweeted veteran broadcaster Tony Blackburn earlier. ‘What a very funny and nice man’ he added with an accompanying picture of his new chum. Except the picture was of the 'funny and nice', though significantly blonder, taller and less Welsh Ben Fogle. 'That is not Rob Brydon,' he mused later. Yes Tony, we know. Is the heat getting to the old boy?

Rod Liddle

German or Romanian neighbour – which would you choose?

I would rather live next door to a German than a Romanian. I thought I’d just make that clear. I don’t mean I’d rather live next door to SS Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich than the humorously surreal dramatist Eugène Ionesco. I mean, in general, on average, given what I know about the people from both countries who have come here to live. Not all of them, obviously. Just as a generality, if you were to offer me the choice, without telling me any more about the respective merits of the people concerned, just here’s your choice, Rod – Germans or Romanians. I may be wrong, but I suspect most people in this country, if offered the same choice, would choose likewise.

Ed West

What’s the difference between German and Romanian immigrants?

Nigel Farage is in the papers again today – unbelievably! – this time with a full-page advert in the Telegraph responding to his remarks about Romanians on LBC radio. Such was the universal media condemnation over his interview with James O’Brien that on Saturday even the Sun had an editorial on anti-Romanian racism. You couldn’t make it up. Farage was stereotyping, and his tone of ‘you know what the difference is’ hit the wrong note, which lost him the argument over a fairly reasonable point; that is, the typical profile of a German migrant is very different to that of a Romanian migrant.

Saturday

Rod Liddle

My verdict on Newsnight’s new face? Pretty — and awful

I hope you enjoyed the new post-Paxman Newsnight last night, if you still watch the programme. It was bad on a whole new level of badness (watch it here). Presented by an Afghan-Australian woman called Yalda Hakim, of whom I had never heard. Yalda was hampered in her presentational debut by being unable to string a sentence together; nor did she have the knowledge or acuity to ask interesting questions of her guests. On one cringing occasion, the reporter William Dalrymple asked questions on her behalf (of a supporter of the triumphant Indian politician Narendra Modi, who, of course, Newsnight REALLY loathes), because she was unable to.

Friday

Steerpike

It woz The Sun wot won it

Westbourne’s Change Opinion Awards last night might have got rather feisty. The Sun beat feminist campaigners Stella Creasy and Caroline Criado Perez to the top prize for its ‘Check ‘Em Tuesday’ breast cancer campaign, and the Anti-Page 3 brigade was in attendance. The scene was set for a showdown when the paper’s editor went to collect the award. But all turned out well. The audience was moved by the words of a representative of CoppaFeel! (the charity which ran the campaign in conjunction with The Sun) who told the crowd that she had spoken recently to recovering breast cancer patients who had got checked in time because of the campaign. Later, Mr S overheard Stephanie of No More Page 3 tell Sun editor David Dinsmore: ‘I don’t hate your paper.

Tuesday

Douglas Murray

Hamas TV teaches children to kill ‘all Jews’

Anyone who hasn’t seen Hamas TV is missing a treat. Of course the low production values are part of the fun. But for the Palestinian audiences, most entertaining of all seems to be the sight of watching Palestinian children being taught to murder every Jew. Often by an adult dressed up as a giant bumble bee. Because one of the most popular characters in the death-fest that is ‘Al-Aqsa TV’ is indeed ‘Nahul’, the giant cuddly bee. Anybody who still thinks that Hamas is a legitimate ‘resistance’ organisation, or that the recent Hamas-Fatah unity deal could in any way help bring about a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian border dispute, should just spend one a half minutes watching the clip above.

Steerpike

Women will inherit the earth

Mr S unleashed his inner-feminist at the Veuve Clicquot Business Woman of the Year Awards last night. Veuve Clicquot president Jean-Marc Lacave was clearly feeling equally empowered by the opposite sex, telling Mr S ‘in sixty years my dream is to have a businessman awards because the world will be run by women.’ Mr S, a convinced feminist, concurs entirely. The awards, at Claridge’s, were graced by today’s - and tomorrow’s – female entrepreneurs. Easyjet CEO Carolyn McCall, designer Lulu Guinness OBE, Martha-Lane Fox CBE (co-founder of lastminute.com and founder of JoJo Maman Bébé), and previous winner Laura Tenison MBE were all in attendance. Jenny Dawson, founder of Rubies in the Rubble, was granted the New Generation Award.

Thursday

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: How can I spike a gossip-pedlar’s guns?

Q. On arrival at a top level dinner, I was surprised to see at the table a woman who, I have reason to suspect, sells gossip as a sideline. However, clearly no one else suspected her and, assuming it was Chatham House rules, everyone was talking freely. When one man began to regale the table with an anecdote which was bound to culminate in a dynamite piece of gossip, I was paralysed with horror but I couldn’t think how to stop him before it was too late. The consequence was that the item appeared in the press a couple of days later, causing all manner of probable future security problems to the subject of the story. Although I can’t prove it was this woman who sold or leaked the gossip, I strongly suspect she did.

Douglas Murray

Hurrah! A setback for the enemies of free speech

This has been a bad month for those who want to shut down free speech in Britain. First there was the wholesale failure of Fiyaz Mughal (whose 'work' I have written about before). Readers will recall that Mr Mughal – whose website, Tell Mama, claims to record and counter 'Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hatred' – used the immediate aftermath of the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby to claim hysterically that, 'The scale of the backlash is astounding… there has been a massive spike in anti-Muslim prejudice'. He also used the opportunity to attack the UK government's counter-terrorism policy. All this before Drummer Rigby – who some people may remember was killed in an actual attack by two Islamic extremists – was buried.

Wednesday

Steerpike

London as you’ve never seen it before

The new Shangri-La hotel opened its doors to Mr S last night. Located on floor 35 of The Shard, the luxurious establishment was only, in fact, semi-open, since three ‘signature suites’ and an infinity pool are yet to be unveiled. The exhibited areas were abundant in opulence and splendour. The great and the good of luxury journalism were out in force. William Sitwell, editor of Waitrose Kitchen, Mark Palmer, travel editor of The Daily Mail and The Guardian’s Amelia Gentleman were all present to admire interior designer William Leung’s latest venture. All other glamorous guests appeared to have got lost in the lift on the way up.

Wednesday

Steerpike

Why Jeremy Paxman quit Newsnight – after 25 years

After 25 years in the hot seat, Jeremy Paxman is finally stepping down from Newsnight. Following months years of will-he-won't-he speculation, Newsnight's star draw has finally had enough. According to the BBC press release: 'He informed Tony Hall, the Director General, and James Harding, the Director of News and Current Affairs, of his decision last summer, but with the appointment of a new editor and following a difficult period for Newsnight, Jeremy generously agreed to stay to help the new team bed down.' As Mr Steerpike reported last year, Paxo has not been happy with the BBC — in particular with Ian Katz's tenure as editor of Newsnight — for some time.

Melanie McDonagh

The secret life of the leader writer

The latest series of Andrew Rawnsley’s ‘Leader Conference’ on Radio 4 starts tonight…keenly awaited obviously. But having been on the programme a couple of times – though not, funnily, since I did a piece for this magazine about the difficulty a woman has in getting her oar in across the masculine timbre of Danny Finkelstein et al – perhaps I should disabuse you that this admirable series actually replicates what happens in a leader conference. It’s very good, as everything my old friend Andrew does, but just not quite the same as the thing itself. This, I may say, is something of a specialist subject of mine, on account of leader writing being my bread and butter and having done it for different papers.

Tuesday

Camilla Swift

A ‘Cad’ does not sell videos of his sexual conquests to newspapers

There’s been a lot of talk on this website recently about 'revenge porn'. First, Freddy revealed his tips on how to avoid embarrassing videos and pictures of yourself being posted online (Answer: don’t let anyone take them). Then Lara asked why a Ukip-supporting victim of revenge porn wasn’t getting any support from feminist campaigners. And now Ed West has come up with his solution for slut-shaming: cad-shaming. It’s this last bit that I’m not so sure about, though. How come men get the name ‘cad’, while women get called ‘sluts’? When it comes to venomous insults, the two words are hardly on the same level.

Ed West

One solution to revenge porn: ‘cad-shaming’

I'm kicking myself because back in 2011 or 2012 Paddy Power gave me odds of 66/1 on Ukip topping the 2014 poll, which I chickened out of taking. It was perfectly likely that Ukip would win because their views on a range of subjects are close to the median British average, while the three main parties (or LIBLABCON as I call them when posting on messageboards under the name 'Sword of Odin') are often in a world of their own. But I also thought that the party brand could be made toxic by media exposure of its most extreme members, and great denunciations from the commentariat. As it is Ukip’s support has ballooned so quickly that the almost daily revelations of its wackier members seem to make no difference.

Monday

Steerpike

Adam Boulton’s not retiring, no siree!

Utter the word 'retirement' in 4 Millbank at your peril. The bods at Sky News are waiting for the arrival of their new political editor, Faisal Islam, who is working out his notice period at Channel 4. Mr S hears that Adam Boulton, the outgoing political editor, is snapping at anyone in the office who says that he is retiring. Staff members are curtly reminded to say that Boulton is being ‘promoted to Editor-at-Large’, and he’s certainly not planning to go anywhere yet. ‘It's the easiest way to wind him up,’ chortles my camera-wielding mole.