Michael Day

Michael Day is a freelance writer and former foreign editor at the i Paper and Rome correspondent for the Independent

Friday

Michael Day

How Strictly Come Dancing came unstuck

What did the BBC think would happen if its all-conquering Strictly Come Dancing show recruited ‘stars’ no one had heard of, shunned the elements that made it entertaining and replaced its popular presenters with a gormless trio that appears to have been picked by a HR diversity committee? Corporation bosses ought to be asking themselves this question in their post-mortem of the current car-wreck season of the celebrity dance competition. Clearly, they’re not, given their apparent vexation over viewer dissatisfaction and mediocre ratings. The Saturday night entertainment show has kept millions of licence fee payers on board for two decades.

Michael Day

Is it too soon to say the truth about Dick Cheney?

Long before Donald Trump arrived on the political scene to warp all international diplomacy and finance around him, there were US administrations creating greater calamities. George W Bush's first government, from 2001 to 2005, was one of them. Dubya wasn't a sleazy grifter or a weapons grade narcissist. But on his watch the United States did, with its war on Iraq, bring chaos to the Middle East and spark an explosion of Islamic terrorism for which we’re still paying the price. Cheney was a man devoid of empathy, who used US superpower to slay hundreds of thousands of people and smash things Of course, the Iraq invasion wasn’t his idea. The 'brains' behind the disaster were the neocons.

Saturday

Michael Day

A ‘woke’ TV news channel will never work

Quizzed by MPs last week on Ofcom’s alleged failure to rein in bias at the broadcaster GB News, the quango’s chairman Sir Ian Cheshire proposed a novel solution: “I would encourage [former ITN editor] Stewart [Purvis] and Alan [Rusbridger] and others to set up the left-wing version of GB News.” Form an orderly queue, everyone. The BBC, ITN, and Sky will have to work to regain viewers' trust Sir Ian’s grasp of reality appeared shaky early on in the proceedings when he described Ofcom as a “highly respected regulator”. The quango is routinely accused of bias by both sides of the political spectrum, though this is not necessarily a bad sign.

Friday

Michael Day

The problem with James Acaster’s showing on the Traitors

Even the BBC's hit series The Celebrity Traitors is not immune from the mental health contagion engulfing these shores. On Thursday night, James Acaster, one of the participants and a comedian by trade (if not by nature, judging by his soporific performance throughout the series), crumpled in front of the cameras. The pressure of having to tell lies as part of the reality show that he'd signed up to was too much for him. In addition to spoiling the climax of this series, the Acaster incident reminds us that whereas we were once terrified of discussing our feelings, we now can’t resist it He’d already trousered a reported £40,000 for the gig. Despite this, Acaster wasn’t happy that he’d been recruited as one of the game’s bad guys or ‘Traitors’.

Saturday

Michael Day

Don’t forget the evil of the Iranian regime

America’s war on Iran was supposed to give Iranians their freedom. But even in February, at the start of the conflict, the prospects for regime change seemed doubtful. Now hardline IRGC generals appear to be calling the shots. They’ve used the war as a pretext to go after opponents and increase the Islamic Republic’s repression to horrific new levels. More than 6,000 people, including protesters, journalists, lawyers, human rights defenders, dissidents and members of ethnic and religious minorities have been detained under the guise of national security. Many are executed after being dragged through kangaroo courts.

Tuesday

Michael Day

The BBC’s new Civilisations treats us like idiots

Everyone’s moaning about political bias at the BBC. They have done for years. And they’ll continue to. The right’s accusations that the BBC is anti-Trump and anti-Israeli are mirrored by the left’s accusations that the BBC is pro-Israel and reluctant to criticise Brexit. This indicates the difficulty of the broadcaster’s role, and suggests it’s probably doing something right. The bigger issue with the BBC is that it is dumbing down its output, a process that it’s half confessed to with its vow to make ‘lighter’ content for ‘C2DE’ audiences, whatever they are. If you want an example of this condescension, look no further than the BBC’s latest blockbuster series, Civilisations: Rise and Fall, which began on Monday night with the Sack of Rome.

Saturday

Michael Day

Venezuela isn’t to blame for America’s drug problem

There are plenty of accusations you could level at Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, the ex-union leader and bus driver, whose corruption and incompetence is steering the economy of his oil-rich Latin American nation off a cliff. But responsibility for America’s lethal drug habit is not one of them. That hasn’t stopped Donald Trump trying, however. 'We smoked a drug boat, and there’s 11 narco-terrorists at the bottom of the ocean,' Hegseth bragged Thus, we’ve seen Trump’s doltish 'Secretary of War' Pete Hegseth gleefully bombing small Venezuelan boats that he claims were carrying drug smugglers. 'We smoked a drug boat, and there’s 11 narco-terrorists at the bottom of the ocean,' Hegseth bragged after the first sinking on 3 September.